In the MCU, James Rhodes has been somewhat relegated to more of a comedic straight man to Tony Stark’s wacky shenanigans. And in the comics...well, it’s mostly the same thing, except they’ve been given more time to develop him since he’s been around for decades and starting a comic book is significantly cheaper than a major summer blockbuster.
Still, there’s a lot the general public remains unaware of when it comes to one of the most loyal characters in the Marvel Universe. He’s been Stark’s confidant, helping him even when everyone else has turned their back on him. The character deserves far more credit than people give him, and this list offers more detail on him than all the Infinity Saga combined.
10 ORIGINALLY A PILOT
When we see him in the films, Rhodey is essentially Stark’s liaison to the military, and the handler to keep him from being seen doing...Stark stuff. But when the character was introduced in Iron Man #118, he didn’t have anywhere near this role. Instead, James Rhodes just served as Stark’s personal pilot for when he didn’t feel like armoring up and flying from place to place. This was later retconned into being a job Stark offered multiple times, as Rhodes was the person who helped Iron Man get back to the American forces after they escaped their captors.
9 HAS BEEN IRON MAN
Long, long before War Machine was ever even thought about, James Rhodes was the first major person to don the Iron Man armor. Stark’s back and forths with Obadiah Stane had left him a mess, and he was more interested in the bottle than wearing the armor. Unable to help himself, Rhodey was responsible more or less for being Iron Man for a significant portion of the 80s, from Iron Man #170 until Iron Man #200 when Stark returned wearing the Silver Centurion armor. Rhodey was even the person teleported away during the first Secret Wars storyline.
8 HAS A BAD TIME IN THE ARMOR
More recently, Rhodey has been pretty remiss to wear any form of armor, preferring instead to fly planes or even giant mech suits in the pages of Tony Stark: Iron Man, the current Iron Man comic. This is actually acknowledging years of backstory that cover Rhodes’ terrible time wearing Iron Man armors. Originally, the armor wasn’t calibrated for him and caused him terrible headaches.
Later, his feeling of being unworthy of wearing the armor caused the same issue that had to be dealt with. And when he tried wearing the old armor on a mission in space with Stark in the new suit, he wound up almost burning up on re-entry because the suit’s seals had been damaged. Why he goes near armor at all is the real question.
7 HAS RUN STARK ENTERPRISES
Rhodes spent years working as Tony Stark’s confidant, personal pilot, and even wearing the Iron Man armor. But when Stark underwent multiple attacks from different supervillains, leaving him essentially helpless, he was forced to pretend to be dead until he could patch his body up. While he was out of commission, he passed not only being Iron Man...but being the head of Stark Enterprises over to James Rhodes. This didn’t necessarily go very well, as running Stark Enterprises lead to him losing his on again off again girlfriend Marcy, who was next in line for the job as head of Public Relations.
6 HASN'T ALWAYS BEEN FRIENDLY WITH STARK
James Rhodes never took well to being in charge of Stark Enterprises, and the fact is he only did it because it was Tony Stark’s last wish. When he realized that this wasn’t his “last” wish at all and he was being used alongside everyone else to fool people into believing Stark was dead, this caused a huge rift between the two characters that took years to patch up. He would come to help Stark periodically, but typically preferred to keep his distance rather than continue to be used.
5 DATED CAROL DANVERS
In probably the most positive bit of romantic growth for either of them in ages, James Rhodes and Carol Danvers were in a relationship for a brief period in the mid-2010s.
It made sense, as James and Carol both were duty-driven individuals who both worked for the military and as superheroes to give their all to protect innocent citizens. Unfortunately, this relationship was mostly used as fodder to drive the story of Civil War II, as Rhodey’s death battling against Thanos wound up driving a wedge between Tony Stark and Carol.
4 RAN A MARINE SALVAGE BUSINESS
In the late 90’s, there really wasn’t much to do with either Rhodey or War Machine. Tony Stark had been killed off thanks to the The Crossing, and even when they had Teen Tony he was quickly sent off to the Heroes Reborn universe. With Rhodes’ War Machine comic book failing, the character lost his armor deleting all information about Iron Man from Stark-Fujikawa’s databases and disappeared for a time. When he resurfaced, it was running a Marine Salvage business, and he seemed content wanting nothing to do with Stark. But then, through a combination of living a bit too large and his books being poorly done, he wound up closing the entire operation down.
3 BRIEFLY A CYBORG
In the late 2000’s, James Rhodes was a victim of a terrorist attack in Dubai. With Tony Stark there to save him though, he was transformed into a more cybernetic version of himself. This came in handy both after Stark went down during the Secret Invasion, but also during the Dark Reign storyline as Rhodes went on multiple missions that wound up both fighting the Skrulls and thwarting some of Norman Osborn’s efforts. Eventually, his consciousness was placed in a cloned human body and he was restored to “normal”.
2 AGENT OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
Though his time with the military was supposedly ended after he started working with Stark, James Rhodes has maintained something of an on-again, off-again relationship with the military. He was part of the Sentinel Squad O*N*E*, serving on the committee for the Office of National Emergency. Later, he works with SHIELD wearing a version of the Iron Patriot armor. He seems to wind up employed by the government whenever we don’t see him working for Stark. But in the end, these excursions don’t stick because they always wind up clashing with the more noble aspects of his personality.
1 HEAD OF WORLDWATCH
After Tony and Rhodey’s first major falling out, James was left trying to figure out what he wanted to do next with his life. In his solo comic, he was asked by an activist to try and run Worldwatch Incorporated, a human rights’ organization. Though he balked at the offer at first, he wound up changing his mind later, after attempting to save the life of the group’s then leader but coming up short. It was a little weird to have a character named War Machine head up a human rights organization, but certainly not the weirdest thing in a universe like Marvel’s.