War Machine (Earth-199999)

Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, commonly known as War Machine, is an officer in the United States Air Force, personal friend of Tony Stark, and military liaison to Stark Industries.

Biography

Military liaison

By 2009, Lt. Col. James Rhodes was the military liaison to Stark Industries: the man responsible for negotiating weapon trade deals between the two entities. He was also a close friend to Tony Stark, and the two would frequently fraternize independent of their business dealings. When Stark scheduled a demonstration of the Jericho missile in Afghanistan, Rhodes tried to convince him that Stark himself didn't have to be there. Nonetheless, Stark did go, and after the demonstration he was kidnapped and nearly killed by the Ten Rings terrorist group. Stark was later found and rescued by the military. When Stark returned to Afghanistan in what would come to be known as his Iron Man mechanized suit, he was spotted by military jets and attacked. Stark called Rhodes personally, informing him that it was him in the suit and not an unmanned aerial vehicle as the soldiers believed. Rhodes was able to surreptitiously call off the attack without revealing Stark's identity. Rhodes was responsible for speaking to the press and covering up for Iron Man-related events, describing them simply as military exercises, until Stark himself came forward and revealed to the public that he was Iron Man.

Rhodes' position between Stark and the U.S. government often put him in awkward situations, and no more so than after Stark became Iron Man. The power of the Iron Man suit, as well as Stark's firm unwillingness to share its design, led to the government seeking out a way to replicate it. Senator Stern in particular was interested, and along with General Thunderbolt Ross enlisted Stark rival Justin Hammer to construct his own weapon for them. Rhodes traveled to Stark's home to inform him of these plans, and upon doing so, received a call telling him that Hammer's weapon had crash landed in the Congo during a field test. Stark wasted no time in traveling there as Iron Man, cleaning up the military's mess and further increasing the rift between himself and the government that Rhodes was forced to occupy.

War Machine

By mid-2010, Rhodes' position became more difficult than ever as government scrutiny towards Iron Man reached a fever pitch. Many senators, particularly Senator Stern, believed that the technology should be made public to better defend America's interests. This concern was exacerbated by Stark's battle in Monaco with Ivan Vanko, who was armed with an arc reactor. Stark's public behavior became more and more reckless, as he secretly struggled to come to terms with his rapidly worsening palladium poisoning, caused by the arc reactor in his chest. Rhodes eventually became so frustrated with Stark's behavior—culminating with him drunkenly parading the suit around at his birthday party—that Rhodes commandeered one of Stark's own suits and engaged him in combat. The two fought until the drunken Stark was left in a defeated heap, and Rhodes took the suit into military custody. Justin Hammer was enlisted to arm the suit, and Rhodes stood in to demonstrate it for Hammer's timeslot at Stark Expo. Iron Man himself unexpectedly arrived, and tried to warn Rhodes that Ivan Vanko—believed to be dead—was planning an attack. Moments later, the drones and Rhodes' suit began attacking Stark under remote orders from Vanko himself. Stark fought off the drones while evading Rhodes' attack; eventually, Rhodes' suit was rebooted courtesy of Black Widow infiltrating Hammer Industries. Soon Vanko himself arrived in his own custom-made Iron Man suit, but was defeated by Stark and Rhodes' combined efforts. Against Stark's wishes, Rhodes kept his new suit for safe keeping.

Iron Patriot

In late 2012, after a series of foreign bombings and threats to the United States by a terrorist leader known as the Mandarin, the U.S. government officially unveiled the Iron Patriot, a redesigned version of Rhodes' suit that had come to be known as War Machine. The Iron Patriot was designed by A.I.M., Advanced Idea Mechanics, run by Aldrich Killian. Rhodes was to be the government's primary weapon in finding and stopping the Mandarin. Iron Man offered to help, but Rhodes insisted that it was a military issue. The government attempted to triangulate Mandarin's location by tracking his publicly broadcast messages, but they failed and Rhodes was repeatedly sent on wild-goose chases. On one such occasion in Pakistan, Rhodes and his suit were disabled by a woman with a mysterious glowing, orange, intense heat power. He was brought to a mansion in Miami, where Aldrich Killian forced him out of the armor and took it for his A.I.M. henchmen.

In truth, A.I.M. was behind all of "the Mandarin's" attacks, and the public figure known as the Mandarin was being portrayed by an actor named Trevor Slattery. Killian was interested in fueling the war on terror in order to profit off of it financially. With the help of Maya Hansen, whom he had recently killed, Killian used a substance called Extremis to create an army of underlings with remarkable regenerative capabilities and an intense heat power. Extremis was prone to failure in some subjects however, and those whose bodies rejected it would quickly explode. Killian had kidnapped Stark and Pepper Potts in hopes of acquiring Stark's genius on the project and perfect Extremis (as well as satisfy his own predatory desire for Pepper). Killian had concerns that he believed were greater than Rhodes, and so the security detail on him was non-existent, but he did claim the Iron Patriot suit for A.I.M. Rhodes reunited with Stark (and his Iron Man suit) and the two interrogated a cooperative Slattery inside the mansion, who was fully unaware that Killian had actually been killing anyone. All he knew about was a “big boat” offshore and that the vice president might be involved. Stark and Rhodes commandeered a speedboat to get to Killian’s ship, and Stark called Vice President Rodriguez on the way. Rodriguez was at a Christmas party with his family, and believed that President Matthew Ellis was about to board Air Force One with Rhodes. In fact, Savin had used the Iron Patriot suit to infiltrate Air Force One, and Ellis was likely in danger.

Stark’s suit had charged to 92%, and he was able send it flying up to Air Force One overhead, controlling the suit remotely. Iron Man found Savin inside, who claimed that the President was now in the ocean—in truth, Savin had sent Ellis in the Iron Patriot suit down to Killian’s ship. Stark's suit killed Savin and brought the plane's passengers to safety. Stark had J.A.R.V.I.S. initiate the “House Party Protocol,” opening a secret passage underneath his home and activating a battalion of Iron Man suits. Stark and Rhodes arrived at Killian’s ship, the Roxxon tanker Norco, and found Ellis strung up high above the deck inside the Iron Patriot suit. Ellis had gotten in the way of prosecution for Roxxon executives after an oil spill two years prior, and Killian was using this as the Mandarin's excuse for killing him. Stark and Rhodes were confronted by a large amount of Extremis-infused A.I.M. guards, but the House Party Iron Man suits arrived right on time and took them down. As Stark looked for Pepper, Rhodes fought his way to the president and rescued him, donning the Iron Patriot suit himself and flying him off the ship to safety. Stark was able to save Potts, and she killed Killian. Following Killian's death, Trevor Slattery and Vice President Rodriguez—who had gotten aligned with A.I.M. in hopes of regrowing his daughter's lost leg—were arrested.