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Tony Stark is dead. Long live Iron Man.

Writer Len Kaminski and artist Kevin Hopgood "killed" the longstanding title character and put his best friend at the helm in Iron Man #284. And by best friend, I'm talking about James Rupert 'Rhodey' Rhodes, of course.

As I detailed in Part 1, Before the War, Rhodey was no novice to the Iron Man mantle. He'd held it years earlier when his best friend and employer was defeated by alcoholism. But the story in Iron Man #284-288 by Len Kaminski and Kevin Hopgood was different -- this time, Rhodey was inside the War Machine armor, a totally different type of suit that was designed by Tony Stark with Jim Rhodes in mind.

At this point in the early 1990s, Rhodey hadn't officially adopted the "War Machine" moniker. I think it was circa Iron Man #291 -- when the red and gold suit was first seen fighting alongside the black and silver armor -- that the title of War Machine became legit. The name itself was made famous by the cryptic diaries of Leonardo DiVinci that contained schematics for "war machines," one of which was a mechanized suit of armor.

Story short, War Machine a.k.a. Rhodey got pretty pissed off when he found out that Tony Stark never actually died. Instead, the billionaire inventor just put himself into a cryogenic deep freeze in the attempt to stall his impending death and buy his doctors enough time to upload his body with some new nervous system software (yes, I mean software -- Tony Stark's body had been running on an artificial computer-esque nervous system due to previous health problems).

Rhodey was ready to storm out of Stark's infirmary room, throwing his armor on the floor and telling his former best friend that he doesn't want a damned thing to do with him anymore. He was practically out the door when Stark made a challenge that would stand as character motivation for James Rhodes for some time to come -- (and I paraphrase) "If you don't like the way I do it, then do it better."

Stark can really be a @#$% sometimes, but he said what he said with sincerity. Basically, Tony told Rhodey to use his anger as motivation and be guided by his moral compass even when Tony himself is too caught to follow his own. Begrudgingly, Rhodey took the armor and left. This, sadly, was the beginning of a fairly longstanding separation between the two best friends.

This emotional event spun into events of Iron Man #300. The lead story in that issue showed Rhodey leading a crew of fighters all wearing different Iron Man armors, a theme which would be heavily picked up on again in the future. A backup story in that issue also followed War Machine, but that particular story led to a solo adventure in Marvel Comics Presents.

A few more quick appearances here and there, and it was obvious that War Machine was ready for the big time -- a solo series!!! James Rhodes was soon seen in the early issues of War Machine v1 as the new CEO of Worldwatch, a humanitarian organization that attempted to intervene in international situations through the use of diplomacy.

Ironically, Rhodey ended up bringing the War Machine armor everywhere he went, so diplomacy always seemed to take a backseat to superhero aggression whenever Worldwatch showed up. Similar to the tone of War Machine v2, this first solo book often attempted to insert Rhodey into realistic conflicts over human rights and military power.

Len Kaminski, Scott Benson, and Gabe Gecko (now better known as artist Gabriel Hardman) told this tale for a mere eleven issues. After that, Dan Abnett and a rotating crew of pencilers picked up the ball and ran with it until War Machine v1 #25. On the way to the end, Rhodey wound up: reliving the plot of Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Hard Target" but with added super armor, time traveling to Nazi Germany, and eventually gaining an alien suit of armor called the Eidolon Warwear. Somewhere around there, he also found the time to join Force Works.

Wait, back up a second... did I say "an alien suit of armor called the Eidolon Warwear"? Why yes, I did. See, Rhodey somehow lost the classic War Machine black and silvers on his way back from Nazi Germany to the present. But by the following issue, he was piloting a crazy blue, green, and gray alien battle suit that he conveniently encountered on a fishing trip.

The alien armor responded to Rhodey's thoughts, but not because it was an advanced piece of machinery. No, the Eidolon Warwear responded to Rhodey because it was an actual telepathic living being... sort of like a hybrid Iron Man / Venom, if you will. It took War Machine from a very terrestrial existence and turned him into a cosmic player for a short span.

Unfortunately, the alien look didn't strike a cord with fans and War Machine v1 (much like Rhodey's comic book popularity) unceremoniously dropped off the face of the Earth with War Machine v1 #25.

NEXT: War Machine no more in Superhero History: War Machine - Part 3, Missing in Action!!!

"James Rupert 'Rhodey' Rhodes. Marine. Helicopter pilot. Business man. Iron Man. War Machine."

That's pretty much all you NEED to know about Rhodey. That, and he's Tony Stark's best friend. But if you dig deeper, there's a lot of complexity and interesting character development at work.

Over the course of the following four installments of Superhero History: War Machine, I'll give you a personal account of Rhodey's superhero exploits and character history... sort of like Wikipedia, but less stiff and more geared towards helping you understand the character, not just rattling off a list of events.

However, before we really get rolling, I should note that my expertise is in Rhodey during the War Machine years, so this pre-WM history you see here is a working summary at best. It's to get you up to speed and understand the character's historical foundation.

Truthfully, I skipped over Rhodey's first appearance in Iron Man #118 and his "origin" (of sorts) in Iron Man #144. Story short, Rhodey and Tony met overseas during wartime. I get real mixed up by Marvel's sliding timescale, and, frankly, I don't know if Vietnam is still part of Rhodey's back story. But for a long time it was.

The important thing to know is that Rhodey was hired by Tony Stark to be his helicopter pilot. Even more important is that Rhodey would eventually become his employer's #1 confidant and one of the very few who knew that Iron Man was in fact Tony Stark.

This comes into play in a big way in Iron Man #169, when Tony succumbs to alcoholism to the extent that he can no longer pilot the Iron Man armor. Responding to an immediate threat on corporate Stark property, Rhodey slides on the red and gold suit and kicks some ass.

Rhodey remained as Iron Man for a good stint, working with the Avengers, starring in the first Secret Wars, and even joining in on the original West Coast Avengers lineup (to the best of my understanding, very few knew it was Rhodey inside the armor at this time).

Then, in Iron Man #200, Denny O'Neil and Mark Bright introduced the Silver Centurion (red and silver) armor. This had been predicated by preceding issues that told the story of a newly sober Tony Stark who was forced to reclaim his mantle after the classic red and gold suit induced Rhodey into a slow-building rage (something about the helmet not being balanced to his mental frequency).

Anyway, even after his tenure as Iron Man, the former Marine from south Philadelphia still hung around the comics as Tony's best buddy. But Rhodey stayed out of the armor until Iron Man #215-216, two issues that marked the return of Rhodey's co-creators, David Michelinie and Bob Layton, to the Iron Man series.

This short story arc is notable for its use of the "Rhodey's afraid of the armor subplot." A destructive incident on Stark's orbiting satellite / space station requires Rhodey to don the armor once more. He doesn't want to put it on in the first place, considering the whole "the armor makes me mad" thing, but it's either wear the damn armor to get back to Earth or die out in space.

To make matters worse -- apparently due to the armor being an older model and not properly fashioned for space flight -- Rhodey literally lights on fire during his descent into Earth's atmosphere. Methinks that Michelinie and Layton weren't too crazy about Rhodey as Iron Man... I mean, they were only back for one issue before they symbolically lit the guy on fire inside his own armor!

Flashbacks and a fear of burning alive inside the Iron Man gear kept Rhodey out of the suit for a good 50 issues or so. He was still an integral part of the original Armor Wars story arc (Iron Man #225-231), but he didn't actually wear the suit again until the excellent Armor Wars II (Iron Man #258-266) by John Bryne and John Romita, Jr.

Shortly thereafter, things took a turn for the worse for Tony. Stark's nervous system was failing and it looked like he was going to kick the bucket for good. As a last hurrah, he created a new suit of highly-weaponized armor, but he didn't have the time to paint the damn thing!.

This unpainted suit is -- you guessed it! -- the War Machine armor. Iron Man #281 introduced the black and silver costume, but with Tony as its pilot.

A mere two issues later, Tony Stark really died. Well, about as much as any heavily licensed publishing property can really die in a free market environment (which is to say that he was "dead" for about two or three issues).

Right before his "death," Tony promoted Rhodey to second in command, thus making the former helicopter pilot the official head of Stark Enterprises. But that's not all that Tony left behind for Rhodey, In fact, he bequeathed him a rather valuable gift that ended up changing his best friend's life forever.

NEXT: Enter the War Machine in Superhero History: War Machine - Part 2, Let's Get It On!!!