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After spending much of the 00s jumping from new interpretation to new interpretation (as detailed in Part 3, Missing in Action), Rhodey Rhodes was given a leadership role as he returned to his classic black and silver War Machine armor in Avengers: The Initiative.

Only this Rhodey was now disfigured and more machine than man. The explanation for this came in War Machine: Weapon of SHIELD (a.k.a. Iron Man Director of SHIELD) #33-35 by Christos Gage and Sean Chen, my personal favorite modern War Machine story (as for classics, I recommend Iron Man #281-291). [Check out my Top 9 favorite War Machine stories next Monday!!! P.S. That link won't work until then!]

Readers finally found out how Rhodey became deformed and robotic. Apparently, somewhere between Marvel’s Civil War and the start of The Initiative, Rhodey was seriously injured while fighting on behalf of the USA in the Middle East. Tony Stark found a way to save his life, but he had to augment Rhodey with cybernetics to do so.

After kicking some serious Skrull ass, Rhodey assumed the reigns of War Machine v2 by Greg Pak and Leonardo Manco. But by this time, he was a true War Machine. Killing was no longer a problem as long as it was a means to an end.

I must admit to having only read issues here and there of WM v2, which just recently ended with #12. I know it had something to do with Rhodey’s cloned body being captured by Norman Osborne, as well as WM’s international vendetta against criminals that prey on the innocent, but that’s about all I can say.

WAIT! That’s not totally true — I know that there were multiple War Machine armors being worn by Rhodey’s different associates. That’s a throwback to the concepts behind U.S. War Machine MAX and Iron Man #300, which both showed Rhodey with crew of friends sporting a fleet of customized armors. To what extent this concept of Team War Machine still exists in the current Marvel Universe, I’m not sure. But keep an eye out for it to pop up again in the future.

Now that we’re all caught up to the present in the Marvel 616, I would be remiss if I didn’t elaborate on Rhodey’s love life. When it comes to the ladies, it seems like he’s always the “second choice” to his best buds. Rhodey’s first serious love interest that I can remember was the power-hungry heir to Stark Enterprises and former Stark flame, Marcy Pearson. She left Rhodey after Stark promoted him above her at the time of his “death.”

Then came Rae LaCoste, a woman who was also originally courted by Tony and acted as Rhodey’s love interest in War Machine v1. Rae and Rhodey seemed to have a healthy thing going on, but he abandoned her during the holidays after she received a very cold reception from his potentially racist parents.

Then, for a while, lovers came and went, never really sticking around for long. Finally, a new longterm player entered in Busiek’s Iron Man run. Later picked up in Austen’s U.S. War Machine and Pak’s War Machine v2, Glenda Sandoval was shown to be THE woman of Rhodey’s desires. Thing is, she ended up with Rhodey’s other BFF, Parnell Jacobs, instead. Ooops!

Anyway, there are a lot of War Machine appearances going on lately that don’t play into the character’s larger Marvel 616 continuity. The Ultimate comics line by Marvel has seen Rhodey AND the War Machine armor explored at length, first in the Ultimate Iron Man minis by Orson Scott Card and now in Ultimate Comics Avengers by Mark Millar. In the Marvel Zombies continuity, Rhodey made a recent foray into the action, fighting on the human side as successor to the Iron Man mantle.

As for animation, Rhodey was featured in the incredibly uneven 90s Iron Man show. During that era, he also made small appearances on other Marvel animated programs. More recently, the Ultimate Avengers 2 movie utilized the War Machine armor (albeit worn by Tony). And the new Iron Man: Armored Adventures co-stars a young Rhodey Rhodes as Tony’s classmate and moral compass.

Not to be forgotten, there’s the impending Iron Man 2. I can’t say much for War Machine’s unseen film origin yet, except that 2009 Comicon Int’l footage appears to show Rhodey getting his War Machine weapons from Justin Hammer (a baddie!). Well, that, and film goers are certain to be perplexed by Rhodey’s sudden transformation from Terrence Howard into Don Cheadle.

As for the future of War Machine, Marvel’s Editor in Chief Joe Quesada claims that we’ll be seeing a lot more of James Rupert Rhodes in the comics spotlight soon, possibly even in another ongoing series. With Iron Man 2 ready to hit in a few months, that seems pretty damn likely.

But regardless of what happens, I think it’s safe to say that War Machine will be highly visible in 2010, emblazoned on all manners of Iron Man 2 merchandise. For fans like myself, that’ll be a welcome opportunity to publicly display my love for this complex and experienced character who’s gone from sidekick to breakout to cop out to cyborg and beyond.

As I explained in Part 2, Let’s Get It On, War Machine figuratively crashed and burned circa 1996 with the end of War Machine v1. In the later issues of the title, he was pushed out of the black and silvers and placed inside an alien suit of armor known as the Eidolon Warwear. Soon thereafter, his solo series was cancelled and the character threatened to slip into serious superhero obscurity.

All throughout this era, it’s important to note that killing was never taken lightly by War Machine. A few baddies were killed here and there, but that led to many a crisis of conscience for our hero. I bring this up because the War Machine of the 90s is largely remembered as the “Iron Man that kills.” He may have been more aggressive, but killing never came any easier to Jim Rhodes back then.

Anyway, by this point, the War Machine armor we all know and love was missing in action after Rhodey’s time traveling journey back home from WWII in War Machine v1. And the Eidolon Warwear armor didn’t last long either, as Rhodey was soon separated from that alien suit and left without a costume.

Oddly enough, it was at this time of Rhodey’s greatest dip in comic book popularity that he received his most high-profile mainstream attention to date. At the end of the 90s, War Machine was featured as the newest playable character on the Marvel Comics side of the arcade smash hit, Marvel vs. Capcom. Granted, you never see War Machine unmask in this fighting game, but it’s obviously intended to be Rhodey inside the suit — you can tell by his playful quips and hard line attitude.

But back in the comics, James Rhodes was making only the most peripheral of supporting appearances from the late 90s into very early 00s. The only notable action came from Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen’s run on Iron Man. Rhodey and the War Machine armor saw a bit of a resurgence, but this time the armor was piloted by the character of Parnell Jacobs, Rhodey’s heretofore unknown “other best friend.”

Busiek’s War Machine story was short but notable, as threads from the tale would inform the armored character for the rest of the decade. This was evident when writer / artist Chuck Austen put his indelible mark on on the character in the U.S. War Machine MAX series.

Though Austen is always a hot-button topic for online comic book fans, most will agree that USWM was his finest work for Marvel and it left Rhodey in a better place than it found him.

Unfortunately for the 616 Marvel Universe, U.S. War Machine isn’t in continuity. It occurs in an alternate reality where Rhodey was the first armored pilot and Stark was instead the second (along with some other stuff about building the armor with Victor von Doom). This book was released as a weekly series in black and white, Marvel’s rare stab at a more manga-style of publishing, I guess.

Meanwhile, in the main Marvel 616 continuity, after quick set of very small supporting appearances in Frank Tieri’s Iron Man, Rhodey became the headlining character in the ensemble adventure, The Crew. This comic was a “Money Train”-esque mystery by Christopher “don’t call me Chris” Priest and Joe Bennett. It saw Rhodey pawn off the last of his War Machine armor and go at it plainclothes style while getting revenge for the death of his junky sister.

Dying after a short seven issues, Rhodey spun from the The Crew directly into Sentinel Squad O*N*E, which was both its own book and a short lived superteam of sorts in the X-Men Universe. Rhodey was the head of a military outfit that helped police the dwindling mutant population following M-Day (the culminating event of the House of M crossover).

In O*N*E, Rhodey piloted both full-sized Sentinel armor as well as his own Sentinel-esque personal armor (sort of like a fuchsia and blue Iron Man suit, if you will — it actually looks pretty awesome). Rhodey could be found fighting with the Sentinels all the way up through Civil War, where he briefly appeared in Reggie Hudlin’s Black Panther as one of the few characters to stand neutral in the epic hero vs. hero crossover battle.

Then, after years spent out of the own armor and mixing it up on the sidelines, War Machine was appointed the overseer of The Initiative program, starring as one of the more experienced members of Dan Slott and Stefano Caselli’s superhero military outfit in Avengers: The Initiative.

But something wasn’t quite right with Rhodey, as quick peaks here and there revealed that he was now more machine than man. This deformed and robotic Rhodey was a mystery for readers, as there was no foreshadowing and barely any flashbacks to fill people in on the deal.

Avengers: The Initiative would, alas, hold no substantive answers as Secret Invasion soon took hold of the Marvel Universe and sent Rhodey charging into the story arc known as War Machine, Weapon of SHIELD.

NEXT: It’s War Machine on the battlefield in Superhero History: War Machine – Part 4, Back in Black!!!

“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!!!