Editing War Machine (section)

== Characterization ==
=== Fictional character biography ===
James Rhodes grew up in South Philadelphia until he enlisted in the military.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=151}} While serving in the Vietnam War, Rhodes encounters Iron Man, who had just built his first armor and escaped from his captors, and the two work together to reach safety at the U.S. embassy.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=150}} As time went on and the Vietnam War no longer corresponded with Rhodes's age, the conflict was [[retroactive continuity|retroactively changed]] to a war in the fictional nation of Siancong.{{Sfn|Friedenthal|2021|p=75}} He eventually began working for Stark as a pilot, and the two became friends.{{Sfn|Nama|2011|p=79}} When Stark's alcoholism prevents him from fighting the supervillain [[Magma (Jonathan Darque)|Magma]], Rhodes takes the Iron Man armor and continues the fight. Stark's alcoholism grows worse, and Rhodes takes the armor to become Iron Man. As Iron Man, he resigns from the Avengers and destroys the other Iron Man armors to keep them from being taken by [[Obadiah Stane]].{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=152}}

As Stark begins to recover, Rhodes accompanies him in a new business venture, and they begin sharing the role of Iron Man. Since the armor was not designed for Rhodes, he begins experiencing headaches and mood swings, eventually returning the role to Stark in its entirety.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=153}} When Stark is believed to be dying, he appoints Rhodes as his successor. Rhodes becomes the CEO of [[Stark Industries]], and he becomes the new Iron Man using the War Machine armor.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=153}} He gives up the role when he discovers that Stark faked his death, but he keeps the War Machine armor on Stark's insistence. Becoming a new superhero, War Machine, Rhodes briefly joins the [[West Coast Avengers]] and then becomes a solo superhero after the team is disbanded.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=154}} When human rights activist Vincent Cetewayo is kidnapped by his corrupt government in the fictional African country of Imaya, War Machine partners with [[Deathlok]] to stage an extralegal intervention and topple the government, despite protest from S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=155}} In response, Stark disables the War Machine armor until he needs Rhodes's assistance to defeat the [[Mandarin (character)|Mandarin]].{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=156}} Rhodes retires from superhero work, and he briefly runs a salvage business until he finds himself investigating the death of his sister.{{Sfn|Nama|2011|p=121}} He then works as a combat instructor for the Sentinel Squad.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=157}}

When Rhodes is injured in a terrorist attack, he is augmented with cybernetic body parts, permanently turning him into War Machine.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=158}} He travels to the fictional Middle Eastern country Aqiria where he encounters a military contractor that tortures and experiments on prisoners. Rhodes takes action without authorization, and he is put on trial for committing [[war crime]]s.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=159}} His cybernetic body is destroyed in the subsequent jailbreak, but a cloned version of his healthy body had been made and his mind is transferred into it.{{Sfn|Hoskin|2010|loc=War Machine Update}} Rhodes later takes on a new title, Iron Patriot, wearing armor in the national colors of the United States. In this new role, he goes to [[New Orleans]], where he assesses the environmental risk posed against the city.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|pp=160–161}} He also rejects any further alignment with the military, unless it is purely in the capacity of domestic action or rescue operations.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=161}} Rhodes is killed in a fight against [[Thanos]], triggering [[Civil War II|a schism]] within the superhero community. He is later resurrected by Stark, who had discovered that their bodies could be restored due to the various augmentations that they had undergone while using the Iron Man armor.<ref name="Bonomolo">{{Cite web |last=Bonomolo |first=Cameron |title=Marvel Brings SPOILER Back From The Dead |date=2018-05-24 |url=https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-comics-invincible-iron-man-600-rhodey-war-machine-alive/ |access-date=2023-09-10 |website=ComicBook.com}}</ref>

=== Personality and motivations ===
Rhodes is moralistic relative to Stark, divesting Stark Industries from nuclear technology as CEO over objections from the board and taking action against foreign nations without regard for legalities.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|pp=154–155}} He takes actions that he believes to be right even when others believe it to be ill-advised, and he believes in ideals of "freedom and love".{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=161}} He is willing to give the benefit of the doubt to other characters as opposed to Stark's brasher approach.<ref name="Rabski-McColl">{{Cite web |last=Rabski-McColl |first=Amanda |date=2021-07-22 |title=10 Times War Machine Was The Better Iron Man |url=https://www.cbr.com/marvel-war-machine-better-than-iron-man/ |access-date=2023-09-09 |website=CBR}}</ref> This aspect of his character was emphasized in the 2014 series ''Iron Patriot'', which contrasted his sense of moral duty with his responsibility to his family.<ref name=Truitt /> Writer Christos Gage described War Machine as someone who prefers to lead soldiers into battle rather than deploy them.<ref name="George&Schedeen" />

When Rhodes first experienced the power of the Iron Man armor, he developed an addiction to it that mirrored Stark's addiction to alcohol that necessitated his replacement.{{Sfn|Costello|2009|p=145}} As a superhero, Rhodes pledged to help anyone without regard for race, nationality, or beliefs.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=161}} His opposition to discrimination also included discrimination against [[Mutant (Marvel Comics)|mutants]].{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=157}} He believes that the role of superheroes goes beyond fighting supervillains and that they should also take action against global problems such as world hunger and oppressive governments.<ref>{{Cite periodical |date=March 1994 |title=Picks From the Wizard's Hat |url=https://archive.org/details/wizard-magazine-031/page/113 |magazine=[[Wizard (magazine)|Wizard]] |issue=31 |page=113}}</ref>

=== Themes and motifs ===
War Machine is an African American superhero in a genre that historically presented white characters as the default without meaningfully portraying the lives or worldviews of racial minorities.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|pp=148–149}} Rhodes's origin, a black boy who left the ghetto to enlist in the military, reflected conservative sentiments in the late 1970s that African Americans should seek betterment through individual agency and that the military was a place where success was based on merit rather than race.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=151}} His unsuccessful tenure as Iron Man similarly reflected the conservative belief that racial minorities were harmed by sudden increases in power.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=153}} Conversely, his tenure as CEO of Stark Industries and his second tenure as Iron Man in 1992 reflected the increased acceptance of African Americans being depicted in popular culture. This depiction put him on a more equal ground to Stark, portraying Rhodes as a capable CEO and hero in his own right.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|pp=153–154}} When Rhodes became the main character of ''Iron Man'', he faced many of the same obstacles as Stark, and many of the same themes were explored. Rhodes allowed these issues to be explored from a different perspective, of a character who diverged from the [[Realism (international relations)|realism]] associated with Stark's Iron Man and whose views were influenced by his African American identity.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|pp=154–155}} In the 1990s, Rhodes was one of several African American characters whose comics incorporated imagery associated with [[African American culture]].{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=154}} Unlike other black Marvel heroes such as [[Falcon (comics)|Falcon]] and [[Cloak and Dagger (characters)|Cloak]], Rhodes's race is not explicitly invoked as a defining aspect of his character or a common source of conflict.{{Sfn|Nama|2011|p=81}}

Rhodes's relationship with Stark evokes ideas of control and agency. Stark has control over the armor that Rhodes wears, and this becomes even more apparent when Stark installs the armor through cybernetics as part of Rhodes's body.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=158}} During Rhodes's earliest outings in the Iron Man armor, he was pretending to be Stark's Iron Man rather than acting independently with his own identity. This was somewhat addressed when Rhodes received his own standalone series,{{Sfn|Nama|2011|p=79}} but the nature of the character inherently ties his identity to that of Iron Man.{{Sfn|Nama|2011|p=81}} Their relationship also has a racial component, as Stark, the man in control of Rhodes's destiny, is white.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|pp=156–158}} Despite this, any possible racial conflict between the two is not addressed explicitly.{{Sfn|Nama|2011|p=81}}

''War Machine'' writer Len Kaminski intentionally challenged the violent imagery of a heavily-armed character named War Machine by focusing on themes related to global [[human rights]] and [[liberal internationalism]]. He described the decision saying that "it could subvert some of the people who might be attracted to it for all the wrong reasons, and maybe [the writers will] get them thinking".{{Sfn|O'Neill|1994|p=56}} Rhodes is contrasted with Stark in his sense of responsibility.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=160}} His backstory as a soldier became relevant in the 2000s when the United States engaged in the controversial Iraq War, and the character was used to explore ideas relating to such wars.{{Sfn|Chambliss|2015|p=159}}