War Machine (James Rupert "Rhodey" Rhodes) is a fictional character, a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. James Rhodes first appeared in Iron Man #118 (January 1979) by David Michelinie and John Byrne. The War Machine armor (Iron Man Armor Model 11) which first appeared in Iron Man #281 (June 1992) became his signature exosuit, created by Len Kaminski and Kevin Hopgood. The character has been featured in animated television series and films. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), James Rhodes was first played by Terrence Howard in Iron Man (2008), which takes place before he took on the War Machine mantle, and then by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2 (2010), Iron Man 3 (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), the television series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) and Secret Invasion (2023), the animated series What If...? (2021) and the upcoming film Armor Wars. Publication history Initially a supporting character in volume one of Iron Man, Rhodes later assumed the mantle of Iron Man after Tony Stark's relapse into alcoholism in issue #170 (May 1983). The character would continue in a supporting role and later resume the role of Iron Man following Stark's purported death in issue #284 (Sept. 1992). After Stark's return to the role of Iron Man, Rhodes continued as the superhero War Machine and made his solo series debut in an eponymous title after being featured as a supporting character in the superhero-team series Avengers West Coast. In addition to Iron Man and his own title War Machine, Rhodes has been featured in the ensemble titles West Coast Avengers; Force Works by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; Sentinel Squad O*N*E; The Crew by Christopher Priest; and Avengers: The Initiative by Dan Slott and Christos Gage. Rhodes was also featured in the alternate-reality Marvel MAX imprint's U.S. War Machine series by Chuck Austen, and U.S. War Machine 2.0, by Austen and Christian Moore. In the series Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Rhodes was featured in the storyline "War Machine: Weapon of S.H.I.E.L.D." written by Gage and artist Sean Chen. In this tie-in to the company-wide storyline "Secret Invasion," War Machine replaced Iron Man as the protagonist for the final three issues of the series. This led into a second War Machine ongoing series, written by Greg