Armor Wars: Marvel's New War Machine Show Resolves Iron Man 2's Story

Disney+'s upcoming Armor Wars series will finally resolve a lingering Iron Man 2 story, with Col. James Rhodes AKA War Machine (Don Cheadle) dealing with a problem that he started. Even with the death of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in Avengers: Endgame, Iron Man's legacy rightfully remains a pivotal focus of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Armor Wars lets Rhodey move from a supporting role to center stage as he deals with "Tony Stark's greatest nightmare": his enemies getting their hands on Iron Man's technology.

Armor Wars is based upon a 1980s Iron Man story from Marvel Comics written by David Michelinie and Bob Layton; although "Armor Wars" was the title used for the trade paperback collection, the story is called "Stark Wars" within the issues. In Armor Wars, Tony Stark learns that his Iron Man tech has been stolen and is being used without his knowledge in the armored suits of some of his greatest enemies and by agents of the U.S. Government alike. Iron Man decides to hunt down his stolen technology and battles each opponent. The armored Avenger eventually locates the thief, who turned out to be the villainous Spymaster. Iron Man also learns that Spymaster sold his tech to Stark's rival, Justin Hammer. Meanwhile, as Iron Man's methods become more extreme, he becomes targeted by the U.S. Government and his membership in the West Coast Avengers is revoked. Armor Wars was one of the more popular Iron Man comics of its era and spawned a sequel, Armor Wars II, a couple of years later.

Elements of Armor Wars were incorporated into Iron Man 2's story, which also touched upon Tony Stark's alcoholism in the comics. In Iron Man 2, Tony believed he was soon going to die from Palladium poisoning from the ARC reactor in his chest, and he drunkenly threw himself a birthday party that quickly got out of control. Rhodey took a silver prototype Iron Man suit and fought Stark, wrecking Tony's Malibu home. Finally, a disgusted Rhodes left wearing his stolen suit and flew to Edwards Air Force Base, where he turned over Stark's technology to the Air Force. This allowed government contractor and Tony's rival, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), access to Stark's tech, and he hired Ivan Vanko AKA Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) to make their own Iron Man-like drones.

Iron Man and War Machine standing together in Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 happened in 2010; while it's now after 2023 in the MCU's timeline, it's also an ideal time for Armor Wars to happen as the TV series' story will have Rhodey realize that his mistake all those years ago when he betrayed Tony (which Stark instantly forgave him for) has come back to haunt him and the world. Much of Iron Man 2's conflict revolved around Stark insisting the rest of the world was 10-20 years away from replicating his Iron Man technology, but Rhodey's mistake in taking the War Machine suit ended up helping to proliferate Stark tech across the planet.

Naturally, when Rhodes discovers that Iron Man's super-science has fallen into the hands of villains and rogue nations in Armor Wars, he realizes it all started with the choice he made in Iron Man 2. This makes Armor Wars a perfect follow-up that puts Don Cheadle's War Machine front and center trying to protect his best friend Tony Stark's legacy. Armor Wars also opens the door for Sam Rockwell to return as Justin Hammer, and perhaps in the years gone by, Hammer has evolved into a more formidable and dangerous adversary than the hapless, bootleg Tony Stark wannabe he was in Iron Man 2. Meanwhile, Armor Wars will hopefully integrate Iron Man's supporting cast like Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), and Morgan Stark (Lexi Rabe), and the show could even involve Ironheart's Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne).

Iron Man 2 was maligned for having to do a lot of the heavy lifting to set up the rest of MCU Phase 1, which distracted from its main story. Another issue fans had with the film was that neither Hammer nor Whiplash came off as serious threats to Iron Man and War Machine. However, Armor Wars is poised to do Iron Man 2 better by plunging Rhodey into a deeply personal scenario where he has to confront his own mistakes and protect Tony's memory, and this time War Machine will hopefully battle worthy adversaries as he avenges the theft of Stark technology.

Next: Everything We Know About Marvel's Armor Wars