Datafile on War Machine

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Terry, Fitree and Adward

Next up in the Iron Man datafiles is James Rupert Rhodes, also known as the the War Machine. :-)

War Machine (James Rupert Rhodes) is a fictional character, a superhero in Marvel Comics' shared universe, the Marvel Universe. He first appeared in Iron Man #118 (January 1979), and was created by David Michelinie and Bob Layton.
War Machine's abilities come from an advanced suit of armor, designed using technology from Stark Industries, and later from an alien-built suit. He is well known as the best friend of Tony Stark, whose Iron Man armor Rhodes has worn on several occasions.

Origins

James Rupert Rhodes was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He first meets billionaire industrialist Tony Stark while flying combat missions in Vietnam. Rhodes' helicopter is shot down by Viet Cong rocket fire, and while trying to get the aircraft airborne again, he encounters Stark, who has just escaped from the prison camp of the Vietnamese warlord Wong Chu in a bulky prototype suit of powered armor. At that moment the Viet Cong attack, and Stark, in his suit, helps to drive them off. Together, Rhodes and Stark make their way to a nearby enemy base where they steal another helicopter, flying it back to the American lines.
After the end of the Vietnam War, Stark, who had secretly become the superhero named Iron Man, offered Rhodes a job as his personal pilot, and Rhodes soon became one of Stark's closest associates and confidants as well as Stark Industries' chief aviation officer. As a result, he had numerous adventures with his employer where his daring and skills were valuable assets.
When Stark lost his company to Obadiah Stane and relapsed into alcoholism, Rhodes took over the armor and role of Iron Man in Stark's stead, even fighting alongside Stark's colleagues in the Avengers during the Secret Wars. However, he began to experience headaches while using the armor, and over time, his behavior began to grow more erratic and aggressive, prone to violent solutions to given problems. Rhodes' manic mental state was later revealed to be the result of his using armors whose cerebral interfaces were calibrated for Stark's brain, leaving any other long-term user disoriented and confused. When Stark was on the road to recovery, he helped Rhodes maintain the armor, but Rhodes became increasingly paranoid, believing that Stark meant to retake the armor.
Rhodes went on a rampage, and Stark was forced to don a crude, prototype suit of armor much like his original suit to stop him. Rhodes came to his senses and the two fought together for a time until Rhodes was injured by Stane and Stark took the new armor. In the aftermath of Stane's suicide and Stark rebuilding his company, the two men worked together on many occasions, Rhodes even risking his life and his career to aid Stark during the Armor Wars, when Iron Man discovered that his technology had been stolen by the Spymaster and sold to various armoured villains.

War Machine Career

Stark also subsequently designed a heavier-armed version of the Iron Man suit, the "Variable Threat Response Battle Suit" to battle the Masters of Silence, and it became known as the War Machine armor. Rhodes used the War Machine armor as Iron Man when Stark faked his own death while recovering from a life-threatening illness. When the ruse was revealed, it damaged the friendship between the two men, and they went their separate ways.
Rhodes, however, continued to use the War Machine armor in a solo superhero career, and it eventually was replaced by a symbiotic alien suit, known as the Eidolon Warwear. When Stark died during a battle with Kang the Conqueror (And the younger alternate Tony Stark brought in to replace him vanished during the fight with Onslaught), Rhodes rejoined Stark Enterprises (which was bought by Fujikawa Industries) to protect his old friend's legacy. To prevent Stark's armor technology from being misused, he used the abilities of his alien armor to erase all trace of Stark's designs from the Fujikawa systems, but the armor was destroyed in the process. Rhodes gave up his superhero career and started his own salvage company.

The War Machine Armor consists of:

• Repulsors: Laser-guided particle beam emission units mounted in the palm of each hand.
• Unibeam: Multi-band light and force beam emitter. Can be adjusted for a variety of effects such as search light, heat beams, tractor beam, lasers, image inducers, ultraviolet light, and electromagnetic pulse. While not present in the original model, it was added for Rhodes.
• Pulse Bolt Generators: Plasma discharges that build in intensity as they travel through the atmosphere, picking up static and ambient energy.
• Force Shield: A focused photon emitter on the back of his left wrist that shapes into a shield.
• Gatling Gun: Shoulder-mounted and using an electronic firing system. This is a state of the art gatling machine gun firing caseless ammunition. It can be loaded with a wide array of various bullet types including stun and armor-piercing. Default loadout is 1800 rounds of Depleted uranium bullets.
• Double-barreled cannon. Wrist-mounted, fires various ammo types. Ammo is user-selectable and is fed from belt circling the upper wrist.
• Flamethrower. Uses napalm gas. Effective at all types of combat.
• Plasma Blade that emits from either wrist.
• Micro-Rocket Launcher. Holds a variety of up to eight rockets, including High Explosive, Concussion, Smoke, Flare, and Sub-Nuke.
• Particle Beam Discharger.
• Forcefield-based stealth technology (to which Rhodes referred as the "Romulan Cloaking Device")
• Self-contained breathing system.
• Granted the wearer high levels of superhuman strength and durability.