Don Cheadle’s War Machine Is Back in Marvel’s Armor Wars Disney+ Series
Marvel #Marvel
War Machine isn’t done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe just yet. Marvel Studios has announced an Armor Wars series, which is currently in development for Disney+. Don Cheadle will indeed be reprising his role as James Rhodes/War Machine in the show, which will bring the classic storyline to life. He will be taking center stage while trying to recover some stolen Stark tech.
The announcement was made during Disney’s investor day presentation. Marvel Studios was an enormous part of the proceedings, with several huge announcements made by Kevin Feige, who heads up the division for Disney. Armor Wars was revealed as just one of the small screen projects being developed as part of the MCU’s future. A logo for the show was shared on Twitter with the following message.
“Don Cheadle returns as James Rhodes aka
War Machine in Armor Wars, an Original Series coming to #DisneyPlus. A classic Marvel story about Tony Stark’s worst fear coming true: what happens when his tech falls into the wrong hands?”
Armor Wars was a classic storyline published by Marvel Comics in the pages of Iron Man between 1987 and 1988. The story was written by Bob Layton and David Micheline, with art from Mark D. Bright and Barry Windsor-Smith. The storyline sees Tony Stark discovering that someone has been stealing his Iron Man tech and selling it to supervillains. He decides he must do whatever it takes to reacquire, or destroy, the stolen tech. Interestingly, Justin Hammer, who was a key villain in Iron Man 2, played by Sam Rockwell, was involved in the original story. So this could open the door for the character’s return in the MCU. Though that is purely speculative at this point.
Speaking of Iron Man 2, Don Cheadle made his debut as James Rhodes in the sequel. Originally, Terrence Howard played the part but he was replaced by Cheadle, who has been playing the part ever since. Cheadle has since appeared in several MCU entries including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. War Machine has yet to be the subject of his own movie up to this point. Armor Wars will give him the chance to take the spotlight. There is no word yet on whether or not any of his fellow heroes will be along for the ride, but it seems like a safe bet.
Other new announcements included a Secret Invasion adaptation and an Ironheart series, both of which are happening on Disney+ as well. They join WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight as part of a growling slate of live-action MCU shows. There is also the animated What If? series, which got a new trailer during the presentation as well. WandaVision will be the first of these shows to debut in January 2021. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as any further details on the project are made available. Be sure to check out the reveal from the Marvel Studios Twitter account.