James Rhodes

Character
Name:	James Rupert "Rhodey" Rhodes
Occupation:	Superhero, military's chief liaison to Stark Industries (MCU)
Relationships:	Tony Stark (best friend), Pepper Potts (friend)
Fandom:	Iron Man, Iron Man Movieverse (MCU), The Avengers (Marvel) Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Ultimate Marvel, MC2, Ultimate Avengers 2,
Other:	Wikipedia
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James "Rhodey" Rhodes is the alter ego of War Machine from the Marvel Comics series Iron Man.

Canon

Rhodey first appeared in Iron Man #118 (January 1979). He briefly held the Iron Man mantel in Iron Man #170 (May 1983). As War Machine, he first appeared in Iron Man #282 (September 1992) and as Iron Patriot in Gambit Vol. 5 #13 (May 2013).

Rhodey also appears in the Iron Man Films. In the first movie, Rhodey is played by Terrence Howard, but in the second and third movies he is played by Don Cheadle. He also appears in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019).

Rhodey is a main character in Iron Man: The Animated Series and Iron Man: Armored Adventures. He also makes a cameo/brief appearances on The Super Hero Squad Show, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, X-Men: The Animated Series and The Incredible Hulk animated series.

In the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), Rhodey appears in New World Order, the first episode of the miniseries.

Fandom

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rhodey appears with moderate frequency in MCU fanworks, most commonly in works focused on Tony Stark. His most common pairing is Rhodey/Tony; he is less frequently found in the slash pairings Bruce/Rhodey, Fury/Rhodey, and Rhodey/Steve and in the het pairings Pepper/Rhodey, Maria/Rhodey, and Natasha/Rhodey. He is also often included in poly arrangements, particularly Pepper Potts/James Rhodes/Tony Stark.

End Rhodey Erasure Project

As a part of the conversation about racism in the Avengers/MCU fandom that arose after the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a tumblr campaign was started calling for the end of the widespread erasure of Rhodey from MCU and Avengers-related fanworks:

Campaign Seal

This campaign is born out of the needs and frustration at the lack of Rhodey-related-things whithin The Avengers Fandom. There's lack of Rhodey in fanfiction (doesn't matter the ship), there's lack of Rhodey in our dashes, there's very little fanart and almost no fanvids whatsoever. Nevermind the reason behind this sad truth, we're here to plant ourselves like trees beside the river of truth and kindly tell fandom: FUCK YOU.

WAR MACHINE ROX, with an X, all caps. Colonel James "Rupert" Rhodes is the superhero known as War Machine (now, Iron Patriot). He's featured in comics, movies, animated series and tv movies, and videogames. Because of this one fact, we think he's worthy of the same, or even more, amount of love as new, almost OC-MCU, characters get. So we started this campaign.

The main blog for the campaign is the tumblr Needs Rhodey: Stop the Rhodey Erasure Now, and the tag to track and post in is #EndRhodeyErasure. There is also a network of blogs who are committed to the cause, and people who are participating are encouraged to add the End Rhodey Erasure seal to their icons.

Example Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Fan Fic

• Anchor, by missbecky: Gen movieverse fic set post-Iron Man 3; Rhodey's POV dealing with Tony's PTSD. (1,059 words)
• The Priming Game, by amonitrate: Gen movieverse fic set during Iron Man; Rhodey's POV set just after Tony's rescue in Afghanistan. (12,391 words)
• Things We Believe, by icarus_chained: Gen movieverse fic set just post-The Avengers; Rhodey & Tony character/friendship study. (2,604 words)
• We Are (Not) Soldiers, by arsenicarcher: Movieverse fic set sometime post-The Avengers; hurt/comfort fic where established Natasha/Steve and Tony/Pepper relationships expand to become a polyamorous Natasha/Pepper/Rhodey/Steve/Tony relationship. (12,405 words)

Fan Art

• punk trans Rhodey says be gay do crimes 🏳️‍🌈, ^{Archived version} by anthon-e on tumblr

Additional Gallery

• 

  War Machine by Ryuakira

• 

  War Machine by DoctorRy

• 

  Iron Patriot by AngelCrusher

Meta

• Rhodey Possibly Canon, ^{Archived version}, a multi-user tumblr discussion of Rhodey's qualifications as a rocket scientist.
• Rhodey's Rank, ^{Archived version}, a tumblr discussion of Rhodey's military rank and what it means for his interactions with other military/former military characters.

Archives and Communities

• Rhodey tag on the AO3
• Rhodey works at FFN

Resources

• War Machine on Marvel.com
• War Machine on Marvel Comics Database