(Above: Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man and Terence Howard as Jim Rhodes)
Big old spoiler for this Friday’s premier of Marvel Comics’ Iron Man.
As fans of the comic book series can tell you, there is more than one armored Avenger in the Marvel Universe. After Tony Stark’s alcoholism took the better of him in the now classic ‘Demon in the Bottle’ making it impossible for him to wear the one-man army suit, he was forced to choose a replacement. Tony needed to look no further than his close friend from the Vietnam War, James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes. In the gun-metal gray suit bedecked with missile launchers and machine guns a-plenty, Rhodey was known as the War Machine. Eventually this storyline lead to a duel between Iron Men.
“The beautiful thing about Marvel is that they’ve always stuck with the tradition of staying truthful to the comics and loyal to the fans,” actor Terence Howard told IGN. “If you’ve read the comics you’ll know that that is the next phase, but there is another intermediate phase in there where he would have to put on his best friend’s suit for a period of time.”
Could this story play out in the eventual sequel?
