Enter: War Machine!

[iamrman]

Iron Man #282.

A group of cyber samurai known as the Masters of Silence has targeted Tony Stark for death. The Iron Man armour was destroyed in their first encounter. Luckily, Tony has a rad new suit of armour just for the occasion.

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

It's honestly bizarre that War Machine as a character/concept has stuck ever since then, and quite often with a design close to the initial one.

[bravest_spinja]

I think it's because 1) Rhodey is a historically significant character, both in terms of diversity and Marvel storylines, and 2) Iron Man is not only a hero you could theoretically duplicate without it feeling, let's say, Legion of Superpets, but it's almost surprising it doesn't happen more in-universe. (Of course, there's tons of narrative explanations, but at this point they can't logically apply to Rhodey.)

The look probably translates well to other mediums, too.

[jgeils]

Back during "Avengers: The Crossing", they tried revamping him entirely. He went fishing, got an alien tattoo that transformed into... this.

https://i.imgur.com/mr8PLn6.jpg

They jettisoned that after Onslaught. Something about sending the suit to destroy any electronic trace of Stark's secrets on the internet.

[beyondthefringe]

I remember that.
It aged about as well as giving Guy Gardner alien shapeshifting gun powers. :)

[zylly]

I actually really liked Guy as Warrior. He got a ton of character development during that run. And immediately took like three steps back when he got a GL ring again.

[viridian5]

Hahaha. "This is War Machine. Seriously." Fortunately, not for long.

[super_fly]

Even the writers were like "Yeah, we know. We *know.*"

[blues32]

Huh. So this is where the Masters of Silence first appeared. I had the issue where they came to Tony for help about a demonic face thief.

[sabertoothlotus]

I had that issue, too! THe 1993 Annual. It came with a trading card featuring the new character the issue introduced-- that was the gimmick for all the annuals that year, and almost none of the new characters ever showed up again.

[iamrman]

It's telling that Adam-X, *THE X-TREME* was the most memorable character introduced in those annuals. Your mileage may vary regarding Genis-Vell.

[dan_ingram]

I love Tony's tactical response here.

"These guys are masters of stealth and cunning. Precision is their greatest weapon."

"So I'll weld every gun and weapon to the suit possible and blow the sh*t out of them."

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Works for me!

[super_fly]

They can't be stealthy if you don't leave them anything to hide behind!