War Machine #17
… A Time to Keep and a Time to Cast Away
Berlin, Germany, 1941[1]
War Machine has been sent back in time to prevent the a Neo-Nazi named Raeder from delivering weapons from the present to the Nazis to win the war. During his time in the past, War Machine has allied himself with Captain America and the pair have stormed the Nazi’s base where they are reverse engineering future technology. After smashing through enemy soldiers, high tech jets, and tanks, they manage to nab Commandant Grinz, the Nazi in this era that has been masterminding the Zeitkrieg (Time War) plot. As they make their escape, Jim spots a helicopter, which he is more than proficient in flying. As they make their escape, War Machine wires his armor into the helicopter’s radio to send out acoustic echoes and ECM decoys that will throw off the Nazi’s primitive radar systems. Along the way, they try to get Grinz to talk but he refuses to do so. Rhodes assures the Nazi that they’ll get him to talk one way or the other.
Meanwhile, Sheva Joseph (also stranded in the past) has just secured the Nazi time machine in Berlin with help from Bucky and the Howling Commandos. When War Machine and the others arrive Dum Dum Dugan assures them that the facility has been secured but Nazi forces are coming their way. Jim tells Sheva to prepare the time machine to send them back to the present at a moments notice. Soon, War Machine and Captain America get down to interrogating Commandant Grinz to learn how he pulled off Zeitkrieg to begin with. Grinz admits that he doesn’t know much, saying that it is his future counterpart Raeder who did most of the work in the present. With the Nazis bearing down on them, Jim decides that he and Sheva should return to the present and take Grinz with them so they can find this Raeder and stop this nightmare from ever happening.
Sheva has found cohesion monitors for the both of them so that they can return to the present without worrying about losing their equipment like Jim experienced when he first came to this era.[2] As everyone says their goodbyes, Bucky suggests that they meet up in the future and talk about old times. Jim points out that if they are successful the timeline will correct itself erasing all knowledge of these events. Jim also knows that Bucky is destined to die before the end of the war, but keeps this to himself.[3] However, before they can enter the time portal, Grinz manages to wrest the gun out of Sheva’s hand and take her hostage. With the Nazis forcing their way into the building, War Machine has very little time to diffuse the situation before it is too late. That’s when Grinz reveals that Raeder is his descendant, Jim asks the Nazi if he has had any children yet. When Grinz confirms that he has not, War Machine makes the hard decision of shooting to kill, breaking his code to never take a life again.[4]
With Grinz’s death, Raeder was never born and would never go back in time to change history. This causes the time machine to flare up as a time quake is about to come crashing down around this timeline as it is pruned from existence.[5] With no time to spare, Sheva and War Machine leap into the time portal to the present. War Machine soon finds himself plunging through darkness when suddenly he passes through a pit of fire that strips off his armor and burns his body down to the bone.
However, this all turns out to be a dream and Jim wakes up on a SHIELD transport. He is greeted by Nick Fury who tells Rhodes that their mission was a success and the proper timeline has been preserved. Although this is a victory, SHIELD agent Kirby Martell warns both Jim and Sheva that they will suffer what is called “time fatigue” after they experienced an explosive temporal dislocation. She warns them that they may suffer disorientation, fatigue, and insomnia to start but she has no idea what the full effect might have on them.[6] While everyone is proud of Jim for stopping history from being altered, Jim still feels terrible that he had to take a life to do so. That’s when they reveal to Jim that his War Machine armor was somehow lost in the trip back to the present.[7] Hearing this, Jim is actually relieved because perhaps its time for him to give up being War Machine after eveything that happened.[8]
Five days later, Jim Rhodes returns to work for WorldWatch, but he can’t focus on his work because he is still haunted by the memory of Commandant Grinz begging for his life before Jim killed him. He is then visited by his colleague Rebecca Bergier who thanks Jim for helping her brother out in San Rivera.[9][10] Rebecca suggests that Jim take some time off. Sheva also pays Jim a visit and suggests he do the same thing. Jim admits to her that he feels like being War Machine was almost like an addiction and now that it is finally over he can start repairing his life. He then decides to take Rebecca and Sheva up on the suggestion he take some time off and go fishing. This conversation bothers Sheva, who notes that Jim has never expressed an interest in fishing before, and reports her concerns to Nick Fury.
That evening, at a National Park, a local named Mitch McGill leads two federal agent to a nearby lake where strange lights have been spotted recently. The two FBI agents think this is a wild goose chase, but McGill assures them that it is all true. Suddenly, a strange creature emerges from the lake and ambushes them from behind,.
Recurring Characters
(Earth-616) War Machine, Sheva Joseph, SHIELD (Nick Fury, Kirby Martell), Rebecca Bergier, (Earth-95615) Captain America, Bucky, Howling Commandos (Dum Dum Dugan, Izzy Cohen), Nazis (Commandant Grinz)
Continuity Notes
Because of the changes to the timeline caused by the Neo-Nazis, this reality will become divergent from Earth-616. Per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #5 this timeline has been designated Reality-95615.
As we saw in War Machine #15, when Jim jumped back in time without one of the cohesion monitors he was separated from his armor and needed to go on a raid to recover it from the Nazis.
Captain America famously ended up in suspended animation in, as seen in Avengers #4, while trying to stop Baron Zemo’s done plane that was set to attack Britain. At the time of this story, everyone believes that Bucky had died in the explosion that put Cap in suspended animation. In reality, Bucky survived and his body was recovered by the Russian who converted him into their assassin the Winter Soldier. The truth will become apparent to everyone in Captain America (vol. 5) #14.
Jim discovered that it was starting to get easy to take lives after getting involved in an uprising in Imaya and fighting the assassin Deathtoll in War Machine #1-6. In issue #7 he vowed to never take a life again if he could help it.
How the time travel/divergent reality situation happens here doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. I have my theories below.
Jim won’t suffer any ill effects from the “time fatigue”, likely due to the fact that he will later bond with the Warwear in War Machine #18. Sheva won’t get off so lucky as she will find herself shifting around her personal timeline while also rapidly aging until he death in War Machine #24.
While the War Machine armor was lost in the time stream it will end up back on present day Earth-616, eventually falling into the hands of Parnell Jacobs who will enter the employ of Sunset Bain. See Iron Man (vol. 3) #11-12 and 18-20.
Jim says the loss of the War Machine armor isn’t the first time he lost out as he gave up being Iron Man in the past. This is kind of a vague reference to a complex set of circumstances.
When Tony Stark started spiraling into alcoholism in Iron Man #167, it got to the point where he had to give up being Iron Man and passed the mantle on to Jim in issue #169. Jim was Iron Man for a time unaware that the cybernetic interface in the armor was not calibrated for his mind and as such, he was being driven into paranoia. He was cured in Iron Man #195 and Tony resumed the role of Iron Man in issue #200.
After almost burning up on re-entry in Iron Man #215-216, Jim went through a period where he was afraid to put on another suit of armor. However, he would get over this fear and pinch hit as Iron Man when Tony’s health was in decline as seen in Iron Man #259-266 and again in Iron Man #270-275.
More recently, Tony faked his death in Iron Man #284 in order to undergo cryogenic suspension while a cure for his health condition was being sought. He kept this a secret from Jim and willed Stark Enterprises and the mantle of Iron Man to Rhodes. When Tony revealed he was still alive in Iron Man #289, Jim quit and went solo as War Machine from then on.
War Machine helped Rebecca’s brother in San Rivera during the Brothers in Arms storyline which took place in Force Works #12, War Machine #15, and Iron Man #317.
Here, Jim asks if there have been any calls from his parents or Rae LaCoste. Rebecca doesn’t give him an answer (rude). He’s asking because Jim has been pulled away on one adventure after another in the middle of a family visit where he was supposed to introduce Rae to his parents. Things didn’t go very well without him there, see War Machine #12-13. Shockingly, Jim won’t reconnect with Rae until issue #24.
Topical References
The present day is stated as taking place in the year 1995, the year this comic was published. This should be considered a topical reference due to the Sliding Timescale. On the same token, it is stated that World War II ended about fifty years prior to the main story. The length of time between the end of the war and the start of the Modern Age will continue to change. Click here if you want to figure out the math behind that.
In this story, Raeder is identified as Grinz’s future son. While this would have been possible when this comic was published in 1995, it becomes increasingly impossible due to the Sliding Timescale. As the Modern Age is pushed forward it becomes increasingly impossible for someone born around World War II to still be alive and vital enough to carry out scheme like Raeder’s without some means of slowing or stopping the aging process. The War Machine profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #13 still refers to Raeder as Grinz’s son, but offers no explanation as to how he could still be alive in the present day. There are two possibilities: (1) Raeder had access to Nazi technology to slow or stop his aging process or (2) references to the familial relation between Grinz and Raeder is topical. In the latter case, one could assume that Rader is a direct descendant of Grinz instead of his son. If it were up to me, I’d choose the latter as that requires less explanation and can be adjusted in accordance to the Sliding Timescale.
Rebecca Beriger states that the world population is somewhere in the ballpark of 4 billion people. This was roughly (give or take a billion people) the world population at the time of this story. Since the population continues to grow (nearly 8 billion people as I write this in November, 2022) this should be considered a topical reference.
Theory: How To Explain the Time Paradox in this Story
Over the course of War Machine #15-17, the concept of time travel is played fast and loose. How time travel usually works in the Marvel Universe is that if one goes back in time and effects massive changes to pre-established history, they don’t alter the time line they have come from, but create a divergent reality that branches off from the original timeline. In very rare instances the change in history is so disruptive that the new alternate reality will temporarily overwrite the baseline reality. We saw this happen in Age of Apocalypse when Legion accidentally murdered Charles Xavier and in Age of Ultron where time travel was involved in trying to stop Ultron from conquering the world. In both instances, time travel was used and it was so disruptive that the Earth-616 universe was temporarily overwritten by the new reality.
This story seems to operate on these same rules. Given that this story was published in the same year, it seems to be taking a page from the Legion Quest and Age of Apocalypse storylines, as seen in Uncanny X-Men #320-321 and X-Men (vol. 2) #40-41, and X-Men: Omega #1. In those stories, Legion went back in time and accidentally murdered his father. This caused the Earth-616 universe to be briefly replaced with Earth-295, aka the Age of Apocalypse. The timeline was restored when Bishop went back in time and stopped Legion, thus restoring the proper timeline and snapping everything back in place. Everyone in the past who encountered Legion and the X-Men forgot what happened and everything went back to normal.
The same sense happened here with Grist getting killed. If Grist was killed before he had children then Raeder was never born, never created the time machine, and never tried to change history.
The only thing that doesn’t add up is that changes were already happening to the timeline when Grist was killed. In the Age of Apocalypse example, Bishop prevented Xavier from being murdered, the catalyst that created Reality-295. However, in War Machine, the Nazis already had access to future tech and things like Nick Fury getting killed before his time had already happened. Changes had been made.
I suppose the best way to explain this is that the roles had been reversed here. Rather than putting War Machine in the role that Bishop played in Age of Apocalypse, he was actually in the role that Legion played instead and Grist was playing the Xavier role. Whereas Legion killing his father erased Earth-616 (temporarily) out of existence, War Machine killing Grist erased Reality-95615.