War Machine (vol. 2) #6
On the Navajo reservation, registered superhero American Eagle (Jason Strongbow) goes to the home of Roberta Rhodes.[1] He has come to talk to her about her son, Jim Rhodes, aka War Machine who is now a fugitive from the law. He tells her that War Machine is currently clashing with the authorities on the border of the reservation and that he’ll soon be on their doorstep. Roberta invites him in for tea and hears how her son murdered an oil executive, 26 government soldiers in San Marco, and killed the CEO of Eaglestar International in Aqiria.[2]
This doesn’t phase Roberta, who figures her son had good reason to kill these people. More over, she figures her son will be safe once he crosses over onto the reservation, taking him out of the jurisdiction of the authorities. This is where Jason htakes issue. He explains that while he agreed to allow Roberta to live on the Rez as a favor to Jim, the safety of his people come first. If War Machine comes and HAMMER tries to intervene, he will have no choice but to apprehend Jim and turn him over to the authorities. Mrs. Rhodes believes that her son won’t be so easily defeated and will kill Strongbow if need be because his son always does the right thing. She reminds Jason that he fought in the Sin-Cong Conflict to stop genocidal guerillas in an unpopular war, joined the fight to free Vincent Cetewayo from Imaya when nobody else would, and even tried arresting the Black Panther (T’Challa) and Storm (Ororo Munroe) during the civil war, even though it would make him a pariah in the African-American community.[3]
She recounts an incident that happened when Jim was a boy. She was on a walk with her son when he saw some kids picking on Glenda Sandoval for being half Puerto Rican. Rather than standing by and doing nothing, Jim picked up a stick and fought back. He put the three boys in the hospital. Despite the fact that he did the right thing, both her and Glenda were arrested for assault. In court, the judge took no lenience on Jim and sent him to juvenile detention detention. Glenda was deeply upset by this, but Jim told her that he’ll be fine. Once his sentence was up, Roberta went to pick up her son that winter. On their way home, Jim saw a kid get pelted in the face with a snowball thrown by some bullies. Regardless of the fact that he just got out of trouble for fighting, Jim stepped in to defend this kid even though it landed him back in juvie for another six month stretch. Finishing her story, Roberta tells Strongbow that no matter how many times you smack him down, her son will get back up and keep on fighting.
That’s when War Machine enters the house and American Eagle notices that Jim has used his motorcycle to repair his armor. Jason tells Jim that he’ll wait for him outside and exits the house. There he finds Jim’s support crew — Bethany Cabe, Parnell Jacobs, Glenda Sandoval, Jake Oh, and Suzi Endo — waiting outside their transport with guns drawn. They won’t surrender without a fight, but American Eagle’s enhanced strength means that they’ll have a hard time stopping him.
Inside, Roberta slaps her son across the face as she is upset with the fact that she is always defending her son’s actions. As she gets ice for her hand, Jim explains that his cybernetics have plugged him into a huge database of war crimes and that he can’t let these atrocities go unpunished. This is why all the people he is accused of killing had to die. He can’t help himself. Roberta, looking out the window and seeing Glenda disagrees with her son. It’s not the implants compelling him to do this, it’s the fact that Jim always bled for the helpless. That’s when Glenda comes in with Jake after his nose was broken by American Eagle.
Glenda sees that Jim is arguing with his mother and tells her that they are currently going to war against the United States after their own government was responsible for the death of over 600 people in Aquaria.[4] She tells Roberta that Jim had come to make peace with his mother before what will likely turn out to be a suicide mission. Roberta tells Sandoval to save her speech because she knows the real reason why her son came to her home. She opens a secret door revealing a huge cache of weapons that Jim had stashed there.
Moments later, an armed up War Machine steps outside of the house. American Eagle tries to stop him from leaving. He is able to perry all of War Machine’s attacks and smash open his armor. However, it turns out he wasn’t fighting Jim Rhodes at all, but Jake Oh disguised as Jim and realizes that this was all a distraction. Looking up in the sky, Strongbow sees the real War Machine flying away. Moments later, Jim launches an attack at nearby Mackleroy Army Base.
Recurring Characters
War Machine, American Eagle, Bethany Cabe, Parnell Jacobs, Glenda Sandova, Jake Oh, Suzie Endo, Roberta Rhodes
Continuity Notes
The narration at the top of the story gives us a brief rundown of things that American Eagle has accomplished in his career as a superhero. They are:
Arm wrestled the Thing and knocked Ka-Zar to the ground with a single blow: These two events happened in American Eagle’s first appearance in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #6.
It is also stated that he crippled Bullseye. This was during the American Eagle’s fight with the Thunderbolts in Thunderbolts #112-115.
2. War Machine’s kill count happened in the following issues:
He killed Roxxon CEO Anton Aubuisson in Dark Reign: New Nation #1.
The deaths of the Santo Marco soldiers happened in War Machine (vol. 2) #1.
The Eaglestar International CEO was Davis Harmon, who was shot in the head by Glenda Sandova in War Machine (vol. 2) #3. However, Davis somehow survived and will resurface as a cyborg in Storm (vol. 3) #4.
3. Now we get some of Jim Rhodes’ greatest hits as a soldier and War Machine. Here are the details on these references:
Fighting in the Sin-Cong Conflict: Per Iron Man #144, Rhodes was first depicted in the military and was the one who found Tony Stark shortly after he first became Iron Man (circa Tales of Suspense #39). This was originally set during the Vietnam War, but as the Sliding Timescale would prematurely age the character, the conflict Jim was involved in has since been retroactively changed to the Sin-Cong Conflict in War Machine (vol. 2) #1. The Sin-Cong Conflict is a fictional war that was created to account for Modern Age characters who were originally associated with the Vietnam War that were affected in this way.
War Machine rescued Vincent Cetewayo from Imaya in War Machine #1-4.
Jim attempted to arrest Black Panther and Storm during their state visit to the White House after Storm refused to register under the Superhuman Registration Act, a law that required American superhumans register with the government. That happened in Black Panther (vol. 4) #22. This law came to pass in Civil War #3 and remains on the books until Siege #4.
4. These Aqarian people were killed Glenda and others were briefly infected with a techno-virus created using Ultimo tech being developed by Eaglestar. See War Machine (vol. 2) #1-5.
Topical References
American Eagle is depicted as having a “flip” style cell phone with physical buttons and a tiny screen. These style of phones were still quite popular in 2009 when this story was originally published. However, they have since fallen out of common use thanks to the advent of the smart phone. As such, its depiction here should be considered topical.
Roberta Rhodes is depicted as having a CRT television in her home. This is another topical reference as this technology is now obsolete.
