Last week a rumor circulated that Don Cheadle‘s James Rhodes, aka Rhodey, aka Iron Patriot, aka War Machine, aka the best part of Iron Man 3 (maybe I’m biased by my love of the Cheadlemeister, but it happens, OK?) would be in The Avengers: Age of Ultron. The rumor was particularly unfounded, so we kept it in the back of our The Mary Sue hivemind, hoping that it would come true but not daring to anticipate that The Cheads would put in an appearance lest we face the ultimate disappointment of having yet another Cheadle-less movie come out in 2015. (There are going to be far, far too many of them as it is.)
Turns out we needn’t have worried. The Don of Cheadleville will indeed be in The Avengers sequel. Now it’s your turn, Star Wars. You know what to do.
In an interview with USA Today about his Golden Globe nomination for House of Lies, Monsieur McCheadle mentioned that he’d be in The Avengers: Age of Ultron and thus made our hearts grow three sizes.
There’s no word on how big his part will be; HitFix reports that War Machine will have a “key role in the conflict with Ultron,” but that’s just a rumor. I’ve seen various sites suggest that Marvel is grooming the character as a replacement for Iron Man, since Robert Downey Jr.’s already done four movies, and Iron Man 3 set him up for a character transition of sorts. My first thought was that I didn’t quite buy that Marvel would do that… but, then again, they’re going to have to cycle out Iron Man eventually, right? Sure the MCU began with him, and sure he’s mega-popular, but RDJ’s not going to do these movies forever. And with all the new characters Marvel’s bringing in (the Guardians of the Galaxy, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, Ant-Man, likely the Wasp), I have to imagine that eventually Iron Man’s presence will have to be diminished.
Anyway, it’s still early days on that. If there are people more comics-knowledgeable than I who want to hash out whether Marvel will/can/should cut down on the Iron Man, the comments are open to you. I’ll just be sitting in a corner smiling because more Cheadster is never (never ever) a bad thing.
(via: io9)
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