War Machine’s Alien Armor Was His Worst Attempt to Distance Himself from Iron Man

Though he arguably has the cooler armor, War Machine has always been an Iron Man character. Nevertheless, there was a time when the two were growing rather distant and were not quite the best friends that they usually were. This resulted in Rhodey losing his War Machine armor, and replacing it with something far, far weirder.

The Eidolon Warwear System was an intergalactic “war machine” in its own right, symbiotically bonding with Rhodey to replace his lost armor. The look was utterly unlike anything that the character or Tony Stark had ever worn, and it obviously didn’t last long. Though likely an attempt to push War Machine away from the soon-to-be toxic Iron Man brand, it ultimately failed to be anything but forgotten.

War Machine’s Alien Armor Turned Him Into Venom

The alien War Machine armor debuted in War Machine #18, and was created by Dan Abnett and Fred Haynes. The suit showed up when James "Rhodey" Rhodes was at odds with his current path, having recently lost the War Machine armor. At odds with Tony Stark, he didn't even think to ask for another version of his old armor before his strangest armor crashed into his life. Rhodey had met a woman named Skye, who seemed to know both a lot about him and a mysterious object that merges with him to become a sort of biomechanical armor. Created by the Eidolon alien race, this weapon responded to the user's thoughts, as well as being bonded to their very life force. Now once again in the role of War Machine, Rhodey began to take to the stars and face new threats such as the villain Dirge.

Bonded to the weapon, War Machine was now much more like the symbiote Venom or Valiant Comics character X-O Manowar than Iron Man. This extended to their neural link, with damage to the armor also affecting Rhodey. Thankfully, the Eidolon armor had all manner of gadgets that Stark's tech didn't, such as self-healing and other high-tech properties. It even allowed Rhodey to face his former boss and friend Iron mano-a-mano from the infamous storyline, The Crossing. The aftermath of this would see Rhodey sacrifice the armor by using it as a sort of virus to deactivate Tony's old tech and keep it out of enemy hands. Since then, it's never even been remembered by way of a mere collectible, showing how much of a failed concept it was.

War Machine’s Alien Armor Was a Failed Character Rebrand

Back in the '90s, many of Marvel's Avengers characters, namely Iron Man, were in dire straits. With a resident webslinger and a gaggle of merry mutants essentially all keeping the company afloat, readers couldn't care less about Iron Man, let alone his spin-off sidekick War Machine. This all culminated in the aforementioned The Crossing, where Iron Man was made into a villain. Thus, the arguably cooler looking War Machine had to be given some distance from the Iron Man property to survive the proverbial hit.

Of course, it didn't help, with the equally infamous Heroes Reborn rebooting the Avengers characters at the hands of former Marvel creators like Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld. After this experiment was over, nothing from the previous years beforehand was ever addressed again, including War Machine's alien armor. It was likely the fact that it looked nothing like the classic War Machine that had set the character apart from Iron Man in the first place. Likewise, trying to make him a completely distinct character was doomed to fail, as, for better or worse, War Machine was always going to be another armor in Tony Stark's arsenal.