Don Cheadle teases how Tony Stark’s death impacts ‘Armor Wars’

By the time Armor Wars finally comes to Disney Plus, it’ll mark Don Cheadle’s 13th time playing James Rhodes across film, television, animation, and video games, but the very first time he’ll be taking center stage in a project all of his own.

Naturally, many were left questioning whether War Machine and his civilian alter ego would be rendered irrelevant in the aftermath of Tony Stark’s death, but a key supporting role in Secret Invasion looks to be assuaging those doubts long before he flies solo in his own Disney Plus show.

News on Armor Wars has been very hard to come by, though, with unfounded rumors even questioning whether or not the series had been quietly canned, but we did get a couple of informative nuggets dropped at yesterday’s D23 Expo. Although he obviously couldn’t say too much, Cheadle teased to ComicBook how the death of Rhodey’s longtime best friends influences the character on a personal and professional level.

“[Rhodey] will be at a very different place in a way that is something that I can’t talk about, but it’s going to very surprising to a lot of people. And the great thing is there’s just going to be so much opportunity to learn a lot about him and for him to learn about himself and for us, hopefully, to really be able to get behind what makes him tick.

I think that’s what’s the fun of it, how expansive it can be. We don’t lose the old character, but we bring in new characters, then we get to bring the newer and older characters together and that creates its own sort of thing. So that’s the most fun of being in these shows, the opportunity to cross-pollinate each other’s projects and find ways that these relationships continue to work and conflicts that we continue to cook up, and I think they do a great job of it, always making it interesting, exciting, and things you can’t really anticipate.”

The comic book run of the same name revolves around Stark Industries tech falling into the wrong hands, which forces Rhodey into action to prevent an international incident. That’s all we’ve got to on, but Walton Goggins’ Sonny Burch is widely expected to return, while those Justin Hammer rumors haven’t gone away, either.

San Diego Comic-Con and D23 may have passed without much news on the Armor Wars front, but fingers crossed that things kick into high gear sooner rather than later.