War Machine #1

I've always had a soft spot for Jim Rhodes and that awesome black and silver armor. I started really digging Rhodes back when he was flying the red and gold Iron Man rig while Tony was jetting around in the Silver Centurion armor. Since I'm not ever going to get the two armored Avengers active in those suits again, War Machine and Iron Man are the closest I can get. I'm really trying to stick to trades these days, but Greg Pak writing a character I love was too hard to pass up. With New Avengers going to 3.99 I had a spot to fill in my sublist, and here I am. The first issue has WM facing off against a retro-fitted Sentinel that has been programmed for ethnic cleansing. It's a neat idea, and there is a lot of satisfaction in watching WM obliterate it. The book bounces into some flashbacks showing Bethany Cabe (Tony's old GF) setting up Rhodes' current cyborg look after an encounter with some bombers. She drives the plot point that Rhodes needs to get out of his cyborg look and turn into a normal man, or he will deal with "physical, mental, and moral problems." That's a neat high concept! Rhodes ends up wrangling the "evil" War Machine into helping him in his cause of "killing all the bad guys." The issue has a pretty twisted ending that ties it right in to Dark Reign and the greater Marvel Universe.

Leonardo Manco hasn't been around for awhile, but his gritty realistic style are perfect for the military-style superheroics in this comic. War Machine looks great, but more importantly the soldiers and weapons look right too.

Good