Looking for information on a War Machine comic book

[dieseltorque]

was going through my old comic books and came across a War machine comic book that I have and would like to find out more about what happened to lead up to this comic. Like comic numbers. I really love how Warmachine looks in this issue too. 20150429_081235.jpg




it is issue 23 from April 1996

any information would be great and thank you in advance

[Coreth]

As I recall, that was the last issue of that run, so there was quite a bit that led up to it; I'll try to fill in what I can from memory here.

Due to an experience with time travel, his original, Stark-built War Machine armor was lost in time. That adventure also led to the issues he and his friend Sheva were having with some kind of temporal stress that's referred to in this issue. Without the armor, Rhodey went on a "vacation" where he met some kind of temporal agent (I always thought she'd been related in some way to Kang, but there's holes in that theory, and the whole mystery there was never answered) who kind of guided him to an alien weapon-the Eidolon Warwear. This was around issue 18, although the vacation began in 17 (I think).

This was done because that agent had foreseen the events of the Crossing (the less said about that, the better), and knew that Rhodey would have to come up against Iron Man. Her expectation was that he would kill Stark, but he refused at the moment of truth-and got blasted for his efforts. At the end of the whole Crossing mess (the issue before the one you have there), Rhodey encountered someone else with their own suit of Warwear, and that was where readers got a bit more info on the Eidolon, but there wasn't much.

There was a subplot going on at the time how Rhodey was also dating an old flame of Stark's, and his mother had issues with that; I don't know if that came into play in this issue (it's amazing I can remember what I do after nearly 20 years). The whole secret relative thing kind of came out of nowhere (I think that was mentioned in the book; I don't THINK she was the same one who was killed in Priest's "The Crew" but it's been a while).

If memory serves, Rhodey sacrificed the Warwear to wipe out old Iron Man armors and data, and somehow he didn't age to death like Sheva did in the issue you have there; I never got the issue where that happened, so can't confirm any of that; I want to say it happened after the Onslaught event, but I could be way off. And that was the last we'd heard of the Eidolon aliens that had created the Warwear (to my knowledge, anyway); it would've been interesting to follow up on, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I believe as far as issue numbers go, the Warwear era covers that run of War Machine, issues 17-23, and also during the Crossing issues of Force Works; I don't THINK it showed up in the Crossing issues of Iron Man, but I've done my best to forget most of that event (and the actual issue numbers elude me-but Force Works was near the end of its run, too). And hopefully someone else can point out where the Warwear had its last hurrah.

[JLS Comics]

Here is #1-25 with a brief synopsis of each issue
http://marvel.wikia.com/War_Machine_Vol_1

[dieseltorque]

Ty TY TY this made my day thank you so much