Between his Emmy-nominated cameo appearance in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and the recent confirmation that he will appear in Secret Invasion, Don Cheadle looks set to have a busy next few years in the MCU. After the latter Disney+ series, the actor will return as War Machine in a show the character is expected to take centre stage in: Armor Wars.
Does all of this mean Tony Stark's best friend is being set up as the MCU's new Iron Man?
There's precedent for that in the comic books, of course, but Cheadle was quick to shoot down speculation about War Machine taking Tony's place during a recent interview at D23.
"I don’t know. I mean, I think that Rhodey is his own dude. I don’t think that anyone can really step into Tony Stark [and] Iron Man's shoes," the actor explains in the video below. "I think he did that as well as anyone could ever do it. But I think we’re going to learn a lot more about what Rhodey does want, and who he is, and what his sort of place, and the firmament of MCU will ultimately be."
He'd conclude by adding, "I honestly don’t know that much more than what you know."
War Machne has definitely played a bigger role in the MCU than many fans expected, but if anyone is going to be the "new Iron Man," we have to believe it will be Riri Williams, a.k.a. Ironheart. How her journey will intersect with Rhodey's remains to be seen, but it would be a real shock for her to not factor into Armor Wars somehow.
What we do know is that Iron Man's death has left a huge void in the MCU, and there are likely to be a lot of heroes and villains now looking to fill it. The Department of Damage Control has already misappropriated his drones to hunt young superhumans, and we do wonder if Sentinels will ultimately be Stark tech.
Check out the full interview with Cheadle below:
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