It looks like Colonel James Rhodes will once again be donning the Iron Patriot suit in “Avengers: Age of Ultron”! At least, that’s the story being reported by multiple sources.
In a story in USA Today about Don Cheadle’s Golden Globe nomination, it was mentioned in passing that the actor will play a role in the upcoming sequel to the mega-blockbuster, “Marvel’s The Avengers”:
“…since he just wrapped the latest season of his Showtime series House of Lies, has a part to film in the next Avengersmovie and then over the next few months will prepare to star in and direct a highly-anticipated Miles Davis biopic.”
This news was followed later by HitFix confirming the story, but there has yet to be any official word from Marvel.
Of course, to what extent Col. Rhodes appears in the film is anyone’s guess, but I don’t think anyone would be surprised to see him actually suit up and fight along side the Avengers against the villain, Ultron. Or perhaps, Col. Rhodes may be unable to don the armor due to a certain nefarious, sentient computer program taking it over, as theorized by our own Andy (aka CitizenBot):
Makes sense. Because ostensibly he would have the only existing Iron Man suit on the planet. And since it seems like every movie his suit has to get hijacked by someone else. . .then Ultron hijacking the War Machine/Iron Patriot makes a lot of sense.
While Andy’s theory actually makes a lot of sense to me, I would still love at some point to see Iron Patriot fighting along side the Avengers. One of my few gripes with “The Avengers” was Rhodey’s absense during the Battle of New York. You would think that hell or high water couldn’t keep him away from helping fight an alien invasion on the biggest city in America, it would have been a lot of fun and made a lot of sense to at least have him fly in for support during this climax.
Another consideration is that Robert Downey, Jr. is most likely hanging up his Iron Man armor soon, so we may have an exit in one form or another of Tony Stark and Iron Man. Perhaps Rhodes will join up in an official capacity to fill that “Man in a Tin Can” role? No matter the capacity, I’m a big fan of Cheadle’s Colonel Rhodes and will be excited to see him play a part in the Avengers next great fight to save the world.