WAR MACHINE #11 (1995): Rhodey goes public

The first seven pages of this issue recap the first ten issues of this series and, you know what? If you just read those pages you really won’t have missed anything. It’s not that this series is bad–it’s fine. It’s just that very little happens. It’s mostly meaningless dialogue and big action sequences with lots of things blowing up and people yelling.

Mostly Rhodey. In prior issues he got mad about totalitarian leaders, racism, and isolationism. This issue he yells because an executive in his company experiences bias for being gay.

She is outed as a result of some stuff you don’t care about. In response, Rhodey outs himself as War Machine.

LAUGHING

I really don’t get the joke here.

I appreciate that we’re trying to talk about a social issue and avoid all the fights-and-explosions I just commented on above, but it’s just not done well. But it’s the Christmas issue, so the bigots are vanquished and everyone loves each other.

Rhodey doesn’t wear the armor at all in this issue. Not a complaint, just a note. Again, I appreciate the attempt to make this a book about James Rhodes and not just about boom-fight-crash, but the team isn’t good enough to pull it off.

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