A major Avengers hero made famous by the MCU has just debuted a brand-new redesign and codename, emerging from the transformation more powerful than ever before. Here’s how it happened.
James Rhodes’ War Machine Becomes the ANTI-WAR MACHINE
In today’s The Ultimates #20 – from Deniz Camp, Phil Noto, Edgar Delgado and Travis Lanham – the fight continues between the Ultimate Network and the Maker’s Regime. With their communication network down, the Ultimates are left flailing, and the Hulk (one of Maker’s chief lieutenants) sics the entire Helicarrier fleet on Detroit.
Thanks to time travel, the Vision has been preparing for this exact fight since 1947. Underneath Detriot, the Ultimates Network has constructed a gigantic mech codenamed the Anti-War Machine. By the time the fight ends, the Maker’s fleet has been reduced from 1189 ships to just 389, and Detroit remains free.
The Anti-War Machine is a towering new take on James Rhodes’ War Machine, and indeed Rhodey is at the helm of this new machine. However, he’s not alone – the Anti-War Machine has an army of pilots, working together in “collaboration on a scale not seen since the moon landing.”
Detroit was the first city freed from the Maker’s regime, and it stays free thanks to thousands of normal people working behind the scenes, reclaiming their labor, their community and their home.
Our Take on War Machine’s Transformation
As has been the case throughout the new Ultimate Universe imprint, the use of Detroit in the story is a comment on real-world politics. As Vision observes, the collapse of the automotive industry left hundreds of thousands disenfranchised and resulted in the city’s bankruptcy, often held up as a prominent failure of capitalism.
Having the Ultimates Network working out of Detrioit is another prompt from the series to see the Maker’s regime as a metaphor for the current state of real-world politics and the need for change.
War Machine’s transformation is a major statement about the series’ political themes, and a symbol of what normal people can do when they work together for the common good. The Ultimate Universe‘s new reimagining of the Avengers has introduced some drastically reimagined heroes, but the Anti-War Machine is the most meaningful yet.
The Ultimates #20 is available now from Marvel Comics.
- Writer
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Brian Michael
- Publisher(s)
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Marvel