Secret Invasion: Don Cheadle Tried to Warn Us About Major War Machine Twist Last Year

Marvel fans are about to see a very different version of Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes in the MCU, as we all recently learned that the character we’ve been watching for several years isn’t actually the real Rhodey. It was revealed in Secret Invasion that Rhodey was a Skrull, and that the actual character has been in a form of hibernation since his near-death experience in 2016’s . What no one realized is that Cheadle has been hinting at this big twist for some time now.

Last September, at Disney’s D23 Expo, Cheadle spoke with ComicBook.com’s Brandon Davis about his starring turn in the upcoming . When asked about where Rhodey finds himself in Armor Wars, Cheadle heavily hinted at the War Machine twist from Secret Invasion, though it was impossible to tell at the time because the show hadn’t been released.

“At a very different place, and in a way that is something I can’t really talk about,” Cheadle said of his Marvel character. “But it is going to be very surprising to a lot of people.”

War Machine’s Twist Hidden in Plain Sight

As it turns out, Cheadle did a lot of hinting at Rhodey’s big Skrull twist over the last year or so. His comments seemed normal at the time, but Secret Invasion gives them a whole new context.

“We’re finding Rhodey, as you said, he’s someone who’s gone through a lot,” Cheadle said on Marvel’s Instagram in September. “That’s what’s the fun about doing the Armor Wars series is that we’re going to have an opportunity to really dig into that. What’s he dealing with emotionally? What’s he dealing with psychologically? So that’s why I said ‘yes’ to it, because I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to get to know him in a way that, even if that this many years we’ve known him, we really don’t know him.”

Cheadle also teased the Armor Wars story as a “rebirth” for Rhodey, during an interview with Entertainment Weekly last year.

“What does he want to do? What are his desires outside of the relationship with these people we’ve already seen? Who is he when he’s by himself?” Cheadle explained. “A lot of these things we haven’t seen before so there’s a good opportunity to explore that stuff and hopefully create a full character that now when we see the suit, we see everything else… It’s a rebirth in a way. It’s coming back to this character, but we’ve never gone to the places we’re about to go in the show, so I feel like in some ways we’re just getting to know him even after all this time.”

Marvel’s Armor Wars

At this time, there isn’t a release date for Armor Wars, and very little is known about the film outside of Cheadle’s involvement. It was originally planned as a Disney+ series but Marvel announced at D23 last year that it would be a feature film instead.

Are you excited to see what’s ahead for Rhodey in Armor Wars? Let us know in the comments!