The smashing success of Deadpool & Wolverine notwithstanding, a lot of people think the MCU isn’t quite what it used to be. It’s certainly true that the franchise has been trying to find itself in the post-Avengers: Endgame productions, and while I think a lot of what we’ve seen in the last few years is perfectly good, I’m probably not alone in the feeling that the low point so far was probably Secret Invasion.
The Disney+ Marvel series that starred Samuel L. Jackson was disappointingly bad. It simply told a story that was more boring than interesting. It killed off Maria Hill seemingly just for the shock value of it. It only had one interesting story element, and now it looks like there’s a significant question as to whether that will ever get paid off.
Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes had a significant role in Secret Invasion. At the time, we knew we’d see Rhodes again in the planned Armor Wars Disney+ series. However, since it was announced Armor Wars would be a film rather than a series, we’ve heard nothing about it. Speaking with TVLine, even Cheadle knows nothing about its status, making the series a big question mark. The actor said…
Yeah. I think the word that’s the most salient in that sentence is ‘switched.’ [Laughs] I don’t know, I’m not sure where anything is right now. I think things are going through a lot of changes, and we’ll see what happens, we’ll see what it is.
Midway through Secret Invasion we learned that James Rhodes was a Skrull in disguise. In the final episode, the real Rhodes was rescued. While it was unclear just how long he had been a captive, the implication was that Rhodes had been there for a long time. He may have been replaced following the paralyzing injury he received in Captain America: Civil War, meaning the War Machine we saw in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame wasn’t really him.
Whatever is going on with the character, Don Cheadle says that the plan when the Skrull idea was presented to him was that what happened in Secret Invasion would be setting the table for Armor Wars, but now that Armor Wars is a big question mark, it makes Secret Invasion even more frustrating if the pay off never happens. Even Cheadle would seem to agree, saying…
Uh… you know, there was no… it wasn’t a demand. It was a request. ‘What do you think about playing this?’ And it was to set up stuff in the following thing. So, if the following thing happens, and all those things were set up, then that’s one thing. If, as you said, it doesn’t, then we can talk about how I feel about it after!
Marvel had two big opportunities to talk Armor Wars this past summer, with major presentations at both SDCC and D23. But the series or movie (or whatever it is) was never brought up. It’s unclear if the project is even still in development or if it has just been dropped. Hopefully, the film will still happen so that this potentially interesting plot thread can be dealt with completely, rather than it becoming another Marvel idea that just gets dropped.
