War Machine crossovers: Civil War II and others

This file requires more severe sorting than the others. The character has the particularity of being always available: military, disciplined, equipped, with no ongoing personal intrigue. The authors of events therefore use it constantly, and almost always as reinforcement.

The criterion applied here is therefore unique: does the event place it at center, or does it mobilize it?

The only one where he is in the center

Civil War II (2016)

La dead by James Rhodes opens the event and triggers the clash between two camps of heroes.

This is the only crossover in his entire career where he is not a participant but the cause. For thirty-seven years he had been someone's second-in-command; his disappearance becomes the engine of a major conflict.

This corpus highlights the irony without complacency: it was by dying that this character obtained the centrality that was not granted to him while alive. The process is common in periodical publishing - secondary characters often serve as stakes rather than actors - and it is never flattering to those who benefit from it.

To aim for: the first issue of the main series. Recent and widely used: its importance is real, its rarity zero. Purchase of reading, not placement.

Those where he is mobilized

Civil War (2006)

The conflict over the legal framework for vigilantes. Rhodes takes a position there, which is consistent with his military status — he is one of the rare characters for whom the question of legal authority is not abstract.

Its role remains secondary, but the event is the one that best corresponds to what it is.

Secret Invasion (2008) and subsequent period

An extraterrestrial infiltration, then a reorganization of security institutions. Context favorable to the character, whose institutional dimension takes on importance in the stories of this period.

It is also in this wake that his best modern solo series appears.

Cosmic events of the 1990s

The decade multiplied large-scale crossovers, where War Machine regularly appeared among the forces involved.

⚠️ All belong to the period of overproduction: considerable print runs, abundant and well preserved copies. These are excellent reading buys and very poor investments. The collections are more rational than the fascicles.

The question of the “always available character”

This file allows us to expose an editorial mechanism that this corpus had not yet formulated, and which applies to an entire category of characters.

An event author needs competent extras: characters that can be summoned without disturbing anything, because they have no ongoing personal plot and no other author will complain that they have been borrowed.

War Machine corresponds exactly to this profile: military therefore mobilizable, equipped therefore useful, without long series therefore without continuity to respect.

The consequences for the collector are twofold and opposite.

Unfavorable: his appearances in events are numerous and without significance. A seller who offers “twenty issues War Machine” often offers twenty issues where he appears without anything happening to him.

Favorable: these same appearances are never reported, and therefore never valued. A collector who knows where it is listed puts together a substantial set at a bargain price.

Collection strategy

Prioritize Civil War II, the only event where he is the subject — buying to read, not to speculate.

Add Civil War (2006) for consistency with its military dimension.

Treat the 1990s in collections. Nothing in this decade justifies a purchase of booklets on this character.

Look for unreported apparitions in team titles. It is here, and nowhere else, that knowledge of the catalog produces a real advantage on this issue.

As always, condition and gradation determine value; relying on real recent sales is strongly recommended.

Find the complete selection in ourkey numbersand ourtier list of key issues.