In the Iron Man movies up to now, Jim Rhodes has always been sort of Tony’s conscience. That relationship between Rhodes and Tony is core to the franchise and the comic books. But he’s still best friends with Tony, so he’s always giving information to Tony behind-the-scenes and I think has been doing that since he got the suit in Iron Man 2. Rhodey, being a military man, does step into that, proudly. So, at the beginning of Iron Man 3, we see that the President has asked Rhodey as War Machine to get a new paint job and take on the new moniker of the Iron Patriot in order to do American business and be the American hero as opposed to The Avengers or Iron Man himself, who is sort of a separate entity. Tony has let Rhodey have this suit he’s using it in conjunction with the US Government. What we learn in the beginning of Iron Man 3 is that they’ve made an arrangement. When last we saw Jim Rhodes, played by Don Cheadle, he was flying away from Tony at the end of Iron Man 2 wearing the Mark 2 suit that he had taken from Tony’s house. Talk about Don Cheadle coming back as Rhodey and where we find him at the beginning of this film. Speaking exclusively to SciFiNow, Marvel Studios boss and Iron Man 3 executive producer Kevin Fiege revealed how Rhodey became Iron Patriot, and how the character’s relationship with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) has evolved… Don Cheadle as James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes in Iron Man 3