U.S. War Machine

Chuck Austen might not be the worst comic book writer in history, but he certainly was given a whole hell of a lot of great comics for a long time considering how awful he's been since always. He wrote Uncanny X-Men for like two years, Avengers, JLA, Superman... Jesus Christ, it infuriates me to think about it! His "best" work is on the 12 issue maxiseries U.S. War Machine, an alternate reality sort of look at the character War Machine. War Machine is Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard in the movie Iron Man), one of Tony Stark's best friends, and in regular continuity took over the role of Iron Man while Stark was dead for a while, and eventually got his own suit of armor with a lot more guns, a way better color scheme, and named it War Machine. This trade envisions a world in which Rhodey is drafted by SHIELD to stop some white supremacist plan of killing all minorities everywhere. On paper it sounds good, but it actually is terrible, and one of the most racist things I've read in a comic. Thanks, Chuck Austen, white man, for relaying to me all the angst and misery that black people feel just for being black. The only reason I'm giving this piece of garbage any points at all (oh, I forgot how sexist it is, too - somehow Chuck Austen can draw a woman's nipples poking through any surface, including StarkTech armor), is because War Machine's armor always looks cool and there's some crazy stuff with an alternate reality Darkhawk in it. Boo, Chuck Austen, boo.

RATING: 19%