The best part of attending Sunday?s Iron Man junket in New York was hearing actor Terrence Howard?who plays the best friend and military liaison of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Robert Downey Jr.?s Iron Man)?describe how big a fan he was of the Saturday morning X-Men cartoon that ran on Fox Kids back in the 90s. Ah, yes. It?s always a good day when an Oscar winner comes out as a geek? Howard also showed his fanboy creds when he described how he?d like his character to get his own suit of armor in the potential Iron Man sequels, and evolve into War Machine?the superhero he became in the comic books?

So how much of the fantasy experience about this film do you enjoy?

You have to enjoy that entire walk. There's a book by John Bradshaw called Healing the Shame That Binds You, and it speaks about toxic shame and the effects it ultimately has on individuals. As a result of toxic shame, we create false persons and false identities that we hide behind. Either they're superhuman or less than human because we feel like we're inadequate as ourselves to be the person we're supposed to be. So we hide behind something else, and when the false person takes over one's identity that's called soul murdering. We do that pretty much everyday, most of us when we go to work, we put on a false person everyday. We get well practiced at that, and sometimes that person shows up in front of our kids and in front of everyone else. So we want to be a superhero and try to do something beyond that, I think the greatest superhero is somebody who can just be themselves and accept themselves as who they are. That's Robert Downey Jr. right now to me?completely transparent. His entire world has been exposed for so long that, as an actor and as a human being, he doesn't walk into a room thinking that you think any more of him than what he is. He doesn't think anything more of anybody else in here because everybody else is hidden behind something, but he has the benefit of having his curtain pulled. So he's free. As an actor he's absolutely free. He's a superhero without even knowing that he is. I want to be that transparent.

This seems like a very different character for you. Did you try to go for something very different with this character?

You spend a month and a half on a United States Air Force base?that indoctrination is real. You do become part of the ?we? mentality. The ?I? disappears, the ?me? is no longer in existence. It is literally ?we.? I used to run before, but running every morning with them for those five miles and the cadence that you're singing?at first you're like "This is fun," and then you begin to measure the miles by the cadence that you're on. And you're no longer thinking about the words you're saying. You're being indoctrinated, until? When we got to set and I have the Department of Defense and three or four Air Force people around me, I felt uncomfortable except for when I was with the military. You reach that place.

It's definitely different from any other role you?ve been in.

It's a strange thing that happens, I always wondered, ?How do these boys go over there?? Somebody says, ?Run behind that wall and take that gun and tear it down?...?Fuck you, I aint goin nowhere!? [Laughs.] That's what I've always thought. But after being there, I think in another six weeks I'd have ran right over that.

Speaking of being indoctrinated, as a kid were you a comic book fan? Did you have any favorites?

Yeah. Hustler, Playboy, Penthouse, those were good comics. [Laughs.] My dad kept the comic books right where he kept his porno magazines so it wasn't that hard to find. But he had Iron Man. He kept that around too, so I looked at that. But those were his collectibles and we weren't supposed to really touch them, so was Penthouse but we looked at them too. I loved the comics when they came on TV though. When X-Men came on TV I watched that from maybe 14 years old to 28, honestly. I still sit up and watch it on Saturday morning, right there glued to the TV. We'd get up and watch that and Life with Louie and The Tick. When The Tick went off and X-Men went off?it was a wrap after that.

How much did you learn from working with Robert?

I've learned to be a little more courageous with him. Robert would sit up and say whatever comes to mind without any fear (and it's a beautiful word) of being reproached at all, he had no fear of that. Me, I still gauge some of the things that I'm going to say. I never felt as honest as he was. I felt if I gave 70% of the truth then that was good enough. I've never been faced with 100% honesty. No matter what I would say he would trump it, which maybe comes as a result of having been completely exposed. He kept encouraging me to be even more free. He said "You've let this huge monster out of you. I wish you could see you the way I do." I look forward to seeing me the way that he does one day. I'm still growing.
You look at the [Iron Mark II] armor and say "Next time, baby." When are we gonna see you get into that suit?? It's been alluded to already?

When Rhodey continues in his emotional evolution. He has to be willing to take off this suit as a colonel of the United States Air Force first, and that is a hard thing to let go of. Especially with the indoctrination. Tony has already let go of his billionaire suit that he wore, the money-hoarding individual. You gotta get naked to get in that suit. Rhodey has to get naked first. That's where Tony is winning now, you think Tony is being cool about Rhodey. Tony is still pulling Rhodey up, saying "You don't see it as clearly as I see it now, but here take a look." Rhodey's killed one-thousand people in his planes, dropped bombs, and bears no responsibility for it. But when that comes to face him?which hopefully they will do once Rhodey puts on the helmet that Tony has?that's been geared towards his pattern and picks up on some of the things that frighten Tony, his responsibility for things that he's done. The computer in that helmet records the brain waves and begins to jar Rhodey, and change is happening in him. He'll be a little more human.

Were you there any of the days where Robert had to deal with the suit stuff to see what he had to go through? And what you might have to go through?

No, I wasn't gonna see my child get circumcised either. [Laughs.] I didn't wanna see none of that. Give me a couple of drinks and I'll sit there and y?all can make the suit for me. What I would have them do for me is just make a full-body cast of me, and have that as a mannequin, and make it to fit this mannequin. That's what I would do. I don't think Robert demanded that yet. Robert isn't as smart as me sometimes. [Laughs.]

Have Jon [Favreau] and you discussed your character arc and how you guys would like to see it go through all three films?

The question is whether we will take the time to put on the Iron Man suit first, and then have to fight with Iron Man to take it off me and ultimately build a new suit for Rhodey, or will they go right into the second one with them building the suit. I would prefer to wait until the third one, to let it grow a little bit. And then after the third one it can go into its own franchise of War Machine, later on. I don't want to introduce War Machine too soon, for my own monetary benefit. [Laughs.]

Your character in the comic books was definitely introduced in the later in the run. In building the friendship, at what point in the process did they come up with that?

Well, they hired Rhodey first. They cast Rhodey before casting Iron Man. In their minds, there were already steps towards the franchise, and that link in the chain of events towards that franchise which was being established. That's the only thing I could get from it. I haven't sat down with any official documents?"Okay, here's some official documents, sign this and we're gonna do this, that and the other." But the directors were very intent on putting that line in the movie?"Next time, baby." That was their motivation, without me sitting there and asking for anything.

I think it was Jon who said he could see you playing Iron Man as well, with the different ways of having Iron Man come off. Do you think you could have played Iron Man?

Yeah, I think I'd have made a better one. [Laughs.] I could have. His sensibilities would have been a lot different. I don't know if he would have been as free-thinking and freeform as Robert's Iron Man though. Robert has a comparative nature, that?s because he's been a child of privilege. He knows what that life is like, in having his father, he's always been talented. He's always been recognized for his talent. He's been kind of led through the world a little bit. That he can take into Iron Man. Me, I've had to fight so much that it makes me a little more suited to become War Machine. Someone that's always bulldozing right through something; strategizing, but bulldozing through it. But I think they made a really good choice. For a little while, people thought I was going to be Iron Man, and it didn't hurt my career at all. [Laughs.]