10 Big MCU Revelations That Didn’t Come From The Movies
3. Why War Machine Didn't Help In New York
One of the problems with creating a cinematic universe is that it's hard to consistently explain why character X didn't show up in movie Y. Why didn't the other Avengers help out in Iron Man 3? In Captain America: The Winter Soldier? In Thor: The Dark World?
These are understandable questions, and while not all of them have answers (in-universe ones, anyway: the real-world answer is boring stuff like money and contracts), some do: for example, Rhodey's whereabouts during the Battle of New York in The Avengers are explained in the Iron Man 3 prelude comic.
The first issue reveals that, between Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3, Rhodey spent several months flying around the world investigating the shady Ten Rings organisation - the same people who captured Tony in the first movie.
While Tony was fighting the Chitauri in New York, Rhodey was stuck in Hong Kong dealing with a problem of his own.
He says that even at supersonic speeds, it would take him an hour to reach New York. We don't know exactly how long the Battle of New York lasted, but Rhodey would probably have missed all the action even if he had decided to fly there.