Everyone in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a sidekick. Carol Danvers has Maria Rambeau, T’Challa has Okoye, Peter Parker has Ned Leeds, and Stephen Strange has Wong. But the most important MCU characters actually have two sidekicks. Thor has both Loki and Heimdall. Steve Rogers has both Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes. And Tony Stark has both James Rhodes and Happy Hogan. Rhodey is Tony’s long-time best friend, while Happy is his head of security (although, when Tony became a superhero, the job became redundant). Here are Tony Stark’s 5 Sweetest Moments With James Rhodes (And 5 With Happy Hogan).
Rhodey: Uniting forces against Whiplash (Iron Man 2)
Tony and Rhodey fall out in Iron Man 2, because Tony’s drinking starts to get the better of him, and also because Rhodey disagrees with Tony’s decision to withhold his Iron Man tech from the U.S. military. After a heated argument at Tony’s birthday party, Rhodey steals a suit of armor and takes it to the nearest Army base.
Later in the movie, he returns to Tony in that suit of armor to put their differences aside and team up to fight Whiplash. With Justin Hammer’s resources, Ivan Vanko built an army of robots and Tony needs Rhodey to help him beat the army.
Happy: The engagement ring (Spider-Man: Homecoming)
Tony Stark’s supporting role in Spider-Man: Homecoming meant that a couple of scenes could’ve just as easily been edited into an Iron Man 4. A prime example of this comes near the end of the film. In terms of Peter Parker’s journey, the scene revolves around Tony offering him a spot on the Avengers and Peter turning it down in favor of being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
But after Peter leaves, Tony takes center stage. Pepper Potts has a press conference assembled to announce Peter as the latest Avenger, and they’re waiting for a news story, so Tony asks Happy Hogan to give him an engagement ring he’s been carrying around since 2008.
Rhodey: Calming down Tony as he confronts Cap (Avengers: Endgame)
The trailers for Avengers: Endgame led fans to believe that Tony could die within the movie’s opening scenes. He was stuck in the middle of outer space with no fuel, no food, and no way to get home. So, fans didn’t expect him to make it — and more importantly, Tony didn’t expect himself to make it. Then, Captain Marvel showed up to save him, giving him a new lease on life.
He didn’t immediately see it as a blessing. At first, he placed the blame squarely on Cap and angrily confronted him. As Tony’s best buddy, Rhodey stepped in to calm him down.
Happy: Training in the ring (Iron Man 2)
Jon Favreau is primarily a director, having helmed Disney’s live-action remakes of The Jungle Book and The Lion King, but he got his start as an actor. He starred alongside Vince Vaughn in Swingers and had a recurring role in an early season of Friends. So, he usually gives himself supporting roles in his movies.
That’s why he plays Happy Hogan in the MCU — he directed the first two Iron Man movies. In the second one, we see Tony and Happy training together in the ring. Tony doesn’t box fairly, occasionally punching Happy in the face while they’re sparring, but it’s all in good fun.
Rhodey: Trying to lift Mjolnir (Avengers: Age of Ultron)
There’s a lot of stuff in Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron that fans were disappointed by, like the lengthy detour to Hawkeye’s farm, Ultron being a lackluster villain, and the fact that it mainly serves to set up future MCU movies.
But one of the great things Whedon did with the sequel was showing Earth’s mightiest heroes in their downtime. In the comics, we get a glimpse of the characters’ everyday lives, and we don’t often get to see that in big summer tentpole blockbusters. In Age of Ultron’s first act, the Avengers host a party in their tower. Rhodey tells Tony and Thor “a War Machine story,” and they pretend it’s interesting.
Happy: “Is this the forehead of security?” (Iron Man 3)
Tony and Happy have such a close relationship that they can be brutally honest with each other. Happy is nowhere near as tech-savvy as his boss/friend, and Tony takes any opportunity he can to point that out. In Iron Man 3, when Aldrich Killian comes into Stark Industries for a dubious meeting with Pepper Potts, Happy video-calls Tony to alert him of the suspicious behavior.
However, Happy isn’t very adept at video-calling and he holds the phone up too high, with the camera focusing on his forehead. So, Tony hilariously quips, “Is this the forehead of security?,” before putting him in the fridge.
Rhodey: Tony gives Rhodey state-of-the-art leg braces (Captain America: Civil War)
The airport battle in Captain America: Civil War didn’t claim any lives, but it did end in tragedy. The Vision shot a beam out of his head at the Falcon, but the Falcon dropped out of the way and the beam hit War Machine instead, sending him hurtling towards the ground.
This left Rhodey’s legs permanently damaged, and Tony expended a ton of money and resources to give his best friend a pair of state-of-the-art leg braces to help him walk again. And what’s even sweeter about this scene is that it shows Rhodey hasn’t lost his sense of humor, barbing Tony after the FedEx guy calls him “Tony Stank.”
Happy: Hospital visit (Iron Man 3)
When Happy follows a conspicuous associate of Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3, he ends up getting put in a coma by an Extremis explosion outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater. This is what kicks Tony’s fears about the Mandarin into top gear and leads him to do something stupid: reveal his home address to a powerful terrorist that wants to make an example out of him.
Tony is shaken up by the attack on Happy, and continues to visit him in the hospital. He even gets the staff to put Happy’s favorite show, Downton Abbey, on the TV in his room.
Rhodey: Tony’s dying moments (Avengers: Endgame)
Tony Stark’s death scene in Avengers: Endgame will remain one of the MCU’s most heartbreaking moments, even if it gets up to 300 movies, because it was the culmination of an emotional arc of character development that we’d been closely following for 11 years.
All of Tony’s closest loved ones, from Peter Parker (“We won, Mr. Stark!”) to Pepper Potts (“You can rest now…”), came to his side to say their goodbyes. Rhodey was the first one there, and he guided Peter away as Tony slipped into the light. Tony didn’t say a word during the death scene, which was Robert Downey, Jr.’s own suggestion to sell the gravity of the situation.
Happy: “I’ll get you all the cheeseburgers you want.” (Avengers: Endgame)
This isn’t technically a “Tony and Happy” moment; it’s a “Happy and Morgan” moment. But just because Tony isn’t physically there, it doesn’t mean he’s not still front and center. His presence looms large over this grieving duo on the day of Tony’s funeral in the closing moments of Avengers: Endgame.
Happy asks Morgan if she’s hungry and she says she wants cheeseburgers. Happy tells her that her dad liked cheeseburgers — it was the first thing he asked for when he returned to America from Afghanistan, where he’d been imprisoned in a cave with a box of scraps — and that he’d get her all the cheeseburgers she wanted.
