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Iron Man 3 All Hail the King

That's exactly why it isn't a retcon! Killian manufactured the Mandarin persona. IM3 never disputed this!

Some of y'all didn't like what they did and/or are continuing to do with The Mandarin. Some (by my count, "most") of us liked what they did and continue to like what they're doing with the character. This is completely fine. What are we even doing on a message board if everyone agreed with everything? But calling it a retcon is just objectively wrong.

Nah, man.
 
Watched this one-shot today, again it was very well done (I have actually liked the phase 2 one-shots more than the phase 2 movies) but it will be pointless if they dont actually do anything with it in the future, hopefully they do.
 
Ok, just saw this(thank you Youtube) since you need a !$&#%@ BluRay player to get any extra content these days(not cool, Marvel). I've thought all the previous One-Shots were....ok. They seemed kinda done on the cheap and not all that polished unlike the films but they served their purpose and I was glad to have them. But this one has some good style to it for the most part. It's really good and as a long time Iron Man fan since the early 80's I am glad they corrected themselves regarding Tony's arch-enemy. Of course they couldn't have done this at all unless they had left some windows open in IM3 to allow for this clarification. So the argument that this is just damage control is a false one. Sure, there's an element to it but it's nothing they didn't prepare for beforehand. They're smart like that. And I'm sure there'll be more Iron Man movies so we'll see Mandarin for real eventually. But I'd say not for the very next IM movie. We need a space between. Do Living Lazer, Madame Masque or Ghost(or combinations) in the next film and then do Mandy right in whatever they'll be calling IM5.
 
Totally agree, there's a reason for them to add this. There's a reason behind these one shots, it may only be for the superfans out there, but they wouldn't release these for no reason other than to make fans happy about a about they already paid to see in the theaters and probably bought on DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming. It's a bit more world building. Maybe they back up the money truck to Downey's house again for one last run as Iron Man between Avengers 2 and 3 or after 3 to pay off the Mandarin. Killian line in Iron Man 3 always seemed more like just telling what he wanted to hear. You want a villain, the mastermind, the Mandarin? It's me, I'm the threat!

That's how I saw it and always got annoyed when people would stick their fingers in their ears and link me to this youtube clip and fall back on MARVEL ARE PUSHOVERS THAT CAN'T STICK TO THEIR GUNS, THIS IS NOT CANON, THIS IS FOR THE SPERGLORDS!!!

When you consider the depiction and actions of the 10 rings in the first two films it is completely incongruent with how Killian's 10 rings are. Had it been Killian all along he wouldn't have blindly kidnapped to steal weapon tech, he'd have done him in then.
 
Outside of giving Vanko a passport in IM2, and that doesn't count b/c that was relegated to being named a 10 rings op in the titles, they had NO presence in IM2.
 
Outside of giving Vanko a passport in IM2, and that doesn't count b/c that was relegated to being named a 10 rings op in the titles, they had NO presence in IM2.


Was it just in a deleted scene?
Anyways the fact remains that if Killian had already been involved with the 10 Rings as of IM1 it wouldn't of made sense that he'd been oblivious to the fact that his men were tasked with the capture of the Tony Stark.

Not only was his focus the recreation of the SSS but his driving force was to humiliate and destroy Stark, so there is no way he would have let Stane dictate things once he actually had Tony, let alone waste his time reappropriating Stark Tech.

More likely Killian saw that the 10 Rings were an organization at the root of Tony's Iron Man persona, an organization that went back into the shadows after the Gulmira embarrassment and he conveniently appropriated the concept as a means to guarantee getting Starks undivided attention.
 
That's how I saw it and always got annoyed when people would stick their fingers in their ears and link me to this youtube clip and fall back on MARVEL ARE PUSHOVERS THAT CAN'T STICK TO THEIR GUNS, THIS IS NOT CANON, THIS IS FOR THE SPERGLORDS!!!

When you consider the depiction and actions of the 10 rings in the first two films it is completely incongruent with how Killian's 10 rings are. Had it been Killian all along he wouldn't have blindly kidnapped to steal weapon tech, he'd have done him in then.

Well, I think the interpretation of Killian as The Mandarin comes with the assumption that he had nothing to do with the original Ten Rings, he merely co-opted their iconography after they collapsed and essentially filled the void they left behind.
 
Well, I think the interpretation of Killian as The Mandarin comes with the assumption that he had nothing to do with the original Ten Rings, he merely co-opted their iconography after they collapsed and essentially filled the void they left behind.

I'm really interested in the expansion of the 10 rings mythology.
If the actual Mandarin is some sort of immortal power house then why is it that he would need involve himself in weapon thievery and other petty terrorist shennanigans?
 
I'm really interested in the expansion of the 10 rings mythology.
If the actual Mandarin is some sort of immortal power house then why is it that he would need involve himself in weapon thievery and other petty terrorist shennanigans?

Well, personally I'm not excited to see that at all and I hope we don't. I still stand by my belief that Aldrich Killian was the best possible movie adaptation of The Mandarin we could ever hope for, and any attempt to "fix" it with the "real" Mandarin is just going to be going downhill.
 
Well, personally I'm not excited to see that at all and I hope we don't. I still stand by my belief that Aldrich Killian was the best possible movie adaptation of The Mandarin we could ever hope for, and any attempt to "fix" it with the "real" Mandarin is just going to be going downhill.

But him being the Mandarin is completely incongruent with the 10 Rings that began to be established in IM1. Killian just appropriated the myth and the organization.

I don't see why you would be deadset on it ending with Killian who has served his purpose, the MCU franchises were never meant to be a series of done in 3 affairs. There is a wealth of material that spans decades and if there is a story to be told who are you to assume it will just go downhill?
 
But him being the Mandarin is completely incongruent with the 10 Rings that began to be established in IM1. Killian just appropriated the myth and the organization.

I don't see why you would be deadset on it ending with Killian who has served his purpose, the MCU franchises were never meant to be a series of done in 3 affairs. There is a wealth of material that spans decades and if there is a story to be told who are you to assume it will just go downhill?

Agreed. There is still room for a better more exciting version of Mandarin than another evil Scientist, one who used a goofy actor to pretend to be him lol.
 
Don't get me wrong, I do love the final product we have and am happy that the One-Shot wasn't actually backpedalling as some implied, it happened and it was great and now we can move on.

Guardians of the Galaxy has proven that audiences are willing to suspend disbelief if a quality product is the end result. So long as Tony doesn't defeat the real Mandarin by challenging him to a dance off I really won't mind something as incredulous as magic rings and FFF.
 
They should still just adapt the "Haunted" storyline if and when they do the real Mandarin. That portrayal of the Mandarin is still the best option for an adaption that is simultaneously faithful and wont come across as offensive. And it would allow them to revisit/further explore Extremis.
 
But him being the Mandarin is completely incongruent with the 10 Rings that began to be established in IM1. Killian just appropriated the myth and the organization.

Okay. So what? It's not like The Mandarin is the leader of the Ten Rings organization in the comics. The Ten Rings was made up for the movies.

Heck, it's thoroughly in-line with what The Mandarin did in the comics.

Just as The Mandarin in the comics stole ten literal rings to build his own power base, The Mandarin in the movie stole ten figurative rings, the terrorist organization, to build his own power base.

I don't see why you would be deadset on it ending with Killian who has served his purpose, the MCU franchises were never meant to be a series of done in 3 affairs. There is a wealth of material that spans decades and if there is a story to be told who are you to assume it will just go downhill?

Because it's going to come off as derivative and backpedaling. The Mandarin and the Ten Rings are done. Their story is over. We got everything out of them that we needed. Stretching it out would just be beating a dead horse.

It has nothing to do with suspension of disbelief and everything to do with dragging a narrative past the point where it should just end.
 
But that's like, your opinion man.
Obviously a new chapter has been started as of this One-Shot and it is only backpedalling if you are deadset on interpreting IM3 in a specific manner.

So far we've just seen Tony up against jealous business and tech rivals, seeing him up against some supernatural head of a terrorist organization would be unlike anything yet, hardly derivative.
 
But that's like, your opinion man.

Yes, yes it is.

Obviously a new chapter has been started as of this One-Shot and it is only backpedalling if you are deadset on interpreting IM3 in a specific manner.

So far we've just seen Tony up against jealous business and tech rivals, seeing him up against some supernatural head of a terrorist organization would be unlike anything yet, hardly derivative.

Except it's stretching out the whole "Mandarin" thing in a needlessly convoluted way. The fact is, Iron Man 3 already adapted and told the story of The Mandarin. Stretching that out and saying "No wait, we were just kidding, this is the real Mandarin" is just silly and overly complicated.

And yeah, it is still backpedaling. Iron Man 3 established The Mandarin to be a specific thing. Going back and saying "Oh wait no, The Mandarin actually is an immortal Chines sorcerer" is absolutely backpedaling.

I don't want to see the Marvel Cinematic Universe engage in the same nonsense of convoluted and unnecessary retcons that the comics are burdened with. That's the worst part of superhero comics, and I like to think of the movies as a fresh start where we can avoid those old mistakes.

As it stands now, "Hail to the King" is a cute little nod to some of the more vocal fans that sits in a tucked away corner of the MCU, not bothering anybody. I don't like it, because it sets a bad precedent of appeasing the more entitled aspects of the fandom, but at the end of the day it's there for the people who want it and easy to ignore for the people who don't. For the sake of the franchise, let us please keep it that way.
 
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Yet what IM3 established the Mandarin and by extent the 10 rings was incongruent with what had been shown in IM1. Well to be fair the Mandarin himself wasn't mentioned in IM1 but the 10 rings organization was a direct allusion to him.

Shane Black played fast and loose with the established continuity because obviously he didn't care much for anything else but what he was interested in doing, that's why he basically threw in a bunch of established characters unrelated in the least bit to their comic counterparts.

I see more the All Hail to the King as damage control rather than backpedalling because of the nonsensical shift the 10 rings took from IM1 to IM3, if Killian had anything to do with the first iteration then he'd of gotten involved before Tony even became Iron Man and we wouldn't have had much of a franchise.

As is it makes perfect sense that he simply appropriated the terrorist organization as a means to get Stark's undivided attention. The One-Shot doesn't feel like a cookie for entitled fans, it's just another step towards expanding their already rich universe.

I'm no writer, but I doubt you're one of great renown either and I'm sure that if Marvel went ahead with an expansion of the Mandarin storyline it wouldn't be done in a lazy fashion and could even be something worthy of Avengers if not Iron Man uniquely.

Honestly the MCU can't use many of Marvel's best villains because they are tied up in the Fantastic Four franchise and to everything else Fox and Sony own, they aren't closing things up on trilogies either if Feige is to be believed so a character like Mandarin would be a great asset and could be done much better than pseudo-Mandarin in IM3.
 
Yet what IM3 established the Mandarin and by extent the 10 rings was incongruent with what had been shown in IM1.

No it wasn't. The Ten Rings was a terrorist organization in Iron Man 1. Either Aldrich Killian founded it, or he appropriated their iconography and took over the remnants of it after the organization was crippled as a result of Iron Man attacking them and Obidiah Stane murdering their leadership. What's incongruous about that?

Well to be fair the Mandarin himself wasn't mentioned in IM1 but the 10 rings organization was a direct allusion to him.

Yes. And? How is that incongruous with what we got in Iron Man 3?

Shane Black played fast and loose with the established continuity because obviously he didn't care much for anything else but what he was interested in doing, that's why he basically threw in a bunch of established characters unrelated in the least bit to their comic counterparts.

Are you talking about the established continuity of the films, or the established continuity of the comics? Because I really don't see how he played fast and loose with the established continuity of the films. Nothing in his film contradicts anything that was established in the previous films.

And what characters did he throw in that were unrelated to their comic book counterparts? I mean, yeah, the movie Aldrich Killian isn't anything like the comic Aldrich Killian, but that's because he was actually intended to be an adaptation of The Mandarin with misdirection thrown over the whole affair.

I see more the All Hail to the King as damage control rather than backpedalling because of the nonsensical shift the 10 rings took from IM1 to IM3, if Killian had anything to do with the first iteration then he'd of gotten involved before Tony even became Iron Man and we wouldn't have had much of a franchise.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. "if Killian had anything to do with the first iteration then he'd of gotten involved before Tony even became Iron Man and we wouldn't have had much of a franchise." What does that mean, exactly?

The movie was pretty clear about why Killian got personally involved and started making public spectacles when he did. The public bombings and the theatrical terrorist threat videos were a very intentional and somewhat necessary response to the heightened climate of panic after the battle of New York. He was happy to stay in the shadows until that happened and forced him to up his game, he said that explicitly. The film was also very clear that Killian had no interest in Tony Stark and only went after him when Stark challenged him publicly and now posed a potential threat to his operation. So, if you were to look at Iron Man 3 pre-AHTK and interpret Killian as having founded the Ten Rings in the first place, then he would have had no reason to do anything he did in Iron Man 3 until the events of those movies. If you were to interpret Killian as having co-opted and taken control of a pre-existing organization that was unrelated to him, as AHTK stipulates, then same thing.

As is it makes perfect sense that he simply appropriated the terrorist organization as a means to get Stark's undivided attention. The One-Shot doesn't feel like a cookie for entitled fans, it's just another step towards expanding their already rich universe.

It's pretty clearly a cookie intended for fans. It was something they admit to have made up pretty much on the fly during IM3's post production that wasn't even hinted at in the film, was introduced in a tucked away little corner of the MCU that likely only the hard core fans saw, and happened immediately after a controversial **** storm over how Shane Black chose to adapt The Mandarin in the MCU.

I'm no writer, but I doubt you're one of great renown either and I'm sure that if Marvel went ahead with an expansion of the Mandarin storyline it wouldn't be done in a lazy fashion and could even be something worthy of Avengers if not Iron Man uniquely.

Does it expand the MCU? Sure it does. But it does so in a convoluted, retcon-y way, and that's not good writing. IM3 established The Mandarin as a threat in the world and established that Killian invented the identity of The Mandarin in order to manipulate the fears of white middle class America. Saying that there was a "real" Mandarin this whole time reeks of a hasty retcon. The Mandarin we got in Iron Man 3 was, in my opinion, the best possible adaptation of the character we could ever hope for. Re-adapting the character is lazy, it's needlessly convoluted, and it would come off as hella silly, especially since an Iron Man 4 with the "real" Mandarin would likely have trailers that would look almost identical to the IM3 trailers.

And, in my opinion, it could only be inferior to Iron Man 3. IM3 took what worked about The Mandarin while also taking what didn't work about the character and turning it into a strength. You don't get much better than that.

Honestly the MCU can't use many of Marvel's best villains because they are tied up in the Fantastic Four franchise and to everything else Fox and Sony own, they aren't closing things up on trilogies either if Feige is to be believed so a character like Mandarin would be a great asset and could be done much better than pseudo-Mandarin in IM3.

The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 was The Mandarin. Same MO, same personality, and he hit all of the key narrative beats. They changed a few surface details, but the character was intact. And he was absolutely a more faithful adaptation than the immortal sorcerer that the "real" Mandarin is implied to be. The Mandarin is not and has never been a centuries old sorcerer who has led a secret cabal of terrorists down through the ages. That's Ra's Al Ghul. The Mandarin, like Aldrich Killian, was a spoiled and resentful prodigy who stole power that did not belong to him and that he did nothing to earn in order to build and empire of wealth and crime and reinvent himself as an ubermensch. Those are the defining characteristics of who The Mandarin is as a person. Everything else is just fluff.

And there's nothing a more traditionally orientalist Mandarin could bring to the table that Aldrich Killian couldn't. International network of spies and terrorist? Check. The ability to kung fu fight a dude in powered armor with just his bare hands? Check. The grand vision necessary to bring entire nations to their knees? Check. I don't see how the character was lacking in any way in that film. All they did was take the more troubling aspects of the character and turn them around into some nice social commentary that added new layers to the character.

The only difference between Killian and a more traditional Mandarin is that the later would be more of a Chines stereotype. I'm not sure how that makes him a better villain.

Also, the only great Marvel villains tied up with the FF are Doom and Galactus, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
 
I have to agree that if and when they ever do the real Mandarin, they don't make him some immortal sorcerer like AHTK suggested.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I still think they can use the Knaufs' take on the character as a template. Just explain the belief about him being an ancient warlord as being the result of the cult of personality that surrounds him.
 
I have to agree that if and when they ever do the real Mandarin, they don't make him some immortal sorcerer like AHTK suggested.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I still think they can use the Knaufs' take on the character as a template. Just explain the belief about him being an ancient warlord as being the result of the cult of personality that surrounds him.

Then aren't we just getting Aldrich Killian Part Deux?
 

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