All Things Superman: An Open Discussion (Spoilers) - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 93

[The Question]

Okay, we are getting SUPER off topic. I mean, I'll indlulge it because I'm me, but I just want to address that.

Changing the Mandarin's power made you lose an essential part of the dynamic between Tony Stark and the Mandarin. Look back to IM1 (and IM2 to a certain extent) and you'll see that one of the themes is that it's always a battle of technology and wit: 1) Tony Stark intentionally weakens himself by using an outdated arc reactor so that he can stop Obadiah Stane (even with this "disadvantage" of the outdated arc reactor, he still knew the Iron Monger/Mark I's disadvantage and used it to his advantage). 2) Once Tony Stark sees that the palladium core is poisoning him, he revisits his father's old Vibranium project and uses it as a viable element for the arc reactor. With the Mandarin, you see Tony Stark completely outwit as he doesn't have a clue how alien tech works and finally puts him at a pretty big disadvantage. Add that the Mandarin had advanced martial arts skills and you have a very strong villain that can outwit, outfight, and outlast Tony Stark.

I don't feel like Stark not understanding how the alien rings worked was an important aspect to the dynamic. To me, it was always about entitlement and earning what you have. Tony build his technology, it all came from him. The Mandarin found his rings purely by luck and took them for himself, he didn't earn anything he had. Extremis does the same thing.

Plus, using JeremyJahns' analogy, to consider the Mandarin as real through Aldrich Killian's character is false considering that it's the same as saying Santa Claus is real because your Dad is playing the character. At the end of the day, it's a facade...the concept exists, but that doesn't make it real.

The definition of Santa Clause is a magical man who lives at the north pole and gives presents to all the children in the world. Dad doesn't fit that definition. The definition of The Mandarin is the leader of the Ten Rings terrorist organization and the man who's orchestrated all of these attacks and criminal operations around the world. Aldrich Killian does fit that definition. The facade was that they hired a different guy to pretend to be The Mandarin, but Killian carried out that role in real life.

 

[FlawlessVictory]

So...what's going on?

Superman is being overshadowed by Batman in his new movie and by Iron Man in his own thread.

 

[Thread Manager]

This thread is now closed it has a continuation thread [split]462315[/split]