Iron Man 3 Iron Man 3 Main Villain Was Originally Set To Be Maya Hansen.

[Slushy]

Iron Man 3 director Shane Black reveals that a female villain in the original script was nixed by Marvel corporate.

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe films are already the most prolific series of continuity-connected features ever conceived, it does have its share of duds along with dubious outings that remained profitable. Amongst the latter group was director Shane Black’s 2013 canonical contribution Iron Man 3. The film, a $1.2 billion global hit, does carry a tainted perception with the fandom due to a notable weakness when it came to villains. However, Black has reveals that a major veto by the studio nixed a prospectively intriguing (non-Mandarin) twist that might have also helped the MCU's estrogen drought.

In an interview with Uproxx, Shane Black was properly nostalgic regarding his MCU opportunity, despite more practical memories of it being a rather tumultuous process, especially when it came to interactions with the Marvel. However, dropping a rather fascinating revelation, Black revealed that much of what made the process difficult came from meddling by unnamed Marvel corporate bigwigs. While Iron Man 3 suffered in the villain department, it seems that the original intention in the script that Black co-wrote with Drew Pearce was to unveil a female character as its ultimate big bad! According to Black, Rebecca Hall’s Maya Hansen originally had a larger part in the plot, further explaining:

There was an early draft of Iron Man 3 where we had an inkling of a problem. Which is that we had a female character who was the villain in the draft. We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female.

So, we had to change the entire script because of toy making. Now, that’s not Feige. That’s Marvel corporate, but now you don’t have that problem anymore.

Yeah, Ike’s gone. But New York called and said, “That’s money out of our bank.” In the earlier draft, the woman was essentially Killian – and they didn’t want a female Killian, they wanted a male Killian. I liked the idea, like Remington Steele, you think it’s the man but at the end, the woman has been running the whole show. They just said, “no way.”

Iron Man 3 did, in fact, contain a female villain… two of them, if you count Stephanie Szostak’s Brandt. Yet, according to Black, it was Hall’s Maya Hansen (pictured below) who was supposed to be revealed as the film’s villainous mastermind in a dynamic he compares to the 1982 television series Remington Steele in which Pierce Brosnan’s titular character served as a handsome, sexism-mollifying figurehead for the private detection agency of Stephanie Zimbalist’s Laura Holt. However, the Remington-like plans were nixed after a now-former corporate regime at Marvel (and NOT Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige,) decided that Iron Man 3 needed a villain who could make a more marketable transition as a toy onto the pegs of retail stores.


Of course, the main villain in Iron Man 3 we did get was Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian, an old acquaintance of Tony Stark's who utilized a form of advanced nanotechnology called Extremis to turn himself and his lackeys into flame-spitting, hot-to-the-touch super-powered people. Meanwhile, the final version of the film’s Remington Steele twist ditched the feminist approach and took Ben Kingsley’s heavily hyped role as Iron Man’s best-known comic book nemesis The Mandarin and turned it into one of cinema’s most reviled twists, revealed simply as feckless actor serving as a front and working as Killian’s catspaw.

Hall’s Hansen, a character adapted from Marvel Comics’ originally inspiring “Extremis” storyline, was ultimately depicted in the film with a similar arc in which she betrayed Tony Stark by initially aiding Killian’s conspiracy, only to regret her actions later, followed by a sacrificial moment of redemption. However, it seems that the Maya Hansen villain angle – one of a few plot planned twists – was steamrolled by what Black calls “Marvel corporate” over the absurdly in-the-box, (arguably sexist) motivation of male-minded toy marketing.

While the women-deprived merchandising woes of major tent-pole films has obviously been a potent topic in recent years, the idea that a myopic merchandising tail could wag the proverbial dog of the film’s plot is actually rather shocking and disappointing. Regardless of how the nixed "evil Maya" twist might have ultimately played out, it seems to be yet another thing that contributed to Iron Man 3's status as one of the MCU’s black sheep entries. Ironically enough, the hypothetical Aldrich Killian merchandise that allegedly had such a profound influence on the film's plot ended up being virtually nonexistent.

Credit: Den Of Geek

It would've been better than what we actually got: Human Torch "Mandarin".

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

That would have been interesting.

 

[TheVileOne]

Honestly, not even crazy about that idea. If they were going to do that, villain should've been Madame Masque. Could've been an interesting look at patriarchy there.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Eh. I prefer what we got.

 

[BatsDC]

Black never said the villain was intended to be Maya, so even if that was the case the title is a little misleading to that article.

 

[Slushy]

If they were going to do that, villain should've been Madame Masque. Could've been an interesting look at patriarchy there.

That's a great point!

Black never said the villain was intended to be Maya, so even if that was the case the title is a little misleading to that article.

*shrugs

I get the feeling Maya and Killian's role would've been reversed if Black had his way.

 

[Victarion]

Killian was the Mandarin. He said it himself.

 

[Loki882]

That would have so much more interesting imo. Not to mention genuinely surprising to quite a few people likely (as opposed to "I'm clearly evil from second #1" Aldrich Killian).

Also Maya was the mastermind in the Extremis arc from the comics, so it'd have worked on that level as well (and you wouldn't have wasted Rebecca Hall on such a thin part).

 

[David H.]

They actually cast Hall after the story was changed. Jessica Chastain was the first choice for Maya.

 

[Loki882]

That would have been even cooler actually. BTW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgW2KLJayxI

Colbert giving his usual amusing take on things.

 

[IronManHype]

I love Iron Man 3, but I think I would of enjoyed it even a little more if Maya was the villain.

Would of been even better too because Tony ask's Maya (sarcastically) is she is the Mandarin when she goes to his house.

 

[InternetPeople]

I think having Maya as the villain would have been a good move. I wonder what the outrage would have been like had really been a woman.

Marvel is getting a history of trying to change Asian males into white females. First this attempt at Mandarin, and then a successful attempt at Ancient One. (I only point this out for the coincidence. I like Tilda Swinton's casting.)

 

[2002SpideyFan]

Killian was the Mandarin. He said it himself.

Except, it means nothing, since Killian is not the Mandarin, because he shares nothing in common with the comic book Mandarin.

 

[MichaelChen]

Except, it means nothing, since Killian is not the Mandarin, because he shares nothing in common with the comic book Mandarin.

*sigh*


(1)The Mandarin the comics is a one-man version of the military industrial complex, a ruler who spends all his kingdom's money turning himself into a person of mass destruction, a science and martial arts super-soldier. He basically spends the entire budget on the military, it's just he's the entire military. In the end his fiefdom is too broke to even pay taxes.

Is Killian a one-man version of the military industrial complex? He's a member of the military industrial complex, he embodies the corruption of the military industrial complex to the point of caricature. He's using taxpayer money to turn himself into a super-soldier, and it's part of a scheme to get America spending even more money on his super-soldier program. While it may not literally make America flat broke by itself, his scheme is a massive example, a caricatured example, of the corrupt and bloated military spending that is causing America such budget problems.

(2)The Mandarin is a mad scientist.
Is Killian a Mad Scientist? Yup. It's right there from the moment he pops up.

(3)The Mandarin possesses superhuman martial arts abilities, the most common example of which is the ability to karate-chop chunks off of the Iron Man armor, and generally physically enhancing himself with chi. As corollary to this, he's extremely athletic.

Is Killian a superhuman martial artist? Welllll, yes and no. He's not literally superhumanly skilled, but he's superhuman and he uses karate-chops to chop the leg off one armor and chop another armor in half. He's not the Chi-channeling mystic monster comic Mandarin is, but for a simplified movie character he's fairly close. He's also played by a guy who is fairly tall and athletic, the star of several action-movies.

(4)The Mandarin often schemes to cause world war III so he can benefit from everyone being at war with everyone else.

Is Killian scheming to cause World War III so he can benefit from everyone being a war with everyone else? Yes and no, but mostly yes. He's scheming to control and render permanent the war on terror, which is to the modern world was World War III was to the 60's.

 

[2002SpideyFan]

Mandarin has no connection to the industrial complex. One of his main character traits in the comics is to have strong anti-governmental and apolitical attitude. His methodology relies on his philosophy of social Darwinism and individual supremacy. He's against industrial complex and governments of all sorts.

And your synopsis of Mandarin's origin is incorrect. Mandarin spend the fiefdom of his parents on training and education. Then he was deprived from his patrimony and legacy from the government, so that's what makes him so aggressive towards political authorities.

There is one aspect that strongly separates Killian from the Mandarin (other than the race, origin, and motivation). It's the fact that Aldrich wanted to cooperate with the government of U.S., while Mandarin, on the other hand, has always been written with a strong anti-governmental attitude, and he would never become part of the governmental system.

The most important thin that you missed in your interesting fanfic that has nothing to do with the comics, is the fact that the Mandarin is driven by purely philosophical interests. He truly wants to destroy every sign of the current political environmentand governmental control.

Aldrich Killian's goals were purely materialistic and narcissistic. He wanted to make profit out of the Extremis, and that is his whole motivation. Which strongly contradicts Mandarin's interests and motives from the comics, since it was all based on his twisted philosophy and world outlook.

The key difference between the actual Mandarin and Aldrich Killian, is that The Mandarin only used his business ties to facilitate his grander agendas, and he still deep down had the mind of a conqueror who felt he was entitled to rule and shape the world as he saw fit given his lineage as he always has been, while Killian was in contrast solely a profiteer trying to make money out of Extremis.

Mandarin wanted to sabotage all the nations, thus causing world conflict, because he wanted to re-conceptualize this world under his personal outlook and principles. Very much like the Apocalypse. Killian's desire to profiteer on war and terror had nothing to do with his ideals or philosophy, since he had none. He wanted to cause the conflict in order to continue profiteering on the conflict without actually changing anything.

Though, Mandarin is a scientist, but I wouldn't call him the mad scientist. His philosophical outlook overshadows his scientific interests, since his main goal is to re-conceptualize the world which he believes is corrupt. His scientific knowledges is only one of his weapons that he uses to achieve his ideological goals.

Karate chops and physicality are usually not the things that should define characters like the Mandarin, since there is more layers to his character than that. Saying that the knowledge of martial arts is what makes Aldrich Killian the Mandarin is idiotic and illogical.

Also, should I mention that the Mandarin has favoritism towards ancient Chinese history, while Aldrich Killian has none, since he isn't even Chinese? Mandarin constantly dresses in Hanfu in order to authentically represent his attitude towards modern-day policy of China and its corrupt government. Did Aldrich Killian had any of those traits? I remember him only wearing a tasteless business suit.

All in all, Killian has only two things in common with the Mandarin: he's a bad guy, and he knows martial arts. That's pretty much it.

 

[MichaelChen]

Mandarin has no connection to the industrial complex. One of his main character traits in the comics is to have strong anti-governmental and apolitical attitude. His methodology relies on his philosophy of social Darwinism and individual supremacy. He's against industrial complex and governments of all sorts.

Inaccurate. An early story has him working with the Chinese government. Later on he controls business in China to the point that Stark feels the need to negotiate with him to get his own business in China. During the Knaufs story, he deeply entwines himself with both the American and Chinese military industrial complex in order to get the political and monetary resources for his goals. And in the Fraction story, he practically embodies the military industrial complex. You are right that he believes in social darwinism and individual supremacy, but he's always been deeply hypocritical about the details in a way that reminds me of a lot of Ayn Rand worshiping businessmen.

And your synopsis of Mandarin's origin is incorrect. Mandarin spend the fiefdom of his parents on training and education. Then he was deprived from his patrimony and legacy from the government, so that's what makes him so aggressive towards political environmentalism and authorities.

No, you're the one who is wrong. It specifically says that he spent every bit of gold on training. Then the government forecloses on the ashes of his estate because he doesn't have enough money to pay his taxes. The Mandarin destroys his fortune, all the government does is foreclose on the ashes after he's ruined himself.

There is one aspect that strongly separates Killian from the Mandarin (other than the race, origin, and motivation). It's the fact that Aldrich wanted to cooperate with the government of U.S., while Mandarin, on the other hand, has always been written with a strong anti-governmental attitude, and he would never become part of the governmental system.

Wrong again. He has repeatedly entwined himself with political, corporate, and military interests, under writers as diverse as Stan Lee, Micheline/Layton, Busiek, the Knaufs, and Fraction. While you are broadly correct about his core philosophy, you completely miss the Ayn Randian flavored hypocrisy he has routinely had when it comes to the details. He's a social darwinist, but he's not like Apocalypse. He's more like some rich old aristocrat whose read too much Ayn Rand, and thus intertwines social darwinist ideas with utter entitlement, and attempts to control business, politics, and the military-industrial-complex.

The most important thin that you missed in your interesting fanfic that has nothing to do with the comics, is the fact that the Mandarin is driven by purely philosophical and theological interests. He truly wants to destroy every sign of political environmentalism and governmental control.

Eeeeh, he comes across as too hypocritical in the details of what he does for me to buy that. On the whole he reminds me of a lot of real-world Ayn Rand worhipping types; talking like a pure social darwinist fanatic, but in actuality an exploiter, a slaver, a devourer.

Aldrich Killian's goals were purely materialistic and narcissistic. He wanted to make profit out of the Extremis, and that is his whole motivation. Which strongly contradicts Mandarin's interests and motives from the comics, since it was all based on his twisted philosophy and world outlook.

That's actually very similar to how Mandarin is once you really look at the things he does and see past his hypocrisy. The Mandarin is vain and narcissistic, as is plain from his origin, where he spends all of his fiefdom's money on himself, on becoming perfect in mind and body, and then when this leaves him broke, he goes off exploring like a hobo Christopher Columbus, and once he finds valuable alien tech, immediately enslaves the natives surrounding that tech. And then he moves on to entwining himself with the Chinese government under Stan Lee, and controlling Asian corporations and forcing Stark to fight him on live paid television under Michelinie/Layton, and entwining himself with multiple governments, corporations, and the military industrial complex under the Knaufs.

The only difference is that Killian's Ayn Randian hypocrisy is slightly less hidden than Mandarin's.

The key difference between the actual Mandarin and Aldrich Killian, is that The Mandarin only used his business ties to facilitate his grander agendas, and he still deep down had the mind of a conqueror who felt he was entitled to rule and shape the world as he saw fit given his lineage as he always has been, while Killian was in contrast solely a profiteer trying to make money out of Extremis.

Comic Mandarin's ambitions are indeed grander than Killian's. But they are both vain, narcissistic men who use social darwinist talk to justify spending other people's money on themselves.

Mandarin wanted to sabotage all the nations, thus causing world conflict, because he wanted to re-conceptualize this world under his personal outlook and principles. Very much like the Apocalypse. Killian's desire to profiteer on war and terror had nothing to do with his ideals or philosophy, since he had none. He wanted to cause the conflict in order to continue profiteering on the conflict without actually changing anything.

Except that Mandarin has been so deeply hypocritical from day one that it becomes clear that he's actually more of an aristocrat motivated by utter, petty entitlement than a true social darwinist fanatic. He's less like an idealist than he is, metaphorically, like an old Confederacy aristocrat type talking about states rights and social darwinist racial theories when all he really wants to do is enslave and exploit.

Though, Mandarin is a scientist, but I wouldn't call him the mad scientist. His philosophical outlook overshadows his scientific interests, since his main goal is to re-conceptualize the world which he believes is corrupt. His scientific knowledges is only one of his weapons that he uses to achieve his ideological goals.

Again, if you look at how he actually behaves: enslaving, exploiting, having harem-girls faun over him, you don't see a philosophical fanatic. You see an aristocrat who uses philosophy to justify actions that are actually motivated by utter entitlement.

Karate chops and physicality are usually not the things that should define characters like the Mandarin, since there is more layers to his character than that. Saying that the knowledge of martial arts is what makes Aldrich Killian the Mandarin is idiotic and illogical.

I only bring that up to counter people who obsess over equally superficial aspects like the rings. By itself, no the martial-arts don't make someone the Mandarin. But they are one of the bigger superficial aspects of the character.

Also, should I mention that the Mandarin has favoritism towards ancient Chinese history, while Aldrich Killian has none, since he isn't even Chinese? Mandarin constantly dresses in feudal robes, and in some incarnations even wears Hanfu (headdress of Chinese emperors), in order to authentically represent his attitude towards modern-day policy of China and its corrupt government. Did Aldrich Killian had any of those traits? I remember him only wearing a tasteless white suit.

When has he displayed this favoritism towards ancient history? He talks about being descended from Genghis Khan semi-routinely, and that's about it.

He doesn't "constantly" dress in feudal robes. He initially dressed in a kinda sort of ninja-ish costume, sometimes with a cape that looked somewhat robelike depending on his pose. Then he dressed in a costume that's hard to describe, kind of a vaguely military uniform with a Ming the Merciless hat. Then for about ten years he dressed like a shirtless barbarian-warrior. Then he dressed in a business suit/armor. Then, in the nineties, he finally started dressing in the robes you say he "constantly" dresses in. One the nineties were over, he was replaced by his son who dressed in a ninja-ish outfight. Then he came back and dressed in a business suit, and fought mostly shirtless. Then he came back again, and mostly dressed in a business suit. So he only really wore true robes for ten years in the nineties. Though I suppose you can kind of make a case for the sixties, when he wore a ninja outfit with a cape that looked somewhat robelike depending on his pose. Even if you add them together, that is just twenty years out of his fifty year history.

 

[Batsfan1]

I don't care what the differences or similarities between comic Mandarin and IM3 Aldrich Killian are. I didn't like him because the twist was a lame way to do it, the movie promised a different villain than they gave, his goal and motivation were kinda lame and it was the same kind of villain we've gotten in the last 2 IM movies, just with less time to get to know his character really. Maya Hansen as the Mandarin, with a motivation to use Extremis, which would be more like it is in the comics, to perfect the world and make superheroes seen as the lesser beings that they are and make them obsolete is far more interesting to me. Just so you all know, that idea was the one I came with as a story rewrite for IM3. She even had the rings in the idea that God gave me. Have a very great everyone!

God bless everyone!

 

[C. Lee]

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone.....pictures of someone "flipping the bird" are not allowed on the Hype.

 

[2002SpideyFan]

I think you missed the point of those stories. When he cooperated with the communists in one of the issues of Tales of Suspense, he had no intention in becoming one of them, or part of the government. His plan was to make them believe that he cooperates with them, and communists believed that he'll help them win a cold war, but, in reality, Mandarin fooled them into believing that he wants to help them. He wanted to destroy them and their system right after the war would started. He would dismiss the communists right after he would achieve his goals. He's always been portrayed as a superbly anti-governmental figure. It was very clearly illustrated in John Byrne's Iron Man run and in Enter the Mandarin.

And, as I've said, Mandarin uses his business facade as an option to hide his grand agendas and his true nature. That perfectly was illustrated in one of Mike Friedrich's Iron Man comics, illustrations from which you have showed here. There, Mandarin at first was introduced to us as a mysterious businessman who sabotages Tony Stark, but when Iron Man intervenes and finds out who the mysterious businessman really is, Mandarin puts on himself his classic costume and starts to fight Iron Man. Problem with Killian, Killian's businessmen presence was his true nature. There was nothing behind that.

And Mandarin isn't a hypocrite. He has favoritism and respect for an ancient China. In ancient China, warriors had strong code of honor, which Mandarin also has, since his whole outlook is based on honor.

No, you're the one who is wrong. It specifically says that he spent every bit of gold on training. Then the government forecloses on the ashes of his estate because he doesn't have enough money to pay his taxes. The Mandarin destroys his fortune, all the government does is foreclose on the ashes after he's ruined himself.

No, I'm pretty sure I'm not, since I'm the one who takes facts from the comics instead of making stuff up. It was clearly stated in the origin by Stan Lee, the Mandarin was training and educating himself by spending wealth that was left to by his parents, then he was deprived from his land and home by the government. So he was an outcast, to which people on a streets referred as a "nobleman without his wealth". Then he found makluan sheep, which gave him knowledge and powers that allowed him to regain his status and patrimony.

He has repeatedly entwined himself with political, corporate, and military interests

And all those times he has done that only to achieve his agendas and he was never truly part of those political or business layers? He was only using a facade that would allowed him to methodically ruin those political layers in which he was (supposedly) involved. Take Knauf's storyline for example. When he was part of the Prometheus company, his main goal was to start a biological attack that would kill 90% of living population on earth, including himself. His whole agenda was based on his twisted philosophy of social Darwinism. He did not wanted to achieve any materialistic goals. His whole plan was to re-conceptualize this world by vaporizing 90% of the living beings that live here. Killian's goals and plans were driven by his greedy, narcissistic nature. There was no grand idea behind his motivation. So how's that makes him the Mandarin? Well, the answer is, it doesn't, since he's not the Mandarin.

Eeeeh, he comes across as too hypocritical in the details of what he does for me to buy that. On the whole he reminds me of a lot of real-world Ayn Rand worhipping types; talking like a pure social darwinist fanatic, but in actuality an exploiter, a slaver, a devourer.

Mandarin comes out as a hypocrite only in Fraction's run and maybe little bit in Hands of the Mandarin (but he was kinda crazy there, so...). Primary to that, he's always been written as a someone who is driven by philosophical and ideological agendas, and who strongly respects the code of honor. Fraction's take on the Mandarin was pretty inconsistent. He simply took the childish personification of the Silver Age Mandarin and inserted it in modern times. As we know, the best stories with the Mandarin are those that illustrate him as a more subtle and complex character (John Byrne's run, Enter the Mandarin, Haunted) rather than when he is portrayed as big dumb child, like in Fraction's version, specifically, Story of My Life.

That's actually very similar to how Mandarin is once you really look at the things he does and see past his hypocrisy.

No, that is not similar. I wouldn't call Michelini's take on the Mandarin to be definitive, since he have done zero research on the character, so that is why his take is so inconsistent with the other versions. But even so, didn't Mandarin in Michelini's version was very honored and respectful? You say that the Mandarin should be a hypocrite yet you're mentioning the incarnation of the Mandarin that is all about honor and respect? As I've said, majority of Mandarin's appearances illustrate him as a someone who is driven by ideals and philosophical agendas. The versions that you've mentioned are no exception, since Michelini's Mandarin wanted to regain China to its pre-communist glory, and Knauf's Mandarin was so blinded by his philosophy of social Darwinism that he was willing to kill himself just to achieve his goal. Again, Mandarin's agendas should always be purely philosophical and ideological, since that's how he was personified by Stan Lee, who based him of the Pu Yi, the last emperor of Qing dynasty.

The only difference is that Killian's Ayn Randian hypocrisy is slightly less hidden than Mandarin's.

Except, you seem to completely ignore the fact that Mandarin is driven by non-materialistic agenda. Killian was a greedy profiteer who was making money on political conflict but who had no grand ideals behind his nature. The parallel between Ayn Rand and the Mandarin isn't the good one. I would compare him to someone like Qin Shi Huang.

Comic Mandarin's ambitions are indeed grander than Killian's. But they are both vain, narcissistic men who use social darwinist talk to justify spending other people's money on themselves.

Comic Mandarin's ambitions have profound complexity to them, since they represent more than just someone's desire to do bad things for the sake of it. As I've said, Mandarin is an idealogical warrior, while Killian is a greedy businessman with no ideals behind. If Mandarin is narcissistic, why he was willing to kill himself in Haunted story? Because he's not. And Mandarin has no interest in anyone's money. His agendas are purely non-materialistic. Didn't he wanted to erase all the technologies and all social systems from our world in order to bring the society back into feudal state?

Except that Mandarin has been so deeply hypocritical from day one that it becomes clear that he's actually more of an aristocrat motivated by utter, petty entitlement than a true social darwinist fanatic.

Mandarin never was deeply hypocritical up until Fraction's version. His whole goal is to erase the corruption and decadence from our society. He has highly anti-governmental, anti-corporative world outlook. I don’t really see any connection to Mandarin’s ideology and Killian’s. Mandarin is a megalomaniacal perfectionist which wants to reconstruct the society and destroy the prejudice and values that are based on materialism. Mandarin believes in honor and thinks that life without honor is worthless. Where was in Killian's character? Mandarin has more warlord esque traits than aristocratic. Mandarin partly embodies aristocratic traits, which represents through his manners and flagrant outfits, but the prevalent part of his charter relies on his methodical warlord esque brutality.

Again, if you look at how he actually behaves: enslaving, exploiting, having harem-girls faun over him, you don't see a philosophical fanatic. You see an aristocrat who uses philosophy to justify actions that are actually motivated by utter entitlement.

He uses philosophy only to justify his actions yet he is willing to kill himself in order to achieve his idealogical goal of complete subjugation of the world? I still don't see any legitimate proof that proves that Killian resembles the Mandarin. All I see is your personal perception of Mandarin's personification that contradicts what was established in the comics.

I only bring that up to counter people who obsess over equally superficial aspects like the rings. By itself, no the martial-arts don't make someone the Mandarin. But they are one of the bigger superficial aspects of the character.

Rings are superficial aspects while martial arts are not? I think you confused these two things, since it's pretty clear that Mandarin's ten rings are more recognizable traits than his knowledge of martial arts. Mandarin's ten rings is the most recognizable character trademark that immediately gives you an idea about the character. If I say, "You know that Asian guy with the ten rings", the first association will be the Mandarin. If I'll say, "Tell me, do you know that Asian guy that knows martial arts?", I think it will be pretty hard to associate with that.

When has he displayed this favoritism towards ancient history? He talks about being descended from Genghis Khan semi-routinely, and that's about it.

In majority of the comics with his appearance? When he dresses in a national Chinese clothes. When he showed the attempts to sequestrate the China and take away the power from the communists. When he referred to China as to his beloved homeland. When he quoted the famous Chinese generals, like General Huang Chun Yin.

He doesn't "constantly" dress in feudal robes. He initially dressed in a kinda sort of ninja-ish costume, sometimes with a cape that looked somewhat robelike depending on his pose. Then he dressed in a costume that's hard to describe, kind of a vaguely military uniform with a Ming the Merciless hat. Then for about ten years he dressed like a shirtless barbarian-warrior. Then he dressed in a business suit/armor. Then, in the nineties, he finally started dressing in the robes you say he "constantly" dresses in.

I think you have to be blind in order not to see a clear parallel between Mandarin's clothes and the Chinese national clothing. In vast majority of his appearances he's portrayed wearing a long robe-like clothes with dragon-like symbols on them, which is a cultural hallmark that refers to imperial China. His clothes may not be an actual representations of the Chinese national clothes, but stylistically his outfits resemble Chinese national clothes with its long sleeves, vibrant colors, and symbolic hallmarks. The most elaborative example would be John Romita Jr designs from Armor Wars part II storyline, where Mandarin's outfit was clearly inspired by the ancient Chinese culture.

60's/70's/80's/90's/2000's:

There, you have fifty years of history that clearly show Mandarin's favoritism towards Chinese culture, which always was a prominent aspect about his character. Which should not be a surprise, since he's a Chinese man that was raised in China and who was surrounded by the Chinese culture.

Also, Mandarin's son, Temujin, was dressed like a monk, since he was raised by monks in Tibet. Ninjas use completely different style of clothing. They don't have bright colors and hallmarks, since Ninja's goal is to be stealthy. Mandarin dresses in a flagrant clothes to emphasize his unorthodox personality and his interests.

All in all, your whole demagoguery was an interesting reading for me, but it didn't proved that Aldrich Kilian is the Mandarin. Nothing in his character resembles the Mandarin. And I'm not even referring to the fact that Aldrich isn't Chinese.

Mandarin:

Not Mandarin:

And before you give that redundant argument about, "Oh, but Mandarin isn't Chinese either. He's half-Asian half-British", take a look at Mandarin's visual design. You have to be blind in order not to realize that he clearly has definitive Asian facial features, even though, his mother was Caucasian. So that doesn't justify the change of his ethnicity, along with every other important element of his character.

And yeah, that picture with shirtless Mandarin which you showed here... Correct me if I wrong, but if you're saying the the Mandarin isn't following any philosophical ideas, tell me, why Mandarin in that same comic was talking about how he started suffering from depression because of his failures, and he tried to redeem himself by reading books of Chinese philosophy?

Also, that last picture of the Mandarin that you showed, isn't that the one that I uploaded on ComicVine?

 

[MichaelChen]

I think you missed the point of those stories. When he cooperated with the communists in one of the issues of Tales of Suspense, he had no intention in becoming one of them, or part of the government. His plan was to make them believe that he cooperates with them, and communists believed that he'll help them win a cold war, but, in reality, Mandarin fooled them into believing that he wants to help them. He wanted to destroy them and their system right after the war would started. He would dismiss the communists right after he would achieve his goals. He's always been portrayed as a superbly anti-governmental figure. It was very clearly illustrated in John Byrne's Iron Man run and in Enter the Mandarin.

It's you who misses the point of these stories. It's like you buy what Mandarin says he stands for and miss what the story as a whole makes clear he actually stands for. Yes, he is conning the Communists, but what he actually wants is them "groveling at his feet". Those are the thoughts of someone vain and narcissistic, not of a political idealist. He's not thinking about how he'll make the world a better place. In the Byrne story he just wants to use Foom to conquer everything. His characterization is actually quite thin. And in Enter: The Mandarin he just kind of fights and rants in this muddled way that has no consistent philosophy, and just feels like the writer threw a bunch of vaguely terrorist sounding stuff against a wall, and abuses his son.

http://cs630021.vk.me/v630021187/2db61/yXpaopEB9TQ.jpg

And, as I've said, Mandarin uses his business facade as an option to hide his grand agendas and his true nature.

This I agree with, but the stories as a whole paint a far uglier portrait of his true nature: an aristocrat who wants people "groveling at his feet".

And Mandarin isn't a hypocrite. He has favoritism and respect for an ancient China. In ancient China, warriors had strong code of honor, which Mandarin also has, since his whole outlook is based on honor.

So he honorably enslaved the villages surrounding the Makluen spaceship? He honorably constructed a hate-ray satelite to cause World War III? He honorably kidnapped Stark's friends to force him to a filmed duel?
He talks about honor in some stories, but on the whole he's vain, bloodthirsty schemer, enslaver, and exploiter. It's like you have bought into his propaganda and ignore the things he actually does in the very stories where he is talking about honor. He does like to fight personally, but in combination with all the rest of what he's doing in those very same stories, it makes him come across as more of a machismo-obsessed blood-knight type than a man of honor.

"No, you're the one who is wrong. It specifically says that he spent every bit of gold on training. Then the government forecloses on the ashes of his estate because he doesn't have enough money to pay his taxes. The Mandarin destroys his fortune, all the government does is foreclose on the ashes after he's ruined himself." - No, I'm pretty sure I'm not, since I'm the one who takes facts from the comics instead of making stuff up. It was clearly stated in the origin by Stan Lee, the Mandarin was training and educating himself by spending wealth that was left to by his parents, then he was deprived from his land and home by the government. So he was an outcast, to which people on a streets referred as a "nobleman without his wealth". Then he found makluan sheep, which gave him knowledge and powers that allowed him to regain his status and patrimony.

I'm looking at the page as I type this. It says specifically that he spent every bit of gold on training. Then the government specifically takes his land away because he failed to pay his taxes.

"He has repeatedly entwined himself with political, corporate, and military interests" - and all those times he has done that only to achieve his agendas and he was never truly part of those political or business layers? He was only using a facade that would allowed him to methodically ruin those political layers in which he was (supposedly) involved.

Not always true. There was no sign of a hidden agenda in the Michelinie/Layton story. He was just a vain, bloodthirsty businessman who kidnapped innocent people because he wanted to film himself murdering Iron Man. Vanity, profit, and bloodthirst were his motives. In those stories where he does have a hidden agenda, that hidden agenda is usually things like having people "grovel at his feet".

Take Knauf's storyline for example. When he was part of the Prometheus company, his main goal was to start a biological attack that would kill 90% of living population on earth, including himself. His whole agenda was based on his twisted philosophy of social Darwinism. He did not wanted to achieve any materialistic goals. His whole plan was to re-conceptualize this world by vaporizing 90% of the living beings that live here. Killian's goals and plans were driven by his greedy, narcissistic nature. There was no grand idea behind his motivation. So how's that makes him the Mandarin? Well, the answer is, it doesn't, since he's not the Mandarin.

The Knaufs story I'll grant you, but was an evolution of the character that isn't consistent with how he's been portrayed both before and after. Generally he's been portrayed as a vain, bloodthirsty enslaver and tyrant.

That's not to say I mind the Knaufs portrayal. I liked it and wouldn't mind at all if The Mandarin was retconned into being this version consistently. But make no mistake: it would be a retcon.

Killian is perfectly consistent with the guy who enslaved the villages surrounding the spaceship. He's perfectly consistent with the guy who kidnapped innocent people to force a filmed duel and argued about who gets the profits. He's perfectly consistent with the guy who had harem girls fawning over him as he made a movie of his life and murdered virtually helpless prisoners who possessed only a tiny fraction of his martial arts skills. Vanity, greed, bloodthirst.

"That's actually very similar to how Mandarin is once you really look at the things he does and see past his hypocrisy." - No, that is not similar. I wouldn't call Michelini's take on the Mandarin to be definitive, since he have done zero research on the character, so that is why his take is so inconsistent with the other versions. But even so, didn't Mandarin in Michelini's version was very honored and respectful? You say that the Mandarin should be a hypocrite yet you're mentioning the incarnation of the Mandarin that is all about honor and respect? As I've said, majority of Mandarin's appearances illustrate him as a someone who is driven by ideals and philosophical agendas. The versions that you've mentioned are no exception, since Michelini's Mandarin wanted to regain China to its pre-communist glory, and Knauf's Mandarin was so blinded by his philosophy of social Darwinism that he was willing to kill himself just to achieve his goal. Again, Mandarin's agendas should always be purely philosophical and ideological, since that's how he was personified by Stan Lee.

Again, it feels like you are buying into what the Mandarin is saying, and not looking at what he actually does. Micheline/Layton's Mandarin talks a bit about honor, but what he actually does is kidnap innocent people to force a filmed duel in which he gets the profits. Greed, vanity, bloodthirst.

"The only difference is that Killian's Ayn Randian hypocrisy is slightly less hidden than Mandarin's." - Except, you seem to completely ignore the fact that Mandarin is driven by non-materialistic agenda. Killian was a greedy profiteer who was making money on political conflict but who had no grand ideals behind his nature. The parallel between Ayn Rand and the Mandarin isn't the good one. I would compare him to someone like Qin Shi Huang.

His agenda is partly materialistic, partly about vanity, and partly about a blend of machismo and bloodthirst. He spends all his fiefdom's money on himself, on turning himself into a living vanity project instead of helping his people. Then when he finds new, alien, resources, he uses it to enslave the surrounding villages. Then he tries repeatedly to conquer the world so he can have people groveling at his feet, and amuses himself along the way with lesser schemes where he does things like kidnapping innocent people so he can force a duel that is filmed and which he profits from. Greed, vanity, bloodthirst.

"Comic Mandarin's ambitions are indeed grander than Killian's. But they are both vain, narcissistic men who use social darwinist talk to justify spending other people's money on themselves." - Comic Mandarin's ambitions have profound complexity to them, since they represent more than just someone's desire to do bad things for the sake of it. As I've said, Mandarin is an idealogical warrior, while Killian is a greedy businessman with no ideals behind. If Mandarin is narcissistic, why he was willing to kill himself in Haunted story? Because he's not. And Mandarin has no interest in anyone's money. His agendas are purely non-materialistic. Didn't he wanted to erase all the technologies and all social systems from our world in order to bring the society back into feudal state?

The Knaufs story I'll grant you, and if that was the only Mandarin story we would be on the same page and this argument wouldn't even be happening. But he does have the history both before and after that I have already talked about. As for the Hands of the Mandarin story: a feudal society is one in which everyone bends the knee to aristocrats. As he said later in the Busiek story: he considers it wonderful that the masses only exist to lift their betters onto their shoulders. Indeed, the Busiek story is basically him deciding that he doesn't need to destroy technology to in order to crush the masses of peasants and be lifted on their shoulders: modern capitalism works just fine for this purpose. In the Busiek story he is basically saying that he is now fine with the modern world, because it actually still embodies the ugly, aristocratic, entitled elements of feudalism that he loves. So Busiek's story tells us what his motives were for trying to make the world feudalistic back in Hands of the Mandarin, and it's an ugly, aristocratic, entitled motive: making all the peasants into slaves who only exist to raise him up. The motive of an old Confederacy slave-owning aristocrat.

"Again, if you look at how he actually behaves: enslaving, exploiting, having harem-girls faun over him, you don't see a philosophical fanatic. You see an aristocrat who uses philosophy to justify actions that are actually motivated by utter entitlement." - He uses philosophy only to justify his actions yet he is willing to kill himself in order to achieve his idealogical goal of complete subjugation of the world? I still don't see any legitimate proof that proves that Killian resembles the Mandarin. All I see is your personal perception of Mandarin's personification that contradicts what was established in the comics.

All I see if someone who focuses so much on a few of Mandarin's speeches that he doesn't see what Mandarin is actually doing in the very stories where he is making the speeches. You ignore both his actions, and even some of his more honest speeches and thoughts.

"I only bring that up to counter people who obsess over equally superficial aspects like the rings. By itself, no the martial-arts don't make someone the Mandarin. But they are one of the bigger superficial aspects of the character." - Rings are superficial aspects while martial arts are not?

Both are superficial. Me bringing up the super-karate was simply a rebuttal to those who act as though the Mandarin is utterly defined by that one superficial thing of the rings, and isn't really relevant to the argument between you and I, which is more about the core of the character as a character.

"He doesn't "constantly" dress in feudal robes. He initially dressed in a kinda sort of ninja-ish costume, sometimes with a cape that looked somewhat robelike depending on his pose. Then he dressed in a costume that's hard to describe, kind of a vaguely military uniform with a Ming the Merciless hat. Then for about ten years he dressed like a shirtless barbarian-warrior. Then he dressed in a business suit/armor. Then, in the nineties, he finally started dressing in the robes you say he "constantly" dresses in." -I think you have to be blind in order not to see a clear parallel between Mandarin's clothes and the Chinese national clothing. In vast majority of his appearances he's portrayed wearing a long robe-like clothes with dragon-like symbols on them, which is a cultural hallmark that refers to imperial China. His clothes may not be an actual representations of the Chinese national clothes, but stylistically his outfits resemble Chinese national clothes with its long sleeves, vibrant colors, and symbolic hallmarks. The most elaborative example would be John Romita Jr designs from Armor Wars part II storyline, where Mandarin's outfit was clearly inspired by the ancient Chinese culture.

https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-16bf1d4c66e7507c9b0b382bbe275fb6?convert_to_webp=true

http://cs636524.vk.me/v636524187/f06c/6lKwjLF5xug.jpg

60's/70's/80's/90's/2000's:

http://vk.com/club121905369?w=wall-121905369_1/all

There, you have fifty years of history that clearly show Mandarin's favoritism towards Chinese culture, which always was a prominent aspect about his character. Which should not be a surprise, since he's a Chinese man that was raised in China and who was surrounded by the Chinese culture.

Only one of the pictures you supplied has him in feudal robes: the picture from the nineties. The first one is a Silver Age picture that is has a bit of asian vibe, but looks much more like a modern supervillain costume than robes. The second is pure supervillain costume. The last is an armor with an asian vibe. I'm not saying he hasn't often had an asian vibe to his look, and you are moving the goal-posts by suggesting this. But the very specific idea that he always wears long robes is false. Your own picture shows this to be so. Only in the nineties does he truly wear robes. (You also failed to show him during his shirtless phase with the dragon-tattoo, I noticed, as well as how he dressed during the Knaufs story. i.e. a business suit alternating with being shirtless, much like Killian)

Also, Mandarin's son, Temujin, was dressed like a monk, since he was raised by monks in Tibet. Ninjas use completely different style of clothing. They don't have bright colors and hallmarks, since Ninja's goal is to be stealthy. Mandarin dresses in a flagrant clothes to emphasize his unorthodox personality and his interests.

Okay, I was verbally clumsy when I called it ninja-ish. It's still not a robe, which was my point, and which is not refuted by the more precise term of it being monkish.

All in all, your whole demagoguery was an interesting reading for me, but it didn't proved that Aldrich Kilian is the Mandarin. Nothing in his character resembles the Mandarin.

You're the demagogue here, ignoring most of Mandarin's actual actions in favor of defining him by a few speeches he's made about social darwinism, and one outlier(if admittedly excellent) story by the Knaufs.

 

[2002SpideyFan]

And in Enter: The Mandarin he just kind of fights and rants in this muddled way that has no consistent philosophy, and just feels like the writer threw a bunch of vaguely terrorist sounding stuff against a wall, and abuses his son.

Wait, you say that your perception of the character is based of his Silver Age appearance, but here you're saying that Enter The Mandarin inconsistent to his character, though, Enter The Mandarin was a modern retelling of Mandarin's first appearance in the comics, and that story essentially replicates every prominent aspect of the original Silver Age stories, including the personification of the Mandarin, while you consider Matt Fraction's version to be definitive yet his version came latter and completely have retconed whole origin of the Mandarin? You seem to be contradicting yourself too much.

The main problem with all your arguments is that they all seems to be base of your incorrect perception of the character. In your personal perception, Mandarin, for some reason, is someone who is driven by purely materialistic agendas, whose whole goal in life is to steal others people’s money and profiteering on something. It is absolutely wrong from all standpoints. About 90% percent of all the stories involving the Mandarin portrayed him as a someone who haunts ideological and philosophical goals. Mandarin is willing to sacrifice everything, including his life, just to achieve what he wants. In John Byrne’s run, Mandarin was purely driven by ideological and philosophical world outlook. His whole arc in that story was about re-configuring himself and his ideals. Enter the Mandarin had the theme of Mandarin being an anti-governmental, apolitical figure that believes that only he is entitled to change this world in a right way. Fraction’s Mandarin, to which you refer the most, didn’t had anything to do with Mandarin’s materialistic agendas as well. There, he was a pure megalomaniac. Also, you seem to think that rings are superficial aspects? Well, didn’t Fraction made the Mandarin a spineless puppet of those things, after it was revealed that those rings are possessed with some alien entities that control Mandarin’s mind? I think you also missed that big part of his origin, in which one of the main arcs involved Mandarin being too relied on materialistic needs, thus he loosed everything due to his corruption and the ignorance of the government. Therefore, he learned to not rely on materialism.

You mistakenly took the facade of character as his definitive persona, which isn’t true. It is crystal clear that Mandarin is a manipulative genius that uses different methods and schemes to achieve his ultimate goals. His businessman persona, which originated in 1973, is his facade, and it’s not a true reflection of his personage. He uses that facade only to facilitate his agendas and achieve his tasks. Deep down he still has a mentality of a warlord who wants to sequestrate the world and then re-conceptualize it under his own agendas and principles. Again, purely cerebral needs that have nothing to do with greed or avarice.

Mandarin in different incarnations showed different variations of his ideological world outlook, but none of them were revolved around materialist agendas. He has strong national pride for his homeland, since he many times tried to segregate China and take control from the communists and the government. He has strong anti-governmental attitude, almost anarchistic. He despises class systems, social differentiation, political environmentalism, communists, democrats, etc.

Then when he finds new, alien, resources, he uses it to enslave the surrounding villages. Then he tries repeatedly to conquer the world so he can have people groveling at his feet

Which elaborately illustrates the fact that Mandarin wants to destroy every existing social, governmental, environmental, national layer out there, since his whole attitude revolves around his philosophy to supplant all the authorities and legislatures in order to reorganize himself into the only prevailing authority of the world, whose goal is to re-govern and re-conceptualize the world as it is.

Killian is perfectly consistent with the guy who enslaved the villages surrounding the spaceship. He's perfectly consistent with the guy who kidnapped innocent people to force a filmed duel and argued about who gets the profits. He's perfectly consistent with the guy who had harem girls fawning over him as he made a movie of his life and murdered virtually helpless prisoners who possessed only a tiny fraction of his martial arts skills. Vanity, greed, bloodthirst.

1. Killain isn't consistent with anything revolving the Mandarin, since, as was said, his agenda isn't idealogical nor theological, which is the prominent substructure of the Mandarin's character, because he's always been the one who follows more ideological desires rather than the materialistic ones, which was clearly illustrated in multiple storylines.

2. Killain's masterplan revolved around only two things: his trivial greed, and his personal little gripe against Tony Stark, who ignored him in a past, thus it gave to him his imbecilic motivation as a villain. Mandarin's attitude in comics was acquisitive to such things as honor and philosophy. His attitude had superlative schemes and profound ideology. He wanted at first to re-govern the China back into its pre-communist state, since he had strong national pride towards China, to which he referred as his homeland, and because he had adamant anti-governmental attitude towards communism and political environmentalism. Killian had no national pride, no ideology, no philosophy, no abstruse world outlook. He was an imbecilic evil-degenerate with pity agendas and trivial motivation.

3. As I've mentioned earlier, ''Story of My Life'', to which you're referring, is probably the worst examples of how to personify the Mandarin. It was a fun little story, but it portrays Mandarin as an imbecilic, hysterical child rather than calculative, subtle, perspicacious ringleader with grand ideals and profound philosophy, which he truly is. That story was nothing more than an experiment from Fraction's side to give to the Mandarin his own Killing Joker story, except, instead of truly writing a unique, fleshed out origin of the Mandarin, with depth and integrity, Fraction simply made a 70 page spoof on Kim Jong il, who kidnapped the director Shin Sang-ok and his wife Choi Eun-hee in 1977, to make a movie about himself. Story of My Life is not a definitive Mandarin story, since it's simply a satire and nothing more. John Byrne's Iron Man run is the definitive Mandarin story, and it should be

a feudal society is one in which everyone bends the knee to aristocrats. As he said later in the Busiek story: he considers it wonderful that the masses only exist to lift their betters onto their shoulders.

Mandarin's attitude to feudal system is another bond to his fascination with the ancient Chinese history and old traditions, since feudal system was a prominent model of society in China during Zhou and Qin dynasty. His desire to deprive the world from autonomy and industrialization in Hands of the Mandarin was inspired by his twisted philosophy. There is also parts of Fengjian ideology inserted into Mandarin's world outlook. Again, he took an inspiration from every social system and ideology that ever existed. And Mandarin's feudalistic agenda also represents through those flagrant outfits that he wears, which obviously are inspired by the feudalistic times. Flagrant robes and Hanfu were a traditional set of clothing of the important Chinese authorities. These hallmarks only delineate the importance of Mandarin's ethnicity and his cultural environment, since it's logically explains everything about him and gives substructure to his ideology to methodology. Again, one of the main reasons why Aldrich is not the Mandarin is because you can't logically incorporated any of those definitive traits into his character without changing his ethnicity, because it wouldn't make a goddamn sense to why some imbecilic white guy is obsessed with Chinese culture and its traditions.

And his actions elaborately illustrate the same attitude about which he's constantly talking about. His whole ideology is manifested both in the verbal sense and through his actions.

The other problem with your arguments is that you seem to ignore the fact that Mandarin is Asian. You are constantly trying to reduce the significance of his ethnicity. Mandarin clearly has favoritism towards Chinese culture (because he is Chinese himself), but you gave some utterly idiotic theory about Mandarin not having any favoritism towards China because he wears ninja outfits (Why would Chinese man dress up as a Japanese assassin?), though, he does, since it is his homeland. You are trying to imply that the Mandarin is not Chinese. Basically, you’re whitewashing him. I saw you on lots of topics revolving the Mandarin. I saw you defending Mandarin’s racial sensitivity as a character. Well, I can sympathize with that, since I’m also constantly defending Mandarin as a character from ignorant people that blindly believe that he’s a racist caricature or a Fu Manchu knock off. But your points into defense of his character seems to mostly you’re mostly trying to imply that the Mandarin isn’t even Chinese, he has no attachment to China, thus he’s not racist stereotype. I think the problem is that you are reducing his ethnicity, which is not how you should defend the Mandarin. Your argument is that his ethnicity isn’t an important part of his character, so he can easily be whitewashed and there would be no problem. I think that is a wrong point of view on the subject. You can’t ignore Mandarin’s ethnicity. His ethnicity was a subject for dozens of debates over the years, about whether he is racially sensitive or not. Ignoring his ethnicity is like ignoring the problem. My point is always about, “yes, Mandarin is Chinese, but that doesn’t mean that he racially insensitive character.” That’s why I respect John Byrne’s take on the character so much. He fully embraced the fact that Mandarin is indeed Chinese, and he is proud of that. Like it or not, Mandarin identifies himself as Chinese, he has national pride for China, and he has favoritism towards Chinese culture. Again, you can write dozens of fanficks about the Mandarin, but you will never change the fact that Mandarin is Asian, and he should be. Being Chinese is an integral aspect to his character, and you can’t reduce that.

Mandarin doesn’t look like Jason Mamoa or Guy Pearce.


Again, try to understand the character better instead of continuing interpreting him in a wrong way.

Only one of the pictures you supplied has him in feudal robes: the picture from the nineties. The first one is a Silver Age picture that is has a bit of asian vibe, but looks much more like a modern supervillain costume than robes.

Sure, it doesn't look like a Chinese robe at all, despite all the classic trade-marks of Chinese national clothing.

You do understand that you're in denial? I think if you would ask any artists who draw Mandarin in the past about the inspiration that they used for the visual design of the Mandarin, they would break your bubble and told you that they based him of Chinese cultural stereotypes,

 

[MichaelChen]

Wait, you say that your perception of the character is based of his Silver Age appearance, but here you're saying that Enter The Mandarin inconsistent to his character, though, Enter The Mandarin was a modern retelling of Mandarin's first appearance in the comics, and that story essentially replicates every prominent aspect of the original Silver Age stories, including the personification of the Mandarin, while you consider Matt Fraction's version to be definitive yet his version came latter and completely have retconed whole origin of the Mandarin? You seem to be contradicting yourself too much.

No, Enter the Mandarin is just a partial retelling that omits most of his origin, and replaces it with lots of fighting. It isn't so much contradictory as it is thin. By omitting most of the origin, it robs the character of crucial motivations, character strengths, and human character flaws, and replaces it with a bit of shouting about things like science versus magic. He's not a person in Enter the Mandarin, he's a collection of ambiguously anti-America slogans. One second he...kinda...sounds like a communist...then he...kinda sounds like a mystic cult leader. It's all very vague. If all I had to go by was those slogans, I wouldn't be sure if he was a Communist or a mystic-cult-leader or something else. Whereas the Silver Age origin by Stan Lee made it much clearer that he is a vain aristocrat damaged by a poisonous upbringing into a mindset of grotesque entitlement, who wants to enslave and exploit and dominate. He is so vain that he will spend every bit of wealth he can making himself more of a warrior, but also so self-obsessed that it leads to a sort of blindness and shortsightedness. Stan Lee's version is a person. An ugly person, but a person.

The main problem with all your arguments is that they all seems to be base of your incorrect perception of the character. In your personal perception, Mandarin, for some reason, is someone who is driven by purely materialistic agendas, whose whole goal in life is to steal others people’s money and profiteering on something. He despises class systems, social differentiation, political environmentalism, communists, democrats, etc.

"To know that you are superior in mind, in body, in spirit, EVERYTHING! To know that power is your BIRTHRIGHT! To know that untold thousands exist on this world for no reason but to SERVE you! To channel their power through YOUR empire, be it of land or of business, channeling upward to fuel YOU, to fuel your GLORY!" - The Mandarin in Busiek's story.

You love quoting speeches, here's one for you where the Mandarin lays out his motives, and it's the ugliest blend of aristocratic entitlement, Ayn Rand flavored social darwinism, and sheer narcissistic greed imaginable. It's all ME ME ME!! The Mandarin wants everyone to be slaves who only exist to fuel him. Metaphorically speaking, he wants to eat everything. He's a vain, greedy, exploitative, enslaving aristocrat.

Which elaborately illustrates the fact that Mandarin wants to destroy every existing social, governmental, environmental, national layer out there, since his whole attitude revolves around his philosophy to supplant all the authorities and legislatures in order to reorganize himself into the only prevailing authority of the world, whose goal is to re-govern and re-conceptualize the world as it is.

He wants to enslave everyone to fuel his own narcissism, as he states himself in the above story, and as his actions abundantly show in many stories.

Mandarin's attitude to feudal system is another bond to his fascination with the ancient Chinese history and old traditions, since feudal system was a prominent model of society in China during Zhou and Qin dynasty.

He wants everyone to be his slaves to fuel his narcissism. He has a fondness for asian imagery, but his core motivation is aristocratic entitlement, vanity, and "glory", which is to say bloodthirst.

The other problem with your arguments is that you seem to ignore the fact that Mandarin is Asian.

He's half-Asian. Sometimes artists remember that, sometimes they don't.

 

[The Overlord]

*sigh*


(1)The Mandarin the comics is a one-man version of the military industrial complex, a ruler who spends all his kingdom's money turning himself into a person of mass destruction, a science and martial arts super-soldier. He basically spends the entire budget on the military, it's just he's the entire military. In the end his fiefdom is too broke to even pay taxes.

Is Killian a one-man version of the military industrial complex? He's a member of the military industrial complex, he embodies the corruption of the military industrial complex to the point of caricature. He's using taxpayer money to turn himself into a super-soldier, and it's part of a scheme to get America spending even more money on his super-soldier program. While it may not literally make America flat broke by itself, his scheme is a massive example, a caricatured example, of the corrupt and bloated military spending that is causing America such budget problems.

(2)The Mandarin is a mad scientist.
Is Killian a Mad Scientist? Yup. It's right there from the moment he pops up.

(3)The Mandarin possesses superhuman martial arts abilities, the most common example of which is the ability to karate-chop chunks off of the Iron Man armor, and generally physically enhancing himself with chi. As corollary to this, he's extremely athletic.

Is Killian a superhuman martial artist? Welllll, yes and no. He's not literally superhumanly skilled, but he's superhuman and he uses karate-chops to chop the leg off one armor and chop another armor in half. He's not the Chi-channeling mystic monster comic Mandarin is, but for a simplified movie character he's fairly close. He's also played by a guy who is fairly tall and athletic, the star of several action-movies.

(4)The Mandarin often schemes to cause world war III so he can benefit from everyone being at war with everyone else.

Is Killian scheming to cause World War III so he can benefit from everyone being a war with everyone else? Yes and no, but mostly yes. He's scheming to control and render permanent the war on terror, which is to the modern world was World War III was to the 60's.

If Killian is supposed be an accurate version of Mandarin, to me that speaks to the weakness of Mandarin as a character, beyond his unfortunate original presentation.

Both Killian and Mandarin are more archetypes then characters, Mandarin seems like a such a shallow arch enemy for Stark, it seems like he hates Iron Man because the US government spent Iron Man to spy on him, if the government spent Cap instead, he would have a grudge against him too.

Mandarin's personality seems to jump all the over the place, the Knauf, Fraction, Byrne and Silver Age seem like different people, not the same character. Is there any good reason why Mandarin wants to start WW3 or is he just some jerk?

Killian seemed like a pretty bland villain in the movie, he was generic corporate bad guy number 865, he was such stock a bad guy, I really didn't care about him at all. Frankly I think I like movie Obadiah Stane better then him.

I thought the twist was funny and I understood the political message behind, but I think the twist made the film feel smaller, it removed a globe trotting aspect to it.

Its why I think Iron Man 3 is just an okay film, its not bad, but its not great either and the villain had a lot to do with that.

Frankly I think Maya would have been a better villain, she seemed like a good person, so the twist would have been more shocking then obviously evil Killain ending up the bad guy.

 

[2002SpideyFan]

Enter the Mandarin is just a partial retelling that omits most of his origin, and replaces it with lots of fighting. It isn't so much contradictory as it is thin.

Enter the Mandarin was the most closest version of the Silver Age Mandarin that we could've got in this modern age of comic books. It was an exact retelling of those classic Silver Age Iron Man stories. Superficially and conceptually, the story had the most Silver Age-ish take on the Mandarin that we got for the past few decades.

By omitting most of the origin, it robs the character of crucial motivations, character strengths, and human character flaws, and replaces it with a bit of shouting about things like science versus magic. He's not a person in Enter the Mandarin, he's a collection of ambiguously anti-America slogans.

Mandarin from that story was a manipulative ringleader with endless resources and knowledge, which he used to subjugate the political environmentalism and control, thus making himself the only prevailing authority of the world. Hmm... Kinda like Silver Age Mandarin?

Mandarin threw bunch of anti-American slogans during the Silver Age. In this story he didn't refer to America as a nation. He was commenting on the fact that people have double standards and that their world outlook is ambivalent and hypocritical. He was criticizing the society as a whole, not a selective nation. And he actually said that those people are hypocrites because they differentiate everyone based on their race and social rank. He was actually criticizing xenophobia and prejudiced, not embracing it.

second he...kinda...sounds like a communist...then he...kinda sounds like a mystic cult leader. It's all very vague. If all I had to go by was those slogans, I wouldn't be sure if he was a Communist or a mystic-cult-leader or something else.

As I've already said, Mandarin made no xenophobic comments in that story. He was actually criticizing xenophobes. Also, he definitely wasn't a communist in that story, since one of the first scenes with him in that story shows him murdering group of communist officers that demanded from him to serve to their government. And this "mystic-cult-leader" thing was always present in the comics. In Silver Age comics some people referred to the Mandarin as a mystic figure.

Also, you're a fan of the Fraction's take on the Mandarin. Didn't Fraction made the Mandarin in "Story of My Life" a governmental puppet when Mandarin joined the communists and became servant of Mao? Again, one of the reason why I partly dislike his take is because he took away from the Mandarin his whole anti-governmental, anarchistic attitude that made him so interesting in a first place.

Whereas the Silver Age origin by Stan Lee made it much clearer that he is a vain aristocrat damaged by a poisonous upbringing into a mindset of grotesque entitlement, who wants to enslave and exploit and dominate. He is so vain that he will spend every bit of wealth he can making himself more of a warrior, but also so self-obsessed that it leads to a sort of blindness and shortsightedness. Stan Lee's version is a person. An ugly person, but a person.

No, I clearly remember Stan Lee's origin, and it was vastly different. Mandarin was raised by a misanthropic and selfish aunt that inserted cynicism and antagonism into him. She raised him with a believe that he is entitled to subjugate ascendancy from everyone, thus becoming the only true ruler of all. Then he was oppressed by the ignorant government of his homeland and was deprived from his patrimony and legacy. So that's what led to his strong anti-governmental attitude, which will become a definitive motivation for his character for years.

One of the most important things that some people seems to miss about Mandarin's origin, simply because they only see an origin about spaceship and power rings, is that it's an emblematic reflection of the political environment of the Chinese Communist Revolution. After China was taken by the ideology of communism, many noble and highborn figures were oppressed by the communist government. You can see that parallel in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Emperor, which is probably the closet origin of the Mandarin that we'll ever see on film. Same premise, though, it's a biographical film. A highborn child that was raised isolated, is inserted with a believe that he is entitled for great deeds, but when political environment of his homeland changes, he gets oppressed by the government. All his wealth and legacy is taken, and now he's just a vagrant with no nobility and legacy.

"To know that you are superior in mind, in body, in spirit, EVERYTHING! To know that power is your BIRTHRIGHT! To know that untold thousands exist on this world for no reason but to SERVE you! To channel their power through YOUR empire, be it of land or of business, channeling upward to fuel YOU, to fuel your GLORY!" - The Mandarin in Busiek's story.

Doesn't say anything about his obsession with materialism, like you're constantly implying. He talks about individual supremacy and mental superiority, which was always the case with the Mandarin, since he's been a supremacist since the day he was created. But there is always an ideological/philosophical layer to his character. Again, he constantly talks about honor and principles. Has strong national pride towards China, and China is one of the most Epistemological countries in the world. It has most influential philosophers in the history. Mandarin is an exemplification of the epistemology of the east.

«He is called The Mandarin. He has read many times the words of General Huang Chun Yin. He understands them only too well. It is most unlikely these four have ever read the words of the fifth century general. They are men of the present, born and bred in an Asia torn by the ravages of modern warfare. They have no time for flowery and pretty philosophies. Nevertheless, Mandarin respects their power... For each has made a name for himself in that slice of the east he calls home.»

It's even written on his Wikipedia page, "He is characterised as a megalomaniac, attempting to conquer the world on several occasions, yet also possessing a strong sense of[ honor."

He wants everyone to be his slaves to fuel his narcissism. He has a fondness for asian imagery, but his core motivation is aristocratic entitlement, vanity, and "glory", which is to say bloodthirst.

So the fact that he culturally Chinese, identities himself as Chinese, has strong national pride towards China, wears national Chinese outfits with Chinese esque national hallmarks, and follows the principles and philosophy of the ancient China, is just a spurious frontage for his actions? In reality, Mandarin is just a characterless, indeterminate concept with no actual personality? Just a spineless concept of different agendas and motivations? Do you understand that you simply rewriting the entire essence and the history of the character only so he can fit into your erroneous perception about him, which has nothing to do with the actual history and the essence of the character that was established in the comics? Every writer, including Stan Lee, wrote him as a Chinese esque character. The Mandarin doesn't work as a concept of different agendas. He works only as a fully realized, exteriorized character.

He's half-Asian. Sometimes artists remember that, sometimes they don't.

He's ethnically mixed but he visually purely Asian-looking. And up until Matt Fraction's/Salvador Larroca's run, he was never whitewashed, and artists always drew him with a superbly strong Asian features. And the only reason why he was drew so white-ish in Fraction's run is because they tried to make him look as pretty and attractive as possible, trying to avoid any resemblance to his ugly-face design from the Silver Age era. I don't think that artists have accidentally drew Mandarin with a long hair, long beard, wearing a Chinese robes, with Asian-looking face, and long fingernails (which is a clearly a stereotypical shtick for Asian villains). And I don't think it's very easy to forgot that the Mandarin is supposed to be Asian, considering the fact that the name "Mandarin" itself refers to the Imperial China, where "Mandarin" was a status, held by authoritative figures of China.

Mandarin is Asian. Always was, and always will be. If you have problem with that, you have problem with the character. Luckily, I don't, since I grew up with Hong Kong and Wuxia films, and was a fan of Gan Bao, so I have favoritism towards Chinese esque characters and Chinese culture in general, so that is why I respect the Mandarin. You want him to be whitewashed, to not be related to China, to not be a subtle character with grand ideals, be it so. It's you opinion. But character will not change because of that.

 

[2002SpideyFan]

If Killian is supposed be an accurate version of Mandarin, to me that speaks to the weakness of Mandarin as a character, beyond his unfortunate original presentation.

I agree only with the fact that Aldrich Awfulvilian was not a good antagonist, like, at all. But Mandarin has nothing to do with that, since Aldrich Awfulvilian was never intended to be in any way an actual version of the Mandarin. Shane Black admitted that the original antagonist was supposed to be Maya Hensen, but after Marvel rejected the idea of a female villain, Aldrich Awfulvilian was chosen as another option. He came as an afterthought. So I find it funny when people say that Aldrich Awfulvilian was intended to be the Mandarin from the begging, though, it felt more as if they decided to slap Mandarin's name on him right at the last day of shooting. But, to the credit of Awfulvilian, the previous Iron Man villains weren't any better. Justin Hammer was as awful if not worse, especially in comparison to his superior comic counterpart.

Both Killian and Mandarin are more archetypes then characters, Mandarin seems like a such a shallow arch enemy for Stark, it seems like he hates Iron Man because the US government spent Iron Man to spy on him, if the government spent Cap instead, he would have a grudge against him too.

Well, I’ve already gave you an explanation for that in other topic. Probably up until John Byrne’s run on Iron Man there was never a definitive explanation as to why they should be arch-revivals. Luckily, John Byrne gave great origin to their conflict, so it perfectly justifies attitude of both towards each other. And it's far more complex and multifarious than the "great" origin of Awfulvilian, which was definitely inspired by Schumacher's Batman movies.

As for “why this villain does these bad things?”, you can ask that question about any major villain. Why all the James Bond villains want to control the world? Why Dr. Doom wants to conquer the world? Why Lex Luthor is such a *****e? Mandarin’s original origin isn’t very subtle by today’s standards, but Jesus Christ it is not as stupid and corny as Silver Age origin of Lex Luthor, who literally hated Superman because Superman caused his baldness. And that is one of the most iconic comic book villains ever.

What is also funny, this person that currently argues with me about "true essence of the Mandarin", constantly goes into verbal battles with me when I post anything complementary about the Mandarin, and say that Iron Man 3 awfully portrayed him. He says that I'm wrong, I don't know anything about the Mandarin, though, I've read every existing comic with him, and I have nothing but pure respect and appreciation for the character, probably more than him, since I love all the versions of the character, not just few selective incarnations. But when someone like you, for example, posts an actual criticism towards the Mandarin, calls him a bad character, or once again repeats that old song about "MANDARIN IS A STUPID RACIST CARICATURE FU MANCHU YELLOW PERIL YELLOWFACE MR. YUNIOSHI EGG FU STEREOTYPE", he never responds to them. That's just makes me scratch my head. So he argues with people who like the character but never argues with those who clearly disrespecting him?

Anyway, I thought that Iron Man 3 sucked as a movie, not just as a comic book adaptation. So did Iron Man 2. And I've found the twist not really that clever or emblematic. Poor-man's Ra's Al Ghul twist from Batman Begins.