The Overlord
Superhero
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2002
- Messages
- 8,945
- Reaction score
- 241
- Points
- 73
Iron Man vs the Mandarin would've been an epic battle. I was really hoping for that in IM3 with Iron Man taking on all of the Mandarin's rings and having to stretch his own tech to the limit to counter all those different weapons.
Maybe we could still get that one day, especially now in the age of Dr Strange. It might not look as unusual to have someone who appears almost like a magic user battling Shellhead.
I don't think Mandarin's rings are biggest problem with him, the biggest problems is an inconsistent personality, a rather standard generic hero vs. villain rivalry with Iron Man and his racial stereotype origins. The Mandarin will still be a hard sell in China, no matter what. Mandarin comes off as a badly dated character sometimes and because of that, writers don't seem to have a consistent vision for him, not just dated in a silly way, but in a offensive way. That is why Shane Black did not use the comic book Mandarin in his film, he said Mandarin was a racial stereotype.
Someone compared Mandarin to Ra's Al Ghul. But Ghul has a rather consistent personality and an ideology that can be easily understood and would attractive enough to gain a lot of followers. Mandarin seems like a different guy every time someone else writes him, I am not sure what his ideology is and why he has followers and I don't think there is anything participial interesting in the rivalry between Iron Man and the Mandarin.
Killain might not have been the perfect villain, but I think comic book Mandarin is a character only hard core fan boys would love, he seems like an extremely hard sell for the general public, both in America and overseas.