The Overlord
Superhero
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2002
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Well no one is confusing Mandarin as having the same stature that Lex Luthor or the Joker enjoy, that's for sure. But in terms of IM, I think Mandarin does share enough of that doppelganger quality to make him an interesting foil. As far as racism goes though, almost every character created during the 60-70s is somewhat racist. Black Panther, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, you name it, there's probably some sort of racial undertone present. But speaking of the undertones, why then, would Killian create & then adopt a name of such Asian descent in this new contemporary vision of the character? They could've just called him something else entirely and all problems are solved.
There are a lot of villains created in that era that were not racial stereotypes.
But isn't a good question to ask why Mandarin doesn't have the same stature as other major villains?
But how often has Mandarin's supposed nature as Tony's foil really translated into great stories? Like I said, despite claims that Mandarin is Tony's natural foil, a lot of the truly iconic Iron Man stories don't even feature him, so I question how much of an iconic arch nemesis when he isn't even featured in a lot of the iconic Iron Man stories. Seems like a disconnect to me. He seems more like a archetype then a character, from the way you describe him and that archetype is dated. That is the character's problem, he comes off as dated archetype, so a lot of writers don't want to use him, so he doesn't get featured in important stories. This has been a problem since the 80s, there is a problem when Iron Man's supposedly most iconic villain, is not featured in the character's most iconic run. You have described an idea, but how much chemistry does he really have Iron Man, it seems like both of the Stanes have done more to hurt Iron Man then Mandarin ever has. Does Mandarin even have a good motive for being a villain in the first place? What is so great about Mandarin as a character?
Also I assume that Shane Black out the fake Mandarin to have a mystery story, where Tony has to use his head and find the real villain, so he was the iconography of the Mandarin to fake both the audience and Tony out.
To be fair Black Panther was the first non stereotype black character introduced in comics, it may not seem like a big deal now, but it was back then. Really black Panther was not stereotype, certainly not compared to Mandarin in the 60s. The problem is Mandarin is a 30s style character introduced in the 60s, so by the 80s he seemed really dated.
That's the thing, they were well on their way to reinventing him for present times. Re-imagining him as a terrorist of indiscriminate origin, while still being reminiscent of his comic appearance somewhat, was genius. And the crux of his dichotomy with Stark would still be intact.
Perhaps, but I don't Shane Black character peroid, so making Shane Black put the character in wouldn't have been a good idea, if he didn't like him.
Trying make a director use a character doesn't like doesn't make for good movies.
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