Source: cinemablend.com
3. The Mandarin (The “Real” One)
Whom? One of the more infamous Iron Man villains, this warlord found ten rings of alien power that he used to become an honest-to-goodness supervillain. He fought Iron Man numerous times, but recently receded into the background. Mostly because, of all the problematic villains out there, he’s the problematic-est.
The MCU’s Mandarin turned out to be a puppet figurehead masterminded by someone else. In his one-off, All Hail the King, we learned that there was an actual Mandarin out there who was unhappy that his name was used. Buuuut he’ll almost definitely never appear on any screen, because…
Why He’ll Never Appear: Look, there’s no way to do The Mandarin that isn’t at least a little offensive. The best-ever version – the only one to avoid this curse – was the one by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca, which played out as a parallel to the North Korean horrors. Otherwise, the Mandarin only works as a villain when he’s couched in other-ization.
He’s villainous because he’s foreign. His name is the frickin’ Mandarin, for Christ’s sake. And straddling the racist/not racist line isn’t worth the headache with a character who isn’t very good anyway.
