The Mandarin
Seriously? What the hell was this all about and what were Marvel Studios thinking?
The Mandarin is to Iron Man what The Joker is to Batman or what Lex Luthor is to Superman – he’s his iconic arch-nemesis – so for Marvel to completely butcher his adaptation in Iron Man 3 was absolutely criminal.
He was presented as a bearded terrorist who would speak on camera about the atrocities he was going to commit, but was never otherwise seen. Meanwhile, Aldrich Killian – played by Guy Pearce – went about his evil business with his new-found Extremis powers.
As it turned out, the bearded terrorist was nothing more than an actor – played brilliantly, may we add, by Ben Kingsley – called Trevor Slattery and the “real” Mandarin was revealed to be Killian, who had a vendetta against Tony Stark.
Both Pearce and Kingsley did nothing wrong, but the fact is that this wasn’t the Mandarin from the comics – it was an abomination and a tragic portrayal of the character.
Thankfully, however, Marvel have acknowledged this through the One-Shot called All Hail the King, which confirmed that the real Mandarin is actually out there in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and he’s not happy that someone else had used his name.
What do you think? Do you agree that these were terrible depictions? Which other MCU characters weren’t great? Have your say below.
