Mandarin

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Context

The Mandarin is one of the main Iron Man enemies, though he’s also clashed with the Avengers and the like. He’s particularly smart and versatile, with a potent arsenal.

This profile traces the Mandarin’s career from his beginnings in 1964 all the way through his seeming death in 1974 (Iron Man vol. 1 #70). It is a “chronconned” (chronological, retconned profile) researched in 2004.

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Background

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Orientalism

The Mandarin, at that point, falls into the “Orange Menace” territory — that is, a combination of Red Scare  and Yellow Peril  — and combines Fu Manchu-style racial caricature and anti-Communist propaganda.

There was a well-meaning effort not to make them racist. This was the 1960s and comics had to toe the line, but Stan Lee was well-known for his stance against bigotry. But that only goes so far – they remain orientalist .

The stories could be salvageable for a modern audience. The xenophobic aspects are clearly present but are not critical to the character or story. So it’s possible to reframe… to an extent.

The bulk of the damage is:

1. Simply having a Chinese villain named “The Mandarin”. Lots and lots of terrible baggage there.
2. The predominance of racist propaganda employing similar tropes. Fu Manchu was big when Stan Lee (and artist Don Heck) were kids, and his presence looms all over the Mandarin. So early Marvel work with the Mandarin keeps amounting to “we’re doing a less racist version of Fu Manchu”, which ain’t gonna work.
3. The way Asian characters were often drawn in 1960s comics. Many of the racist caricature aspects of World War Two hadn’t really faded away yet. Some made a comeback as the US waged war against various Communist movements in Asia. The illustrations for this article include examples of such.
4. That the character is descended from Genghis Khan. More about that in the next section.

Yellow Peril

Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu — who also was a Marvel character for a while — is the best-known Yellow Peril figure. But this racist, xenophobic imagery goes back all the way to the actual Mongol invasions of Europe.

For instance, researcher Jess Nevins  notes a proto-Fu-Manchu character in Les Aventures merveilleuses du mandarin Fum-Hoam, contes chinois (1723).

The shock of the invasions never quite went away. It slowly weakened over time, but it remained a major framework in the views of Asian peoples. With the Peril mindset, any Asian culture is intrinsically hell-bent on evil and cruel invasion, reality be damned. Any horrors inflicted upon them — say, the Opium Wars — thus becomes justifiable.

There’s another important bit to get about “the Mandarin as a Yellow Peril character”. Anti-Asian racism is pervasive, but there’s little widespread education about it. Mechanically, this means underestimating the issue — not getting what the big fuss is about — unless one has some form of exposure to it.

Educating about such an issue takes decades of large-scale, well-organised activism – at significant personal cost to the activists. By contrast, using racist talking points propped up by centuries of cultural ideas associations is low-friction. This asymmetry is visible in many aspects of genre fictions – such as “should the Mandarin be used in an Iron Man movie”.

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Powers and Abilities

The Mandarin is, according to the narration, “the most feared Oriental of all time !”.

A master scientists and engineer, he builds super-science thingies that are roughly on par with the technology of Tony Stark. His castle is full of them.

He is also a great master of the martial arts. Back then he was of course referred to as a master of karate, though it presumably was some Southern Chinese style. He is also a great swordsman, and his reflexes and senses are uncanny.

One of the reasons he’s so dangerous is that he acts and reacts faster than Iron Man. This allows the Mandarin to keep his enemy on the defensive.

Strength

At this stage, the Mandarin also has superhuman strength. Although he’s never observed lifting anything (in DC Heroes terms, STR), he can cleave large block of solid stone or thick bars of steel with his bare hands (Martial Artist, Unfettered Fist Schtick).

He is repeatedly described as possessing strength rivalling that of Iron Man. He could also take superhuman blows without serious damage.

It is likely this strength was derived from some sort of superhuman treatment. I’d imagine he later stopped using it because of harmful side effects.

The Mandarin and Iron Man routinely expend impressive amounts of Hero Points  when fighting each other (the Mandarin routinely boosting the EV of his rings). It works, too — as can be seen, the Mandarin generally was evenly matched with Iron Man during this era, and more or less won their early encounters.

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History

The Mandarin (real name unknown) was a wealthy Chinese youngster. He was presumably born during the last years of Sun Yat-Sen ’s life (who died in 1925) – or perhaps in the first years of the Guomintang’s reconquest of China from the warlords.

He seems to have grown up in the pacified northern regions during the Chinese Republic. His father was a Chinese notable, and his mother an English traveller who established herself in China.

When the Mandarin was but an infant, his father died, crushed by a toppled statue of a god. This was widely considered as a bad omen, a punishment for having fathered a kid with a foreigner. The Mandarin’s mother later died of a broken heart.

Thus was the child raised by his aunt, who hated him. The family was one of the richest in China, and the wealth would have been hers if not for the kid. She even strongly considered taking him from his crib and abandoning him in a random village, but a falling chandelier then nearly killed her.

Considering this a second omen, she resolved to protect the kid – but also to teach him her hatred of the world.

The Mandarin’s fate during Word War II and the Japanese invasion at Nanking and beyond is unrevealed. But during the 1930s he was reputedly a high government official, presumably during the last years of the civil war and before the Revolution.

It is also known that an aunt of his was a dedicated scientist. She taught the youngster about science – which fascinated him, and led him to become a genius-level amateur scientist. Even back then, the citizenry simply knew him as “the Mandarin” and regarded him with near-mystic awe.

Though he presumably had strong Guomintang connections, the Mandarin and his remaining family did not follow the ragged remains of the Nationalists to the island of Taiwan. After the 1949 revolution, the government seized all of the Mandarin’s assets, leading to the death of his aunts.

The Mandarin himself fled into the wilderness, to avoid deportation and/or death. Although he hated the Communists, his goal was power rather than revenge. He considered that a man of his birth was entitled to power.

The Valley of Spirits

Deep into the countryside (possibly in Tsinghai / Qinghai ), the Mandarin came across an area known as the Valley of Spirits. It was reputedly haunted and thus avoided by all. Having nothing to lose and casting aside peasant superstition, he was the first to walk there in centuries.

Braving the terrifying skeleton of a long-dead dragon guardian, he discovered a crashed otherworldy spaceship. The Mandarin studied the alien technology for years, focusing on a set of 10 ring-like artefacts he started wearing on his fingers. One day he emerged from his research, proclaiming himself the sovereign lord of the Valley.

The Mandarin declared a long-since abandoned castle to be his. He subjugated nearby villages, becoming their feudal lord. The genius then easily defeated the units of the PLA that were sent against him, and became one of the most feared men in China.

He turned the local populace into his servants, and immersed himself in scientific research. From time to time, the PLA sent officers and/or troops to deal with him in some manner or the other, but they never were able to have much of an effect on the Mandarin.

Yinsen and Stark

In the early 1960s, the Mandarin attempted to enlist the help of other brilliant scientific minds to study the ten alien rings. He had the famous professor Ho Yinsen captured by his man in Việt Nam, a Viet Cong senior officer called Wong Chu.

He also plotted so that American industrialist and engineering genius Tony Stark would come to Việt Nam to investigate troubles in his holdings there.

The plan worked. Wong Chu captured both Yinsen and Stark. However the two captive geniuses teamed up the produce the earliest Iron Man armour. Yinsen sacrificed his life to save Stark, who became Iron Man seconds later.

The Mandarin killed Wong Chu for his incompetence. But, for reasons unknown even to himself, he did not take the opportunity to destroy Iron Man. He watched from the shadows as Stark walked away from Wong Chu’s camp.

During this general time frame the Mandarin fathered a son, Temujin, whom he sequestered in a remote monastery. Temujin’s mother may have been young Mei Ling, who had been betrothed to the Mandarin as a child, before the Revolution.

The Mandarin also took the girl later known as Madam Macabre as a student for a few years. Lastly, he discovered the dormant alien robot Ultimo within a volcano. Using Earth science, alien technology and Chinese magic, the Mandarin toiled for years to find ways to reactive Ultimo under his control.

Iron Man

Since he couldn’t access the full power of his rings at this point, the Mandarin researched various new weapons. He dreamt about the day where he would have enough of those to make himself master of the world.

He studied those who could resist him. The most dangerous of all was the American called Iron Man, bodyguard to industrialist Anthony Stark, whom he had unwittingly helped create.

The two men quickly clashed when the Pentagon sent Iron Man on a reconnaissance mission into Red China to learn more about the dreaded Mandarin. The powerful tyrant had the American walk through numerous gauntlets in his castle, then fought him man-to-man – quickly winning by using his paralysis ring.

Deactivating much of Iron Man’s armour, the Mandarin then confronted his great foe in unarmed combat. Stark stopped in the middle of the fight, which he was obviously losing, to use his wrist calculator.

The Mandarin was puzzled for a time, then delivered the coup de grâce – but Stark had been calculating the best parry to counter the Mandarin’s might, and broke his forearms.

The power of his transistorised armours being very low, Iron Man then had no choice but to leave to catch the spy plane of the US Air Force and leave China, leaving the situation a stalemate.

Second clash

Shellhead and the Mandarin clashed again soon after that, when American test ICBMs started disappearing in flight. Stark was certain that everything was right with the missiles, and determined that they were affected by outside forces.

Deciding that only the Mandarin could have built such a device, he entered the Valley as Stark, since he knew Iron Man would be instantly shot.

Stark tricked the guards to get close to the castle, then changed into Iron Man and went in. However, the Mandarin won by running Iron Man through a new gauntlet of strange weapons, exhausting the power in the armor and capturing him.

His power depleted, Iron Man bluffed and told the Mandarin that Stark was no doubt destroying the missile override technology as they fought. The Mandarin left Iron Man bound in magnetically-guided steel cables and went to check his device, as well as the stolen American missiles.

Stark used the delay to repower his armour with his internal generator, shatter the cables and shadow the Mandarin while continuing to recharge.

At that point a new American test missile was launched. Iron Man used the distraction to save the missile from the Mandarin’s missile-capturing beam, and wreck the emitter. Furious, the Mandarin unleashed his disintegration beam ring and took Iron Man through even more traps within his castle.

Despite those, Iron Man eventually managed to punch his foe, and used the few seconds he gained to run away and further wreck the missile-stealing ray. Stealing back the test missiles, he launched them, riding them back to the US.

Third clash

The Mandarin decided to avenge himself by building a killer satellite, which he used to destroy Stark’s house. The industrialist was reported dead, which had been confirmed by Iron Man (back then, Stark couldn’t leave his armor). As the Mandarin anticipated, Iron Man came to confront him over Stark’s reported death.

Stark was caught by a magnetic tractor beam, slammed to the ground, weakened by hypnotic lasers and taken down by the robot named Koto. The Mandarin then told of his origins to Stark, and left him to die by binding him on a rapidly-spinning wheel. He then moved on to the next part of his plan.

The Chinese government had previously asked the Mandarin to give them ICBMs out of loyalty toward the Chinese people. Although the Mandarin had always contemptuously refused, he pretended to change his mind, telling the Party that he would give them a test missile after all.

However, the missile had been rigged to hit Formosa (the future Taiwan), as the Mandarin hoped to trigger World War III and rule everything that remained.

Meanwhile, Iron Man had freed himself, and proceeded to intercept the missile and explosively return it to its point of origin. He then ambushed the Mandarin as he was returning to his castle. The Mandarin quickly gained the upper hand, however, using the power of various rings to batter his opponent and outmaneuver him.

A nearby Chinese commander, furious that the Mandarin had betrayed his country with a missile that ended up killing Chinese soldiers, then had his tank open fire on the Mandarin. This forced the genius to retreat with his jet ring before he could kill Iron Man.

Ultimo and other master weapons

In 1965, the Mandarin struck against the Avengers, to eliminate allies of Iron Man. At that point, the Swordsman was being hunted by the Avengers despite his good intentions. The Mandarin teleported him to his castle before he could be captured by Cap’s kooky quartet.

The Mandarin’s goal was to use the Swordsman as his Trojan horse against the Avengers. The Chinese’s arrogant manner provoked the Swordsman into attacking him, but the Mandarin easily neutralized him. The genius enhanced the Swordsman’s sword, using Makluan technology to turn it into a far more powerful and versatile weapon.

The Mandarin then used his matter recreater to project an illusion of Iron Man within the Avengers’ Mansion. He pretended that it was a genuine communication from the Golden Avenger that endorsed the Swordsman’s candidacy to the Avengers.

The Avengers more or less believed the hologram’s message. They accepted the Swordsman for a probationary period. The Swordsman quickly planted a very small bomb that was powerful enough to raze the mansion, despite being closely watched by the Avengers.

Eventually, the Mandarin grew impatient and decided to have the Swordsman detonate the bomb even though Iron Man wasn’t at the Mansion, reasoning that the death of his allies would leave him vulnerable.

However, the Swordsman decided not to detonate the bomb. He saw himself as a warrior and not a murderer, and was unwilling to harm the beautiful Scarlet Witch.

The Swordsman was caught meddling with the bomb by the Avengers. He had to use his sword’s new powers to flee and dispose of the bomb before the Mandarin realized he had been betrayed and detonated it.

Seething with anger, the Mandarin started working on a new project. Its completion made him so happy that he spared the lives of most of the PLA soldiers that attacked him, and that he used his teleportation technology to summon Tony Stark to him.

He had wanted to get Iron Man, but since he couldn’t locate him settled on Stark to be the helpless witness to the ravage of the Mandarin’s new master weapon – Ultimo !

The giant robot emerged from a volcano amidst an eruption. As the PLA renewed its latest attack on the Valley of Spirits, the Mandarin, his good mood gone, unleashed Ultimo against them. Stark tried to intervene, and the Mandarin blasted him away.

Stark survived thanks to the vest he was wearing under his shirt, and managed to recover his armour to confront Ultimo. Through clever maneuvering, Iron Man eventually lured Ultimo into pulverising the hard lava plug on top of a volcano, catching the fantastic juggernaut into a fierce pyroclastic explosion.

A short time later after the temporary loss of Ultimo, the Mandarin came back – again to strike at Iron Man ! At this point, Stark’s cardiac troubles had worsened so much that he had to ask “Happy” Hogan to wear the armour as Iron Man.

You know what ? I’m Happy

Hogan had barely had time to learn the basics of the armour when the Mandarin teleported him away. Hogan was mauled and captured by the Mandarin, then thrown into a cell to be interrogated.

Knowing that the Mandarin was behind this, Stark feverishly built a new generation of “Golden Avenger” class armour. The Iron Man Mod IV Mk I suit incorporated a much more powerful pacemaker, allowing him to ignore his current health issues.

While the Mandarin was busy interrogating “Iron Man”, Stark entered the Valley of Spirits and stormed the castle once again.

While the Mandarin had made some of his rings more potent, the new Iron Man armour was considerably more powerful than the old. For instance was no longer vulnerable to the formidable unarmed blows of the fantastic Chinese menace.

This time, the fight was much more balanced between the two fighters, and Iron Man eventually beat the overconfident Mandarin in hand-to-hand combat – not forgetting, of course, to loudly proclaim the obvious superiority of good ol‘ American know-how and fighting spirit over treacherous Oriental malarkey !

Meanwhile, the Red Chinese had accepted to test one of the Mandarin’s ICBM, since the previous test ICBM had been destroyed by Iron Man. The Mandarin again rigged the ICBM he gave them to trigger World War III. This time the missile was hacked to hit an American base.

Iron Man, however, reprogrammed the missiles to hit the castle the flew away as a nuclear mushroom covered the Valley of Spirits.

Return from the ashes

Of course, the Mandarin survived, teleporting to another dimension before the explosion could overtake him, then back to Earth. He started having his castle and much of his technology rebuilt after cleaning up the Valley of Spirits of debris, radiation and fallout.

His next revenge plot hinged on an a machine inducing murderous hatred in all those who witnessed its prism. But this prism needed to be a diamond. The Mandarin thus needed to conquer the greatest diamond-producing nations to rule over Earth.

His daring plan being to attack 3 such nations on 3 continents (apparently Brazil, India and South Africa), he uncharacteristically recruited allies to lead this attack.

• The attack by mercenaries on Brazil would be lead by Power Man (Josten) and the Swordsman (Duquesne).
• The army of Asgardian trolls in India would be lead by the Executioner and the Enchantress.
• In South Africa the Living Laser would receive the backing of a recently recovered Ultimo.

To counter this, a full roster of all available Avengers assembled.

• In Brazil, the Mandarin’s forces were met by the Wasp, Goliath I and Iron Man.
• The trolls in India were met by the Scarlet Witch and Hercules.
• The Laser and Ultimo were met by Thor and Hawkeye.

Meanwhile, Captain America and Quicksilver were monitoring the situation. As all Avengers vanquished their foes, Cap and Quicksilver triangulated the radio signals giving orders to the felons and, using a ballistic missile, flew to new hideout of the Mandarin… a space station !

Captain America counted on their foe’s supreme confidence and strong curiosity. It worked – the Mandarin allowed their craft to reach his station so he could personally confront them. The two Avengers managed to fight him for a while – long enough for their comrades to also board the station.

However, while the assembled Avengers looked unstoppable, the Mandarin unveiled his master hate-inducing machine, powered by a gigantic diamond.

All the Avengers fell under the power of the ray and started fighting the nearest person. All, including the winsome Wasp, who was charging, unnoticed due to her minuscule size. She hatefully sucker-blasted the nearby Mandarin, making him blast his own machine and freeing the Avengers.

The Mandarin next triggered powerful energy beams scouring the life-support-enabled rooms of the space station, but Quicksilver rushed the control device and knocked the beams out of alignment. This saved the Avengers and prompted the station’s gradual destruction from within under the unleashed force of the ricocheting beams.

One of the beams perforated the hull, sucking the Mandarin outside. The Avengers barely managed to plug the hole using the giant synthetic diamond. They then sabotaged the station and left as it exploded.

Green and purple

Of course, the Mandarin handily survived by using one of this rings or Gadgets. He then built a new stronghold in the Gobi desert that looked very much like his Valley of Spirits one.

Still looking for a good servant, he decided the Hulk would be ideal for the position and teleported the brute into his stronghold to test his capabilities. Being a reasonable person, though, he had himself represented by a robotic duplicate to run these tests.

The Hulk overcame every single test, destroying the robotic duplicate in the process. He even dispatched the Giant Green Mustachioed Android by hurling him into space. Now very angry, the Hulk refused to hear the Mandarin’s recruiting pitch and charged him, only to pass through an hologram and sink into a pit of quicksand.

Mei Ling

After that incident, the Mandarin made his fiancée Mei Ling his accomplice.

Presumably inspired by having witnessed the Hulk in action, the Mandarin built a robotic version of the jade giant. This sophisticated, remarkably powerful android was used to kidnap Janice Cord. This strange move was solely to confirm the Mandarin’s intuition that Iron Man and Tony Stark were the same man.

Although the Hulk robot was ultimately destroyed, its mission succeeded. Now the Mandarin and Mei Ling knew Anthony Stark’s greatest secret.

The Mandarin immediately faked photos of Stark meeting with Soviet operatives, and had Mei Ling distribute them to the press. Stark could not defend himself, since all these fictional meetings had taken place while he was operating as Iron Man. The plan succeeded, and Iron Man even ended up being hunted by S.H.I.E.L.D..

The Mandarin then had Mei Ling contact the fugitive, to draw him to her traps-ladden exotic antiques shop. The traps eventually brought Iron Man down – but, using a LMD  and a mask, he fooled the Mandarin into concluding that he wasn’t Tony Stark.

The Mandarin, suspecting a trick, left to investigate “Stark”. He left Iron Man in Mei Ling’s care. The Golden Avenger escaped, and reached the Mandarin seconds before the rings-bearing genius would realize the deception.

The fight drew reporters in, and Iron Man was thus publicly seen battling the Mandarin. Realising that Stark could use this to counter the accusations of treason, the Mandarin retreated. He grabbed Stark’s love interest, Janice Cord, and rocketing away to be picked by an aircraft piloted by Mei Ling.

Iron Man managed to catch up and break into the aircraft, and the Mandarin grabbed Cord to threaten to kill her if his nemesis stayed aboard. Mei Ling, aghast at how her future husband treated a young, defenseless woman in love, interposed herself. She was killed by an accidental power blast from the Mandarin.

The Mandarin, furious, tried to kill Iron Man but was knocked into the aircraft’s computer by the Golden Avenger. Stark then bailed out with Cord seconds before the craft crashed and exploded.

Hulk and Cap

The renegade genius survived, of course. He observed the Sandman being narrowly defeated by the Hulk. The Mandarin convinced the sandy thug that they could together defeat the jade giant, and gain their revenge against the Hulk. Pairing up, the villains promptly captured the Hulk and Betty Ross.

The Mandarin subjected the Hulk to his inescapable Contra-Power Rays. But the monster spotted Ross, which made him angry and strong enough to break the hold of the beams. The Sandman and the Mandarin proved unable to hold the furious Hulk back.

Out of spite, the Mandarin betrayed the Sandman, kicking him into equipment which turned the Sandman into glass. He then fled as the U.S. Army came in and captured the Hulk.

In 1970, the Mandarin attempted to worsen the situation in Việt Nam and weaken both global superpowers. He captured Doctor Hoskins, a peacemaker and healer well-respected by both the US and the Viet Cong, who promptly accused each other of the deed and intensified hostilities.

Captain America was sent in by the State Department to retrieve Hoskins. He soon stumbled on Vietnamese soldiers serving the Mandarin. Letting himself be captured, he was taken into the mountain stronghold of the Mandarin. There he acrobatically escaped and located Hoskins, with whom he fled.

The Eye of Yin

Hoping to enhance his rings, the Mandarin searched for the mystic Eye of Yin, created centuries ago by Makluan-trained sorcerers. He allied with an ancient Chinese scholar who conducted the research for him, and located the artefact in Tibet.

The Mandarin sent an armed digging party. But the site was very close to the Great Refuge of the Inhumans, and the Royal Family easily routed his soldiers. Furious, the Mandarin seemingly went there personally. He confronted the Inhuman Royal Family, and took out most of them, before being taken down by Black Bolt.

It was, however, a ruse. “The Mandarin” was but a robotic double. As intended the clash had awakened the curiosity of the Royal Family, who investigated the timeless, buried temple the Mandarin was trying to reach. The Mandarin hoped that they would face the defences there in his stead.

They did so, and the Mandarin summoned the now-unprotected Eye of Yin to him. He commanded it to dissolve itself and imbue his rings with fantastic power. He banished the sinologist to another dimension, then defeated the Royal Family again as they came for him.

Black Bolt, however, managed to hypnotize the Mandarin as he was busy ranting about his all-powerful rings. The Inhumans captured the Mandarin, took his rings away and left the deadly jewellery in the temple, which was soon engulfed in molten lava.

The Mandarin eventually escaped the hypnotic trance, but nearly fell into a depression over being separated from his rings. However he forced himself to study the books accumulated by the banished scholar, to learn more about the Eye of Yin.

He discovered that the ancient, proto-Chinese civilization behind the Eye also had had an encounter with a Makluan vessel. Donning his old silk robe, he pilgrimaged to their lands (presumably in Tibet). There he discovered more intact Makluan skeletons, just like in the Valley of Spirits – and another crashed Makluan ship !

This ship, which he studied for weeks, was different. Although it wasn’t controlled or powered by ring-like artefacts, its interface was a headband that the Mandarin learned to wear and control.

Using the link between all Makluan tech, he contacted his rings and had them free themselves from their tomb. However, this burned out the extra power from the Eye of Yin.

The Unicorn

A short time after this feat, the desperate Unicorn, dying from radiation exposure, came to the Mandarin for a cure. While the Mandarin never really intended to cure the Unicorn, he discovered that he could use the alien headband to take control of the sick man’s body as his mind slipped away into a vegetative state.

Delighted at the discovery, he declared the practically mindless Unicorn to be his “eleventh ring”.

In the identity of union leader Gene Kahn, the Mandarin stirred unrest among Starks employees, by accusing Stark of being in league with Communists. Many of Stark’s fellow Americans, including the patriotic workers at Stark Industries, were all too eager to believe this.

When exposed, the Mandarin fought Iron Man alongside the Unicorn, and they defeated the Golden Avenger. Stark narrowly escaped, and survived the encounter thanks to an unexpected remission of his cardiac condition.

Recovering, Stark ruined Kahn’s union propaganda through some charismatic public speaking and communication. He then tracked down the Mandarin and the zombified Unicorn to confront them anew.

The fight was definitely not in the Golden Avenger’s favor. However, careless use of the headband inadvertently switched the Mandarins consciousness with that of the terminally ill Unicorn. Trapped into the Unicorn’s ravaged body, the Mandarin hurriedly grabbed his actual body and fled to find a way to fix his situation.

The Yellow Claw strikes !

At that time, the extradimensional Black Lama had launched the so-called “super-villains war”. He promised the power to control his mystical golden globe to the criminal who could defeat other competitors. The nefarious mastermind, the Yellow Claw, quickly emerged as the most terrifying of the contestants.

As part of the competition, he seized control of the Palace of Star Dragons. Thus, when the Mandarin, still in the Unicorn’s body and carrying his original, comatose body, came back, he ran into the Claw’s forces. The Mandarin had to flee to a secondary base, an undersea dome.

Working feverishly, the Mandarin in the body of the Unicorn designed a cure to switch their minds back. However, he discovered that the power source of his secondary base could not provide the necessary energy.

Using special sensors, he found a possible source of energy to perform the operation — the mighty Japanese mutant Sunfire, who was then operating in Việt Nam.

Expending the last of his delta energy reserves, the Mandarin teleported Sunfire to him and made him his prisoner. Sunfire, however, had been fighting Iron Man at that time, and the Golden Avenger soon came in hot pursuit.

A lucky torpedo hit drove Iron Man away by cracking the Plexiglas shields over his eye and mouth. This was an important fashion victory for the Mandarin, since the new mask Iron Man designed to recover from the incident had… a nose. Which was terrible.

While Stark was tinkering with aesthetic disaster, the Mandarin taunted Sunfire, who discharged tremendous amounts of energy trying to escape. The nuclear energy of the Japanese was such that it eventually triggered the mind switch — restoring the Mandarin to his body and leaving the vegetative Unicorn behind.

The Mandarin and Iron Man fought in the wrecked undersea base. Iron Man freed the trapped Sunfire, but was eventually defeated and knocked unconscious. A powerful karate blow to the chest then triggered Iron Man’s propulsive systems and sent him flying through the atmosphere.

The Mandarin assumed Iron Man would eventually die in outer space and turned his attentions over to retaking the Valley of Spirits from the Yellow Claw.

In his anger, the Mandarin stormed the Valley of Spirits by himself. He had a hidden objective, though, and when he reached one of the volcanos he blew it open, revealing… Ultimo !

The Mandarin and the invincible behemoth then strode toward the Palace of the Star Dragons, knowing that even the formidable arsenal there could not hope to stop the alien giant robot. Sunfire, eager for revenge against the Mandarin, tried to attack Ultimo, but to no avail.

As the two struggled in the Valley, the Mandarin used a secret underground entrance to his castle. He scattered giant automatons and monstrous mutations left there as guards by the Yellow Claw.

The Mandarin was now riding on pure, righteous anger. When he broke into his own castle, he shattered the cannon the Yellow Claw was using against him. He then struck a mighty blow in the head of the Claw — which proved to be a robotic double. The robot exploded, finally bringing the exhausted Mandarin down.

As the Yellow Claw taunted him from a nearby video screen, the fatally wounded Mandarin staggered off, refusing to die. But even his powerful will ran out, and he eventually collapsed.

The Yellow Claw then ordered Loc Do, one of his servants, to dispose of the corpse. But the wily man palmed the rings of the Mandarin before doing so, hoping to use them to become as mighty as the Mandarin had been.

Can it be… the END OF THE MANDARIN ?

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Description

The first known costume for the Mandarin was somewhat weird-looking, in retrospect. Also, for reasons unknown to this writer, he was sometimes depicted as having Vulcan-like pointed ears. Perhaps that was the side-effect from his superhuman strength treatment ?

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Personality

The Mandarin is at this stage an arrogant, power-mad genius out to conquer the world and prove his superiority. He’s overconfident and generically evil, though he’s not a casual killer.

One of his earliest goals was to destroy all rival military powers so he could reign supreme. He generally seemed to desire nothing more than the world acknowledging his genius, and his vast skills and power of personality.

The Mandarin, while overconfident, does not have misplaced pride. He has no problem with running from an enemy… to lead him through a variety of deadly traps and counter-attacks. Gauntlets of traps, robots, weapons and the like is a staple of the early Mandarin.

On the other hand, he often prefers to use his martial skills or weapons he build over his rings, perhaps because he feels humbled by being unable to determine all of the rings’ secrets. He typically uses his rings strategically at key points of a fight, rather than blast every Phase.

The Mandarin is so haughty and overconfident that he prefers to operate alone and avoid alliances. He also tends to consider any setback as a defeat, and absolutely hates being touched by anybody not worthy of it – i.e., anybody.

As demonstrated by the quotes, he’s a master of the Great Marvel Villain Dialogue (and monologue, too), with his tirades usually being written by Stan “the Man” Lee himself. Being a scientist, he’s usually interested in investigating mysteries, phenomena and new foes.

The Mandarin sometimes displays an incredibly spiteful streak, often leading him to dispose of his allies — seemingly just because he can. He also has a soft spot for revenge, a certain amount of cruelty, and occasional contempt for any Occidental.

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Quotes

“I pity you, Iron Man !! For though you do not even suspect my existence, you head the list of those the Mandarin has vowed to destroy ! And the Mandarin never fails !”

“I’ve toyed with you long enough, Iron Man ! Now the Mandarin shall strike !”

“Others tremble before me, but you merely mock me !! Others are paralyzed with fear in my presence, but you defy me !! What manner of being are you ? Before I destroy you completely, I make you an offer ! Agree to become my ally — serve me — and together we can rule the world ! For your power is second only to mine !”

“There is nothing that can save you from my miniature attack rockets !”

“It is almost a bore to continue my vigil ! For, the outcome of this most satisfying battle is truly a foregone conclusion ! Yet, I shall view Iron Man’s final defeat a moment longer — to savor in full this most delicious triumph ! In fact, as a final act of mercy, I shall intensify Ultimo’s heat rays to their most extreme power ! Thus, in my infinite benevolence, I end the battle quickly for my doomed victim ! Henceforth, never shall any say of the Mandarin that he is totally merciless !”

“You dared lay an hand on my sublime person ! For that… you’ll die a thousand deaths !”

“In truth, it matters nothing that you attack me in my lair, fools ! Even the defeat of my bumbling lackeys does not mean my final defeat — but only a brief reprieve for Earth ! And now, behold that which will soon give me mastery over the world !”

Mandarin: “They could not suspect what lies beneath it was far more than the lifeless jade statue it appears to be ! They could little dream that… THERE LIVES A GREEN GOLIATH !”
Mei Ling: “He-he… it… *moves* ! Comes to life at the very sound of your voice…!”
Mandarin: “Yes, Mei Ling ! All the surging strength, all the rampant rage of the incredible Hulk is mine to command, to use as I will ! And soon… soon… use him I shall !”

“Face my living statues, Iron Man, and cringe…! Cringe before warriors of marble with but one ruthless purpose… one burning, all-consuming mission… *to destroy !*”

“Stop, you fool ! Flight is impossible ! No man can hope to outrun the fantastic force I wield with but the flick of a finger !”

“Maudlin metal miscreant ! Goals you call insane, I call inevitable ! As inevitable as the destruction that shall down you from my devastating rings !”

“By the shrine of my ancestors… Captain America has escaped ! But the Mandarin’s wrath shall follow… no matter where he flees !”

“My rings shall meet your challenge.”

“Yellow Claw ! If you seek to intimidate me, as the wolfpack does to the isolated sheep… THIS is how the Mandarin DEFIES you ! With my electro-blast ring… with a sonic blast… with a disintegrator beam !” (destroys three monstrous guardians in one blast each)

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By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Mostly Iron Man comics (Marvel Universe).

Helper(s): Kal El ; Gareth Lewis, Frank Murdock. Several paragraphs in the History section are from Marvel.com .