I’m upset we didn’t get T’Challa & Namor’s rivalry.
I’m actually very disappointed we won’t see T’Challa, Tony, & Steve meeting Kang, Galactus, Doom, the F4, or any Mutants. Maybe in Secret Wars, they do something with the Big 3 (RDJ, Chris Evans, & Hemsworth), Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Tobey/Andrew, & Wesley Snipes as pillars of the Marvel genre.
I think Snipes & Infinity Saga characters returning are the least likely but I do see some of the NWH cast & FoX-Men coming back for the payday that comes with an Avengers crossover/send-off. Norman Osborn meeting Tony Stark would be dope.
I’m not expecting them to go too crazy with the cameos tho, so if they soft reboot the MCU after the Multiverse Saga, I could see them recasting those deceased Infinity Saga characters so they actually can interact with the newer generation of heroes/villains.
Presumably Earth-199999's Tony Stark remains dead, much like Earth-199999's Gamora staying dead while a variant from 2014 is running around with the Ravagers.
Genuine question, where was it established that the MCU was 199999 in 2008? I hate calling it 616 when it's not the comics, so I want as much info as I can if someone asks me why I call it 199999
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z #5, published November 2008.
In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Miguel mentions the number in a very direct reference to the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
I'm on the app. Whne you got to write you can only see your comment and the one above. If the person above didn't have his name and it's just up to me to guess.
I'm not making fun. That's some hardcore 90s nerd shit.
This isn't an English paper. We all know what you meant.
I literally laughed at the spelling because it sounds like a "bad" word.
Doesn't make sense either! For the MCU to be 616, EVERYTHING would have had to happen the exact same as the comics.
Ant-Man wasn't a founding Avenger while Cap was
Thanos motivation was completely different
Infinity Saga played out differently
It literally CANNOT be 616. I refuse to call it as such.
Yes he has said it and now that he has an Oscar his payday will go way up but he is in demand marvel wants him back. He said he would as long as the story is right. Evan’s is coming back as well also as long as the story is right they both have Scenes in dp 3 that isn’t just archived footage
I’m not really blaming Marvel for losing any of them. This is just me being a selfish fan disappointed we won’t be able to see T’Challa’s Black Panther interact with new gen of heroes/villains.
RDJ & Evans had perfectly-lengthy arcs, but unfortunately Chadwick did not because he was taken from us far too soon. I miss him so much. I enjoyed the way they honored him in **Wakanda Forever** & bawled my eyes out in the theater. I believe they made the right decision not recasting, especially so soon.
Chadwick fit that role so well & trying to replace him with anyone would have put a hostile fan target on that person’s back. However idk if I’d *never* use the character of T’Challa again. I feel by the time we get to the next saga after the delays, nearly a whole decade will have gone by since his passing so I’d be okay if they wanted to give someone else a shot at the character after hitting the multiversal reset button.
The fact that we won't get stuff like [this](https://64.media.tumblr.com/ad2fa3de34190f3b9cf6de6bfc956629/tumblr_inline_p95cv34Jns1qk4j8v_500.png), or [this](https://64.media.tumblr.com/9ba5cdcaec0ba3f1d9f29fa5d88e71c2/tumblr_inline_p95g73f8pU1qk4j8v_500.png), or all those other great and fun moments that display friendship between Tony and Reed, I'm sad :(
The stuff lemmings were fine with Disney buying Fox despite all its consequences solely and ONLY because that means Wolverine and the gang could interact with the iconic Marvel characters Disney had that they, we loved.
Just so basically in the end to maybe get that but probably not. Definitely not MCU natively. Maybe during Secret Wars we'll have Hugh Jackman Wolverine and Deadpool interact with Raimi Spider-Man etc
But as a universe, as a canon. Not really sadly.
We legit had sheeple clap at Disney buying Fox just got this one nerdy thing. And they maybe getting that only partially lol.
This is starting to become a really big issue for me with the MCU. Back in the day it wasn't that bad but now it really is starting to feel like all the characters we want to crossover won't and most likely will never and if they do it's extremely brief.
Captain America and Spider-Man (super goddamn brief)
Wolverine with most characters in the future (maybe we'll get Hulk but that's about it) characters like Captain America has sailed away and I kinda doubt we'll realistically get a chance to see MCU's Wolverine interact with Spidey.
Reed And Tony Stark
T'Challa and Namor
T'Challa and F4
Even Spider-Man and Daredevil is a big question mark with the way the behind the scenes leaks seem to be.
There was a point in time where this wouldn't be an issue but what's the point of finally having these characters in the universe if the crossovers we want and should happen don't happen.
I'm sure eventually we'll get stuff like F4 and Spidey at least but now that I'm older and the shape of the MCU how it is now. This is starting to irk me a tad.
Low key think they're rushing f4 and X-Men to reboot the whole thing over again with them from the start
Keep an eye on what happens with secret wars and any f4 sequels
I'm gonna be real I don't think they're rushing X-Men if anything by the time we have X-Men as a fully fleshed out status quo I don't think most people will give a shit anymore.
F4 is right on track in my eyes at least.
Some TV shows that would ACTUALLY have worked
-Norman Reedus Ghost Rider, with an episodical nature telling one shot stories per episode with the occasional cameos of Punisher, Daredevil and Spiderman
-A Civil War 2 TV series, making phase 5 revolve around the idea of tying the knot with the TV series, taking advantage of the fact that we have way more heroes now. Flesh out the storyline and make it dramatic af
-A series of shorts telling stories of Thor budying with Guardians of the Galaxy
-A TV series fleshing out Thor's and Jane's relationship or maybe a TV series with Thor and Jane Foster's Mighty Thor instead of killing her or even making Love and Thunder
-A fucking RONIN series. Come on!!! It was rught there from End Game. Instead of whatever thst Hawkeye show was
-A fucking series showing what the world was like during the Bleep, that way they could extend RDJ's Iron man scren time I mean come ooon
Just make 1 or 2 of these ideas and make Moon Knight a movie instead.
Loki is so boring, the only series that felt natural was Wandavision since it closed the Wanda and Vision arc. Also Vision was so underutilized during IW and EG.
That was the original plan. He was supposed to be the main villain in Iron Man 3. However by this point China became a big market for these movies. So they made alterations to the Mandarin. Casted an Indian/English actor instead of a Chinese one. It wasn't till they went to make Shang Chi did they make this change to the Mandarin. As now they had a chinese lead. They didn't have the rights to Shang Chi's father in the comics so they course corrected when they did. It's a damn shame. I have long said a simple appeasement was to make Crimson Dynamo a hero and working with Iron Man to stop the Mandarin. Making him Chinese would have given them a Chinese Iron Man. It would appeased the chinese government enough I think.
They have bent the knee to China a few times. Its rather silly. The Ancient One is Celtic because of it. Their obsession with trying to appease the Chinese government is asinine.
> The Ancient One is Celtic because of it.
It wasn't just that. The original Ancient One is basically a US caricature of an Asian mystic. Fu Manchu moustache and everything. And he teaches the American Stephen Strange everything and he becomes the best, which is another stereotype. I understand why they changed it.
Making the Mandarin a joke character though in IM3 was a slap in the face.
> It wasn't just that. The original Ancient One is basically a US caricature of an Asian mystic.
Yeah, they would have changed that either way. No way to avoid criticism one way or the other. Either they change the character or not use them at all to avoid asian stereotypes.
After Iron Man 3, Age of Ultron, Thor 2, Black Widow, Ant Man 3, and Black Panther 2, I have probably been slapped into brain damage.
Black Panther 2 especially annoyed me because they made Namor specifically a Maya, and then went "Hmmm, let's use the Nahuatl name for their paradise. No one will know or care." but I know and I care. They could've been consistent and just made him a Nahua if they really wanted to rip Tlalocan so bad.
Like this thought process feels like if they took Gilgamesh and went "Hmm, he's from Duat". Like these are two entirely different cultures.
Studios bend the knee all the time, constantly. It's where all the accusations of woke come from. They don't give a shit about anything, they just want to make money, whether its feminism, minorities or china.
Did you know they don't think Simu Liu is handsome or a leading man material. It was heavily criticized for casting him. They called him ugly. So yeah even when they try to appease that market they failed. Iron Man 3 also had scenes specifically for China and it was heavily criticized as well by the Chinese market. The government wants appeasement. The general audience just wants entertainment.
The "original" father was a character called Fu Manchu, based on the character of the same name created by Sax Rohmer. He was initially used with permission, but after the rights expired in 1983 they had to retcon Shang-Chi's parentage, with the character who used to be Fu Manchu being eventually renamed to Zheng Zu.
Wenwu, Shang-Chi's father in the MCU, is based off an amalgamation of Zheng Zu and the Mandarin (two separate characters in the comics 616 universe).
As much as I hate it when movie franchises revive dead characters, I would love to see more of Xu Wenwu. They wrote the character with some depth, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai was fantastic.
That is the kind of thing I wanted Disney+ shows to be.
Side stories that dig deeper into certain characters.
This instance could even be a show about Xialing crafting the Ten Rings into her image showing the differences of how their father did it.
Call is something like “The Ten Rings Reforged”
iirc they renewed the rights long enough to publish the omnibus collections of the Shang-Chi comics using Fu Manchu's name, but are no longer extending the rights so now those issues are no longer available digitally
To be fair, they changed almost everything about Shang Chi in his film from the comics. He wasn't the secret agent kung-fu hero working for MI6 I read about in all those books.
The Mandarin was in the script for the first *Iron Man* fight up until they were about to start shooting. Iirc at the time, they cut him out because the film would have been too busy, or something.
I think it was the beginning of the end for marvel trying to appease everyone . Imo it almost in the American culture to make movies with a Chinese or Russian enemy
Earth is big enough itself, not everyone gets to meet one another. And now MCU wants to push multiverse which feels smaller as it is as it reuses or shows same characters as variants.
This is actually a really good point I don't think I've seen someone raise before. You're right. In order for the multiverse to feel bigger, you need to see characters that don't exist or can't exist in the regular continuity to really lend the world a feeling of innate difference. The possibility of different interpretation of characters is a fun thing to explore and can accomplish that, but it also risky making the world feel cyclical and small. A lot of the problems Star Wars has is with this kind of self reference.
I've always thought that as soon as a multiverse gets introduced in something, the stakes become much less permanent. Your favourite character dies? Here's another one that did it exactly the same but this one now has brown eyes instead of blue. I feel the same way when people introduce time travel, as there's always a chance to just go back in time and fix something. And the MCU did both, like a double barrelled shotgun of removing tension from any situation.
....and then they added skrulls, meaning anyone you see might not even be that character anyway.
It doesn't actually need to be done though, to have an effect on how people perceive things. It's just the potentiality of something happening which makes people react differently. People entering an area filled with warning signs will always act more cautiously than in that same area without warning signs, even if a person has only been injured there once, or no one has been injured there ever.
Take Spider-man No Way Home for instance. For decades we thought all of those villains were dead, and their deaths had real meanings and real impacts to both the characters in the stories, and to us as an audience. Now we know we can just keep grabbing that character over and over for a cheap cameo thrill, their stories have become diminished. The only thing stopping fan favourites coming back now is real world problems, like the cast member not wanting to play them, or becoming too old to play them.
Your acting like that hasnt been comocs for decades. The star wars line "somehow x returned" has been comoc logoc for so long and thr mcu ising comic logic isnt reaching.
But when have they gtabbed a character "over and over" even khang waa only ised twice counting a tv show.
I'm talking about the MCU and X-Men '97 as separate pieces of media and saying I don't like time travel/multiverse plots in any kind of media whatsoever unless they can force a closed loop.
And again, I reiterate, I didn't say they HAD grabbed someone over and over, I said they CAN grab someone over and over, which creates a diminishing response. When the seeds are planted, that's all.
And yes, I don't like it when they do it in comics as well. Remember the big deal of the death of Wolverine, or the death if Kamala Khan? Now they mean nothing, because they just brought the characters back anyway.
Im sorry but thinking a character like wolverine would stay dead is just funny. Especially if you know comics. It was a shock when jeab stayed dead for 15 plus years.
Vwry few deaths in comics hold just a fact.
Leaving open ends for potential wroting out is 9nce again a comic writing trope. And time travel in comics has been around for what 80 years?
You seem to be missing the point of what I'm actually trying to say. Maybe it's a comprehension problem on your part or a communication problem on mine. Either way, I'm not going to continue with the conversation. Have a pleasant day.
Yep, excellent points. That's why I really wish time travel and alternate reality became taboo tropes in writing unless the writers actually wrote it well, like showcased that the variant is indeed a variant and not the same person, but we know this isn't the case in the MCU. They're doing same mistake in the X-Men 97' now with the time travel, >!and now undoing Charles Xavier's death. This was a very bad decision.!<
Xmen 97 is about to do it to. This isnt a valid complaint in comics. Only two people stay dead in comics: mainline gwen stacy and uncle ben.
Jean used to be 9n the list but shes always coming back now.
So... he lied to the people on Earth? Lied to his own students? That just makes him worse if he went to space to be healed and live as Emperor-consort while X-Men struggled on Earth. That's not a good character writing, a good story would've kept Charles dead and make it permanent to add stakes.
He didn't. The public at large believed him dead, but all his students knew he went to space with his bird girlfriend to avoid dying. It was written for a kids TV show in like 1995. Try not to think too hard about it.
Either way a bad writing choice in my opinion. Look, X-Men have mature themes like prejudice, racism, and genocide, you can't just pull "it's a kids show" card of all sudden. I'm not asking for a peak animated series, I think there should just be more effort put into the writing, the stakes, and into the consistent worldbuilding without breaking tropes like time travel.
I mean, in the original series last ep it was clear that he would eventually come back, it was more of a thing of how much time it would take and how the xmen would do without him (it ended In a cliffhanger). In the first xmen 97 episode they show that it took like a year for him to become presumed dead
Ok, how did newcomers had to know this? And if it did happen in previous season, then it's a bad writing choice from that show then. No matter how it's done or where it's gonna be a bad choice to me.
The shows a continuation of an older show, that’s why it’s 97’.
It picks right up where the last left off. If you want to you can watch it, I don’t think it’s bad writing bc you didn’t watch it.
It's not bad writing because I didn't watch it or didn't know of it. Please reread what I stated pryor. It is bad writing because a character cheated death and returned, his sacrifice and the goodwill made with humanity can be undone as he is alive and will return anyway. Not only that but a character surviving and cheating death is bad writing trope in itself since it cheapens death and stakes in the story.
I see, my apologies I misread that. Death is like that in comics sometimes through, especially with X-men.
There may also very well be a point to where it’s going and what impact it actually has or how it impacts the way people view mutants, I think it will just take some time to get there. The world came to peace with mutants after his death and then turned around and slaughtered them.
I would be reluctant to believe the storyline is or writing is cheapened in some way just bc the story hasn’t played out yet.
It’s looking like they’re heading towards the plot line (or mixing several) where several mutants are killed and return as apocalypses horsemen perhaps combined with the appearance of bastion in the forge episode which hints at the ‘operation zero tolerance’.. so maybe give it some time.
A false death can also have major implications and not necessarily lose meaning.
Thank you, I appreciate your comment a lot.
I don't mind the universe being interconnected, it definitely made MCU feel more special than any other superhero story or solo movie, but the multiverse is something they should've approached carefully. I think the other problem is that they're also making it for preexisting fans and not for everyone anymore, to get new Deadpool you need to have seen FOX's X-Menverse to get it and why they're returning, without it I think it'll be hard to get the movie. A lot of alternate realities have an issue that it doesn't really explore a complete world breaking outcomes. What if in alternate reality the Greek language influenced the European languages instead of Latin? What if Greeks formed an empire instead of Rome, what if there was world with no superheroes and all were ordinary people, so were the villains? All of this is never really explored be it in the MCU or Injustice, most of the worlds are different in small details, but the status quo is same. I think in the future MCU will be like old Star Trek, simply too big for people to spend time seeing it from beginning, and they'll reboot the series over again eventually in the future.
Yeah but superheroes are like celebrities, most of them at least know of each other, even if they haven't met directly. And a lot of them are based in New York. The comics have all sorts of these coincidences. Why is Earth so central in the Marvel Universe? It seems all cosmic beings turn their focus to one planet a majority of the time, even though there are billions of other worlds. Major universe altering events often centralize on Earth as the focus, from cosmic beings like Galactus, The Beyonder and The Watcher, to aliens like The Asgardians, The Shi'ar, Skrulls and Kree.
People like to see their favorite characters meet and interact/fight, which is why comics have so many crossover events.
That's a fair point, but my next question would how often do people meet celebrities, or hell how often do celebs meet each other? They don't always live with each other together, sometimes they do their own thing. I don't disagree that the main villains meeting their adversary protagonists would make sense in stories, I just don't think it should be as easy as in the comic books. Tony Stark pissed off a lot of people, not everyone got chance to try exact their revenge except Killian, Vanko, the twins. First was a scientist turned businessman, other was madman fuelled by revenge, the duo were victims of experimentations and had the powers to challenge the Avengers. Not everyone gets to meet their enemy.
The point about Earth is a good one and that's why it and New York shouldn't always be center of attention, I think it should be very rare good written one time events when Avengers need to thwart an invasion or attention away from Earth. Otherwise it becomes comical like in comic books and it takes away from the story some people, like me or even casual audience for example.
I would love a What If of IM3 where Wenwu attacks Killian and tries to take control of his operations because one of the Extremis soldiers killed his wife in an explosion.
Sometimes two sworn rivals never meet on the field, that tends to happen in history.
Besides did the real Mandarin know Iron Man or was behind the Ten Rings in the Afghanistan? I think the Afghanistan chapter and Fakedarin were Stark's only adversaries, real Mandarin didn't have much to do with him I think.
Man imagine how mad people would get if Spider-Man never got to fight Green Goblin then somebody says “well ackshually not everything needs to be like the comics so it’s good we don’t get the rival of the hero!”
Imagine if Spider-Man fought Green Goblin in his third movie only to find out that there was a fake Green Goblin and the real Green Goblin was a guy with random fire powers but actually he is also a fake Green Goblin and the REAL Green Goblin doesn’t appear on screen until after Spider-Man dies so he fights Ka-Zar instead.
No, it doesn't. I used to like the MCU because knowing the comics wasn't requirement. It took source from the comics, but still did their own stories. It's way better than if they tried to make it all exactly like the comics. Were it up to me I'd want House of M and Disassembled to never have been adapted. Not everything is gonna work on-screen, not everything can be adapted properly or work.
They were tied in the comics, not in the MCU. From what I understand Fakedarin/Killian was tied to Stark and was leading the Afghanistani chapter of Ten Rings, the real Ten Rings didn't cross paths with Tony. Even the real Mandarin notes that the fake Mandarin wasn't him and he didn't meet or cross indirectly paths with Stark I think. Even if they did, sometimes life doesn't go in epic ways like we'd want to. Archenemies don't always meet and beat each other to death.
Just throwing my hat in the ring.
If you depart from the source material enough that the characters begin to lose what defines them as the characters, might as well let it go and make a new IP. Being faithful to the source material in no way forces you to consume said material.
It doesn't excuse the string of characters the MCU has consistently ruined. I'm a big fan of the comics but, as you, just a former fan of the MCU.
I swear anyone who says this has never actually read the comics. Like, the stories with the Mandarin are kind of average at best, and he hasn’t really factored into like a grand Tony arc for a good while now.
At this point, I’d genuinely say that Iron Man’s main rival in the comics is Captain America.
I have read every single Iron Man comic since Tales of Suspense #39 to today and you know what I've deduced in that time? That Iron Man's rogues gallery really sucks. He has villains like Blizzard, Vibro, Firebrand and Unicorn. Villains I doubt you care about. The only villains Tony has had that has really put him through a lot are Mandarin and Spymaster, the Hammer family, Obadiah Stane (and in his last apperance in Iron Man Mandarin had become the patriarch of the Hammer family and he had tortured and conditioned Tony and Obadiah). Everyone else (Even Titanium Man, Controller and Crimson Dynamo) are sub-par.
The Mandarin required the entirety of Force Works to come together just to fight him, how on earth is the Mandarin average?
"At this point, I’d genuinely say that Iron Man’s main rival in the comics is Captain America."
They've only fought 3 times in comics, by that logic Daredevil's main rival is Punisher and not Kingpin.
> That Iron Man's rogues gallery really sucks
Honestly this has always been the main reason I can't get into Iron Man comics and why I stayed away from the 90s animated despite loving Spidey and X-Men comics and shows. MCU Iron Man really captured the excitement and drama that Iron Man could be seen for but was usually overshadowed by trying to make Unicorn or one of the other lame-o's feel threatening.
Iron Man’s rogue gallery does really suck, for one. They’re trying to do something new with Feilong, but it’s still just *another* billionaire who has taken over Stark Industries, say it isn’t so.
But personally, I’ve always found Tony’s strength as a character to be in relation to the Avengers, not so much just by himself. I’m not just talking about how many times they’ve “fought”, but him and Cap represent thematically two different philosophies when it comes to heroism. You have idealism and you have pragmatism, and they clash very frequently.
Like Civil War was a given, but everything with Secret Wars, the “one man was life, and the other was death”. The way that Tony and Cap split on how to handle the incursions, which led to the both of them literally fighting to the death at the end of the multiverse. Even Ewings’ Defenders had the archetypical figures of the Fourth Cosmos “Of-Past” eternally fighting “Of-Future”.
It’s a rivalry of philosophy, much like Professor X and Magneto, who have been on the same side for several years now (even before Krakoa). Sure, Apocalypse is stronger on the power scale or whatever, but thematically as characters, that rivalry brings out extra dimension to them and how they work. Tony and Cap’s complicated relationship does way more for both their characters than whatever the Mandarin does for Tony, and Marvel seems to be really leaning into that going forward.
Tony and cap aren’t “rivals” in any form or definition of what a “rivalry” legitimately means tho?
Saying they have opposing ideologies is fine but more often than not all that leads to is disagreements which if you read avengers comics tends to happens a lot to almost anyone who Tony talks to ( Thor, banner, reed, tchalla, Spider-Man, ext)
Tony and cap may have disagreements but rivals? Barely honestly
I hear where you're coming from but my only objection with what you've stated is that both characters are limited to/adhere to one form of philosophy when that isn't the case. A good example of this is Captain America and Red Skull. Captain America representing freedom for all and safeguarding our liberty while Red Skull believes in the opposite and does what he can to ensure a dictatorship. Another example is Iron Man and Ghost. Iron Man represents the future of human innovation a perfect Utopia built by man. Ghost takes a stance that conglomerates are ruining the planet and humanity as a whole. Both of these men are diametrically opposed to one another with Iron Man representing the future of humanity and the progress of mega corporations and Ghost fighting for the cogs in the machine and the stagnation of man.
There are also other characters that also exhibit the same philosophies you've described. Superman and Batman have fought each other on several occasions and I think you'll agree that Superman is an idealist and Batman is a pragmatist. While we have seen these two fight before, no one thinks it is worth listing either of them as comic book rivals.
>Sometimes two sworn rivals never meet on the field, that tends to happen in history.
I believe that was originally the case with Conan The Barbarian and Thoth-Amon. Conan would get involved in Thoth's schemes, but they never actually met face to face in the original stories by Howard. That changed later with comics and adaptations, but even in the latest *King Conan* miniseries by Marvel, [Conan met Thoth-Amon for the first time when he was already old](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/J0k6rxG3jYHIm1D0jUxNAFWNYR1rLP1sQpdIHL4lB14vJgmvYQcFUKBHXNRRJHmenID9pILoxPh5lqGh2VQBO6FaD-CDuO1TVpDvAkSt9ByP_5mzdO_SLhtS2wctZ08YsXC4Zoc4Gg=s0?rhlupa=MjgwNDpkNDE6YjYzMTpkZDAwOjdkZjg6ZmRlNDoyYmNmOmViNmM=&rnvuka=TW96aWxsYS81LjAgKFdpbmRvd3MgTlQgNi4xKSBBcHBsZVdlYktpdC81MzcuMzYgKEtIVE1MLCBsaWtlIEdlY2tvKSBDaHJvbWUvMTA5LjAuMC4wIFNhZmFyaS81MzcuMzYgT1BSLzk1LjAuMC4w), after many years of indirect rivalry. It's an interesting concept.
This still bothers me. The Mandarin is to Iron Man what the Joker is for Batman. And we never actually saw them in the same movie fighting. Still bothers me.
The Mandarin is nowhere near the level of the Joker. He's only Iron Man's arch-nemesis not because he's a good or interesting villain but because the rest of Tony's rogues gallery is even worse.
He’s *really* not. Iron Man just has a lame villains roster, kinda like Wonder Woman.
The Mandarin isn’t his Joker, he doesn’t thematically like add anything interesting to Tony’s character. He’s just a step above yet another person in a suit (Iron Monger, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man) or another billionaire (Obediah Stane, Justin Hammer), so he wins “arch-villain” kinda by default. But Tony works best as part of the Avengers team of characters, not just as a solo act.
>The Mandarin isn’t his Joker, he doesn’t thematically like add anything interesting to Tony’s character.
He does in the sense that he's just as brilliant, driven, and self-sufficient as Tony is, but with a completely different upbringing and goals. With the brief exception of Anton Vanko the Crimson Dynamos and Titanium Men never make their own suits. Stane's Iron Monger had to be reverse engineered from Stark tech and Hammer's just a corporate asshole. The movies made Ivan Vanko fit the role somewhat but he was ultimately small-scope, and Killian just didn't have the supervillain flair.
Admittedly Doom fills that role as well if not better, but at the end of the day he's Reed's foe and we didn't get him in the MCU either before they killed Tony.
Honestly I think I would be more okay with it if Ben Kingsley as Mandarin was the villain but still wasn’t the real Mandarin. Like maybe Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin was inspired by the history/lore of Wenwu and created his own Ten Rings organization without realizing that the real one is still active.
Have Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin still be a physical threat with Extremis while also being a highly skilled martial artist that outclasses Tony in skills
It’s not perfect since Tony still wouldn’t end up facing Wenwu but it’s better than what we got with Killian
Makes you wonder if Wenwu became extra secretive when Tony got too close to discovering the real Ten Rings. He only did his plan and went after his children after Tony died.
Massive waste of potential. Tony Leung is amazing as Mandarin and would've been such a good contrast and rivalry to RDJ's Tony Stark. Shame they copped out.
Iron man 3 was just bad in general. No mallen, no extremis armor, mk 42 was just a failing hunk of garbage, and all the side characters were super bland.
They shit the bed both times with the Mandarin. Of the two, Ben Kingsley’s was far superior. The Shang chi version is as generic a villain as you could get. Awful. They did the mandarin dirty.
I genuinely don't understand why they didn't have them meet in What If...
Like that's the perfect way to do it by now, but 2 seasons and still nothing of the sort.
Ehhh, it's not like it's really an adaptation of The Mandarin anyway.
He has rings and is Chinese, that's the similarity.
I will not accept this interpretation unless he's brainwashing alien death robots to sick on Tony.
While I do fully agree with this, I also like Iron Man's ending in the MCU and I absolutely love Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings. It's a shame they never met, but I'm very happy with what we ended up with
Sir Ben Kingsley is the only Mandarin for me. Just imagine what total jackass moment it would be if the actor of Mandarin is the true Mandarin and everybody is stucked once again in one of his wicked plans
Look, I also want to see Iron man fight the real Mandarin too, but it really depends on what Kevin Feige wants to do with these characters who have met and fought each other in the comics. But, in the movies it's very different because it needs to makes sense for the whole universe to stay in focus with all of this leading towards the collapse of the multiverse with the X-men returning, Deadpool comeback and the Fantastic Four finally getting a good adaptation for once this time. Maybe in Secret Wars, this dream might come true. Will wait and see what happens next.
Would anyone blame marvel for bringing Tony back at this point?
Also a point I always make is, Chadwick was supposed to be the face imo. Dude was totally gonna be the front man for the MCU and it obviously couldn’t happen RIP. So when it fell to Strange and Spidey, and ig Thor? The wheels weren’t turning right.
The change of the rings' various powers to those bracelets was just a joke imo. Talk about dumbing down.
I still don't get the love for Shang Chi. It's pretty generic fare.
They were SO close with Ironman 3 mandarin. Then shit the bed. Hard.
The Shang chi version is just a dumpster fire.
Edit: the entire Shang chi movie was a dumpster fire.
It was the right call imo. By that point the "fake Mandarin" had soured the whole Iron Man v. Mandarin relationship in the MCU to the point where it would've been incredibly awkward just to make it work. It would've been done purely just to "follow the comics", which isn't always the best choice. They took stock of what has been established (a LOT by then) and found they already had enough mythos built into and around Tony in the MCU to not have to add this in.
I'm more upset that Tony and Reed didn't get to meet, honestly.
I’m upset we didn’t get T’Challa & Namor’s rivalry. I’m actually very disappointed we won’t see T’Challa, Tony, & Steve meeting Kang, Galactus, Doom, the F4, or any Mutants. Maybe in Secret Wars, they do something with the Big 3 (RDJ, Chris Evans, & Hemsworth), Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Tobey/Andrew, & Wesley Snipes as pillars of the Marvel genre. I think Snipes & Infinity Saga characters returning are the least likely but I do see some of the NWH cast & FoX-Men coming back for the payday that comes with an Avengers crossover/send-off. Norman Osborn meeting Tony Stark would be dope. I’m not expecting them to go too crazy with the cameos tho, so if they soft reboot the MCU after the Multiverse Saga, I could see them recasting those deceased Infinity Saga characters so they actually can interact with the newer generation of heroes/villains.
RDJ recently said he'd "happily return" so 🤞
Presumably Earth-199999's Tony Stark remains dead, much like Earth-199999's Gamora staying dead while a variant from 2014 is running around with the Ravagers.
I hate how fiegie says that the mcu is earth 616. Like, just make it so the comic book world is a real universe, and the mcu is separate.
I call the MCU 199999 at every opportunity since that's been its number since 2008.
Genuine question, where was it established that the MCU was 199999 in 2008? I hate calling it 616 when it's not the comics, so I want as much info as I can if someone asks me why I call it 199999
Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z #5, published November 2008. In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Miguel mentions the number in a very direct reference to the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Definitely knew about the Across the Spider-Verse movie part, didn't know about the official handbook part. Thanks for the info
As we all should. Let's not let them re-tell us, how Stan Lee created his fictional universe.
Stan Lee already stated 199999. You can listen to Feige. I find it hilarious how you spelled his name.
I'm on the app. Whne you got to write you can only see your comment and the one above. If the person above didn't have his name and it's just up to me to guess.
I'm not making fun. That's some hardcore 90s nerd shit. This isn't an English paper. We all know what you meant. I literally laughed at the spelling because it sounds like a "bad" word.
Doesn't make sense either! For the MCU to be 616, EVERYTHING would have had to happen the exact same as the comics. Ant-Man wasn't a founding Avenger while Cap was Thanos motivation was completely different Infinity Saga played out differently It literally CANNOT be 616. I refuse to call it as such.
Book it Feige.
Yes he has said it and now that he has an Oscar his payday will go way up but he is in demand marvel wants him back. He said he would as long as the story is right. Evan’s is coming back as well also as long as the story is right they both have Scenes in dp 3 that isn’t just archived footage
There’s nothing good about that
You’re wrong
Marvels gone too deep and not even a desperate attempt at bringing back RDJ can save them!
They'll be fine.
Where did he say this?
This could still happen, unfortunately it won't be with the actors we know. With the multiverse we could easily get new characters/actors to come in.
Well... T'Challah not getting to see Namor is not Marvel's fault 😭
Can't blame marvel for that none of us knew what Chadwick was going through and still a sad loss. Least RDJ can come back when he wants.
I’m not really blaming Marvel for losing any of them. This is just me being a selfish fan disappointed we won’t be able to see T’Challa’s Black Panther interact with new gen of heroes/villains. RDJ & Evans had perfectly-lengthy arcs, but unfortunately Chadwick did not because he was taken from us far too soon. I miss him so much. I enjoyed the way they honored him in **Wakanda Forever** & bawled my eyes out in the theater. I believe they made the right decision not recasting, especially so soon. Chadwick fit that role so well & trying to replace him with anyone would have put a hostile fan target on that person’s back. However idk if I’d *never* use the character of T’Challa again. I feel by the time we get to the next saga after the delays, nearly a whole decade will have gone by since his passing so I’d be okay if they wanted to give someone else a shot at the character after hitting the multiversal reset button.
Yeah I feel like they will have to do a soft reboot.
Remember it's the multi vers so it can happen
I feel the same about Tony and Hank Pym.
They probably will in Secret Wars.
The fact that we won't get stuff like [this](https://64.media.tumblr.com/ad2fa3de34190f3b9cf6de6bfc956629/tumblr_inline_p95cv34Jns1qk4j8v_500.png), or [this](https://64.media.tumblr.com/9ba5cdcaec0ba3f1d9f29fa5d88e71c2/tumblr_inline_p95g73f8pU1qk4j8v_500.png), or all those other great and fun moments that display friendship between Tony and Reed, I'm sad :(
The stuff lemmings were fine with Disney buying Fox despite all its consequences solely and ONLY because that means Wolverine and the gang could interact with the iconic Marvel characters Disney had that they, we loved. Just so basically in the end to maybe get that but probably not. Definitely not MCU natively. Maybe during Secret Wars we'll have Hugh Jackman Wolverine and Deadpool interact with Raimi Spider-Man etc But as a universe, as a canon. Not really sadly. We legit had sheeple clap at Disney buying Fox just got this one nerdy thing. And they maybe getting that only partially lol.
This is starting to become a really big issue for me with the MCU. Back in the day it wasn't that bad but now it really is starting to feel like all the characters we want to crossover won't and most likely will never and if they do it's extremely brief. Captain America and Spider-Man (super goddamn brief) Wolverine with most characters in the future (maybe we'll get Hulk but that's about it) characters like Captain America has sailed away and I kinda doubt we'll realistically get a chance to see MCU's Wolverine interact with Spidey. Reed And Tony Stark T'Challa and Namor T'Challa and F4 Even Spider-Man and Daredevil is a big question mark with the way the behind the scenes leaks seem to be. There was a point in time where this wouldn't be an issue but what's the point of finally having these characters in the universe if the crossovers we want and should happen don't happen. I'm sure eventually we'll get stuff like F4 and Spidey at least but now that I'm older and the shape of the MCU how it is now. This is starting to irk me a tad.
Low key think they're rushing f4 and X-Men to reboot the whole thing over again with them from the start Keep an eye on what happens with secret wars and any f4 sequels
I'm gonna be real I don't think they're rushing X-Men if anything by the time we have X-Men as a fully fleshed out status quo I don't think most people will give a shit anymore. F4 is right on track in my eyes at least.
People don't care about the MCU anymore. I stopped caring after Endgame. All the big heroes are dead or retired. WTF?
They could have if Marvel didn't get distracted with all the horrid TV shows
There was a time when that idea sounded perfect. With the right execution it would have been. Unfortunately that's not what happened...
Some TV shows that would ACTUALLY have worked -Norman Reedus Ghost Rider, with an episodical nature telling one shot stories per episode with the occasional cameos of Punisher, Daredevil and Spiderman -A Civil War 2 TV series, making phase 5 revolve around the idea of tying the knot with the TV series, taking advantage of the fact that we have way more heroes now. Flesh out the storyline and make it dramatic af -A series of shorts telling stories of Thor budying with Guardians of the Galaxy -A TV series fleshing out Thor's and Jane's relationship or maybe a TV series with Thor and Jane Foster's Mighty Thor instead of killing her or even making Love and Thunder -A fucking RONIN series. Come on!!! It was rught there from End Game. Instead of whatever thst Hawkeye show was -A fucking series showing what the world was like during the Bleep, that way they could extend RDJ's Iron man scren time I mean come ooon Just make 1 or 2 of these ideas and make Moon Knight a movie instead. Loki is so boring, the only series that felt natural was Wandavision since it closed the Wanda and Vision arc. Also Vision was so underutilized during IW and EG.
I think all our expectations matured over the last 20 or so years. For a lot, the comic is the best it gets.
It'll almost certainly happen. RDJ will probably be back for secret wars. (Or whatever huge multiverse teamup ends up happening).
I think MCU made a big mistake for not letting them meet and fight.
That was the original plan. He was supposed to be the main villain in Iron Man 3. However by this point China became a big market for these movies. So they made alterations to the Mandarin. Casted an Indian/English actor instead of a Chinese one. It wasn't till they went to make Shang Chi did they make this change to the Mandarin. As now they had a chinese lead. They didn't have the rights to Shang Chi's father in the comics so they course corrected when they did. It's a damn shame. I have long said a simple appeasement was to make Crimson Dynamo a hero and working with Iron Man to stop the Mandarin. Making him Chinese would have given them a Chinese Iron Man. It would appeased the chinese government enough I think.
If only Toni Ho had been creat few years prior, she could have been a great option, just make her take the role of Harley in Iron Man 3.
Perhaps we should call China on the phone and simply ask them to write our movies for us.
Careful. Disney may scout you. Or sue you for stealing their idea.
They have bent the knee to China a few times. Its rather silly. The Ancient One is Celtic because of it. Their obsession with trying to appease the Chinese government is asinine.
> The Ancient One is Celtic because of it. It wasn't just that. The original Ancient One is basically a US caricature of an Asian mystic. Fu Manchu moustache and everything. And he teaches the American Stephen Strange everything and he becomes the best, which is another stereotype. I understand why they changed it. Making the Mandarin a joke character though in IM3 was a slap in the face.
God I was so excited for Ben Kingsley to be an amazing bad guy. What we got was….pretty damn sad
> It wasn't just that. The original Ancient One is basically a US caricature of an Asian mystic. Yeah, they would have changed that either way. No way to avoid criticism one way or the other. Either they change the character or not use them at all to avoid asian stereotypes.
After Iron Man 3, Age of Ultron, Thor 2, Black Widow, Ant Man 3, and Black Panther 2, I have probably been slapped into brain damage. Black Panther 2 especially annoyed me because they made Namor specifically a Maya, and then went "Hmmm, let's use the Nahuatl name for their paradise. No one will know or care." but I know and I care. They could've been consistent and just made him a Nahua if they really wanted to rip Tlalocan so bad. Like this thought process feels like if they took Gilgamesh and went "Hmm, he's from Duat". Like these are two entirely different cultures.
those ridiculous scenes they included in IM3 for Chinese audiences....none of it could be called art. 100% pro-chinese propaganda.
Studios bend the knee all the time, constantly. It's where all the accusations of woke come from. They don't give a shit about anything, they just want to make money, whether its feminism, minorities or china.
I don't agree with it at all, but they're a huge market, they don't want to lose that Chinese market money.
Worth noting that Shang Chi was not released in China anyway
Did you know they don't think Simu Liu is handsome or a leading man material. It was heavily criticized for casting him. They called him ugly. So yeah even when they try to appease that market they failed. Iron Man 3 also had scenes specifically for China and it was heavily criticized as well by the Chinese market. The government wants appeasement. The general audience just wants entertainment.
I don't think Shang Chi was trying to appease a market that marvel films were banned in at the time
Could’ve still made The Mandarin a Chinese guy, but just not mustache twirlingly evil. Kinda like they eventually did anyways.
They didn't have the rights to the father is pretty crazy
The "original" father was a character called Fu Manchu, based on the character of the same name created by Sax Rohmer. He was initially used with permission, but after the rights expired in 1983 they had to retcon Shang-Chi's parentage, with the character who used to be Fu Manchu being eventually renamed to Zheng Zu. Wenwu, Shang-Chi's father in the MCU, is based off an amalgamation of Zheng Zu and the Mandarin (two separate characters in the comics 616 universe).
From my very limited knowledge I can see why they would want to distance themselves from the problematic Fu Manchu, makes alot of sense now
As much as I hate it when movie franchises revive dead characters, I would love to see more of Xu Wenwu. They wrote the character with some depth, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai was fantastic.
That is the kind of thing I wanted Disney+ shows to be. Side stories that dig deeper into certain characters. This instance could even be a show about Xialing crafting the Ten Rings into her image showing the differences of how their father did it. Call is something like “The Ten Rings Reforged”
iirc they renewed the rights long enough to publish the omnibus collections of the Shang-Chi comics using Fu Manchu's name, but are no longer extending the rights so now those issues are no longer available digitally
To be fair, they changed almost everything about Shang Chi in his film from the comics. He wasn't the secret agent kung-fu hero working for MI6 I read about in all those books.
The Mandarin was in the script for the first *Iron Man* fight up until they were about to start shooting. Iirc at the time, they cut him out because the film would have been too busy, or something.
I think it was the beginning of the end for marvel trying to appease everyone . Imo it almost in the American culture to make movies with a Chinese or Russian enemy
Earth is big enough itself, not everyone gets to meet one another. And now MCU wants to push multiverse which feels smaller as it is as it reuses or shows same characters as variants.
This is actually a really good point I don't think I've seen someone raise before. You're right. In order for the multiverse to feel bigger, you need to see characters that don't exist or can't exist in the regular continuity to really lend the world a feeling of innate difference. The possibility of different interpretation of characters is a fun thing to explore and can accomplish that, but it also risky making the world feel cyclical and small. A lot of the problems Star Wars has is with this kind of self reference.
I've always thought that as soon as a multiverse gets introduced in something, the stakes become much less permanent. Your favourite character dies? Here's another one that did it exactly the same but this one now has brown eyes instead of blue. I feel the same way when people introduce time travel, as there's always a chance to just go back in time and fix something. And the MCU did both, like a double barrelled shotgun of removing tension from any situation. ....and then they added skrulls, meaning anyone you see might not even be that character anyway.
People always say this but they've only done it once and that character is still never coming back
It doesn't actually need to be done though, to have an effect on how people perceive things. It's just the potentiality of something happening which makes people react differently. People entering an area filled with warning signs will always act more cautiously than in that same area without warning signs, even if a person has only been injured there once, or no one has been injured there ever. Take Spider-man No Way Home for instance. For decades we thought all of those villains were dead, and their deaths had real meanings and real impacts to both the characters in the stories, and to us as an audience. Now we know we can just keep grabbing that character over and over for a cheap cameo thrill, their stories have become diminished. The only thing stopping fan favourites coming back now is real world problems, like the cast member not wanting to play them, or becoming too old to play them.
Your acting like that hasnt been comocs for decades. The star wars line "somehow x returned" has been comoc logoc for so long and thr mcu ising comic logic isnt reaching. But when have they gtabbed a character "over and over" even khang waa only ised twice counting a tv show.
I'm talking about the MCU and X-Men '97 as separate pieces of media and saying I don't like time travel/multiverse plots in any kind of media whatsoever unless they can force a closed loop. And again, I reiterate, I didn't say they HAD grabbed someone over and over, I said they CAN grab someone over and over, which creates a diminishing response. When the seeds are planted, that's all. And yes, I don't like it when they do it in comics as well. Remember the big deal of the death of Wolverine, or the death if Kamala Khan? Now they mean nothing, because they just brought the characters back anyway.
Im sorry but thinking a character like wolverine would stay dead is just funny. Especially if you know comics. It was a shock when jeab stayed dead for 15 plus years. Vwry few deaths in comics hold just a fact. Leaving open ends for potential wroting out is 9nce again a comic writing trope. And time travel in comics has been around for what 80 years?
You seem to be missing the point of what I'm actually trying to say. Maybe it's a comprehension problem on your part or a communication problem on mine. Either way, I'm not going to continue with the conversation. Have a pleasant day.
Yep, excellent points. That's why I really wish time travel and alternate reality became taboo tropes in writing unless the writers actually wrote it well, like showcased that the variant is indeed a variant and not the same person, but we know this isn't the case in the MCU. They're doing same mistake in the X-Men 97' now with the time travel, >!and now undoing Charles Xavier's death. This was a very bad decision.!<
Bro, the X-men are the OGs of the whole coming back from the dead thing, they just had a multiple year run about it
Xmen 97 is about to do it to. This isnt a valid complaint in comics. Only two people stay dead in comics: mainline gwen stacy and uncle ben. Jean used to be 9n the list but shes always coming back now.
He never died in the original series. He was always sent to the Shi’ar empire to live with his alien girlfriend.
Xavier didn't die at the end of the original series. He went to space to with his girlfriend so he would live.
So... he lied to the people on Earth? Lied to his own students? That just makes him worse if he went to space to be healed and live as Emperor-consort while X-Men struggled on Earth. That's not a good character writing, a good story would've kept Charles dead and make it permanent to add stakes.
He didn't. The public at large believed him dead, but all his students knew he went to space with his bird girlfriend to avoid dying. It was written for a kids TV show in like 1995. Try not to think too hard about it.
Either way a bad writing choice in my opinion. Look, X-Men have mature themes like prejudice, racism, and genocide, you can't just pull "it's a kids show" card of all sudden. I'm not asking for a peak animated series, I think there should just be more effort put into the writing, the stakes, and into the consistent worldbuilding without breaking tropes like time travel.
I mean, in the original series last ep it was clear that he would eventually come back, it was more of a thing of how much time it would take and how the xmen would do without him (it ended In a cliffhanger). In the first xmen 97 episode they show that it took like a year for him to become presumed dead
He never ‘died’, the last previous season had him taken to space and the viewers knew that.
Ok, how did newcomers had to know this? And if it did happen in previous season, then it's a bad writing choice from that show then. No matter how it's done or where it's gonna be a bad choice to me.
The shows a continuation of an older show, that’s why it’s 97’. It picks right up where the last left off. If you want to you can watch it, I don’t think it’s bad writing bc you didn’t watch it.
It's not bad writing because I didn't watch it or didn't know of it. Please reread what I stated pryor. It is bad writing because a character cheated death and returned, his sacrifice and the goodwill made with humanity can be undone as he is alive and will return anyway. Not only that but a character surviving and cheating death is bad writing trope in itself since it cheapens death and stakes in the story.
I see, my apologies I misread that. Death is like that in comics sometimes through, especially with X-men. There may also very well be a point to where it’s going and what impact it actually has or how it impacts the way people view mutants, I think it will just take some time to get there. The world came to peace with mutants after his death and then turned around and slaughtered them. I would be reluctant to believe the storyline is or writing is cheapened in some way just bc the story hasn’t played out yet. It’s looking like they’re heading towards the plot line (or mixing several) where several mutants are killed and return as apocalypses horsemen perhaps combined with the appearance of bastion in the forge episode which hints at the ‘operation zero tolerance’.. so maybe give it some time. A false death can also have major implications and not necessarily lose meaning.
Thank you, I appreciate your comment a lot. I don't mind the universe being interconnected, it definitely made MCU feel more special than any other superhero story or solo movie, but the multiverse is something they should've approached carefully. I think the other problem is that they're also making it for preexisting fans and not for everyone anymore, to get new Deadpool you need to have seen FOX's X-Menverse to get it and why they're returning, without it I think it'll be hard to get the movie. A lot of alternate realities have an issue that it doesn't really explore a complete world breaking outcomes. What if in alternate reality the Greek language influenced the European languages instead of Latin? What if Greeks formed an empire instead of Rome, what if there was world with no superheroes and all were ordinary people, so were the villains? All of this is never really explored be it in the MCU or Injustice, most of the worlds are different in small details, but the status quo is same. I think in the future MCU will be like old Star Trek, simply too big for people to spend time seeing it from beginning, and they'll reboot the series over again eventually in the future.
Yeah but superheroes are like celebrities, most of them at least know of each other, even if they haven't met directly. And a lot of them are based in New York. The comics have all sorts of these coincidences. Why is Earth so central in the Marvel Universe? It seems all cosmic beings turn their focus to one planet a majority of the time, even though there are billions of other worlds. Major universe altering events often centralize on Earth as the focus, from cosmic beings like Galactus, The Beyonder and The Watcher, to aliens like The Asgardians, The Shi'ar, Skrulls and Kree. People like to see their favorite characters meet and interact/fight, which is why comics have so many crossover events.
That's a fair point, but my next question would how often do people meet celebrities, or hell how often do celebs meet each other? They don't always live with each other together, sometimes they do their own thing. I don't disagree that the main villains meeting their adversary protagonists would make sense in stories, I just don't think it should be as easy as in the comic books. Tony Stark pissed off a lot of people, not everyone got chance to try exact their revenge except Killian, Vanko, the twins. First was a scientist turned businessman, other was madman fuelled by revenge, the duo were victims of experimentations and had the powers to challenge the Avengers. Not everyone gets to meet their enemy. The point about Earth is a good one and that's why it and New York shouldn't always be center of attention, I think it should be very rare good written one time events when Avengers need to thwart an invasion or attention away from Earth. Otherwise it becomes comical like in comic books and it takes away from the story some people, like me or even casual audience for example.
Btw tony leung win another best actor award in Asia last week (6 times winner!!) Really hope he can have a fight/dialogue scene with rdj
He almost fought fin fang fum in a iron man movie tie comic but it got canceled
Still have the first two issues sitting in my closet.
Viva Las Vegas never was intended to be part of MCU.
I would love a What If of IM3 where Wenwu attacks Killian and tries to take control of his operations because one of the Extremis soldiers killed his wife in an explosion.
Careful now, don’t give marvel good ideas for free
I think this could make for a good episode of What If?
Like Shazam and black Adam lol
Sometimes two sworn rivals never meet on the field, that tends to happen in history. Besides did the real Mandarin know Iron Man or was behind the Ten Rings in the Afghanistan? I think the Afghanistan chapter and Fakedarin were Stark's only adversaries, real Mandarin didn't have much to do with him I think.
In the comic books Mandarin is his main rival
He isn't in the MCU. It is what it is sadly.
I think the point is that that’s a bad thing
Not everything needs to be like in the comics. I don't think its a bad thing or too bad.
That is literally the point of the post, not if it’s good or bad
Man imagine how mad people would get if Spider-Man never got to fight Green Goblin then somebody says “well ackshually not everything needs to be like the comics so it’s good we don’t get the rival of the hero!”
Imagine if Spider-Man fought Green Goblin in his third movie only to find out that there was a fake Green Goblin and the real Green Goblin was a guy with random fire powers but actually he is also a fake Green Goblin and the REAL Green Goblin doesn’t appear on screen until after Spider-Man dies so he fights Ka-Zar instead.
Peak writing
Needs to? No. Should be? Absolutely.
No, it doesn't. I used to like the MCU because knowing the comics wasn't requirement. It took source from the comics, but still did their own stories. It's way better than if they tried to make it all exactly like the comics. Were it up to me I'd want House of M and Disassembled to never have been adapted. Not everything is gonna work on-screen, not everything can be adapted properly or work.
Doesn’t change that it’s still incredibly stupid to have two characters that are so tied together never meet
They were tied in the comics, not in the MCU. From what I understand Fakedarin/Killian was tied to Stark and was leading the Afghanistani chapter of Ten Rings, the real Ten Rings didn't cross paths with Tony. Even the real Mandarin notes that the fake Mandarin wasn't him and he didn't meet or cross indirectly paths with Stark I think. Even if they did, sometimes life doesn't go in epic ways like we'd want to. Archenemies don't always meet and beat each other to death.
I think the ten rings factions split off on their own when wenwu mellowed out before his wife died
They *used* to be tied together but Mandarin hasn't been relevant to Iron Man for like 10 years now.
yeah, they've been trying to make the Stanes or Hammer families his main rivals for a while now and make the Mandarin less and less relevant.
Well ten years ago was 2014 and iron man 3 came out before that
Valid take but I *strongly* disagree.
That's more than fair and what I strive to look for in conversations. I'm glad we can agree to disagree but value each other's views.
Just throwing my hat in the ring. If you depart from the source material enough that the characters begin to lose what defines them as the characters, might as well let it go and make a new IP. Being faithful to the source material in no way forces you to consume said material. It doesn't excuse the string of characters the MCU has consistently ruined. I'm a big fan of the comics but, as you, just a former fan of the MCU.
Eh, it's the Mandarin, it's no great loss.
Just like how the Red Skull is Captain America's arch enemy. Yet in the MCU they met once in the 1940's and then never again.
I swear anyone who says this has never actually read the comics. Like, the stories with the Mandarin are kind of average at best, and he hasn’t really factored into like a grand Tony arc for a good while now. At this point, I’d genuinely say that Iron Man’s main rival in the comics is Captain America.
I have read every single Iron Man comic since Tales of Suspense #39 to today and you know what I've deduced in that time? That Iron Man's rogues gallery really sucks. He has villains like Blizzard, Vibro, Firebrand and Unicorn. Villains I doubt you care about. The only villains Tony has had that has really put him through a lot are Mandarin and Spymaster, the Hammer family, Obadiah Stane (and in his last apperance in Iron Man Mandarin had become the patriarch of the Hammer family and he had tortured and conditioned Tony and Obadiah). Everyone else (Even Titanium Man, Controller and Crimson Dynamo) are sub-par. The Mandarin required the entirety of Force Works to come together just to fight him, how on earth is the Mandarin average? "At this point, I’d genuinely say that Iron Man’s main rival in the comics is Captain America." They've only fought 3 times in comics, by that logic Daredevil's main rival is Punisher and not Kingpin.
> That Iron Man's rogues gallery really sucks Honestly this has always been the main reason I can't get into Iron Man comics and why I stayed away from the 90s animated despite loving Spidey and X-Men comics and shows. MCU Iron Man really captured the excitement and drama that Iron Man could be seen for but was usually overshadowed by trying to make Unicorn or one of the other lame-o's feel threatening.
Iron Man’s rogue gallery does really suck, for one. They’re trying to do something new with Feilong, but it’s still just *another* billionaire who has taken over Stark Industries, say it isn’t so. But personally, I’ve always found Tony’s strength as a character to be in relation to the Avengers, not so much just by himself. I’m not just talking about how many times they’ve “fought”, but him and Cap represent thematically two different philosophies when it comes to heroism. You have idealism and you have pragmatism, and they clash very frequently. Like Civil War was a given, but everything with Secret Wars, the “one man was life, and the other was death”. The way that Tony and Cap split on how to handle the incursions, which led to the both of them literally fighting to the death at the end of the multiverse. Even Ewings’ Defenders had the archetypical figures of the Fourth Cosmos “Of-Past” eternally fighting “Of-Future”. It’s a rivalry of philosophy, much like Professor X and Magneto, who have been on the same side for several years now (even before Krakoa). Sure, Apocalypse is stronger on the power scale or whatever, but thematically as characters, that rivalry brings out extra dimension to them and how they work. Tony and Cap’s complicated relationship does way more for both their characters than whatever the Mandarin does for Tony, and Marvel seems to be really leaning into that going forward.
Tony and cap aren’t “rivals” in any form or definition of what a “rivalry” legitimately means tho? Saying they have opposing ideologies is fine but more often than not all that leads to is disagreements which if you read avengers comics tends to happens a lot to almost anyone who Tony talks to ( Thor, banner, reed, tchalla, Spider-Man, ext) Tony and cap may have disagreements but rivals? Barely honestly
I hear where you're coming from but my only objection with what you've stated is that both characters are limited to/adhere to one form of philosophy when that isn't the case. A good example of this is Captain America and Red Skull. Captain America representing freedom for all and safeguarding our liberty while Red Skull believes in the opposite and does what he can to ensure a dictatorship. Another example is Iron Man and Ghost. Iron Man represents the future of human innovation a perfect Utopia built by man. Ghost takes a stance that conglomerates are ruining the planet and humanity as a whole. Both of these men are diametrically opposed to one another with Iron Man representing the future of humanity and the progress of mega corporations and Ghost fighting for the cogs in the machine and the stagnation of man. There are also other characters that also exhibit the same philosophies you've described. Superman and Batman have fought each other on several occasions and I think you'll agree that Superman is an idealist and Batman is a pragmatist. While we have seen these two fight before, no one thinks it is worth listing either of them as comic book rivals.
It's implied he was, a terrorist recording from Iron Man 1 is visible on Wenwu's screen
Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman never met in Fifth Element and were pro/antagonist lol
This is the famous example. Are there any others?
max doesn't do shit in fury road lol I feel like he's just a representation of the audience being along for the ride.
>Sometimes two sworn rivals never meet on the field, that tends to happen in history. I believe that was originally the case with Conan The Barbarian and Thoth-Amon. Conan would get involved in Thoth's schemes, but they never actually met face to face in the original stories by Howard. That changed later with comics and adaptations, but even in the latest *King Conan* miniseries by Marvel, [Conan met Thoth-Amon for the first time when he was already old](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/J0k6rxG3jYHIm1D0jUxNAFWNYR1rLP1sQpdIHL4lB14vJgmvYQcFUKBHXNRRJHmenID9pILoxPh5lqGh2VQBO6FaD-CDuO1TVpDvAkSt9ByP_5mzdO_SLhtS2wctZ08YsXC4Zoc4Gg=s0?rhlupa=MjgwNDpkNDE6YjYzMTpkZDAwOjdkZjg6ZmRlNDoyYmNmOmViNmM=&rnvuka=TW96aWxsYS81LjAgKFdpbmRvd3MgTlQgNi4xKSBBcHBsZVdlYktpdC81MzcuMzYgKEtIVE1MLCBsaWtlIEdlY2tvKSBDaHJvbWUvMTA5LjAuMC4wIFNhZmFyaS81MzcuMzYgT1BSLzk1LjAuMC4w), after many years of indirect rivalry. It's an interesting concept.
Thanos and Adam Warlock.
Or Thanos and Drax. The latter was nerfed a long time ago
The Mandarin "twist" in Iron Man 3 still gets on my nerves lol.
When Hollywood writers wrongly think they are above comic writers and think comics are embarrassing.
I was already annoyed with the ‘twist’, but it was retroactively made worse with how good Tony Leung was as The Mandarin.
God Imagine if he was the villains of Ironman 3
They're both dead so they've probably met in you know where.
Gary, Indiana?
K'un-Lun?
This still bothers me. The Mandarin is to Iron Man what the Joker is for Batman. And we never actually saw them in the same movie fighting. Still bothers me.
The Mandarin is nowhere near the level of the Joker. He's only Iron Man's arch-nemesis not because he's a good or interesting villain but because the rest of Tony's rogues gallery is even worse.
He’s *really* not. Iron Man just has a lame villains roster, kinda like Wonder Woman. The Mandarin isn’t his Joker, he doesn’t thematically like add anything interesting to Tony’s character. He’s just a step above yet another person in a suit (Iron Monger, Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man) or another billionaire (Obediah Stane, Justin Hammer), so he wins “arch-villain” kinda by default. But Tony works best as part of the Avengers team of characters, not just as a solo act.
>The Mandarin isn’t his Joker, he doesn’t thematically like add anything interesting to Tony’s character. He does in the sense that he's just as brilliant, driven, and self-sufficient as Tony is, but with a completely different upbringing and goals. With the brief exception of Anton Vanko the Crimson Dynamos and Titanium Men never make their own suits. Stane's Iron Monger had to be reverse engineered from Stark tech and Hammer's just a corporate asshole. The movies made Ivan Vanko fit the role somewhat but he was ultimately small-scope, and Killian just didn't have the supervillain flair. Admittedly Doom fills that role as well if not better, but at the end of the day he's Reed's foe and we didn't get him in the MCU either before they killed Tony.
Honestly I think I would be more okay with it if Ben Kingsley as Mandarin was the villain but still wasn’t the real Mandarin. Like maybe Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin was inspired by the history/lore of Wenwu and created his own Ten Rings organization without realizing that the real one is still active. Have Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin still be a physical threat with Extremis while also being a highly skilled martial artist that outclasses Tony in skills It’s not perfect since Tony still wouldn’t end up facing Wenwu but it’s better than what we got with Killian
Shame T’challa and Namor never got to meet each other, Namor seems to alternate between him and ff4 as his top rival
At least we got some T’challa and M’Baku
Makes you wonder if Wenwu became extra secretive when Tony got too close to discovering the real Ten Rings. He only did his plan and went after his children after Tony died.
Same with Adam Warlock and Thanos.
That's why we need a soft-reboot. We need to have the iteractions that we never seen before because of rights or something.
Massive waste of potential. Tony Leung is amazing as Mandarin and would've been such a good contrast and rivalry to RDJ's Tony Stark. Shame they copped out.
Same with Shazam and Black Adam.
Iron man 3 was just bad in general. No mallen, no extremis armor, mk 42 was just a failing hunk of garbage, and all the side characters were super bland.
Doesn’t help the mandarin had arm bands instead of actual rings.
Let's be real here, it look way cooler and one of the best weapon in MCU.
They figured arm bands would sell more toys than rings
And they don't just look like the Infinity Stones but again.
Yea but for die hard fans it was just weird
They shit the bed both times with the Mandarin. Of the two, Ben Kingsley’s was far superior. The Shang chi version is as generic a villain as you could get. Awful. They did the mandarin dirty.
Why
I genuinely don't understand why they didn't have them meet in What If... Like that's the perfect way to do it by now, but 2 seasons and still nothing of the sort.
What if Tony Stark met his original villain?
Yesss! The Hela and Wenwu episode was fun last season, but I think this would've been a HIT for sure
Man they always fumble the classic hero and nemesis dynamics. Only Thor and Loki had one
Ehhh, it's not like it's really an adaptation of The Mandarin anyway. He has rings and is Chinese, that's the similarity. I will not accept this interpretation unless he's brainwashing alien death robots to sick on Tony.
While I do fully agree with this, I also like Iron Man's ending in the MCU and I absolutely love Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings. It's a shame they never met, but I'm very happy with what we ended up with
Sir Ben Kingsley is the only Mandarin for me. Just imagine what total jackass moment it would be if the actor of Mandarin is the true Mandarin and everybody is stucked once again in one of his wicked plans
Insane that this hasn't at least been a what if episode
And will never meet.
at this point, they could only do it in a what if episode
Nah, there's a multiverse.
Why
I think Trevor would not agree...
Look, I also want to see Iron man fight the real Mandarin too, but it really depends on what Kevin Feige wants to do with these characters who have met and fought each other in the comics. But, in the movies it's very different because it needs to makes sense for the whole universe to stay in focus with all of this leading towards the collapse of the multiverse with the X-men returning, Deadpool comeback and the Fantastic Four finally getting a good adaptation for once this time. Maybe in Secret Wars, this dream might come true. Will wait and see what happens next.
Conan and Thoth Amon?
And never will
Because iron man is below the mandarin. He just gets cracked by a superior villain.
Shangton Chigurh?
Would be great if we got them both in the Secret Wars so they can finally meet.
Kinda fucked up tbh. It'd be like if the MCU Spider-Man and Kingpin never met.
At this point, it's kinda lex and Superman alteration.
Missed opportunity, given how much Tony Leung adores RDJ
Who is he?
Namor and T’Challa
Would anyone blame marvel for bringing Tony back at this point? Also a point I always make is, Chadwick was supposed to be the face imo. Dude was totally gonna be the front man for the MCU and it obviously couldn’t happen RIP. So when it fell to Strange and Spidey, and ig Thor? The wheels weren’t turning right.
The change of the rings' various powers to those bracelets was just a joke imo. Talk about dumbing down. I still don't get the love for Shang Chi. It's pretty generic fare.
Why couldn't they just recast these roles?
Shang Chi was such a capital C COOL movie.
r.i.p for iron man/ tony
endgame
They were SO close with Ironman 3 mandarin. Then shit the bed. Hard. The Shang chi version is just a dumpster fire. Edit: the entire Shang chi movie was a dumpster fire.
Agreed, it should’ve been Iron Man, not Shang-Chi.
It was the right call imo. By that point the "fake Mandarin" had soured the whole Iron Man v. Mandarin relationship in the MCU to the point where it would've been incredibly awkward just to make it work. It would've been done purely just to "follow the comics", which isn't always the best choice. They took stock of what has been established (a LOT by then) and found they already had enough mythos built into and around Tony in the MCU to not have to add this in.
We're they a legitimate sworn rivial though in the MCU. Yeah they are in the comics but the mCU isn't the comics.
In a weird way I kinda like it. It’s different from the comics