Mandarin vs Kingpin

[Powerboy]

This is the Mandarin without his rings in a a hand to hand fight with the Kingpin.

Both are at the highest peak they have ever been shown to be at consistent with high end feats.

The guy who cracks Iron-Man's armor and takes hits from Iron-Man versus the guy who takes hits from and hurts Spider-Man.

[Marvel-Studios Rep]

Mandarin literally chops Fisk in half.
This ain't the movies. Smashing up ironman is wayyyyy beyond taking hits from Spider-man.

[MichaelC]

The karate-chops that cleave through that wall and chop a chunk off Iron Man's armor just by grazing it would do very not PG13 things to Fisk.

[Sharpandpointies]

Yeah, Fisk gets murdered here.

[Powerboy]

Yeah, Fisk gets murdered here.

Oh well. If a moderator sees this, then just go ahead and close it please.

[big_adventure]

Honestly, Mandarin can not just annihilate Fisk, he can probably do a fairly good job simply tanking his hits with his face if he wants. In one famous fight, Iron Man repulsors a ringless Mandy into a wall, then proceeds to bullrush mandy through a mountain, using Mandy as a bumper to take the impacts. Mandy does not go down.

Mandy's hits do more to Iron Man's armor in a given era than people like Namor have done.

No, none of it makes any sense at all.

[Sharpandpointies]

For me, it's the more modern fight where he has the rings surgically attached to his spine. He and Stark duke it out, he's busting up Stark's armor (denting in the helmet, kicking bits of Stark's armor away, outgrappling him despite Stark's strength, breaking Stark's arm), Stark is slamming him through multiple foot thick walls. Stark literally rips the rings out of his spine, the Mandarin is still fighting him and doing okay, Stark finally blasts him with Repulsors, Uni-beam, and the Rings all at the same time.

Mandy lives, and manages to get up and drive a fist through a solid steel containment wall.

He'd kill Fisk with one hit, frankly.

[Pendaran]

*Interior, Marvel Publishing Offices in the 60s, Publisher and Mandarin at a desk*

Marvel: "Listen, we're starting to feel bad about writing you as just a horrific yellow peril racist stereotype that you would need actual Yellow Claw to top."

Mandarin: "As well you should."

Marvel: "We figured out how to make it up to you though!"

Mandarin: "Oh?"

Marvel: "We're going to make you an insanely badass martial arts master! You'll kung fu Iron Man right up!"

Mandarin: ".... that.. that doesn't improve anything at all. At all!"

Marvel: "Did you not want the Iron Man clobbering martial arts then?"

Mandarin: "Hey, hey! l never said that."

[Sharpandpointies]

Keep one eye on the prize, is it?

Oh Mandarin...never change.

[MichaelC]

I think he was actually given those abilities as part of his savage warmonger vibe. There's always been this vibe that he's all about war, almost an Ares to Stark's Athena or Mars. He was constantly trying to start World War III so he could be the dominant warlord of the Mad Max/Thunder the Barbarian world that was left. Caption boxes would call his martial arts attacks things like a "SAVAGE KARATE-CHOP", and talk about his feral alertness when Iron Man would try to sneak up on him and fail. Essentially he has the same themes as characters like Gorilla Grodd and Vandal Savage, of being the sort of character who mixes intelligence and savagery to be a threat.

[Shellhead]

*Interior, Marvel Publishing Offices in the 60s, Publisher and Mandarin at a desk*

Marvel: "Listen, we're starting to feel bad about writing you as just a horrific yellow peril racist stereotype that you would need actual Yellow Claw to top."

Mandarin: "As well you should."

Marvel: "We figured out how to make it up to you though!"

Mandarin: "Oh?"

Marvel: "We're going to make you an insanely badass martial arts master! You'll kung fu Iron Man right up!"

Mandarin: ".... that.. that doesn't improve anything at all. At all!"

Marvel: "Did you not want the Iron Man clobbering martial arts then?"

Mandarin: "Hey, hey! l never said that."

I love this. I wish Marvel would just completely embrace Mandarin as The Yellow Peril Villain of all time. The flowing robes, the kung fu, the cultural appropriation, everything. If they take any heat for it, they can just reveal that he is really a Makluan and not even human, and that Makluan culture just happens to match up with the Yellow Peril stereotype.

[Cyke]

I love this. I wish Marvel would just completely embrace Mandarin as The Yellow Peril Villain of all time. The flowing robes, the kung fu, the cultural appropriation, everything. If they take any heat for it, they can just reveal that he is really a Makluan and not even human, and that Makluan culture just happens to match up with the Yellow Peril stereotype.

...that sounds pretty questionable. Like in Star Trek: The Next Generation during the first season, when they visited a planet full of African stereotypes (but they're not actually African since it's another planet), so much so that the episode is constantly ranked as one of the worst in the franchise and even the cast and crew outright hate it.

There's a way to make the Mandarin character actually Mandarin, keep him evil (with a capital EEEVVULL), and still not have him be offensive if he's written with actual character development (though MCU villains tend to lack that) and his experiences as an Asian man factoring into his character and motivations. Killmonger and M'Baku on the surface are pretty stereotypical, but they're both praised because they take stereotypes and really subvert them -- Killmonger's grievences are legit even if his methods are questionable, and he's extremely intelligent and crafty. Comics Man-Ape is incredibly racist, but MCU M'Baku only plays up stereotypes to scare Agent Ross, and once he's had his laugh he gets back to business -- prioritizing his people. But that's because Killmonger and M'Baku were written by Black people. Mandarin would need a crafty Asian American writer (and I emphasize American, because he was created for American audiences) to really embrace all the Yellow Peril things about him and really deconstruct it.

[MichaelC]

In many ways he only needs a superficial update, as the core ideas that compose him aren't really yellow peril. He's a rich guy who squandered his money training himself into a perfect in mind and body Übermensch. That's not really a yellow peril thing. That's more in line with characters like Roman Sionis and certain versions of Penguin. In fact his origin is like a weird blend of Batman and Roman Sionis. Like Batman, his parents died and he devoted himself perfection of mind and body. Like Roman Sionis, he was treated cruelly by the person who raised him(his aunt in Mandarin's case) and squandered his fortune. There's nothing yellow peril about any of that.

Then he became an explorer who found alien resources, and used them to conquer the natives. That has more in common with someone like Christopher Columbus than any yellow peril trope I've ever heard of.

So the yellow peril stuff with him is really superficial stuff like how he's dressed under some writers.

[Cyke]

In many ways he only needs a superficial update, as the core ideas that compose him aren't really yellow peril. He's a rich guy who squandered his money training himself into a perfect in mind and body Übermensch. That's not really a yellow peril thing. That's more in line with characters like Roman Sionis and certain versions of Penguin. In fact his origin is like a weird blend of Batman and Roman Sionis. Like Batman, his parents died and he devoted himself perfection of mind and body. Like Roman Sionis, he was treated cruelly by the person who raised him(his aunt in Mandarin's case) and squandered his fortune. There's nothing yellow peril about any of that.

Then he became an explorer who found alien resources, and used them to conquer the natives. That has more in common with someone like Christopher Columbus than any yellow peril trope I've ever heard of.

So the yellow peril stuff with him is really superficial stuff like how he's dressed under some writers.

It's superficial now because his motivations are universal. But back then they *really* hyped up the yellow peril threat. And that's what stereotypes are -- superficial. Everyone wants to rule the world -- dressing and assigning an entire culture to that one character is the terrible part. But even by simply giving Mandarin a Batman-style origin where his parents have died, that already humanizes him, because it explains his motivations and characters beyond stereotypes. There's a guy under all those robes and the bad facial hair. Build on the guy under it.

Even show who he's hurting -- Big Trouble in Little China is far from perfect, but two of the genius things they did were: 1. To have non-stereotypical Asian heroes with actual motivations to offset the yellow peril villain, and 2. have, at the core of the story, show that the real hero is one of those Asian heroes, with Jack Burton really as the protagonist-sidekick.

(also, I'm just a big fan of John Carpenter. Studio meddling prevented him from going even further in challenging those stereotypes)

[The Chou Lives]

Mandarin kicks Fisk’s ass.

Also I agree with the above. John Carpenter kicks ass.