Who is Iron Man’s archenemy now

[Ascended]

Not reading all these pages, but I'm pretty sure these days, Tony's greatest enemy and archnemesis is himself.

But just because they're using the Mandarin in a Shang-Chi film doesn't mean the Mandarin suddenly isn't Tony's rogue, or the closest thing he has to an arch.

[Tony Stark]

Not reading all these pages, but I'm pretty sure these days, Tony's greatest enemy and archnemesis is himself.

But just because they're using the Mandarin in a Shang-Chi film doesn't mean the Mandarin suddenly isn't Tony's rogue, or the closest thing he has to an arch.

In agreement here. Mandarin is his all time arch nemesis, but right now he’s making mistakes that are coming back to bite him in the ass.

[Frontier]

Not reading all these pages, but I'm pretty sure these days, Tony's greatest enemy and archnemesis is himself.

But just because they're using the Mandarin in a Shang-Chi film doesn't mean the Mandarin suddenly isn't Tony's rogue, or the closest thing he has to an arch.

Yeah, it's not like Ghost is an Ant-Man and Wasp villain now.

[Michael Watkins]

well there's a 10 rings organization in the comics now. and it's an iron man universe book. strangely, it is represented by a member of the Folding Circle. i wonder how (and if) they are going to tie this into the Mandarin.

[MichaelC]

Yeah, the way they have mostly cut Riri off from Iron Man has caused me to gradually lose interest in her. Bringing in The Mandarin would be a great way to renew my interest. It would return her to being part of the Ironverse.

[Michael Watkins]

Yeah, the way they have mostly cut Riri off from Iron Man has caused me to gradually lose interest in her. Bringing in The Mandarin would be a great way to renew my interest. It would return her to being part of the Ironverse.

I think they should reveal Mandarin to be the driving force behind Iron Heart's other rogue Lucia von Bardas' shenanigans during Secret War. I could see him taking advantage of Doom's absence from Latveria and set some of that in motion (using von Bardas as a proxy/puppet). it could lead to an eventual altercation between Mandarin and Doom. for now though, they really need to rectify that mess in Punisher's book. did he just mind control someone to think that they were the Mandarin? could just be the guy who played him in the movie.

[MichaelC]

Yeah, they really need to retcon the Punisher nonsense. He's not some derp who puts up a force-field and has no backup if someone can get past that. He's a superhuman beast of a martial artist who has dodged bullets at close range. Plus, he didn't even look like The Mandarin. He was too nerdy looking.

[Tony Stark]

It's still The Mandarin. Doctor Doom gets lots of play in other books, including Iron Man, but Doctor Doom didn't become Iron Man's arch-enemy because of that. Ultimately no other foe has The Mandarin's blend of brilliance, savagery, skill, wealth, and vastness of organization. The only character who can really compete with the Mandarin is Doom, and he's taken.

There's also the fact that Stark, by his very nature, is a character about balancing responsibility and hubris. Those characters often don't have arch-enemies.

In stories about balancing responsibility and hubris, the protagonist himself is the villain half the time, as he struggles to find the line between doing all he can to help the world, and controlling the world or being a mad scientist/mad wizard. The question is how far should he go to do so before he becomes a controlling dictator or mad god. Villains in such stories tend to be characters who either push the hero into giving in to his flaws, or examples of what the hero is becoming if he continues his path. That is, when the villains exist at all, as as I said before the protagonist is the villain of the story half the time. Iron Man is the poster-boy for this sort of story.

That makes him very different from, say, Spider-Man, who is about balancing responsibility with just having a normal life. There's no danger of Parker becoming a mad scientist or overreaching wizard because he's simply not powerful enough or quite smart enough for that to be a thing. Instead it's about the difficulty of finding that sweet spot where he helps his community as much as he can, while not neglecting his wife and aunt or failing to pay his rent. Such a character is far more likely to have a consistent arch-enemy, because an arch-enemy is there to put a massive strain on his ability to balance those two things, or even to accomplish just one of them.

All that said, to the degree that Stark can even be said to have an arch-enemy, it is clearly The Mandarin.

Yeah, they really need to retcon the Punisher nonsense. He's not some derp who puts up a force-field and has no backup if someone can get past that. He's a superhuman beast of a martial artist who has dodged bullets at close range. Plus, he didn't even look like The Mandarin. He was too nerdy looking.

And he is doing all of this without any HANDS! People fail to see how amazingly badass the Mandarin really is.

[MichaelC]

People fail to see how amazingly badass the Mandarin really is.

He really is. He makes Batman look like a complete joke: a master of science and business and politics with superhuman martial arts skills that put Iron Fist to shame.

[Marvell2100]

And he is doing all of this without any HANDS! People fail to see how amazingly badass the Mandarin really is.

Marvel hasn't done him any favors with his recent portrayals.

Mandarin should be a Ra's al Ghul type character.

Too often he's seen as a failure waiting to be written. There is no fear.

[MichaelC]

I don't know about Ra's Al Ghul. The Mandarin has always been more savage than Ra's. There are elements of Black Mask, Vandal Savage, and even Gorilla Grodd to him that simply aren't there with Ra's. I don't think he's ever been intended to embody elegance the way Ra's is. He's more about a kind of overwhelming masculinity. But that overwhelming masculinity can be really cool and grotesquely compelling when a writer gets it.

[williamtheday]

You'd think The Melter would be the most obvious arch foe, if he wasn't pushing up daisies.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

I'd say its probably nobody because, in all honesty, Iron Man doesn't really have the best rogues gallery.

[Marvell2100]

I don't know about Ra's Al Ghul. The Mandarin has always been more savage than Ra's. There are elements of Black Mask, Vandal Savage, and even Gorilla Grodd to him that simply aren't there with Ra's. I don't think he's ever been intended to embody elegance the way Ra's is. He's more about a kind of overwhelming masculinity. But that overwhelming masculinity can be really cool and grotesquely compelling when a writer gets it.

He can still fall in the Ra's trope.

He can be more than just a brutal thug with 10 ring.

What is Mandarin's ultimate goal? What drives him? Why isn't he on the same level as Doom, Magneto or Skull?

He's really not taken seriously.

[MichaelC]

He can still fall in the Ra's trope.

He can be more than just a brutal thug with 10 ring.

He can be more than that, but shouldn't lose that. I think of "Penguin: Pain and Prejudice" as an example of someone who is a brutal thug, while also being more than that. Some of the better Black Mask, Vandal Savage, and Gorilla Grodd also has them be more than brutal thugs, without losing that they are brutal thugs. The Mandarin is not, should not be Ra's Al Ghul. His personality is diametrically opposed to Ra's refinement.

What is Mandarin's ultimate goal? What drives him?

He seems to be driven by hypermasculine things: the urge to conquer and dominate both via armies and in single-combat. And he tries to turn the world into a more social darwinian place where this kind of behavior is natural. For example, using the Heart of Darkness to revert the world to the Dark Ages, using orbiting satelite "hate-rays" to plunge the world into chaos, various schemes to cause World War III. Essentially, he's an evil Klingon, and he wants earth to be a much more Klingonesque place. Even his most minor schemes have a vibe of hypermasculinity, such as wanting to broadcast a duel between himself and Iron Man. On a world scale he embodies Ayn Rand flavored social darwinism, and on a personal scale he embodies hypermasculinity, the urge to hit and conquer and dominate physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Why isn't he on the same level as Doom, Magneto or Skull?

Because Iron Man isn't as popular as the heroes those villains are connected to.

He's really not taken seriously.

Eh, he's had plenty of stories where he was treated very seriously. Also, Joker often is not treated seriously, and he's the most popular villain of all time.

The problem isn't whether they treat him seriously or not, the problem is that they have never mined the origin Stan Lee gave him. Stan Lee gave him an origin that combined the pathos of tortured super-soldiers like X-23, the pathos of abuse victims like Black Mask and The Penguin, and the darkness of a sci-fi version of the horrors Christopher Columbus perpetrated on natives he "discovered", robbed, and enslaved. That should have been a rich, rich source of stories to mine. And writers have done....nothing with any of it.

They've ignored it or glossed over it, and mostly focused on the rings. The rings are, by far, the least interesting aspect of The Mandarin. But writers keep right on focusing on them. It's baffling, like having Joker stories where the writer won't shut up about the mechanics of his acid-shooting-lapel-flower. Here's how it stores acid, here's the pressure mechanism, here's the lining that keeps the acid from burning Joker if the container is burst in combat, zzzZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzz. Or having stories where the writer glosses over everything about Doom except his armor. Here's how the armor is power, here's where the force-field generator is located, yada yada yada.

To any writers who might be using The Mandarin in the future: shut up about the stupid rings! Tell me about the Mandarin himself. Mine that amazing origin story Stan Lee wrote.