Should The Mandarin become Shang-Chi's arch-enemy in the comics?

[KurtW95]

No because he is Iron Man’s greatest villain and poaching him because another character doesn’t have a suitable character to face and the fact that he was not used in the movies isn’t reason to do it.

[Mike_Murdock]

Marvel characters share villains all the time. Shang-Chi doesn't usually have an ongoing series. A miniseries or limited run with the Mandarin as a threat is fine, but he's Iron Man's villain crossing over. If the goal is movie synergy, that's more than sufficient.

[DrNewGod]

Pure tradition suggests to me that Mandarin belongs with Iron Man, and as a larger, global threat. However, I can't see Disney letting Marvel position their conflict as an East.v.West struggle in these days of aggressive Chinese market intimidation unless they could reposition Mandarin as something antithetical to modern China from its failed Imperial past. Even then, they'd have a devil of a trick framing the American Iron Man defending China against a demon from it's own past in a way that would Beijing would find inoffensive. The only way that I could see it working with Iron Man is if Marvel framed Mandarin as an embittered regressive barbarian, run out of China by the government and trying to start over in the US.

[KurtW95]

Pure tradition suggests to me that Mandarin belongs with Iron Man, and as a larger, global threat. However, I can't see Disney letting Marvel position their conflict as an East.v.West struggle in these days of aggressive Chinese market intimidation unless they could reposition Mandarin as something antithetical to modern China from its failed Imperial past. Even then, they'd have a devil of a trick framing the American Iron Man defending China against a demon from it's own past in a way that would Beijing would find inoffensive. The only way that I could see it working with Iron Man is if Marvel framed Mandarin as an embittered regressive barbarian, run out of China by the government and trying to start over in the US.

If they were making the Mandarin antithetical to modern China wouldn’t he be the hero?

[Agent Z]

If they were making the Mandarin antithetical to modern China wouldn’t he be the hero?

Not to the Chinese government.

[KurtW95]

Not to the Chinese government.

They should have Shang Chi fight Winnie the Pooh and save Hong Kong.

[Tofali]

They should have Shang Chi fight Winnie the Pooh and save Hong Kong.

Then Shang Chi will be hated by Chinese audiences because Winnie is loved by the ppl and hated by the government.

[DrNewGod]

If they were making the Mandarin antithetical to modern China wouldn’t he be the hero?

China, with more than a little justification, is proud of its modern progress and the place it is making for itself in the world. Harking back to pre-revolutionary times (AKA: The Great Humiliation), as The Mandarin does, and desiring to depose the existing order with his own, I can't see the modern Chinese audience embracing him. Especially not after the Chinese government was done pounding home the message that The Mandarin is an insult to what it means to be Chinese, as they surely would.

[KurtW95]

Then Shang Chi will be hated by Chinese audiences because Winnie is loved by the ppl and hated by the government.

When I was saying Pooh I was referring to Xi.

[Holt]

If people are mad about sharing a villain with other characters, I've got some bad news about the Kingpin.

I find it hard to believe Disney can't buy the Sax Rohmer estate rather cheaply.

They could, but there's no incentive to. The very name Fu Manchu is basically shorthand for racist caricatures of Asians. As cringey as the Mandarin can be, he's not that bad.

[Hybrid]

No.

I mean, it's not like Ghost started fighting Ant-Man after the MCU.

[DrNewGod]

If people are mad about sharing a villain with other characters, I've got some bad news about the Kingpin.

I don't know that's a reasonable comparison. Kingpin was a Spiderman villain, but not a Red Skull/Captain America or Loki/Thor or Baron Mordo/Dr. Strange scale archenemy (for that matter, Spider-Man may be unique among stand-alone superheroes in that he may not have a single, incontestable archenemy). Fact is, Kingpin was dating around back in the early 1970s (see Captain America and The Fifth Sleeper). Way before Miller repurposed him.

With a few sidetrips, The Mandarin has been an Iron Man foe, however racially charged, designed as an East/West-Struggle metaphor from his first appearance. So, no: repurposing The Mandarin for Shang-Chi is not the same as shifting Wilson Fisk's aim from Peter Parker to Matt Murdock.

[Hybrid]

Kingpin was a D-list character with less than 20 appearances in the Spider-Man books, and Miller realized that his potential is better against someone like Daredevil than Spider-Man. Also, Miller greatly reinvented the character himself, with Fisk's appearances against Spidey later being patterned off of Miller's take on him. It also inspired Post-Crisis Lex Luthor, which in turn inspired the Dark Reign era reinvention of Norman Osborn.

Mandarin however is Iron Man's single greatest archenemy. He began as part of the struggle between East/West, but eventually just became his own thing as IM moved away from Cold War stuff. Sure, Mandarin has had other stories where he fought different heroes (him going against the X-Men in Acts of Vengeance springs to mind), but he's still the biggest enemy of Tony Stark. You can't easily change that. Honestly, I wish we got to see this on screen, as Jon Favreau was building up to this before Shane Black screwed it up for the sake of political correctness (I'm getting tired of people bending over backwards to avoid offending China tbh).

So no, I don't think we need to move Mandarin to becoming Shang-Chi's nemesis just because of the MCU.

[MichaelC]

designed as an East/West-Struggle metaphor from his first appearance.

Eeeh. The thing is, the Mandarin's goals and methods were clearly based on Blofeld and that sort of politically indifferent opportunistic group of power-grabbers from day one. He wanted to destroy both the east and the west and rule the ashes. He worked with China somewhat in his first couple of stories out of convenience, but his thoughts made it clear that he considered both the enemy and wanted to destroy them or get them to destroy each other. What he actually represents isn't east vs west, but rather a sort of Ayn Rand flavored social darwinism blended with monarchism.

"To know that you are superior-- in mind, in body, in spirit. Everything! To know that power is your birthright-- to know what untold thousands exist on this world for no reason but to serve you-- to channel their powers through your empire, be it of land or of business-- channeling it upward to fuel you, to fuel your glory!" is his creed, not loyalty to the east.

[Desmark]

Currently he can't fight anybody considering he was killed by Frank most ignominiously.