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

[MichaelC]

Everyone in comics dies now and again. Frank got snuffed and turned into a Frankenstein monster for a while. He'll be back. In fact, his resurrection is easier to explain than most, since that version didn't look like the Mandarin, and didn't have his superhuman martial arts skills, instead depending on some lame force-field gizmo. Retconning that into not being him is not only easy, it actually makes much more sense than that actually being him.

[Agent Z]

The Mandarin is one of those characters for whom "rescuing from the scrappy heap" is extremely difficult, if not outright impossible. Right now, the Shang Chi movie has some good will since the people both in front of and behind the scenes are Asian themselves but unless you get a writer of Chinese origin for every story the Mandarin appears in, chances are the issues that plagued him will rear their heads again and again.

[Michael Watkins]

The Mandarin is one of those characters for whom "rescuing from the scrappy heap" is extremely difficult, if not outright impossible. Right now, the Shang Chi movie has some good will since the people both in front of and behind the scenes are Asian themselves but unless you get a writer of Chinese origin for every story the Mandarin appears in, chances are the issues that plagued him will rear their heads again and again.

what are the issues that plague him?

[Agent Z]

what are the issues that plague him?

He's an outdated "Yellow Peril" stereotype with no depth to him and an offensive depiction of Asian people.

Iron Man 3 was basically a middle finger to the mindset that created this character and others like him.

[Michael Watkins]

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

you can't truly kill someone who has mastered the 10 rings. they are a convenient backup system/vessel for the wielder's essence. it's a lot like how Stark 'backed up' himself but utilizing space dragon "magic."

[Michael Watkins]

He's an outdated "Yellow Peril" stereotype with no depth to him and an offensive depiction of Asian people.

people think that because he's asian. the yellow peril stereotype is of an effeminate mastermind type who operates from the shadows. the Mandarin is a far more physical character with little connection to any chinese value system. he's a spoiled rotten rich kid who used his wealth to acquire a power base and the best martial arts instruction that money could buy (a la bruce wayne). he happened upon the rings. they weren't some ancient chinese secret or something. he's as yellow peril as doctor doom is, imo.

Iron Man 3 was basically a middle finger to the mindset that created this character and others like him.

was it? it was definitely a middle finger to ignorant westerners who had preconcieved notions about who and what the Mandarin should be. but, ultimately, it just gave us a pretender with zero connection to the actual Mandarin. it was just some geek-to-chic poseur with a dragon tattoo.

[Hybrid]

Question for Agent Z: Do you think Mr. Negative is a yellow peril racist character just for being an Asian villain?

[your_name_here]

The Gorgon should be Shang Chis main villain. He’s perfect, formidable and definitely memorable.

[Michael Watkins]

The Gorgon should be Shang Chis main villain. He’s perfect, formidable and definitely memorable.

they had a decent fight against one another. i'd be up for a rematch. but Shang can have more than one adversary. Cat doesn't see much use.

[Holt]

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).

I guess that's where the argument sort of falls apart for me. I've never viewed the Mandarin in the same light as someone like Loki or Red Skull or Green Goblin or Doctor Doom or what have you. I know Marvel has tried to push him as such, but he's never seemed like he actually earned that status. That's also why when the movie controversy happened in 2013, the people insisting it'd be like if the Batman movies turned the Joker into a charlatan never worked for me either. The Mandarin is about as far from the Joker's level as I am from Leonardo DiCaprio.

I mean, think about it. Has he been seen in the Iron Man books at all since the Fraction run, which ended in 2012?

[MichaelC]

people think that because he's asian. the yellow peril stereotype is of an effeminate mastermind type who operates from the shadows. the Mandarin is a far more physical character with little connection to any chinese value system. he's a spoiled rotten rich kid who used his wealth to acquire a power base and the best martial arts instruction that money could buy (a la bruce wayne). he happened upon the rings. they weren't some ancient chinese secret or something. he's as yellow peril as doctor doom is, imo.



was it? it was definitely a middle finger to ignorant westerners who had preconcieved notions about who and what the Mandarin should be. but, ultimately, it just gave us a pretender with zero connection to the actual Mandarin. it was just some geek-to-chic poseur with a dragon tattoo.

Exactly! Thank you! He's waaaayyyy more of an evil Bruce Wayne than he is Fu Manchu. Not only is he not effeminate, he's actually rather hypermasculine, almost like a jock on steroids.

[Michael Watkins]

I guess that's where the argument sort of falls apart for me. I've never viewed the Mandarin in the same light as someone like Loki or Red Skull or Green Goblin or Doctor Doom or what have you. I know Marvel has tried to push him as such, but he's never seemed like he actually earned that status. That's also why when the movie controversy happened in 2013, the people insisting it'd be like if the Batman movies turned the Joker into a charlatan never worked for me either. The Mandarin is about as far from the Joker's level as I am from Leonardo DiCaprio.

I mean, think about it. Has he been seen in the Iron Man books at all since the Fraction run, which ended in 2012?

when a character plays such a large role in a book like that, they generally are limbo bound for a time. it's so they aren't overexposed. where was Norman months after Dark Reign ended? how long was the gap between Red Skull appearing in a dark reign side story and a clone of him showing up in Uncanny X-Men?

[Holt]

when a character plays such a large role in a book like that, they generally are limbo bound for a time. it's so they aren't overexposed. where was Norman months after Dark Reign ended?

I wasn't reading Spider-Man at the time, but was Norman gone from the book for over 8 years? I certainly remember him popping up to menace the Avengers after DR. To my knowledge, the only thing Mandarin showed up in at all since then was that Punisher run.

[MichaelC]

Are you kidding me? Norman was gone for, irrc, twenty years or close to it. He literally vanished from Gwen Stacy's death to...I don't even remember when, but an enormous amount of time later. Really, only a few villains pop up constantly: Joker, Doctor Doom, and Magneto. Everyone else's arch-enemy vanishes from their book for long stretches of time.

[Holt]

Are you kidding me? Norman was gone for, irrc, twenty years or close to it.

He was a top tier villain who was killed off because they felt he needed to pay for killing Gwen Stacy (plus the complications of him knowing Peter's identity). And note that the character was so popular and his absence so profound, that they attempted to fill the void with a number of legacy characters like Harry as the new Green Goblin and of course the various Hobgoblins.

I ask again, has the Mandarin been used in Iron Man since then? It's been nearly 8 years. To paraphrase a famous political quote, I've met the Green Goblin, and the Mandarin is no Green Goblin.