here's there chance. if they want to establish the Mandarin as Iron Man's archenemy, the way to do it would be to have him be the architect of this mess. this would be as large scale a mind**** as they come. and the character's "death" in the Punisher's title could even be tied in. that was the distraction. we've completely written the character off because he was shot in the head by a street level vigilante. i'm not sure what part of the magic trick this is (pledge, turn, or prestige). maybe he needed to be off the grid so he could pull off this grand unmaking of Tony Stark. he's made him question his parentage and his own humanity. the involvement of aliens is kind of a tipoff. maybe it was Tony who was supposed to beat the alien threat all along. but the Mandarin has introduced an (in a way) anti-christ in the form of Arno. and Tony's stuck leading an AI Revolution.