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The Mandarin is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is the archenemy of Iron Man. The character is described as being born in China before the Communist revolution, to a wealthy Chinese father and an English aristocratic mother, both of whom died when he was very young.
He is characterised as a megalomaniac, attempting to conquer the world on several occasions, yet also possessing a strong sense of honor. The Mandarin is portrayed as a genius scientist and a superhumanly skilled martial artist. However, his primary sources of power are ten power rings that he adapted from the alien technology of a crashed space ship. Each ring has a different power and is worn on a specific finger. In other media, the Mandarin has been shown in several forms of animation and computer games.
A version of the character loosely serves as the main villain of the film Iron Man 3. The Mandarin first appeared in Tales of Suspense 50 Feb. The Mandarin's late father was one of the wealthiest men in pre-revolutionary mainland China and a descendant of Genghis Khanwhile his late mother was an English noblewoman.
Their son was born in an unnamed village in mainland China before the Communist revolution. The boy's parents died soon after his birth, and he was raised by his paternal aunt, who was embittered against the world and raised him with much the same attitude. Every last bit of the family fortune was spent obsessively training the Mandarin in science and combat, with the result that he was penniless by adulthood. Without the wealth to pay the taxes on his ancestral home, the Mandarin was evicted by the government.
Hoping to find a means of avenging himself upon the civilization that had taxed him and rendered him homeless, the Mandarin explores the forbidden Valley of Spirits, where no one has dared to set foot for centuries.
Over the following years, the Mandarin studies Makluan science until he masters it. He also learns how to use the ten rings he found within the starship, which are apparently its propulsion source, among other things.
The Mandarin then becomes a conqueror, and subjugates the villages around the Valley, and through his advanced science, rapidly becomes a power that not even the Chinese Army can successfully challenge. He then embarks on a long series of attempts to achieve world domination. The Chinese, though fearing him, ask for his help, but he will not become subservient to them.
The Mandarin sees technology as the surest means to achieve his goals. Over the years, he frequently attempts to turn the weapons and computers of various nations against them. Among the Mandarin's earliest schemes is the sabotage and theft of American missiles and spy planes built by Tony Stark.
To restore public confidence in his workmanship, Stark dons his Iron Man armor and flies to China to investigate. During three of their early confrontations, the Mandarin manages to take Iron Man or his alter ego Tony Stark captive, but fails to kill him. Similarly, Iron Man thwarts the Mandarin's various schemes, but is unable to bring him to justice. Some of the Mandarin's early technological achievements are the launching of a small orbiting satellite whose "death-ray" he aims at Stark Industriesand the building later retconned as "the reprogramming, the refitting, and the recharging" of Ultimoa foot 9.
The Mandarin's teleportation technology, derived from Makluan science, enables him to kidnap people at will or teleport himself out of threatening situations. He teleports the Swordsman to his castle just before the Avengers capture him, plotting to use him to destroy the Avengers and adding the technology to his sword to aid him, though the Swordsman betrays him and throws the bomb away. Hogan is wearing the Iron Man armor at the time to help protect his employer's secret identity, and the Mandarin mistakes him for his true foe.
In rescuing Hogan, Iron Man physically bests the Mandarin in personal combat for the first time. Iron Man redirected the missiles that the Mandarin had launched so that they hit the Mandarin's castle, destroying it. There, he constructs a gemlike device capable of broadcasting "hate-rays" toward Earth.
The Mandarin, using his teleportation technology, assembles several former enemies of the Avengers to perform missions for him: The Avengers manage to thwart the Mandarin's scheme after getting to the satellite, despite being hit by his hate-rays that make each of them attack the person nearest to themselves.
However, the Wasp is nearest to the Mandarin and her attack on him shuts off the rays. The Mandarin is sucked into space and the Avengers are able to destroy his satellite. The Mandarin then establishes a base in China's Gobi Desertand turns his attention to the Hulk for a time, hoping to make the dull-witted brute into an accomplice. Two attempts at controlling the Hulk proved futile. First he places a device on the Hulk's neck, hoping to use him to start a war which will allow the Mandarin to take over the world.
However Nick Fury foils this scheme. The Mandarin sets up a makeshift base of operations in the United States, and attempts to discredit Anthony Stark publicly. Holding Iron Man captive for the fourth time, the Mandarin tries to learn if Iron Man is actually Stark, but Stark fools him with a rubber mask over his own features. His plans thwarted, the Mandarin tries to kill Stark's girlfriend, Janice Cord, but the Mandarin's betrothed Mei Ling saves her at the cost of her own life.
Returning to China, the Mandarin seeks a means to increase his rings' power, and learns of the legendary Eye of Yin, a talisman of power created by an ancient group of Chinese sorcerers. The Mandarin manipulates the Royal Family of the Inhumanswho at the time, live in the nearby Himalayan Mountains of Tibetinto locating the idol for him.
Yet before he can fully incorporate the Eye's power in his rings, Black Boltthe ruler of the Inhumans, overpowers him, strips him of his ten rings, and hides them.
Unable to find the rings, the Mandarin journeys back to the Valley of Spirits and the ruins of the Makluan starship, wherein he first acquired the rings.
There he found a headband containing technology which enabled him to recover the rings. The Mandarin uses his newfound power to restore his castle to its original state. The Unicornanother frequent opponent of Iron Man, seeks the Mandarin's aid in curing him of a progressive disease. The Mandarin and the Unicorn travel to the United States to attack their common enemy, Iron Man, but in the heat of battle, the Mandarin finds that the headband has somehow exchanged his consciousness with that of the Unicorn.
The Mandarin is forced to flee, desperate to separate himself from the Unicorn's dying body. When the Mandarin arrives at his castle in China, he finds that it has been taken over by the Yellow Clawanother professional criminal and warlord of Chinese origin.
The Mandarin is forced to flee to another laboratory to try to restore his mind back to its rightful body, which he manages with the unwilling aid of the Japanese mutant Sunfire.
When the rings are confiscated by the Yellow Claw's power-hungry servant Loc Do and activated by him, the Mandarin's consciousness enters his body, permanently driving out Loc Do's consciousness. Using his matter-rearranger ring, the Mandarin transforms Loc Do's body into a younger duplicate of his own original one.
The Mandarin returns to his castle, discovering that it has again been destroyed. After rebuilding it, the Mandarin attempts to capture Iron Man with his teleportation devices, but once again catches someone else clad in his armor. This time it is Michael O'Brien, later to become a friend of Stark's and the second man to wear the Guardsman 's armor. Iron Man flies to O'Brien's rescue, clad in an old set of armor, saves O'Brien, thwarts the Mandarin's attempt to bomb the United States, and for a second time bests him in personal combat and then destroys his castle.
Perhaps due to the effect of the Mandarin's mental domination ring on him, Iron Man does not take the Mandarin into custody, but allows him to remain free. He also tries to destroy China's entire rice crop with radiation in an attempt to force a starving nation into war. In the second of these plots, the Mandarin encounters James Rhodes during Rhodes' custodianship of the Iron Man armor.
As Tong, he controls a number of government officials and industry leaders of Hong Kong. The Mandarin thwarts all of Stark's attempts to set up a business branch, even resorting to murder. The Mandarin now employs a group called the Hand to do his dirty work.
When on a mission, a Hand member is allowed to take one of the Mandarin's rings and use its powers. As a precaution, if the Hand member is to be captured, he will fanatically try to kill himself.
If the Hand member is to be killed or knocked out, the ring will automatically teleport back to the Mandarin. The Mandarin's agents kidnap James Rhodes and several of Stark's other employees, forcing Iron Man into single combat in exchange for their lives. Iron Man defeats the Mandarin once again, and helps Stark's employees escape the Hand.
The Mandarin's minions are left without their weapons when their master is knocked unconscious, causing his rings to teleport back to him automatically and leaving them unarmed and unable to stop Stark's employees from fleeing.
At one point, during a period in which the then thought-dead X-Men had disbanded, the mutant heroine Psylocke passes through the mystic portal known as the Siege Perilous.
The portal relocates her to an Asian shore, leaving her an amnesiac. The man known as Matsu'o Tsurayaba finds her and believes he could save his brain-dead lover Kwannon by switching her mind with Psylocke. Working with the otherdimensional sorceress known as Spiralthey are able to do this successfully.
Mandarin conditions Psylocke now in Kwannon's body to believe herself to be Lady Mandarin, the Mandarin's assassin. During this time, the Mandarin teams up with several other villains during the " Acts of Vengeance " storyline. He also confronted the Avengers. The three then defeat the Mandarin, causing events which lead to the severing of the Mandarin's relationship with the Hand.
Some time later, the Mandarin discovered that one of his rings is an elaborate counterfeit. One of his underlings had betrayed him, surrendering the ring to Chen Hsu, an ancient wizard who lived in San Francisco. Hsu, elfin in appearance but puissant in power, gives up the ring to the Mandarin, who collapses as soon as he put it on.
Chen Hsu tends to him, removing the veil of confusion from his mind; soon the Mandarin realizes that his memories had been fragmented because of the theft of the ring, because the rings were still linked to his consciousness. Under the control of Hsu, the dragon obeys the Mandarin, laying waste to an army sent by the Chinese government to stop him. Soon the Mandarin claims a third of China's territory, and the authorities sent out a call for help to Iron Man.
It is revealed that many thousands of years ago, a number of aliens from the planet Kakaranathara, the fourth planet of the star Maklu, traveled to Earth to look for the conflict which was unknown in their culture, and which they craved. The ship crashed, stranding them on Earth for thousands of years, after which the Mandarin found the ship and claimed their rings. Now, they demand them back, but he refuses them.
Iron Man forcibly combines his power with the rings, and manages to destroy the Makluan dragons. The blast vaporizes the Mandarin's hands, and renders him comatose. For months, he lies in a state between life and death, in the care of a peasant woman who does not know who he is.
Over time, his hands grow back, though they do so as reptilian claws, and the rings called to him again, to reclaim them. The Mandarin discovers the Heart of Darkness, an orb of apparently mystic energy; the alien Century believes it is an ancient artifact which acts as a "lens" to attract and focus all manner of dark power. Iron Man infects the Mandarin with a techno-organic virusand the Heart, seeing him infected with technology, rejects the Mandarin and implodes.
Iron Man believes him dead, though in reality the Mandarin has been transported and transformed, by the last flare of the orb's magic, into a janitor in the Hong Kong branch of Stark Enterprises. Eventually, the Mandarin's memories return to him.
