>rename him "The Khan" or some shit like that>make him entirely mongolian in themes and aesthetics (his backstory already revolves around being a descendant of Genghis Khan after all)that way the chinese couldn't possibly be offended
>>154340861Just lose the Fu Man Chu and don't have him talk like a Get Smart villain.
>>154340861Movie synergy.
>>154340861Make him Stark's rival in business and superhero theatrics. Sort of a Chinese Lex Luthor type.>A tech giant in china and an international rival to Stark in business with his amazing wonder inventions that are beyond anything else seen on the market.>Meanwhile all of his inventions are stolen and poorly imitated technology from a crashed ancient Makluan ship he discovered.>The rings are his best innovations taken from the ship that he reserves for himself. He barely understands how they work>His public persona as the genius innovator of our time is all fake, he is a mediocre researcher and businessman who fakes it>He also works as a higher level, multi-million $$ Tinkerer type who sells high tech gadgets to supervillains and a lot of Iron Man villains. He is behind Living Laser, Blizzard's and Unicorn's technology.>This also puts him at odds with Doom who believes he can do more with the ship's secrets, Reed who thinks he is toying with things he does not understand,
>>154342429Isn’t this what the Knaufs and Fraction did?
>>154340861Just do what Armoured Adventures did
You know what? How about fuck China.
>>154340861>Watch a chinese fantasy movie>Villain is a classic mustachioed chinese wizard in full robesThe Mandarin is in line with these characters. The archetype doesn't really seem a problem for the Chinese audience. Seems more like american hand-wringingYou want to satisfy China, just have an actually attractive Chinese woman as a government agent/supporting character and maybe have her say something like "I'm not letting a madman dressed like a wizard threaten my country."
>>154342492Exactly, and they worked. They just have to change the name, commit and use him a bunch to make it stick. Also, avoid drawing him like a wizard with the long hair and nails. He's a crime syndicate boss with alien tech.
>>154340861Why do we need to rename him?
>>154340861It was already fixed in IM3 but then it turned out to be fake.
>>154342898The fact that europeans used to call imperial chinese government officials and noblemen "mandarins" is basically completely unknown nowadays, which leads people to assume that he's a villain named after the language, which contributes to the racist stereotype allegations
>>154342882The wizard thing could work, as a tongue in cheek >He is the Tech Wizard of our times!kind of thing, where a part of his tech demo stage performance is he dressed up as a wizard and does lightshows before showing off some flying car.
>>154343113There's also the fact that his original depictions were heavily based on the Fu Manchu look, which has been criticized for being a racist caricature.
>>154343316While it's a fair point about his original appearance, he hasn't looked like that in decades. Cancelling a fictional character over something the people working on the comics wised up and changed decades ago is just a waste of a really cool villain.We definitely have a divide here between people who want him to be a big tech villain, as if Iron Man doesn't have enough already, or a wizard villain. Just stick with what works, he's like a martial arts wizard who uses alien power rings that are effectively magic-adjacent, sometimes he has an alien dragon working for him.>>154342856 probably has the right idea and just have Aero or Cybermancer or someone in the story as a positive Chinese character fighting against the Mandarin.
>>154343446Personally, I actually like the wizard look better. I'm a sucker for when the archenemy and the hero have a big contrast aesthetically and power-wise. Either that, or have him wear traditional-ish armor (NOT high tech Iron Man armor) like he did in Enter the Mandarin.
>>154343522How about that blue armor he had in the late 80s and in the Avengers arcade game?
>>154343446Anon, you dont have to convince me, we're working against broder public sentiment. I regularly collect downvotes on r*ddit defending muh boi. Hollywood wasn't reacting to nothing (fuck the Shang Chi screenwriters). The negative associations are already there.Also, as late as Busiek’s Heroes Return run, Mandarin was depicted with long hair, nails and sharp teeth. Ironically, drawn by Sean Chen, kek.As has been pointed out, the excellent Knauf run and Fraction's run both did good work to rehab the character, but those treatments weren't acknowledged or repeated enough to break into wider recognition.
>>154344104I'd argue it's more of a self-fulfilling prophecy, really. I doubt there were many comic book fans who thought the Mandarin was racist in the 90s and 2000s. I think what happened is, after the IM3 did what it did, a lot of nerds felt compelled to defend it, since back then the MCU was still hailed as the best thing since sliced bread. And so nerds, comic readers and movie-onlies alike, felt the need to defend its right to radically change things from the comics, so when they hear about the MCU needing to change up the Mandarin because the OG version was racist, they eat it up, be it as a primary justification or just in addition to "lmao i don't care about your stupid comic character"
>>154340861Play up the original idea of him being an elitist asshole with a chip on his shoulder, pissed over his family losing their status during the successive revolutions and willing to fuck over all sides. Nobody likes a entitled rich bitch.Easy enough to make him a symbol of corruption even the chinese can relate to
Another idea is to just keep The Mandarin name and have him look down upon westerners and use the name as a title that he is "reclaiming." Have some butthurt westerner refer to him as that Mandarin and have the villain take it as a generic term that he now sees as a challenge to show what one "mandarin" can do. I dunno something as easy as that.
>>154340861The problem with the Mandarin isn't so much that he's "a racist caricature", the actual problem with the Mandarin is that "a racist caricature" is all that is left to define him because he's a copy of Fu Manchu, THE FIRST SUPERVILLAIN. Every Marvel supervillain - no, every supervillain in any work of pop fiction made after Fu Manchu's creation has strands of Fu Manchu's imaginary DNA. Bald heads, super-science, cool facial hair, evil lairs, wacky and eccentric underlings, sexy evil daughters who are romanced to the side of good, being associated with the supernatural/paranormal, having a code of ethics and acting "honorable", working with or against the Nazis or dressing like a Nazi, evil wizard powers, an evil laugh, a bunch of cool outfits, having a dead wife, a tragic backstory, carrying out world-changing plots that involve mass death/enslavement, and a dynamic with a mystery-solving hero that he respects.There's just no room for the Mandarin in Marvel when all is said and done. He's like the last kid in line at a birthday party waiting for cake only to find that there's none left.
>>154342856China doesn't mind the Fu Manchu archetype (THE supervillain) because they already had something of a pop cultural history when it came towards fictional antagonists and villains. When Fu Manchu and his American successors came to East Asia, China (along with Japan and Korea) merged them with existing villainous archetypes from their culture to create their own respective supervillain archetypes.Wuxia/xianxian/xuanhauan villains share a lot in common with tokusatsu/manga villains and manwha villains and manhua villains, but all three demographics are quite distinct from each other, with all three influencing each other at the same time.>>154343316What's funny is that Fu Manchu's visual of being a "racist caricature" more accurately applies to the film version of him with the facial hair, the skin tone, and the hat. The film version of Fu Manchu talks frequently about "killing the white man".The version of him in the official pulp art is straight up just a bald Chinese guy. The Yellow Peril existed before Fu did! At worst, Fu Manchu is just a nationalist who is anti-communist/fascist and wants to be king of the world with China as number one.
>>154346042Why are these posts that try to personify whatever an anon doesn't like so Reddit? Like that tired trope in writing where the writer equates a bully to a sad kid sitting alone at the table and then basically doing nothing to help them? That type of superiority the writer knows is too indulgent so they haphazardly mask it? And also happens to ignore that it is also is due to Dr. Doom existing and having magic as well and ruling in a foreign country Iron Man can't easily touch? Mandarin has some problems but you can still salvage him.
>>154346042Classic characters already exist in Marvel though.Actual Thor is a superhero in the same setting. Also we have Mr Hyde Hulk....and the actual Mr Hyde is a Thor villain tooConan and Dracula are Marvel charactersKazar is based on Tarzan
>>154346042I don't know if that matters when nearly all of Robert E Howards Conan, Atlantis, and Kull books are actual canon parts of Marvel history. They cold just as well make Fu Manchu into a real villain and it would fit.
Why can't we just mesh Fin Fang Foom and Mandarin together into one character?
>>154346372Well he was. Then the rights expired and was renamed much later, claiming Fu Manchu was just an alias.
>>154344104>Also, as late as Busiek’s Heroes Return run, Mandarin was depicted with long hair, nails and sharp teethBy the 90s, depictions of the Mandarin were broadly in line with evil wizard archetypes from actual Chinese culture. There was a sincere attempt to do something that looked authentic, it was a million miles away from the post-it yellow skin and buck teeth of the early days. The people complaining about 1990s Mandarin were probably never going to be satisfied by anything other than completely retiring the character.The Knauf and Fraction runs just turn him into a generic guy in a suit, stripped of all his supervillain grandeur. The Knauf run has his rings attached to his spine because ow the edge, and Fraction rewrote his origin in ways that diminished him, gave his rings more boring names, and at least initially wrote him as a delusional lunatic inspired by North Korean dicators.>>154346042If you're going to be like that about it you may as well argue why have any villains who aren't Fu Manchu if they're all stealing tropes from him?
>>1543431105 minutes in Wonder Man really showed that Kingsley was wasted because Shane Black thought a twist villain would be funny
>>154346711If you're going to pull a bait and switch twist like that, the thing you're actually giving the audience needs to be better than the thing they thought they were getting. Iron Man 3 just fall apart after the Mandarin twist because they built up a really menacing villain then replaced him with a boring nobody, as well as refusing to let Tony even suit up as Iron Man for the finale.
>>154340861Just give up on him at this point. It's like trying to make the Yellow Claw work. I wouldn't be surprised if Ra's Al Ghul gets dropped one day.
>>154347048You're missing the point entirely. They made Mandarin work, and made him work for years, but then they gave up on him anyway. And not because of China, but because of white woketards being offended by him.
>>154347103That's my point. It's not worth it anymore.
>>154346372>>154346349>>154346301>>154346533You can absolutely salvage the Mandarin but not within the mainline continuity. Armored Adventures worked because the list of villains was almost entirely just Iron Man antagonists.I don't understand how this is so hard for people to understand: every other individual Marvel supervillain touches on various niches that Fu Manchu established or firmly hold very specific functions within the wider shared narrative. There is no room left for the Mandarin thanks to the sheer number of Fu Manchu remixes that exist as Marvel supervillains.You can have Conan run around in Marvel because even if there are characters influenced by Conan (Hercules, Thor, etc), the number of Conan-influenced characters is remarkably small when compared to the number of Fu Manchu-influenced ones, and these characters don't exactly render Conan irrelevant in terms of characterization or narrative function.If we're being surgical, there are 300-500 Marvel villains that are the only ones of importance, with 100 heroes. So where's the room for Mandarin?
>>154340861Have him become a Black Panther villain to mirror China exploiting Africa for resources.
>>154347157The Mandarin almost-exclusively fights Iron Man, it shouldn't matter if villains from other heroes rogues galleries are sharing some overlapping tropes when that other villain isn't likely to show up in Iron Man comics very often, or at all.If you think there are 300-500 'important' Marvel villains but can't fit Mandarin into that list you're doing something wrong there.
>>154346301Doom works because he follows the Marvel supervillain formula of "remix Fu Manchu" but with Kirby's creative direction of elevating things (a composite of Satan, Death, the Man in the Iron Mask, Shakespearean antagonists, and WW2 tyrranical fascists).>>154347126It's not really worth it to use Mandarin because the root problems with him as an antagonist stem from Iron Man's inability to keep an audience due to a fundamentally broken premise
>>154346042>sexy evil daughters who are romanced to the side of good,Does that even work?
>>154343110>Fortune cookies look Chinese. They sound Chinese. But they are actually an American invention. Which is why they're hollow, full of lies, and leave a bad taste in your mouth.We could have had kino, man
>>154342429you're describing justin hammer, which is not a bad thing it sucked that michellini killed him so nobody else used him.>>154340861Simple you add more respect to chinese culture. Different from what many say here the reason why no big change stick to the mandarin is because other writers made a good job to define him as a complete opposite to stark with his views of anti futurism/pro tradition and his beliefs of destiny.Enter the mandarin is one of the stories that i feel does this best. it keeps the busiek design with the tech and chinese robes but re invents the kun fu suit with a chinese armor, hell even his subordinates are to fit the attire.also this >>154342856 the mandarin is entirely against communism so nu writers can just jack off to having a chinese lecture him.
>>154346042Fu Manchu is an actual character in Marvel, isn't he? Ain't he Shang Chi's dad? And then the MCU takes it full circle and has the MCU Mandarin as his dad? Not the Kingsley one, the actual head of the ten rings.
>>154347558Hammer is more of a legit business rival.Mandarin basing all of his success off stealing alien technology then pretending he is a genius makes him into a fraud version of Stark.
>>154340861Make him into something more like 2003 TMNT Shredder, except he is Fing Fang Foom stranded on Earth posing as a human. He was a warlord in the 800s, then a courtesan in the 1500s, now he is a mafia don/business leader with minions across the globe. He uses a business as a front for illegal underground shit.The rings are just leftover technology Makluans use in their everyday.
>>154346711>>154346829Shane Black did not give a shit about making an Iron Man movie. He wanted to make is Iraq War protest/Government is manufacturing wars informative movie. Thing is, everyone already knew that, we still want to see Iron Man fighting bad guys.
This is the easiest fix in the world.
He just needs a different name.
>>154347644lmao no, hammer was literally hanging out in mobile bases so nobody could find him, constantly hired villains as henchmen or goons and was the entire reason why the armor was happened because he was selling stolen tech to terrorist and the goverment.>>154347213it honeslty fits him lol.
>>154347157Marvel has >about 8 different guys that fly on gliders with the last name Goblin.>A female version of every major Spider-Man villain>7 different supersoldiers>3 major symbiotes and about a dozen more minor ones>10 more evil armored guys that work for evil weapon manufacturing companies>6 main spider-powered people>2 ant men, and evil ant Man, and 2 Wasps and a Yellow Jacket>Thor, Horse Thor, Future Thor, Side Cut Thor, Woman Thor,>an evil team of cosmic ray freaks, and an ape team of cosmic ray freaks>Abomination, Red Hulk, and Gray pseudo-Wolverine Hulk>2 Quasars and a Phyla with Quantum bands from another universeThere is room for whatever the fucking fuck you want.
>>154347838Hammer existed for decades before you started reading comics. you must be 18 to post here,
>>154347903Dude I'm over 20 and my job pushed me into reading comics. If you think I'm wrong or miss remembering something just say it or post proof.
>>154347213There's an Iron Man annual where he's revealed as the hidden power behind a resurrected Eric Killmonger.so he's got an in already. Or was that what gave you the idea?
>>154347705>then a courtesan in the 1500sKinky.
>>154340861I was gonna say making him an arms dealer who specializes in fucking magic is such a weird but cool niche to me. Just go all in on that.
>>154346404Because Fin Fang Foom doesn't deserve that. They are separate characters with their own history.
>>154347558Hammer was one of many rival weapon manufacturers, and he sold legit stuff he invented or reverse engineered from Stark. Making Mandarin into someone that rides on the coattails of some old space ship he found one day makes him a bit more unique than that.
>>154349329Fin Fang Foom has also been a really 5th rate fucking nobody since the 90s at least. He used to be the final boss of the Iron Man villains and the big event that Tony was never sure he could actually beat. But ever since the 90s era of all classic villains being lame, stupid looking losers Foom has never been able to get over that.
>>154346252>China doesn't mind the Fu Manchu archetypePerhaps because people in China didn’t directly get discriminated against based on the Fu Manchu yellow peril racism like Asians living in the west did. Fu Manchu has a clear and long history of racist caricature and demonisation of asian characters in western culture so of course it’s considered a problem
>>154349380Merging Foom with Mandarin is fucking stupid
>>154349459So better to leave both characters in nonexistent total obscurity to never be used for anything again because some anon on 4chan said it was stupid.
>>154349554Your shitty idea wouldn’t revitalise and make them get used more
>>154347558Might be cool to identify him with one of the tribes subjugated by Han and just have him hate China as a concept. He seems to like Mongols a lot.
>>154342882The name thing is easy. Just reveal his real name, or a name he wants to go by, and have him just go by that. No villain monikor. Make the surname Khan, to keep the Khan lineage thing. Wu Long Khan, or some shit.As for his looks, the Knaufs/Fraction look was great. Just keep or tweak picrel. The goatee is great because it evokes the classic Fu Manchu without going that far. And you can play with the beard length. Have it be long in a story where he going full Mongolian garb. Keep it trimmed when he's Lex Luthoring.
