The Trouble With the Mandarin
Introduced by Stan Lee and Don Heck in 1964’s Tales of Suspense #50, the Mandarin has long been Iron Man’s arch enemy. The Chinese-born son of a wealthy national and an English aristocrat, the Mandarin possesses a scientific knowledge to rival Tony Stark and 10 magical rings, each granting him different powers. The Mandarin’s battles with Iron Man became classic clashes of civilizations, with the latter representing American know-how and the former standing in for Eastern traditions. To underscore the point, Lee and Heck based the Mandarin directly on Fu Manchu, a long-running racist caricature and exemplar of yellow peril tropes.
Thus, it’s easy to understand why Marvel would be reluctant to bring the Mandarin into their mainline universe. And it’s easy to understand why they would go for Black’s twist in Iron Man 3, revealing that the guy who seemed like a Southern-fried Osama bin Laden was in fact a doofus English actor and prolific drug user, who posed no threat to anyone but himself.
But it’s also easy to understand the sense of betrayal fans felt. After all, the MCU built itself on faithfully adapting the comics. Where superhero movies of years past seemed almost embarrassed by the source material, turning Batman into an ’80s action hero who killed his enemies and dressing the X-Men in black leather, the MCU gave us a Thor who spoke like a Shakespearean extra, an earnest Captain America in star-spangled duds, and a proper crossover Avengers movie. How dare they back down now?
Even after giving us a more traditional Mandarin in the form of Xu Wenwu in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, played by the incredible Tony Leung, fans remained unhappy, dismissing Iron Man 3 as an embarrassment. But now, Wonder Man has come along to show them how wrong they are.
A Wonderful Return
In what must be a nod to the MCU’s founding father Robert Downey Jr., the Trevor Slattery of Wonder Man has done a 180 from where we first met him in Iron Man 3. Not only is he clean and sober, so far along his recovery process that he can watch Simon (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) enjoy a drink and not even feel the sting of temptation, but he’s also a great actor. Trevor’s getting gigs, but he’s not free of the past. More frustrating than the many questions he must answer about his time as the Mandarin, Trevor’s being blackmailed by the Department of Damage Control, forced to help them reveal Simon’s ionic powers.
Across Wonder Man‘s eight episodes, Kingsley plays Trevor as a three-dimensional person. He still has some of the pretentiousness and air-headedness that made him so much fun in Iron Man 3 and Shang-Chi. But it’s grounded with real weight, as Trevor deals with the consequences of his actions, his respect for Simon, and, finally, finds a way to take hold of his legacy as the Mandarin.
