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Some people crave power above all else. The man who calls himself the Mandarin is one such individual. Bearer of ten rings of immense power, the Mandarin seeks even more strength to bend the wills of others to his command. This brings him to cross paths with many powerful heroes over the years. So, who is the Mandarin and where did his rings come from? Let’s find out!

If one were to believe the Mandarin’s own words, he was the son of an English noblewoman and has a blood line that goes all the way back to Genghis Kahn himself. In reality, his mother worked at a brothel and died of an overdose, leaving her son to seek vengeance on the man who sold her the drugs and was possibly his real father. From these humble beginnings, the Mandarin would become a criminal and rise through the ranks of weapons dealing to a position of power and influence.

While on the run, the Mandarin would find a crashed alien spaceship, with a dying alien on board and strange cylinders as the ship’s engine. The alien pled with his dying breath to leave the engine alone but the Mandarin would take them and find that the rings on the cylinders made perfect fitting rings on his hands. Each ring gave him different powers, such as, mind control or lightning blasts. Realizing what this could do, he cemented himself a position of power that granted him his own city, Mandarin City, to run.

Seeking to further explore the powers of the rings, he would work with warlords all over the planet. This would lead to one such warlord in capturing genius, billionaire inventor, Tony Stark. While the Mandarin had hopes of using Stark to uncover more abilities for his rings, the man would instead create a powered body armor allowing him to escape his bonds and become a constant thorn in the Mandarin’s side and bring ruin to many of his plans in the future.

Years would be spent not only fighting Iron Man but many different heroes. His finances allowed him the ability to make new companies that could fuel his attempts at destroying heroes and furthering his own causes on multiple fronts but to no avail. The Mandarin would even go so far as to create more identities to throw off the scent to his plans when heroes would get involved, hoping for any advantage he could get.

Sometimes, working with other villains was his best course of action. Organizations, like the Hand, would work as another force for the Mandarin’s plans while other times he may work with monsters, big and small. All would prove fruitless and often times lead to the Mandarin finding new teammates who would be detrimental to his cause. One such team-up lead to his death at the hands of Ezekiel Stane. Though he would return from death, it would be short-lived as the Punisher would execute him once more using technology Hydra had been developing in case, they had ever felt the need to take down the Mandarin themselves.

There you have it! The Mandarin has been tied to Iron Man for decades and was originally meant to be a magical opposite to the technological hero. He’s been animated on the small screen, several times, and has technically been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since its beginning with only making his real onscreen appearance in Shang-Chi. Who knows where he will end up next in comics? See you next time!

Suggested Reading
Tales of Suspense #50
Iron Man
Invincible Iron Man

Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net