13 Most Shocking Comic Book Movie Twists Of All Time
4. The Mandarin - Iron Man 3
If twists were measured solely in fanboy soreness, Iron Man 3's Mandarin conceit would top every list celebrating the art of narrative rug-pulls.
It seemed initially that Shane Black was following the comic book source's portrayal of The Mandarin pretty closely: Sir Ben Kingsley's pantomime villain was your typical terrorist leader (shorn of the questionable, racist elements of the source) with a huge, very real threat and a vendetta to destroy Tony Stark. If that had been the end of it, it would have been absolutely fine, as the Ten Rings story had already been seeded in the first Iron Man.
But then, infamously, it turned out that Kingsley's character wasn't The Mandarin at all - he was Trevor, an actor used to front a constructed evil narrative by Aldrich Killian, another Stark business rival. Sure, there were accusations that it did a disservice to the original character (it didn't, that character was a racist construct of stereotypes), but it was a genius story device and the humour of it was immensely satisfying.