5. There's A Reason They Changed The Mandarin For Iron Man 3
Remember what we were saying earlier about the worst depiction of an Asian character in comic books? Well, we're here. The Mandarin is that. A lot of fans were outraged by the bait-and-switch reveal of the character in Iron Man 3 (we personally found Ben Kingsley's essaying of the role electrifying both before and after the big twist) but, really, Shane Black and Drew Pearce didn't have much of a choice. Because if they had played it straight, they would have a tentpole summer blockbuster with a totally racist Chinese caricature as its primary antagonist. Like Shamrock, we can start with the fact that his name is the friggin' Mandarin. That's basically calling a villain "The Chinese", implying both that that's an inherently evil name and that there are so few other Chinese characters in your stories, that he can take that title and won't be confused with anyone else. That's because, like Egg Fu, The Mandarin was principally inspired by Fu Manchu. Created in 1912 by English writer Sax Rohmer, Manchu was the personification of the "Yellow Peril", a widely-held and totally racist fear of those mysterious people to the East which intensified through Wars both World and Cold. The Mandarin tapped into that and then some, belabouring the point by also making him a master martial artist and giving him the signature Fu Manchu moustache. The only reason the character still exists is because most of the more overtly racist overtones have been done away with, and because Iron Man doesn't really have any other decent villains.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
