10 Biggest Missed Opportunities In Recent Comic Book Movies
8. The Mandarin (Iron Man 3)
Iron Man 3 has been out since 2013 and this twist still has fans divided. After setting up Ben Kingsley's Mandarin as the villain of the film, it is revealed in the second act is that he's just a washed up actor begin puppeted by the real antagonist, Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian. Seeing as the Mandarin, one of Iron Man's oldest and most iconic villains, has always been a racist stereotype of Asian mysticism, this was a creative way of dodging a potentially very uncomfortable bullet.
But a later one-shot short film from Marvel showed that there is a Mandarin in the MCU, and he does, in fact, manipulate a lot of world events from behind the scene. It is suspected the Mandarin will show up as the main villain of the announced Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten rings, but seeing as Tony Stark is dead and not likely to return, fans will never get the Iron Man/Mandarin showdown they'd been expecting.
This is a real shame as it would have been a way to rehabilitate the image of the Mandarin as a genuine menace instead of a caricature. Ben Kingsley is even one of the few actors seemingly immune to criticism of cultural appropriation and white-washing. Talk about a missed opportunity.