10 Movie Villain Reveals That Were Genuinely Surprising

9. The Mandarin - Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 Mandarin
Marvel Studios

Perhaps the most controversial twist to ever feature in a superhero movie, the reveal that Iron Man 3's Mandarin wasn't actually the film's main villain, and not even a villain at all, but rather a cockney actor hired to take the focus away from the real bad guy, caught everybody off guard.

The twist itself was perhaps too good, being so out of left field that it took everyone a minute to realise just what the hell was happening. When they realised that the reveal wasn't actually a joke and it became clear that one of Iron Man's most iconic enemies was essentially reduced to a gag, both Marvel and director Shane Black received a huge backlash.

While Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian still made for a great supervillain to go toe to toe with Tony Stark, a lot of viewers simply couldn't get over the fact that Marvel squandered one of the hero's biggest enemies.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.