10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About The MCU

10. Trevor Slattery And The Mandarin Double Twist

iron man 3 ben kingsley mandarin
Marvel Studios

Although Iron Man 3 is one of the most inventive and confident movies in the MCU, it took a lot of flack from fans for squandering one of the biggest villains in the hero's mythology. Teasing the introduction of the all-powerful Mandarin, a mid-movie twist revealed that the villain wasn't the big bad he'd been set up as but actually a patsy, a cockney actor playing the character of the Mandarin to obscure the real villain.

Though it's a genuinely well-handled twist, fans didn't appreciate that such a major villain was reduced to a joke. It caused such an uproar, in fact, that Marvel eventually released a one-shot which teased the appearance of the real Mandarin, who showed up to confront the imposter for taking on his mantle.

Unfortunately, that's all we've heard about the character since, and the one-shot essentially functioned as an embarrassing, wishy-washy apology to the fans that will never be capitalised on. At this point, Marvel have essentially forgotten about the villain entirely, and they'd rather audiences did too.

Advertisement
Contributor

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.