For all of the problems that the aforementioned comic book characters presented, none of them pulled off as deliberate a manipulation of comic book fandom as the terrible Mandarin bait-and-switch in Iron Man 3. After audiences looked forward to seeing Ben Kingsley play one of Iron Man's most iconic foes, it turned out half-way through the film that the Mandarin we thought we knew was just an actor named Trevor Slattery, employed by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) to essentially act a decoy. As for the real Mandarin? Killian professes to be him at the end of the movie, though due to viewer outrage, this was half-rectonned in the 2014 short film All Hail The King, where Slattery was broken out of jail to finally meet the real Mandarin. Still, given that the Mandarin almost certainly won't be appearing in the MCU ever again, this just seems like a half-measure to stem the tide of criticism that Iron Man 3 invited, all while the one shot Marvel had to bring the character to the big screen has pretty much been blown on a smug joke. Doom may have sucked something fierce, but at least Fox didn't pull this nonsense with the character. Which iconic comic book villains do you feel have been most egregiously ruined by Hollywood? Shout them out in the comments!
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
