Every Major MCU Villain Ranked Worst To Best

9. The Mandarin/Trevor Slattery – Iron Man 3

Quite a few people would have dumped The Fake Mandarin at the bottom of their list because of how the twist went down when Iron Man 3 was released. It’s fair that it was a shock, but it’s a lot better than Shane Black using a racist caricature, which is exactly what The Mandarin was in the comics for decades.

The decision to use Tony Slattery as a false front for Aldrich Killian’s real plan is pretty great even with Sir Ben Kingsley’s hammy performance and it avoided needless controversy. Admittedly it attracted completely separate controversy, but fans are always going to fan.

There was a lot to be said for the idea of commercial terrorism and the use of superhero public profiles against them (considering Iron Man was so tied to celebrity at the time) and it was all genuinely well written and surprisingly brave.