Iron Man 4 Wishlist: 10 Things Fans Demand

What better way to jump into Phase 4 and move away from the spectacle of the Thanos Infinity saga than by bringing an old story back to the forefront with completely different stakes?

Marvel need another villain if they bring back Iron Man, and rather than trying to out-size Thanos, they should turn back to what they know has worked before to tie up the loose ends of The Ten Rings. And even better they could bring back Justin Hammer after teasing him in both Doctor Strange and Luke Cage.

Will It Happen?

It should. We've already seen the Ten Rings story rear its head again since Iron Man 3 in Ant-Man, and we do know that The Mandarin is a real character, thanks to the one shot Hail To The King and that the group os still operating thanks to Ant-Man's teases. So leaving that loose end - of a major global terrorist group - unresolved is just ludicrous.

There is a school of thought that says that Marvel should avoid this because it looks like a conscious apology to fanboys over the Iron Man 3/Mandarin debacle (blown quite aggressively out of proportion as it was), but the existence of the one shot without a follow-through is arguably even worse. They've already "said sorry" and not having the continued existence of the Mandarin explored makes it seem even more perfunctory.

And of course there's also the issue of racism: the comics version of the character is cliched and reductive, but crucially that doesn't mean he would have to be in the film. The Ancient One wasn't, after all.