[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by En Sabah Nerd

I feel like they messed up the Mandarin so much in Iron Man 3 that while I really want them to fix their mess, I'm also worried that they can't do it right at this point. Mandarin is always an Iron Man character first, so I wouldn't hope too much on seeing him in A4, maybe if they ever do an Iron Man 4, but right now RDJ's not too sure about that even happening. Technically even if Thanos dies in A3 he could come back greatly weakened for any future movies, kind of like when he joined the Infinity Watch (he didn't actually die there, but you see where I'm going with this).

I won't forgive Hasbro for the lame 2" figures until we have 3.75" figures in hand. Even then I'll always have a dislike of their decisions to do it the way they did.

They did establish in one of the short films that the real Mandarin exists and wasn't happy about the impostor either. So I'm thinking they have him on the back burner for later. While he is an Ironman enemy, he's also been highly over saturated. So I see why they did the new take with the impostor instead first and pushed back other plans for later. Between his over abundance in the 90s toon, armored adventures, and the animated film, it seems extremely logical to let those fade down more in memory first before approaching him moderately accurately on film. Plus this way buys them time to figure out how to re-envision him as not so much of a racist byproduct of the times he was created in. Plus the way they did it in IM3 was pretty much the only original take left on the character that hadn't been tried yet, and could only be done prior to bringing in the real one. It's one of the aspects of IM3 I praise actually, but that's because I'm personally worn out on Mandarin stories from the over saturation. Besides, it does leave the door open for him to be used later still. So it's really only a stall tactic to buy some time.

There was talk originally that IM3 would be the real one under Favreu with talk of Fin Fang Foom too. When Shane Black came on board plus other suggestions, they seemed to shift that around to be a mis-lead on purpose. It works beautifully too when you think about it. Especially with the infinity stones in play now. Two sets of alien jewelry immediately back to back would create a bit of a yawn. Doing it this way allows for a better build up. So I'd probably lean on Avengers 5 or 6 (if they make it that far) for Mandarin. The Hands of Mandarin is the biggest story he's been involved in from the past, and with it involving force works, it could be under an Ironman movie too. Depends where things go later since that's about a decade or so off. Granted they could have used it as a prelude to build into the infinity stones for Avengers 3 in showing the grander scope of what's out there as a pre-cursor, but we also don't know what's on the slate for phase 3 yet either. All we know so far is Ant-Man, Avengers: AoU, Cap 3, and Doctor Strange. They still have cards to flip over more or less and room to explore various forays. We may very well see him in an IM4 before Avengers 3 hits. Especially now that they are expanding the world they are in with more heroes. Hawkeye, Wonderman, and Scarlet Witch are the 3 that were most prevalent on Force Works outside of Century and War Machine. So maybe by IM4, Tony will think about starting a new team or back up team because of how large the roster is growing or whatever other factors can be used that have yet to be developed on the screen.

As a story device, it is an interesting tie back though. The ten rings of the first movie weren't part of Killian's group. Instead, it comes across as they were a large chunk of where he lifted his 'cover story' from besides the urban myths he took advantage of. All of which creates a much larger more epic impact later when that character does make its real debut. So in theory at least, they've got aspects still to tie all the way back into Ironman 1 if they want to use them. Now with GOTG in play too, alongside Thanos, the Makluans are easier to introduce now too as opposed to prior. Thor often gets a pass because of the norse roots, but his films helped establish the possibility better too since the Asgardians are considered more aliens with extremely advanced tech as opposed to actual gods in the MCU. So all the pieces are in place, it's just a matter of waiting for the best moment to use them for the best effect.

Personally, I also appreciate the reprieve for a bit. With so much other stuff on shelves, the spacing apart of figure lines like this for their main MCU collection really kind of alleviates the wallet stress. It lets some collectors focus more on other lines(most of which are hasbro owned too!) briefly before going right back full swing into hardcore marvel stuff.

Like for me, this lets me switch back to transformers generations for a bit, and catch up some other loose ends before going into trying to find the newest MCU stuff. (Also gives me time to debate on the giant Godzilla figure, TMNT movie figures, Doctor Who, and catch up on some Halo mega blocks too. Those are pretty much the only non-hasbro lines I collect or are looking into.)