Mandarin

The Mandarin is a Chinese despot and villain. Possessing a brilliant mind and extensive skill in martial arts, Mandarin lives in an opulent castle in China where he defies all who would oppose him, including the communist government. He wears a series of ten rings, each of which possesses a unique power.

Biography

Origin

The Mandarin's father was a respected Chinese man and a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, but fell under ridicule when he married a white English woman, despite her own high-born nobility. It was believed that the gods were angered by this marriage, and Mandarin's father was killed by a falling idol. His mother died of distress soon after, and people saw this as a foreboding omen. His paternal aunt, jealous that the infant would inherit his father's wealth instead of her, attempted to leave the boy in a peasant village, but was herself dissuaded by another apparent omen. Terrified by the energy surrounding the child, she instead devoted her life to raising him and teaching him to hate the world as she did. The Mandarin grew up believing that the gods had plans for him, and awaited a sign. His inherited wealth and land was taken by the Chinese government after he refused to pay taxes to the communist nation. His aunt died soon after, and he roamed the land to find the path the gods had set for him.

Traveling through the Valley of Spirits, he was shocked to happen upon a large dragon skeleton. He stumbled down into a deeper valley of brush, where he found a spaceship. He found a helmet inside that had recorded a series of logs from the ship's pilot, Axonn-Karr of the planet Maklu-4. Axonn-Karr was a dragon-like Makluan, who had traveled the universe before arriving on Earth and being killed by people of China for his fearsome appearance. The Mandarin found the ship's energy source, ten rings that each held a unique form of power. Mandarin claimed the rings and Axonn-Karr's logs, continuing to study his ancient, alien knowledge. Using the power of the rings, Mandarin subdued a number of villages and became known as a powerful, fearsome despot. According to Madam Macabre, the Mandarin supposedly saved her life as a child and sent her to study at a monastery, but there is reason to doubt this story.

1964

In early 1964, Mandarin's castle was visited by the American hero Iron Man. Iron Man had been sent by the United States government to investigate the Mandarin and determine whether he was a threat to American interests. Mandarin met Iron Man head-on, sucking him into his castle with a tractor beam as he flew overhead. Iron Man fought valiantly, but was largely unprepared for Mandarin's extensive abilities. He soon fled the fight, having apparently attained sufficient understanding of Mandarin's power, leaving the villain to prepare for their next confrontation. A few months later, Mandarin began using an interceptor ray to pull in American observer missiles that were being launched over Vietnam, ostensibly for his own use later on. His castle was soon approached by car by Tony Stark, contractor of the missiles and secretly Iron Man. An iron trap stopped Stark in his tracks, and some of Mandarin's henchmen, went to investigate, but they were overcome by a sleeping-gas trap. Out of the view of Mandarin's surveillance, Stark suited up as Iron Man and burst in to fight his foe. But Mandarin's arsenal and homefield advantage still proved to be too much for the hero, and he was soon restrained in steel cables as his transistors began to run short of power.

Trapped and facing death, Iron Man thought of one hail-mary bluff to save himself. He reminded Mandarin that Tony Stark was still loose somewhere in the castle, convincing the villain to go off and find him. This gave Iron Man time to use his backup generator to recharge himself, escaping his bonds and silently following Mandarin through his castle. Mandarin's search was interrupted by the far-off launch of another of Stark's missiles, and Mandarin mused aloud that he would use his interceptor ray to capture it like the others. As the ray began to pull the missile in, Iron Man sabotaged the machine's wiring, destroying it. But the missile continued to be pulled nonetheless, as the ray's process could not be stopped once it had begun. Iron Man flew out and knocked the missile from the ray's grasp, causing himself to be pulled back to the castle in the process. Iron Man continued to ransack Mandarin's equipment, filling his foe with a burning rage. Iron Man was able to narrowly escape, having sufficiently destroyed a great deal of invaluable technology and solving the problem of the disappearing missiles.

Mandarin developed a satellite that was capable of targeting and firing upon a target on Earth with surgical precision with a deadly laser beam. Through a news broadcast, he learned that Tony Stark was staying at home in his mansion. He fired the laser at Stark's home, destroying it and ostensibly killing him. This was part of a two-pronged plan of Mandarin's, the second part of which counted on Iron Man confronting him to avenge Stark's death. Iron Man indeed arrived at the Mandarin's castle, and the despot's significant defenses stopped him in his tracks and took him captive. Mandarin tied him to a wheel device with titanium cord and overconfidently explained the tale of his origin that no one else had ever heard before. He turned on the wheel and left it spinning, leaving Iron Man to suffer while he attended to other matters. Mandarin was planning to give a missile to the Chinese government for a supposed test launch, secretly plotting the rocket to land in Taiwan in hopes of triggering another world war—Mandarin would sit on the sidelines and take advantage of a weakened world to attain even greater power. But Iron Man was able to escape his confines, arriving at the launch site and reprogramming the missile in midair to instead land back where it had launched. No one was harmed, but the Chinese military officials there fled and declared Mandarin a traitor. Mandarin himself had left some time earlier, but Iron Man chased him down and they fought. Though Mandarin's rings proved to be a nigh-insurmountable threat to Iron Man, the arrival of the vengeful Chinese officials forced Mandarin to flee back to his castle.

1965

After laying low for some time, Mandarin was coerced by Doctor Doom's emotion machine into attacking the Baxter Building on the day of the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. A veritable legion of villains fought a similarly powerful force of heroes defending the Baxter Building. Mandarin used his rings to potent effect, and found himself particularly matched up against the X-Men, including Angel and Iceman. In the end, Reed Richards used a device provided by Uatu to transport all of the villains back slightly in time and wipe their memories of these events. Reed and Sue Storm were thus successfully and peacefully married.

Mandarin continued to focus on getting revenge on Iron Man. By this point, Iron Man had left the Avengers, but Mandarin decided that they were key to getting back at him anyway. Around this time, the Swordsman was attempting to usurp the leadership of the Avengers by force, knowing that simply being an Avenger would allow him to get away with a lot. Mandarin decided to piggyback on this plan. At a critical moment when the Avengers had cornered the Swordsman, Mandarin teleported him away by means of molecular transjection. Mandarin had a proposition for the Swordsman: he too wished for Swordsman to join the Avengers, but specifically, he wanted him to act as a sleeper agent of sorts until such a day should come that Iron Man rejoined the team. At that moment, Swordsman would strike with a concealed bomb, destroying Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers. Swordsman was less than eager to be someone's stooge, but Mandarin's power convinced him that the alliance was the right move. Mandarin installed a series of buttons in the Swordsman's sword that gave it various powerful abilities similar to Mandarin's own rings. He warned him however that attempting to use the sword against him would backfire drastically.

With that settled, Mandarin initiated his plan. Using a long-range holographic signalling device, he sent a fabricated image of Iron Man to Avengers headquarters. He spoke through the hologram and convinced the team that Iron Man vouched for the Swordsman as a member of the Avengers. The team bought this ruse, and Mandarin warped Swordsman back to their base, where he was welcomed as an official member of the team. Over the next several days, Swordsman naturally struggled to gain their trust, however. He planted the bomb on Mandarin's instruction, but Mandarin decided to expedite the plan. That night, he visited the Swordsman in his bedroom and told him to detonate the bomb right away. Doing so would in theory catch Iron Man's attention, allowing them to trap him more quickly. Mandarin left before he could hear Swordsman's complaints to the contrary. Swordsman found himself disturbed by the idea of such cowardly assassination, and found that he couldn't go through with it. He removed the bomb, but got caught by the Avengers in such a way that they thought he was installing it. He was forced to flee with the bomb in hand, and Mandarin attempted to detonate the bomb as punishment for the Swordsman's betrayal. Swordsman managed to ditch the bomb, allowing it to explode harmlessly in the air. Mandarin was naturally furious, and he loudly declared that the Swordsman would be destroyed to avenge his honor.

In late 1965, Mandarin finalized his most dangerous ploy yet, a colossal android known as Ultimo. Seeking vengeance in particular against Iron Man, Mandarin intended to "transdimensionalize" him to his tower in China to witness his final victory—but he couldn't find him, so he settled for his apparent employer Tony Stark instead. Stark was teleported to Mandarin's base holding an attaché case, which Mandarin blasted out the window and into his deep moat, fearing it contained an explosive. In truth, it contained a much more critical weapon, Stark's Iron Man suit. With his foe acting as witness, Mandarin pulled a lever and triggered Ultimo's awakening from within a nearby volcano. As Ultimo emerged, Chinese troops began marching on the Mandarin's castle. As Mandarin was distracted watching them on a monitor, Stark tried to escape to retrieve the Iron Man suit, but Mandarin saw him and blasted him with an energy ray from his rings. The blast sent him out of the room and down the stairs, only surviving thanks to his chest device bearing the brunt of the blow. He escaped to the moat and suited up as Iron Man before spotting the colossal Ultimo, dozens of feet tall, decimating the Chinese forces. The android boasted shocking strength as well as the ability to fire lasers from its eyes, proving to be perhaps Iron Man's most daunting foe to date. Iron Man's abilities on their own proved fruitless in direct battle against Ultimo, but his wits allowed him to win the day, luring the android back into its volcano and dodging its most intense energy blast yet, which landed inside the volcano's walls and catalyzed an enormous eruption, apparently swallowing Ultimo whole as Iron Man flew off. For his part, Mandarin believed that he had killed Tony Stark with his rings, and that Iron Man had retrieved his body before fleeing.

See also

• Mandarin (Earth-199999)