Mandarin's rings
The ten rings worn by the Mandarin each supply him with a unique and powerful ability. He recovered them from the spaceship of the Makluan Axonn-Karr, for which the rings had been used as a power source, and used them to rise to power as a despotic warlord in China.
History
In his first confrontation with Iron Man, Mandarin shot a high-frequency wave from the green ring on his right index finger, and fired a paralyzer ray from another, unidentified ring.[1] In their second battle, Mandarin fired an explosive beam from his left hand,[note 1] a black-light beam from his left index finger,[2] and a disintegrator ray from his right pinky.[3] A few months later, Mandarin fought Iron Man once more, using his left middle ring as a flamethrower, a ring on his right hand to fire electric bolts, and his left ring-finger ring to release poison gas. He also reused his right-pinky disintegrator ring (which took twenty minutes to recharge) and his right ring-finger ring as a gas solidifier. He used an unidentified ring to blind Iron Man by unclear means, and used a jet blast from his left hand to aid in his escape.[4] At the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, Mandarin introduced a "new" nerve-ray ring on his right index finger. How he came about a new ring is unclear—given his scientific prowess, it is possible that he reverse-engineered the original rings in some way.[5]
With these battles in mind, the layout of the rings may be conjectured as follows. This list assumes that the blinding in Mandarin and Iron Man's third battle was simply a side effect of some other power, and that no ring possesses multiple abilities.
- Left thumb: Explosive beam
- Left index: Black-light beam
- Left middle: Flame
- Left ring: Poison gas
- Left pinky: Jet blast
- Right thumb: Paralyzer ray or electric bolt
- Right index: Nerve ray (formerly high-frequency wave)
- Right middle: Paralyzer ray or electric bolt
- Right ring: Gas solidifier
- Right pinky: Disintegrator
Notes
- ↑ This beam seems to most likely come from his left index finger, but that finger very clearly fires the black-light beam later on. Besides the possibility that both are coming from the same ring, the most plausible explanation is that the explosion came from his left thumb.
References
- ↑ Tales of Suspense #50a: "The Hands of the Mandarin!" (February 1964) Lee, Stan (w), Heck, Don (art), Holloway, Ray (let).
- ↑ Tales of Suspense #54a: "The Mandarin's Revenge!" (June 1964) Lee, Stan (w), Heck, Don (art), Simek, Artie (let).
- ↑ Tales of Suspense #55a: "No One Escapes the Mandarin!" (July 1964) Lee, Stan (w), Heck, Don (art), Simek, Artie (let).
- ↑ Tales of Suspense #62a: "The Origin of the Mandarin!" (February 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Heck, Don (p), Ayers, Dick (i), Rosen, Sam (let).
- ↑ Fantastic Four Annual #3a: "Bedlam at the Baxter Building!" (October 1965) Lee, Stan (w), Kirby, Jack (p), Colletta, Vince (i), Simek, Artie (let).