Though the Mandarin was the villain in the third Iron Man movie, his presence was already teased back in Iron Man 2008 what with the terrorist group called the Ten Rings. Though Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane came out as the main villain for that film, it was revealed that the Mandarin was supposed to take center stage and Obadiah was just a side villain.
Bridges himself had revealed back in August that his character was not supposed to die in the first film, and Marvel head Kevin Feige talks about how Stane wasn't supposed to be the main villain at all.
According to Uproxx, Feige said:
"As you may recall, when [Bridges] was hired, he was a secondary villain to the Mandarin. And as we were prepping the movie we realized we didn't want to do the Mandarin in that movie. And when we took him out and made Obadiah the lead villain, Iron Man became what Iron Man became. But what was required is that Iron Monger [Obadiah Stane] had to go down into that arc reactor."
Though I thought the introduction of the Mandarin as a terrorist leader was a stroke of genius to modernizing the character, I was a bit outraged when it was revealed that Ben Kingsley's character in Iron Man 3 was just a fake. There has been the Marvel short All Hail the King which teases the presence of the "real" Mandarin, but the way things are, Robert Downey Jr. is probably ready to hang up the armor. It's also a shame Obadiah Stane had to die since Bridges is just an amazing actor.
So far, it seems that the only main Marvel villains that have survived their encounters with the heroes are Loki and Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming. As a fan, I'm hoping Marvel finds out how to bring out the "real" Mandarin before RDJ bows out of the MCU for good.
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