Okay, right, so maybe entrepreneur isn't the word for it, but he's a far cry from a Dr. Doom clone. They fit the same archetype, maybe, but that hardly makes them exactly the same. And even if they were, there are a few reasons to use a substitute character, which I'll get to below. But no, the Mandarin is more a Bond villain than a super villain. Give Dr. No some magic rings and you have the basic idea. Mandarin isn't the sovereign despot of a nation. He's an embittered former aristocrat who wages wars of terrorist subversion against his birth nation. He's been both a financier and a CEO and the character seems to have reached a point in his career where he's at his most comfortable here, funding his operations from behind the veil of capitalism instead of sitting on a throne in his castle, cackling at his manservants.
I dunno... a Bond villain with magic rings kinda screams "super villain".
And they are totally the same. The difference is the ten rings and the fact he's Chinese. That is it. Doom is always being subversive and sneaky, even when he's doing crazy stuff like time travel.
From a character perspective, I can see a few reasons why he might be of specific interest to Iron Man where Doctor Doom wouldn't be. For one, as you state below, Doom is a sovereign leader, Doom isn't. At this point in his career, Stark isn't exactly a political coup type of guy. It just doesn't fit the tone of the stories. He's instead at a point where he's broke and trying to rebuild his company, while still trying to muscle the totality of American industry into buying in to his sustainable battery systems. Now look at the Mandarin, from China, a nation that's poised to be the unquestionable economic superpower of the world in the next few decades (if they aren't already), a guy who, despite spending most of his time hating his country, has at points in his career been a lynch pin to Chinese financial infrastructure. He possesses the ten rings, a power source similar to Stark's tech in all but the fact that it can't be replicated, and likely has the power to supply energy for a small nation. He also, despite what the quality of the old stories may be, actually has significant history with Stark.
But perhaps more important is his value as a character from the perspective of the writer. He's a lesser known villain who almost solely tangles with Iron Man. Were Fraction to use Doom, that would require prescribing to undoubted mandates from editorial about how the character be treated. It would preclude the possibility of making any significant long term changes to the character. It would mean likely networking with other writers about what they were doing with Doom and probably getting involved in crossover. It would mean reconciling thousands of issues of stupid history surrounding the character. With the Mandarin, you have a character who has a lot more room to grow, who's not being used in other books, who's more flexible to change, and who is largely unknown out of Iron Man, meaning you can do whatever you want with him in an Iron Man book.
All very good points.
The only element I'd take an issue with is that Doom being a king while Stark isn't is somehow problematic. I love the idea that Stark is just a globalised corporate bigwig with vast resources, but he's taking on a
king. The major problem with most of Iron Man's villains is that they are underdogs. Iron Man outclasses them. Look at Extremis or Whiplash or Spymaster; these guys are work-for-hire grunts, and the corporate bigwigs - Stane and Hammer are supposedly equals but lack Iron Man's suit and Stark's brain so they appear like weak-sauce versions of him. Doom is a king. He actually outclasses Iron Man.
And... y'know, Mandarin, as I say, since he's essentially Doom-lite - he brings that to the table. And now I'm getting the Ten Rings. It's not so much that they're too powerful, nor that they're "magic", but that they're a comparable source of energy and firepower that Iron Man can't
replicate. The whole "magic" thing is there to handwave why Tony, super-scientist-man, can't replicate them. If they were tech, you'd expect him to replicate and improve the tech, but by making it "magic", he can't.
Okay.
I'm starting get it now. Doom still works better since he does the magic too, plus all his super-secret tech, but I'm getting what that whole "magic vs tech" thing is really all about.
Yeah. Well. Maybe you should write fan fiction.
NEVER! MARVEL WILL DO AS I COMMAND!
I think you're just being pedantic here. I don't think anyone is expecting the Annual to give the character a complete 180 and suddenly he's the most magnificent character ever created. What we can hope for is a respite in the main story that provides those of us without a huge amount of experience with the character (particularly new readers) with a general taste of what he's like. We can expect nip/tucks in various segments of the character's history that allow Fraction to set the stage of his story. And we can expect, by seeing what part of the character's history he emphasizes, what we can expect in the main story. Then the character will prove his worth in the story proper. I honestly don't follow what you're up in arms about, except for the fact that you apparently want to write an Iron Man vs. Dr. Doom story.
Heheh. It's really not so much that I want Iron Man to fight Doom, but rather I want Mandarin to actually be a really good villain. Marvel acts like he's an archetypal foe for Iron Man, and they spend a lot of creative energy on him every damn time they bother doing Iron Man. And the fans always ask for him. And I never get why, because he's just rubbish. So what I want isn't so much a Doom story but one of three things:
1 - They create a new archnemesis for Iron Man that works.
2 - They dump Mandarin and replace him with Dr Doom.
3 - They reimagine Mandarin so he's a threat unique to Iron Man.
Now, by #3 what I mean is this; Bane is a threat to Batman in a way none of his other villains are, and in a way that would not work for other superheroes. The same is true for Black Glove. Can you imagine Bane working on Superman? It couldn't. Let's say that Bane is super-strong and can break Superman's back, it still wouldn't work. Superman isn't a brilliant detective, so Bane's cunning military plan of unleashing Arkham would fall on deaf ears. Superman can't get tired or run down, so Bane couldn't weaken him. But even if he did and Bane broke into the fortress of solitude and snapped his back, he couldn't dump Superman's battered body in the middle of Metropolis and go, "Metropolis is mine now" because Superman's home is Metropolis, but his scope is more global. Can you imagine Black Glove driving Spider-Man to suicide? Eeesh. Venom hunting Batman? Never work, Batman wouldn't be intimidated. Green Goblin terrorising Superman? He's already got Lex. Joker versus Spidey? Well, Spidey got Carnage and we saw how well that worked...
That's what I mean by #3 and why I bring Doom up. It's not so much that Mandarin should be dumped; I just want to see Mandarin do something that no other villain could do, and something that is of unique conflict with Iron Man. This is the making of a great villain. All the great archnemeses do this. This is why so few superheroes have one.
It is
damn hard.
I hate to break it to you buddy, but most supervillains were rubbish for the majority of their careers. Hell, even the better characters seem to have rarely more than a 10% ratio of good to bad stories. No one's arguing that the Mandarin at present is a great character. The assertion I find off base is that Fraction is trying to fix him by "revealing his true origin". I don't think that's the case. Mandarin's "true origin" is an aside, packaged off in an annual. This is just a silly argument.
More or less true. I don't think it's true for the bastard that is Batman, who gets Ra's, Bane, and Black Glove working right out of the box. And it's not true of Venom who started off great and later turned to poop. But you're right for most of 'em.
As for the assertion that Fraction's fix is "revealing the origin" - that's what the article said. That's all it talked about. About how some random piece of exposition in the backstory would change it, and I'm saying, that's
not the problem.
But you're right, it is a silly argument BECAUSE MY FACT-MIND CANNOT BE UNDONE! (Except for that bit where you pointed out how the whole 'magic vs tech' thing works.)
Next time we meet, you are buying me a dinner.
Sure, with your money.
