ComingSoon was obviosly able to make more of the panels at Comic-Con than I was considering it was lowly ol’ me against a virtual tidal wave of press from other outlets, and one of the little nuggets they managed to dig up came from director John Favreau as he confirmed that the villain in Iron Man will be Mandarin.
The MarvelDirectory has a massive history on the character if you wanted to check it out, but really quickly, Mandarin is a scientific genius with an eye on world domination. While he has no special powers he wears ten rings which respond to his mental commands. The rings offer such abilities as Ice Blast, Black Light, Mento-Intensifier, Disintegration Beam, Electro-Blast, Vortex Beam, Flame Blast, Impact Beam, White Light and Matter Rearranger.
On the way to the Mandarin’s search for world domination he looked to turn other nations’ weapons against them, one such scheme was the sabotage and theft of American missiles and spy planes built by Anthony Stark. To restore public confidence in his workmanship, Stark donned his Iron Man armor and flew to China to investigate. Iron Man soon became the Mandarin’s principal opponent in his plans for world domination.
To check out the full MarvelDirectory bio click here and look for Iron Man in theaters on May 2, 2008.
