‘Iron Man 3’ Mandarin Fan Reaction: Marvel Weighs In [Video]

Iron Man 3‘s Mandarin fan reaction was a varied one, and Marvel co-president Louis D’Esposito gave his take on the big twist. Just a warning, there are spoilers here if you have yet to see the film, so if you want to see it first, go ahead and close this window or click on another article.

Fans had a variety of reactions to the big twist involving the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, among which were extremely positive and extremely negative perspectives. You either loved it or you hated it. Story-wise, it was ingenious, but character canon was broken so much that comic book purists couldn’t stand it.

The Marvel head honcho said he liked what they did, as it was a clever twist to what was expected to be a major showdown.

The big twist was that the Mandarin was all just a hoax. Ben Kingsley had been playing a character whose real name was Trevor, a drug addicted actor who was playing the villain for the camera while the real villain was out messing with a bio-weapon.

The Mandarin fan reaction in Iron Man 3 was heavily divided, and this is what Louis D’Esposito had to say about the twist:

“We thought there would be a little bit of backlash, but the twist was so wonderful, and Sir Ben Kingsley is such a great actor that we thought that would overcome. And I think the box office sort of said we were right making that decision. We don’t wanna piss off our fans. If you had to do a political analogy, they’re on base every day there with us, they’re there with us through the good times and the bad times, but it’s impossible to please everyone.”

The Marvel head honcho was right, seeing as the comics always had the Mandarin as Iron Man’s greatest villain and the movie faked us out, not even giving us the Mandarin at all. The Iron Man 3 Mandarin fan reaction was not surprising, but he believes they did the right thing.