12 Years Later, Marvel Just Doubled Down On Its Weirdest Plot Twist

Marvel Studios

Marvel’s Iron Man trilogy remains one of the franchise’s best, give or take a few misguided narrative choices, like the inclusion (and eventual subversion) of the villainous Mandarin in Iron Man 3. In the comics, the Mandarin was an outdated caricature, while the 2013 film attempted to comment on his racist origins, tapping renowned actor Ben Kingsley to deliver a defanged, semi-self-aware version. The twist is that he’s really a struggling actor named Trevor serving as a front for Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) true enemy, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce).

It was a strange fake-out that didn’t exactly smooth over the character’s offensive past, and years later, Marvel made another effort. In 2021, Trevor returned in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings as a jester of sorts to the “real” Mandarin, Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung). There, the character finally clicked, and now the MCU seems keen to explore Trevor further.