So was the real Mandarin an enemy of the U.S.?

So did Wenwu, the true Mandarin, carry out a villainous plot to ally with Stane, capture Tony Stark, steal Jericho missiles, and kill Americans? Or were the people working with Stane, who actually attacked Tony's convoy and held him in the cave, just random terrorists using the "Ten Rings" name?

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WhiskeyT2026-01-29 07:03

They used his name, it annoyed him

Suspicious-Word-75892026-01-29 07:32

In Iron Man 1, the Ten Rings who kidnapped Tony were the real deal but they were only 1 such group. The Mandarin is like a feudal lord who is their boss but has many smaller captains and deputies to oversee regional branches of his operation.

ChaseballBat2026-01-29 07:08

[deleted]

crumbsalt2026-01-29 10:45

?????????

ChaseballBat2026-01-29 15:21

How did I get in this sub lol, this was supposed to be in the tragediegh subreddit.

Uncanny_Doom2026-01-29 07:14

Basically, Raza in Iron Man 1 leads Ten Rings operations in the middle east. It is part of the real Ten Rings that Wenwu is part of, according to Kevin Feige, but the Ten Rings are large and groups within it operate individually.

The only instance of fake Ten Rings implied by Wenwu is in Iron Man 3 with Killian using Trevor Slattery as The Mandarin.

Edboy7962026-01-29 15:18

So they're like restaurant franchises?

Ancient-Rune2026-01-29 15:57

I think they call the *Terrorist Cells*.

depastino2026-01-29 18:39

"At TENnnn RINGSssss...

we blow up things

YOU FOOL!"

Grayx_28872026-01-29 20:57

Yeap. Pretty much.

navjot942026-01-30 02:46

This checks out with the Mandarin being so old. It’s an ancient organization, and Wen Wu himself even went dormant for a while his wife was alive. So it makes sense that splinter groups would form over the centuries and especially in the last 20ish years.

WildMongoose62062026-01-29 07:23

the real mandarin never existed until he was introduced in shang-chi movie. Also iron man 3 was dissapointing by not introducing the real mandarin.

crumbsalt2026-01-29 10:48

“I wasn't asking for your preference, Esther! Just some ~~Simon~~ Mandarin stories! Bloody hell!”

Ooooooffffff_ff2026-01-29 11:03

That "Bloody hell!" was such an old school cuss placed appropriately.

And the one in Iron Man 3, where Tony caught him off-guard. Sublime!

Reutermo2026-01-29 12:11

This is actually an really obscure fact but all of the MCU is actually fictional and the stories and characters doesn't exists until they are created by writers/directors/actors.

watze972026-01-29 13:22

Honestly it wasn't disapponting to me,he work better in shang chi.

brasco9752026-01-29 15:29

Technically the real mandarin existed since Thor The Dark World if you want to be like that.

Embarrassed_Radio5962026-01-29 17:29

He existed just wasn't featured. And Iron Man 3 was better for not having The Mandarin.

maproomzibz2026-01-29 11:06

They really didnt think this through, did they?

Embarrassed_Radio5962026-01-29 17:28

The timeline works out.

peon472026-01-29 11:36

Was Iron Man 1 during his "retirement"? When he was happily living with his wife and not leading the Ten Rings?

mrpanicy2026-01-29 14:09

Shang-chi escaped to the U.S. in 2013 at the age of 14, his mother was killed when he was 7-ish. So 2006. Iron Man came out in 2008, so that was the Ten Rings two years after Zheng Zu took back the reins.

PositiveZeroPerson2026-01-29 14:27

Seriously? Simu Liu looks good for his age, but I didn't realize he was supposed to be in his early 20s in his movie. Lol, not even close

KingOfAwesometonia2026-01-29 16:18

Sounds right. There's also a deleted scene of Wenwu calling Raza which might have been deleted for time line reasons but works into that

Realistic_Analyst_262026-01-29 13:31

They were real but more of an independent sector of the Ten Rings.

aresef2026-01-29 14:41

Ying Li was killed in 2007, when Shang-chi wasn’t quite 8. So Wenwu would have been out of retirement at the time of Tony’s capture.

The cell that worked with Stane was a bonafide arm of the Ten Rings.

jinhush2026-01-29 18:00

The way I understood it was Raza was the leader of the Middle East cell of the Ten Rings and Stane hired him to kill Stark. Once he realized it was Stark he decided to try to extort Stane and use Stark to make more weapons. Wenwu had nothing to do with this other than being the top boss of the Ten Rings.

Killian wanted to torment Stark. He hired Trevor to be the Mandarin, a name Wenwu never went by and actively disliked, and lied to Stark about being behind the Ten Rings, etc. He did that *just* to torment Stark. Killian was only behind Extremis and the fake Mandarin, basically only the events we see in Iron Man 3.

LittleBingo962026-01-29 22:46

The Afghan cell. And Yin Sen in the movie does tell Tony that the terrorists are unusually cosmopolitan, speaking everything from Chinese to Hungarian.

Grayx_28872026-01-29 20:57

It's the other option.

Forsaken_Professor792026-01-29 21:32

An enemy in the sense of a worldwide criminal organization would be. Wenwu didn't have a personal/political agenda against the US. He was a warlord and in the modern era a international crimelord. Organizations like this whether terrorists, criminal or both operate quasi-independent. Sometimes they even fight each other. For example the current leader of Syria is a former/founding member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. AQI didn't necessarily report to UBL but they were under the umbrella of the network just like AQ-Philippines, Afghanistan, etc. Anyway AQI splintered off to ISI which then became ISIS/ISIL/ and then he himself formed his own group.

The point? don't overthink it. It was a clear retcon and it somewhat works. Killian used the mythos of the Mandarin to get back at Tony. Raza was with the real Ten Rings but did his own thing. I would assume they were also involved in the trafficking of Opium and Marijuana because that's how the real life insurgency in Afghanistan got funding which would also get back to Wenwu. Drugs and Arms Trafficking and Terrorism generally overlap.

Source: "experience"