Coming soon to an “Iron Man” ongoing near you, things are about to get hella crazy for Tony Stark. And when I say hella crazy, I mean… like.. Hela crazy.
Well, OK, nothing to do specifically with her, but Kieron Gillen will once again be toying with the realm of Marvel’s Norse mythology in an upcoming arc of “Iron Man” entitled ‘the Rings of the Mandarin’, illustrated by Luke Ross that features not just the rise of the new Mandarin but also coming to clash with Malekith the Accursed, fresh of a stint in both “Thor God of Thunder” by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney as well as Thor: The Dark World.
Fans of Gillen’s will remember his lengthy run in the Thor-centric area of the Marvel U with “Thor” and “Journey into Mystery,” with elements of that story carrying on into “Young Avengers” with Kid Loki. Now Gillen takes Stark, a futurist techno-obsessed character, and throws him against the Nine Realms’ worst. Gillen’s run has focused largely on putting Stark out of his element, the key factor in sending him to space, and throwing a man of science up against an elf of magic is a key way to do that.
Of course, then there’s the issue with the Mandarin. For those that have not been reading the series, “Iron Man” #18 found a lone former-ring of the Mandarin seeking out and choosing a new wearer in what seemed a very Green Lantern-esque sequence as Abigail Beryl Burns (aka Red Peril) became “Mandarin-7”, presumably one of 10 new Mandarins that will pop up.
What’s interesting about this to me is that where the announcement ostensibly seems to indicate that the Mandarin is coming back, Gillen has stated that this is not something he’s interested in doing:
Nrama: Last question – and it’s a biggy. Tony’s primary nemesis over the years has been the Mandarin, but last time we saw him he was pretty dead. So what is this Mandarin City that’ll be in “Iron Metropolitan”?
Gillen: One exciting thing about having something as big as the Tony/Arno reveal means that I don’t feel enormously pressured to give anything much about that in advance. We can have a nice surprise. I’ll go as far as saying, no, I’m not bringing the Mandarin back but I am doing something with its legacy. The last two pages of Iron Man #18 will make the core idea clear. It’s one of those one-sentence ideas that is hopefully instantly understandable while still leaving lots of room for the specific execution to be really compelling. As anything connected to the Mandarin should be, it’s an enormous threat. If 451 was the big threat up to Iron Man #17, this will be the big threat for the next part of the story.
Gillen says very little on the Mandarin’s role in the arc in the announcement interview-thing (which is pretty sure as is), but it should be interesting to see how this develops. If it’s a bout 10 Mandarins coming together to kick Tony’s butt, that should be a very interesting way to work in the legacy of the Mandarin indeed.
The story launches in “Iron Man” #23.NOW next year. I’m excited.
