LogFAQs > #882534551

I agree, but it was sort of the only non-controversial way of handling it.

The real Mandarin was literally a racist caricature with buck teeth, yellow skin, slanted eyes and his fucking name was "The Mandarin". Even if they changed his race, people would just say something along the lines of, "now he is just a caricature of X!". He had to show up at some point, because he is so deeply ingrained in Iron Man lore, but there just wasn't a real way to do it and please everyone.

People fell in love with the fake Mandarin because Kingsley's performance was top notch and the character hit all the bad guy cliches, but if they just ran with it, we probably would have had one side complaining about him being a negative stereotype and the other complaining about how trite the characterization was.