1. BEGINNINGS
The Mandarin first cropped up in Marvel’s Tales Of Suspense #50, published in 1964. As written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Don Heck, his real name has never been revealed - but we do know that he was raised by his aunt after his incredibly wealthy parents died. Every penny of the family fortune was spent training ol' Mandarin in science and combat - which came in handy when he went broke and was evicted from his ancestral pile. Cue a seething drive for revenge!

2. BUILDING A POWER BASE
In the comics, at least, The Mandarin took some inspiration from one of his ancestors, Genghis Khan, and began exploring ways to make himself powerful. He exploited the remains of a dragon from Maklu IV and studied that planet’s science to fuel his dominance over local villagers. He eventually became so dangerous that the Chinese army couldn’t touch him.

3. TAKING ON TONY
With his technological obsession, the Mandarin naturally had run-ins with our hero, especially when he started trying to turn Stark-built weapons against the countries using them. This meant that he ultimately popped up on Iron Man’s radar and Tony began to investigate the new threat. The Mandarin became Stark’s archenemy as Iron Man tried to thwart his big plans for world domination.

4. PUT A RING(S) ON IT
In the comics, the Mandarin is a well-trained athlete and master martial artist. But his main weapon is one forged from Makluan science: ten rings on his fingers. They endow him with various handy powers, including flame blast, mind control, ice blast, cloaking black light, matter rearranger and levitating vortex beam. One of them is made of sweet, sweet milk chocolate (OK, so we're lying there).