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Mandarin

Xu Wenwu (Earth-61615)
Gallery
Real Name
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Xu Wenwu
Current Alias
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Aliases
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Advisor to the King, Tem Borjigin, Gene Khan, Master Khan, Zhang Tong, Mandy, Temugin, Temujin, Zheng Zu, Fu Manchu, Zheng Wu

Identity
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Alignment
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Affiliation
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Ten Rings (founder and leader; dismantled, absorbed into the Five Weapons Society); formerly Chu Army (defected), Hand (former mentors, rivals, situational allies)

Relatives
Khan Dynasty (ancestors): Genghis Khan (ancestor; deceased), unnamed grandparents (deceased), Unnamed parents (deceased); unnamed children (mostly deceased): Xu Shang-Chi (son), Xu Xialing (daughter), Alex Su (adoptive son; deceased); unnamed grandchildren and descendants (estranged)

Universe
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Base Of Operations
Mobile in the Ten Rings bases throughout the Middle East and several certain parts in Asia and the Russian Far East; formerly Changde, Hunan Province, China; Habuquan, Inner Mongolia, China; the Valley of Spirits

Characteristics
Gender
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Height
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Eyes
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Hair
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Status
Citizenship
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Marital Status
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Occupation
International terrorist leader, con artist, war criminal, warrior, ruler, scientist, would-be conqueror throughout Asia and the Russian Far East

Education
Self-education, little formal education

Origin
Origin
Human

Place of Birth
Habuquan, Inner Mongolia, China

Place of Death
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Eighth City, Seven Capital Cities of Heaven

First appearance
Last appearance

Modern Comics:
Iron Man
Vol 1 15
Modern Comics:
Immortal Weapons
Vol 1 8


History

Quote1 Reckless American... Your torture has not even begun, and you seem to want more of it... Are you not aware of that, Mister Stark? Or are you still the same arrogant and stubborn clown, just like you were back in your precious days as the "playboy billionaire philanthropist?" Before you were playing hero that you are now... When I was already at power to make an empire kneel before me... Quote2
The Mandarin

Early Years

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A younger Wenwu, circa early 1900s

The mysterious man that would become the Mandarin was born in China somewhere in Habuquan, Inner Mongolia around the first months of 1844, during the Qing Dynasty, with the simple but profound name of Xu Wenwu (Chinese: 徐文武), but grew up in the city of Changde, Hunan Province when he and his family moved in to reside within the community of their relatives, of whom were mostly of Manchu descent just like him. Wenwu spent his entire childhood willingly, valiantly, and persistently doing labor for his family until he was old enough to make a living as a young adult within many fields of work, notably hunting and farming for his entire small but flourishing and harmonious community. However, the years that followed came the brutal and radicalistic Taiping Rebellion which led to the untimely deaths of his family and relatives. Most were persecuted and burned to death by members of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom due to them being of Manchu descent. Before escaping his burning village whilst under attack, Wenwu snapped and killed several powerful members from both the sides of the Taiping rebels and the soldiers of his own dynasty, the Qing, in retaliation, who were also partly responsible for the deaths of his family. With both sides deeming him as a threat and fugitive, the lone Wenwu descended into a life of crime as an outlaw which lasted until the rebellion came to an end.

Living Through Wars

As a result to his rebellious upbringing, Wenwu was captured by the soldiers of the Qing army and taken in a Chinese prison in the next few years as punishment for his committed war crimes. He has also been living without food or water for years, where he gradually and progressively learned to harness his own chi to augment his physical and mental capabilities, only through the basic use of an ancient mystical book he accidentally found inside his cell, along with other several books that he also read, finishing and learning all of its contents in a matter of months, without the need of any formal education. But, despite his weakening condition, he was still able to kill all of his cellmates, who tried to murder him in his sleep, and several armed guards with the extraordinary martial arts prowess which he learned.

This survivalist mentality and attitude gave him the ultimate chance and opportunity to leave imprisonment when he was recruited to serve in the Qing's Chu Army and join the fight in the middle years of the Dungan Revolt starting from 1869, with reputation that mandarins of different regions would hire Wenwu to do their discreet biddings and be their intellectual consultants as he would receive praise and hefty payment, yet little to no credit, for being consistently creative and efficient with his job. Unbeknownst to the rest of the dynasty's military, Wenwu also trained in the shadows by warriors who were secretly members of the Hand, who promised him power and immortality once they reached the warzone of Xinjiang as long as he pledged to join them. In his final days of causing and surviving bloodshed and violence, Wenwu was completely disillusioned with the dynasty who failed to protect his loved ones as well as becoming fed up with the religious-fueled and political-driven conflicts which already ruined his home and killed thousands of his people for a decade, thus he rejected the Hand's offer—seeing them as another group of fanatics who tried to deceive him for their cause—and left on his own terms through desertion after faking his death to his comrades and effectively defected from the Chu Army around the year 1872.

In a plan to commit a serious act of revenge upon the dynasty that failed to save his family, which had him imprisoned and tortured for years, he left his presence from civilization and traveled far into Outer Mongolia, making his way to the the sacred Valley of Spirits—a mystical location Wenwu and his people had mostly believed to be merely of mythical origin by their ancestors as well as the home of the gods which they worshipped—and found the buried remains of a spacecraft that was later revealed to be formerly operated by the Makluans, a race of shapeshifting flying reptiles which are otherwise known to their native culture and the rest of the human world as dragons. Wenwu had only spent several months learning and mastering the nature behind the extraterrestrial Makluan technology and the Ten Power Rings he had unexpectedly found within the wreck of the alien spaceship, along with how much power he had acquired from the skeletal remains of Makluan right beside the ship, harvesting its essence which somehow gave him greater energy to amplify his chi and fight back against the abusive authorities who slaughtered and ravaged his home.

Unfortunately, Wenwu's growing hunger for power has slowly consumed him the longer he remained immortal granted by the rings' power, embracing his tyrannical status due to the ensuing war in his nation, but his presence has gone colder when his activities have mixed up and hidden with the conflicts and affairs that followed in the next generations, starting from the final wars of Imperial China (beginning with Qing reconquest of Xinjiang in 1876) as it lasted and solidified through the conflicts of Modern China (notably the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949). Throughout this century of hostile campaigns, it was thanks to the Ten Rings combined with Wenwu's remarkable intelligence and political savviness that helped him garner the power and wealth to discreetly fuel the firepower and amass manpower on both sides, as if he was playing a strategy board game to simulate the winning party on every conflict wherein he and his growing henchmen would participate without detection. No matter who won, Wenwu was nevertheless entertained to see his old dynasty and invaders violently clashing with one another for decades until the dynasty has, slowly and surely, crumbled. Using this opportunity amidst the radical conflict of his people, Wenwu has since pursued his goal for conquest from the shadows, completely coping with a lifelong delusion of grandeur that he'd lead the world from chaos and evil, the same ones responsible for destroying his community, not realizing that he had become not so different from those he seek to vanquish.

The Ten Rings

With his newly-possessed hidden power and knowledge within his grasps, Wenwu slowly grew into wealth and infamy within the criminal underworld of Western China and the Middle Eastern community known by the intimidating moniker of the Mandarin, meaning "advisor to the King," where he eventually gained faithful followers from time to time, becoming the founder and leader of the Ten Rings, named after his Makluan Rings, a powerful organization with religious beliefs going back thousands of years which aligned with Wenwu's extremist notions. Over the following decades and the next century, the Mandarin's power and influence became a myth to his most of his followers throughout Asia and the Russian Far East, with only his most trusted men being aware that he really exists. The legend of the Mandarin would eventually reach the Western world during the present day, to the point where some impostors and saboteurs from different nations who tried on using his own title, only to fail miserably trying to challenge the real, deserving warrior to hold the title, the Mandarin himself. By the beginning of the 21st century, the Ten Rings had become a rising international terrorist network, and would even rival his former mentor organization, the Hand, although the latter and the Ten Rings would treat each other as situational allies from time to time, if given a common cause.

At some point during the early 1990s, when an infant that would become Alex Su someday was born and abandoned by his own unknown parents at the deserted regions of Xinjiang, that newborn was among the several orphans taken into the Afghanistan headquarters by the Mandarin and raised & trained him to be a highly-skilled war criminal with an unceasing hate towards the United States of America and the rest of modern Western civilization, where he later gained the rank of a lieutenant within the Ten Rings. His armor was based on similar technology to Tony Stark's Iron Tech, his motivation on building his own suits began right after Stark fearlessly escaped his hostage situation in Afghanistan at the hands of the terrorists.

Besides Su, Wenwu had sired two children from a devout yet mysterious follower and former warrior, Ying Meihui, whom he named the older son Shang-Chi and the younger daughter as Xialing around the early to mid-1990s under the name of Zheng Zu, a name that actually belongs to his personal assassin and warrior Death Dealer. Mandarin raised and brutally trained them with the Death Dealer as his own and originally appointed the two as his deadly and superior successors until the late 2000s when their mother took the two and fled from the her lover and leader's reach after realizing how unhinged he has turned being labeled as a global terrorist and has persistently accepted such grim fate.

Kidnapping of Tony Stark

In an attempt to unlock the true potential of the alien technological wonders he secretly wore as rings, the Mandarin assigned one of his lieutenants in Afghanistan, Raza Hamidmi Al-Wazar, to meet with the secretly diabolical Obadiah Stane in exchange for a deal with them to attack and massacre a military convoy, containing Tony Stark, with Stane discreetly having his attempt on his own partner's life. Targeting the supply lines of the American weapon-manufacturing company Stark Industries to the American military forces stationed in Afghanistan, the Mandarin lured the company's CEO, genius inventor Tony Stark to the country through a discreet arms dealing they secretly made with Stane. The Mandarin intended to force Stark and his fellow prisoner, Ho Yinsen, in hopes of unlocking the secrets of his rings, once his men were able to successfully kidnap the former back to their base.

In the meantime, Raza had ordered Yinsen and Stark to build weapons for him. The technology they were given access to was instead put to use in the creation of an armored suit with which Stark escaped captivity after Yinsen sacrificed himself to buy him time to charge up the suit. The development of these events gave the impression the armored Stark was actually a bodyguard who had previously rescued Stark before taking on Raza and his whole camp. From a distance and remaining unnoticed, the Mandarin witnessed Stark's escape as Iron Man, but decided not to intervene, for he had finally found his courageous and determined actions to be worthier than the general impression of Stark. There, the Mandarin was one of the first people who saw the hero rising within Tony Stark.

After the death of Raza's small faction caused by the traitorous decision of Stane himself, the other inferior leaders felt betrayed and anguished, with the exception of the Mandarin who already knew it was coming, and was even considerate over his actions, believing that Stane's actions would somehow help Tony Stark to progress and develop his emerging heroic persona by facing Stane, eventually leading to him on becoming Iron Man, proving the Mandarin's hypothesis and prediction.

The Identity Theft Attacks

After the Battle of New York in early 2010, Aldrich Killian, the founder of Advanced Idea Mechanics, needed to masquerade his failed experiments with the Extremis virus as terrorist attacks. His think tank co-opted the iconography of the Ten Rings for their deception by 2012. Killian employed the failed actor Trevor Slattery to pose as the Mandarin and publicly take responsibility for those "terrorist attacks". The real leaders of Ten Rings, especially the mighty Mandarin himself, were not so happy with this impostor.

After the Battle on the Norco in late 2012, the conclusion event of Aldrich Killian's War, he destroyed all of his first generation armors with the Clean Slate Protocol. He later faced the real Mandarin and once again the Ten Rings, who indirectly had Aldrich killed for stealing his name as the Mandarin, who apparently perished under the hands of an Extremis-enhanced Pepper Potts. In reality, Killian's whereabouts were cleared later on behind the scenes, revealing that he barely survived his apparent death against Potts, and somehow was abducted by a group of agents sent by the Mandarin, in order to deliver the former to the leaders for his painful punishment.

A Deadly Punishment

After he was handed over to the leaders, Aldrich Killian—already barely alive—was both brutally tortured and still fed long enough that he'd stay alive for ten straight months all because he stole their master's sacred name, and by the end of the tenth month, the Mandarin himself came to visit his impostor face-to-face, only to remind him not to mess with his title and diabolical reputation and tell him that Killian's imitation of him through Slattery was nothing more than a pale and humiliating attempt of his character. Even with Killian trying to compare his power and authority as A.I.M's Scientist Supreme to the Ten Rings was something even the warrior had deemed an insult. However, the Mandarin didn't want his own impression to Killian be a disappointment, just as how he saw Slattery's theatrics had portrayed him as a character.

Wenwu never wanted to put himself off as a merely stereotypical domineering and all talk superior who just orders around like a sloth who barely had fruitful contribution to his own society of the Ten Rings, something he deemed as his "obra maestra". Taking off his Ten Rings from his hands for a moment to prove his raw power, Wenwu channeled into his inner chi as he transferred some of his life-force to a weakened Killian, enough that the latter would amplify the Extremis within his system, powering him up into his best, healthy state; as if he was never tortured in the past ten months. With a hospitable yet patronizing demeanor, the Mandarin told Killian that he had given him the merciful choice to get out of his headquarters and start a second chance at life, or let his fuming rage consume him and kill his own very captor right in front of him. With this enhancement, an enraged Killian took this change to fight back with the intention of killing the Mandarin, which the latter had expected since it was his intention to challenge him in a duel to begin with.

The two dueled using their hands and the energy within themselves: Killian's spontaneous Extremis against the Mandarin's concentrated chi. After the Mandarin had told Killian everything about his history and hardships to spite the imposter as they fought, the former nevertheless bested his imposter in hand-to-hand combat, effortlessly proving he was the superior fighter. An observant yet desperate Killian wore the Ten Rings, hoping it would turn the tides in his favor. The only problem was, he had no experience nor comprehension on using it, and it was too late for him to realize that the rings' could be still controlled by its owner from a distance despite not wearing it. The rings melted in Killian's fingers, scorching through his hands as he wailed in agony. In Killian's excruciating defeat, the Mandarin killed him painfully and mercilessly using his ten powerful rings, albeit he only needed to use five in his one hand to kill Killian slowly, dissolving him headfirst as he melted to death. The Mandarin had Killian's remains fed to the wild animals nearby his headquarters, but kept his skull and impaled it on a spike as a warning to those who may still dare to mock or challenge his power.

First True Encounter

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The Mandarin's fiery rivalry with Iron Man would endure for years

Some time later after the Battle of Norco, the Mandarin ordered his loyal agent Jackson Norriss to break Slattery out of the Seagate Prison. Disguised as a documentary maker, Norriss successfully infiltrated the prison and captured Slattery. Proving the Mandarin and his loyal followers were an unstoppable force to be reckon with, Slattery's disappearance was only detected by the entire crew of Seagate Prison, several days later after the events of Ultron Offensive, which was almost a year since Killian's War, instantly attracting Stark's attention after finding out about Slattery's abduction. Following this discovery, the Iron Man decided to track down the current in order to rescue Slattery and find out who was the mastermind behind his disappearance.

Iron Man then infiltrated one of the Ten Rings' bases in Mongolia and subsequently rescued Slattery from the deathly hands of the Mandarin. The Iron Avenger and the Mandarin briefly fought into a brutal clash but the former was still defeated during his first, true encounter with the leader, due to the Mandarin's power of possessing the mysterious power and nature given by the Ten Rings, although he manages to escape with Slattery, and death itself, one more time, and manages to stay alive after almost getting tormentingly tortured by the holder of the Ten Rings.

The Mandarin would eventually become one of Stark's most recognizable and most ruthless foes, even more powerful than Tony himself and several of his allies for that matter, in some occasions. Stark was shocked and surprised, after thinking all this time, the Mandarin was just an alias made up by Killian and Slattery, but upon learning Trevor Slattery's kidnapping from his prison by Norriss. Tony was proven wrong, as the truth of the Mandarin's existence has become all too well known to everyone involved in his schemes. With every opportunity that he gets, the Mandarin would clash against Iron Man in the following years, while the latter would devote some of his time in order to bring him and his empire down, thus making the Mandarin one of his greatest standing enemies for a long time.

A Heir's Rebellion

Forced to choose his allegiance between the Ten Rings and the Liberators at the last second, the Mandarin's adoptive son, Alex Su, unhesitatingly chose the Liberators for the sake of achieving his personal ambitions of overpowering and killing Tony Stark, which led to him and his newfound teammates brutally slaughtering his own crew and former teammates with his own bulky armor, and destroying the Afghan base in the process. Despite having no energy source at all to power up its suit's repulsor-based weapons, its superhuman strength and durability were still proven to be powerful enough to take on a fleet of army by hand. Due to his unexpected betrayal, the terrorists' base in Afghanistan was close to being destroyed and dismantled for the next few years.

These horrific actions of betrayal perpetuated by Su and the Liberators solely disappointed and saddened the founder and mastermind of the Ten Rings, the Mandarin himself, who was also revealed to be his adoptive father. Hearing about his son and former prodigy's betrayal, Mandarin bitterly but surely pointed out Su's fate, and was certain that Su's ignorance, impatience and thirst for revenge towards Stark would be the death of him, instead of satisfying him, at some point, later on during the final days of Ultimate War.

Searching for Knowledge

Three months prior to the Global Superhuman War, the Mandarin temporarily had left his secret base of operations and the Ten Rings without most of his followers knowing his whereabouts, secretly handing his authorities over the rest of the organization's closest leaders while he was not around, in searching for more answers regarding the undiscovered secrets to the Makluan Power Rings, and to gain more knowledge about Makluan technology that he has yet to learn. In his first steps to his quest, the Mandarin journeyed back to the cave of the "Valley of Spirits" and the ruins of the Makluan starship wherein he first acquired the rings. There, he tried to find more tech that would help him learn more about Makluan tech, but didn't find anything new but the same type of tech he used to recreate then.

However, as the Mandarin searches deeper within the ship wreck, he finally found something valuable located within one of the ship's compartment, revealing to be a series of countless ancient texts about the Makluan history and more information about its technology. For the next three years, the Mandarin had spent his time inside the cave of the valley reading and fully learning all the sacred texts, only relying in his stored Chi, a feat which surprisingly would have take for an average, or even a single intellectual, person to finish these text in a matter of ten years. Unbeknownst to the Mandarin, half of his de-facto leaders became reckless and weren't careful after their participation during the Ultimate War, giving their enemies such as Iron Man and the War Machine more validation from the authorities to pursue their operation against them, now that their public presence has grown.

Battle for the Ten Rings

After unintentionally losing the five of his Ten Rings during an extremely intense battle with the Iron Man and War Machine a few months after Ultimate War, one of the Mandarin's Rings, specifically the Daimonic Ring, was able to find and reach its way out to the underground parts of Subterranea, where it was eventually found by the Mole Man. Unbeknownst to him, the Mole Man was actually chosen by the Daimonic Ring of as its temporary host, Mandarin Six, to help the Mandarin and the other wielders of his five lost rings have the revenge on Tony Stark. Chosen by the Ring as its momentary host, Mole Man tried to fight off the effects, as the ring was somehow trying to manipulate him into using it by showing and "telling" him how much power he could possess and use so he could turn his Kingdom into more than just a kingdom, a Subterranean Planet, once he accepts the ring's offer. He succumbed to temptation, giving in to the ring's voice as he finally accepted wielding the Sixth Ring (and Third lost Ring) of the Mandarin, the Daimonic Ring. Due to the Mole Man's inconsiderable and unthinkable decision, he seemed to have returned once again into a life of villainy. With the Mandarin finding the rest of the wielders of the lost Six Rings: Exile, Endotherm, Mento-Intensifier, Alex Eiffel, and Colin Sixty. Together, they formed an alliance to channel each other's energies and use their powers for crime and conquest as the Mandarin guided them.

Battle of Subterranea

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The Mandarin and his newfound allies faces the reformed Mole Man, who took possession of the five out the Ten Makluan Rings

Despite the might and extreme force that the Mole Man had gained due to the possession of the Daimonic Ring, he eventually started having some sense of all his actions. He started having second thoughts, whether he was actually doing all of this to help his Kingdom of Subterranea, or if was he doing all of this so he could selfishly prove to himself that he was still a worthy foe towards humanity, whom he still has hatred for. Thankfully, the Mole Man eventually came to his senses, but unfortunately, due to his decision to using the ring for the greater good, the Mandarin and the wielders of his lost rings collectively joined forces against Molekevic in order to reclaim the Daimonic Ring from him, and in exchange for the Mole Man's betrayal, they also vowed and promised to destroy everything that he has, especially the Kingdom of Subterranea.

Surprised to hear this series of threats, Molekevic and the entirety of his Kingdom trained themselves and prepared for the possible impending attacks that were about to be unleashed by the deadly Mandarins, when the time would eventually come, a time that none of them had been hoping would ever happen. At first, Molekevic even decided to get help from some off his former heroic allies, most specifically the Fantastic Four and even the Mandarin's most hated enemy Iron Man, before realizing that bringing them here would just jeopardize him and his own kingdom against the forces of federal agencies, or even the government authorities themselves. Unsure of what his final decision might have been, the Mole Man ordered all of the kingdom's residents to evacuate and leave Subterranea if clearly necessary, if the time has finally come. Sadly, the time they hoped would never happened, did come, as the Mandarin and the wielders of his rings devastatingly entered as they drilled their way through an underground tunnel, leading them towards the Kingdom of Subterranea, where they terrifyingly confronted Mole Man for his final decision. The Mole Man realized how much of a threat the Mandarin has been to him and his kingdom ever since he started wielding the Daimonic Ring.

The Mole Man resisted the voices of the ring magically emitted by the six Mandarins, with him telling them to rethink about what he was doing. The Mandarin tried to take the ring off his finger, however, the Mole Man showed his secret signal throughout the rest of the Outcasts, which led them to brutally and repeatedly snipe the Mandarin using a recently scavenged and modified Skrull blaster that they were able to collect during Ultimate War. Weakened by the shots fired by the Outcasts, this gave Molekevic the ultimate opportunity to give him his own treatment. With him finally using his will, he gives the Mandarin a hard punch to his face, temporarily knocking him out, leaving the rest of the Mandarins to attack him.

Last Mandarin Standing

As the five Mandarins commenced into a fierce and intense battle, it brought much destruction and ruin throughout the entirety of the kingdom, to the point where all the residents were simply doing their best just to evacuate the kingdom and stay away from the ensuing battle. Unfortunately, this battle also brought many intentional and unintentional deaths within the Subterranean population due to the immense clashing of the Mandarins. The Outcasts even tried helping Mole Man in fighting the Wielders of the Rings, and they were successful, defeating two of the wielders, Endotherm and Lord Remaker. But then the Mandarin finally woke up, now filled with uncontrollable wrath and temper, and as he witnessed the loss of Endotherm and Lord Remaker, he pulled the Rings off their fingers, returning them to his possession.

Seeing the Mandarin rise as he tried to kill the two, the Outcasts attempted to defend Subterranea and the two unconscious wielders, using all their powers and efforts. But the Mandarin was just too powerful for them to handle, leading to every Outcasts' brutal and twisting demise at the hands of the Mandarin and remaining wielders of the Rings, one by one. Witnessing the sacrifice of the Outcasts in saving the lives of their enemies, the now-weakened and almost-blinded Mole Man was forced to watch in horror how much havoc he has brought upon his kingdom, and what's worse, is that he couldn't do anything when the Mandarins were brutally and mercilessly slaughtering every helpless Moloid, Lava Men, Grotokian, and every other inhabitants of the Subterranean Kingdom who tried evacuating the ruined domain, presumably marking all known surviving and thriving Subterraneans on the brink of extinction.

As the Mandarin holds the Mole Man's head so he could continue watching the horrors of the Mandarin's actions upon his realm, he told him that all of this, the destruction of Subterranea and the deaths of more than a hundred thousand innocent lives, was work of his own doing, for it was the very consequence he deserved for betraying him. Helpless and seemingly defeated, the Mole Man slowly closed his eyes and accepted his fate and consequence as he awaits his own execution at the hands of the Mandarin. Thankfully, the heroes who the Mole Man considered contacting (Iron Man and the Fantastic Four) arrived unexpectedly at the very moment in time, saving Arthur from death once again.

Distracted by the unexpected arrival of the heroes while they combat the last two remaining wielders of the ring, Marcus Kumar and Colin Anderson until they were both defeated, the Mole Man was able to use the Lost Rings of the Wielders: Influence, Daimonic, Remaker, and the Zero Ring against the Mandarin one last time, blasting him with a sufficient outburst of his various electromagnetic energy that the rings had emitted combined, thrusting the Mandarin into a nearby cliff-side and then unleashing a second, more powerful blast that brought down the entire cliff on top of the villain before lodging them onto the stomach of the villain, seemingly killing the Mandarin as the rings detonated from being unable to contain great amount of energy, with his body falling off into the water cliff down below.

An Unwelcoming Return

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The Mandarin returns to deal with a secret mutiny in his generals within the Ten Rings

Since his three-year stay and recovery in the Valley of Spirits which revealed his survival after the battle of Subterranea, the Mandarin eventually finished his autodidacticism on the Makluan race and culture, now satisfied with the knowledge that he gained in the meantime, and decided to return back to his current main headquarters in a secret temple, located at a small island near Hong Kong, China. As he arrived, he felt that the atmosphere seemed to odd ever since he left, feeling that there was something missing, especially some of his followers. By the time he came to meet with the de-facto leaders, he only met Li, Taki, June, who were three of his most powerful but least trustworthy commanders, since their cruel history with the Westerns has only made their motivations within the Ten Rings too personal. Even the three were surprised to see the Mandarin's unexpected arrival.

The Mandarin had asked the three what happened to the rest of their five other fellow commanders, only to be responded by Li that the three were reluctantly killed after betraying the sacred oath and ideologies of the Ten Rings, due to their decisions to negotiate with the Movement Alliance that started the Ultimate War in the first place, three years ago. Despite the three's convincing explanation, the Mandarin noticed that June was observably nervous, seeing her slightly sweat during their short meeting, with him being confident that something was going on within the three, meaning there's a secret that they're hiding. Deciding to have a wander beneath the headquarters' secret dungeons, he unexpectedly hears noises as he wanders the dungeon halls.

Punishable by Death

Hearing the soft cries, the Mandarin investigated, where he finally finds the oppressed leader Mei barely alive, along of the four missing de-factos' corpse around her, inside one of the cells. The Mandarin tried to comfort her and asked her a few questions to why she and the others were down there, Mei suddenly went into a serious shock as she falls into the ground, dead just as well along the rest, much to the Mandarin's dismay. As the Mandarin turns behind him, he sees Li, Taki, and June, who revealed to be true initiators responsible for participating during the Ultimate War and the assassination of the five leaders, who remained loyal to the Mandarin even during his three years of disappearance.

In response to their intention to take over the Ten Rings by themselves, the Mandarin fought back using his mystic rings while he defended himself from the powerful advanced weapons the three had recently acquired. In the conclusion to the three's attempt to assassinate their founder and superior, their efforts had still prevailed after discovering that the Mandarin's rings were no match to any of their technologically-advanced weapons. One by one, the Mandarin brutally murdered the three traitors, starting with Taki who was killed by his own weapon after the former had turned it against him, followed by Li whom the Mandarin had slowly impaled with a metal staff, and ended with June, whose head was excruciatingly burned by the palms of the Mandarin using his remaining Makluan rings, despite her pleas of surrendering.

In the aftermath of his followers' betrayal, the Mandarin eventually reassigned the new de-facto leaders whom he currently trusts, now that he has truly showed to his followers of how much powerful and fearful he can be once someone even dares to challenge his might and power. Along with it, the Mandarin now claims that he has finally obtain enough information he and the Ten Rings would be needing to destroy the Iron Man & his range of heroic allies, having to gain so much knowledge not even the standard intellectual could not bear, but has decided not to engage their ultimate plan to conquer the continent just as yet, in the meantime. Instead, Wenwu had sought to travel back to the Valley of Spirits to acquire more knowledge and experience in the more mystical side as it was the source of his greatest power, after all. It was during this continuation of his search for knowledge that Wenwu has discovered the deeper existence behind the Valley of Spirits, the truth of it being a bridge to the mystical realms of what ancient humanity has perceived to be the land of gods.

Immortal Weapons

It was not long after losing full interest on the extraterrestrial Makluan weaponry and technology, as he had enough resources and knowledge to replicate it, that the Mandarin had learned the abundance of chi — the very inner energy which he often harnessed both in combat and survival since the beginning, which turned out to be the ultimate source of power for revered beings like the Makluans — found in the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, hidden city states originally formed and blessed by the gods of Ta-Lo which spread across the globe, exclusively accessible through means that his advanced Makluan resources, most notably his Ten Makluan Rings, could efficiently trace and track down when his technology had tracked down the whereabouts of the genetically-engineered Makluan, Fin Fang Foom, who had reached the mystical realms. By the fall of 2021, the Mandarin had deemed his last crusade to utilize his inner chi in the goal of ascending into a god-like status, in the same way he learned that most of the legendary gods were born as mortals before becoming gods in Ta-Lo after a prolonged exposure within the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven. With his ascension, Wenwu aims to become the one and only Immortal Weapon on Earth and bring what his ideology has perceived as peace and security on Earth by bringing back the "old ways" in accordance to his extremist philosophy to be the perfect leader of humanity, just as he was leading the Ten Rings for decades.

Travelling through the Valley of Spirits where he had tracked Fin Fang Foom's previous presence, Mandarin slaughtered countless of lives and ravaged most of the Seven Capital Cities, including the great dragon Shou-Lao the Undying of K'un-Lun which the Mandarin had killed by utilizing his maximum power combined with controlling Fin Fang Foom, which he also defeated after the latter tried to fight back once the Mandarin had absorbed some of Shou-Lao's energy. Unfortunate for him, the Mandarin's progress was ultimately averted by the joint forces founded by various Immortal Weapons such as the Iron Fist, Davos, along with Shang-Chi and Xialing (who originally came to kill her own father on behalf of the Hand), as they finally chose to reunite and confront their dark past as the Mandarin's son and daughter, as well as the surviving protectors of the mystical cities who swore vengeance on the warmonger for what he did to their homes in his final pursuit for power. Banding together to strengthen the native power of their respected home cities, the Immortal Weapons have cornered and challenged the Mandarin by reestablishing an old traditional event known as the Tournament of the Heavenly Cities, much to the latter's arrogance and amusement due to his seemingly insurmountable power, believing he could win the fatal tournament.

The odds were continuously stacking against the Mandarin especially when he found out that his own archnemesis, Iron Man, was also part of the momentary alliance to bring him down and end his threat once and for all. The Mandarin impressively put up a fight on his own against his thwarters once he reached his full potential of harnessing chi in a destructive scale through his ten rings which even took the life of Davos among other Immortal Weapons, but doing so only made him unstable enough for them to find an Achilles' heel on the nigh-godly warrior. In the final moments of his last stand, Wenwu faced his two children as they used every deadly skill and ability which they learned to kill the power-hungry monster who was once their father, something which Shang-Chi saw as putting their father's deranged spirit to rest by letting pushing the dying Wenwu into the fiery mouth of a vengeful Fin Fang Foom — who was now on the path of becoming the successor of Shou-Lao as the grantor of the power of the Iron Fist — which disintegrated the once invulnerable villain into ashes on the hellish and hidden Eighth City of Heaven, where — according to the rest of the seven cities' knowledgeable residents' mythology — the souls and spirits of all evil and have lost their ways there are laid for eternity.

Powerful Legacy

The Five Weapons Society

The Mandarin's death would cause a great domino effect in the following years, with the inevitable loss of his power, authority, and influence on various Ten Rings bases, domains, and societies across the globe, thus splintering the terrorist group into various sects with different motives, only for most of them to either get absorbed into other criminal organizations or surrender to the authorities, which some of those who were still wreaking havoc in the Western World were eventually apprehended by a tactical team led by the heroic War Machine and the later assistance of Rescue.

For instance, the waning of influence and fellowship of the Ten Rings in mainland China would eventually trickle down the events which would spark the Tian Revolution in China by the mid to late 2020s. Aiming to reform the abusively authoritative system of their nation's government, the Tian Revolution grew as a destructive revolution against the Government of China after thousands of people were inspired and motivated by the Xorn brothers' noble acts to liberate free every captured mutants which various organizations such as the Ten Rings were responsible for greenlighting such heinous imprisonments and violent acts of torture in concentration camps for years.

However, in the aftermath of the Tian Revolution, some of the fragmented Ten Rings factions were miraculously salvaged by the Mandarin's daughter and heiress, Xialing, who have decided to lead them away from her father's older ways and guide them towards a less darker and less extreme path after she had learn such lesson from her brother and other allies. Upon defecting from the Hand, Xialing had the assistance of her newfound followers as they wage one final clash against the Hand, ending with the dissolution of both organizations while, with the help of the Immortal Weapons, conclusively merging it into the newly-formed Five Weapons Society, serving for the good of mankind.

The Truth of the Ten Rings

Shang-Chi Rings (61615)

Wenwu's son, Shang-Chi, would inherit and harness the Ten Rings in its renewed form

Wenwu's five of out his ten Makluan rings were originally kept under the possession of his daughter, Xialing, after an agreement with her older brother Shang-Chi that the other five rings should be kept in the safest hands in an undisclosed location within one of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven. Unfortunately for the noble and selfless Xu siblings, the ruins of their father's destruction across the Seven Capital Cities didn't go unnoticed by its very makers, who was revealed to have been tracking down the cosmic energy still stored within the Ten Rings, binding with the chi of those who wish to use them.

Having been revealed to be the true maker of the mystical rings besides the draconian Makluans, the god known by his followers and in mythology as the Jade Emperor sent a secret group comprised of fellow gods and goddesses from their home realm in Ta-Lo, along with his personal guards, and travelled to the Seven Cities to retrieve the rings for reasons unknown. Commanded by Ta-Lo's Chieftain Xin, these armed forces' desperation to take the Rings for the Emperor eventually rendered them hostile against the citizens of the very cities which they once protected, inevitably clashing with Shang-Chi, Xialing, and the rest of the Immortal Weapons, the new protectors of their realms ever since their gods have seemingly abandoned them.

When the Emperor himself came from Ta-Lo to challenge the Immortal Weapons and attempt to reestablish his order and presence in the Seven Capital Cities, Shang-Chi reluctantly harnessed the power of his father's rings and used them against its makers after believing that the Jade Emperor has gone berserk, hearing from Xin that the Emperor would even get his followers and people killed just to retrieve his long lost weapons after hearing the lineage of Shang-Chi as the son of the Mandarin, a deadly mortal who tried to infiltrated the Seven Capital Cities so he could ascend into godhood, just like the gods, and rule over humanity with extremity.

The intensified battle between the gods of Ta-Lo and the Immortal Weapons further unveiled the grim truth about the current state of Ta-Lo after most of their gods were raided and slaughtered by the mysterious God Butcher, slowly losing their cosmic powers and status as gods after an insurmountable loss in the realm of Ta-Lo, unless they reignite it with the energy within the Rings. Shang-Chi offered the rings to the Jade Emperor as long as they're in good hands, although Chieftain Xin tried to retaliate against him as he tried claiming the rings on his own, revealing that he tried to frame the Emperor into appearing as a deity gone rogue, just as the former has heard from Xin that Shang-Chi was trying to succeed his late father's mission.

After clearing the air with Xin's insubordination and defeat, the Emperor and his fellow gods were able to channel the cosmic energy stored within the rings and successfully renovate the once demolished Ta-Lo into a more open and extensive realm that could be easily accessed through one of the capital cities, Peng Lai, wherein Shang-Chi and Xialing's maternal family tree have resided and served as its guardians for millennia, with Emperor appointing compassionate and worthier citizens who would take the place of their fallen gods in Ta-Lo as newly-ascended deities. As a token of honor and gratitude for his help, the Emperor reshaped what was left of the rings into hung gar iron rings, wishing to rehabilitate the benevolence of the rings after its long-time use by the warlord Mandarin, and gifted them to Shang-Chi once more, lending them powers (albeit with lesser energy, which some mortal could handle) that could be activated through channeling his inner chi as he could continue using them—in moderation—for good, in his pursuit as a superhero in the Earthly dimension.


Powers and Abilities

Powers

Chi Manipulation: The Mandarin possesses superhuman physical powers. The Mandarin can survive for years without food and water by living on stored Chi, especially if its momentarily but tremendously augmented by the Ten Makluan Rings which could amplify him to accomplish feats and tasks almost beyond the superhuman level which even granted him advanced longevity and nigh-immortality for centuries.

  • Superhuman Strength
  • Augmented Durability
  • Nervous System Control
  • Enhanced Speed & Reflexes
  • Energy Generation
  • Heightened Awareness
  • Momentary Hypnosis
    • Pressure Point Locator
  • Enhanced Senses
  • Environmental Adaptation
  • Enhanced Healing
Power Grid [1]
Intelligence
Strength*
 3
Speed*
 3
Durability
 3
Energy Projection
Fighting Skills
* Teleporter


Abilities

  • Master Martial Artist
  • Master Acrobat
  • Peak Human Physical Conditioning
    • Peak Human Strength
    • Peak Human Speed
    • Peak Human Stamina
    • Peak Human Durability
    • Peak Human Agility
    • Peak Human Reflexes
  • Super-Genius Intelligence
  • Master Prescient
  • Master Strategist
  • Master Tactician
  • Expert Investigator
  • Master Manipulator
  • Expert Historian
  • Multilingual

Strength level

  • Class 15+

Weaknesses

None known.


Paraphernalia

Equipment:

  • Various Makluan-powered technology
    • Dragon of Heaven
    • Interceptor Ray
    • Makluan-powered suits
  • Killer Satellite
  • Replicated Stark technology
    • Modified Iron Man Armors

Transportation:

  • Teleportation (Ten Makluan Rings)
    • Levitation
  • Jet-powered Vehicles

Weapons:

  • Ten Makluan Power Rings (formerly)
    • Teleportation
    • Molecular Manipulation
      • Self-Molecular Manipulation
        • Nigh-Invulnerability
        • Advanced Longevity
        • Biological Immortality
    • Energy Manipulation
      • Cosmic Energy Blasts
      • Force-Field Generation
      • Energy Projection
      • Energy Whip
    • Elemental Manipulation
      • Earth Manipulation
      • Air Manipulation
      • Fire Manipulation
      • Water/Ice Manipulation
      • Electric Blasts
    • Darkness Manipulation
    • Electromagnetic Manipulation
    • Limited Illusion Casting
  • Various Makluan-based weapons
  • Ten Rings Arsenal
    • Military grade armaments
    • Various classified firearms
    • Stark Industries Fragmentation Shell
    • Jericho Missile
  • Stark Technology armament
  • Various forged blades


Notes

  • The Mandarin was one of the known named descendants of the late monarch and conqueror Genghis Khan, as well as his children Shang-Chi and Xialing after him.
    • Interestingly enough, similar to his historical ancestor, Wenwu was revealed to have at least hundreds more descendants until present day ever since he rose to power as the Mandarin, albeit most of them we're not aware of their ancestral lineage nor knew him personally.
  1. Modern Comics: Iron Man Vol 1 10


Trivia

  • No trivia.



See Also

  • Appearances of Xu Wenwu (Earth-61615)
  • Character Gallery: Xu Wenwu (Earth-61615)
  • Quotations by Xu Wenwu (Earth-61615)


Discover and Discuss

Links and References

  • None.



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