The Mandarin From "Iron Man 3" Is Back For The Next "Thor" DVD

Iron Man 3‘s supervillain (well, fake supervillain) will return on the new Thor: The Dark World DVD–and we’re pretty sure that we just did some kind of spoiler, so movie fans might want to avert their eyes from this info. There’s a lot of history in saying that The Mandarin might be back, as Entertainment Weekly goes over in an interview with the movie’s screenwriter Drew Pearce.
Of course, the last time we saw The Mandarin (as played by Ben Kingsley), we learned that the posturing bad guy was actually Trevor Slattery–a  harmless unemployed actor hired to play the Mandarin for a far more nefarious purpose. It was a clever twist, but it left an interesting, un-ironed wrinkle in the story. Whatever happened to Trevor Slattery/The Mandarin? EW reports that the new short film called All Hail the King shows how Slattery has ended up in prison just like any other convicted criminal. However, he finds himself standing under a strange cloud of infamy in which people know him as the powerful villain, even though he’s still just a meek and timid actor.
It’s an interesting path for the character. Especially because so many comic book fans were so upset that the movie decided to throw such a creative curveball by turning one of Iron Man’s chief foes into a ruse, a move that even Pearce admitted was a little harsh. It could, however, serve as a unique bridge between Iron Man 3 and Iron Man 4 and show how Slattery is transformed into the super-villain he was meant to become. Or so some comic book fans keep hoping, and we can relate to that.