The Mandarin

[Liam_Thibodaux]

The Mandarin's current page is badly underwritten.

Here is my first draft of a revised version: The Mandari

Any feedback on what I should change/correct would be appreciated.

 

[Promestein]

As I said on my wall;

"I looked through a respect thread.

Mandarin is fighting Armor Model 9 here (I think), which is High 6-C. This is him fighting Model 8, which is High 7-A. I dunno about this armor, but it's probably stronger given that those two are early armors.

He also survived this explosio, which should be calculated, and will likely be higher than those results. I'm not sure if it'd be consistent though. More explosion tanking.

More good feats that have to be calculated. This ring he has can cause solar flares.

Either way, he should likely scale to Iron Man's stronger suits. High 6-C to High 6-A, most likely. Someone with more knowledge should offer better input; this is from just a brief look at a respect thread."

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

Okay, so I'll change striking power and durability to 6-A.

Does my first draft otherwise look okay?

 

[Antvasima]

I have attempted to fix the page.

 

[Antvasima]

Btw: How old is he supposed to be?

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

The rings don't give him telepathy, only illusions and hypnosis.

His striking power is considerably greater than wall-level.

The rings give him various ranged attacks, but should be listed as equipment.

His actual powers are only his intelligence, and his the ability to channel chi into superhuman stats and not needing food for extended periods.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, the handbooks say that he is only as strong as Captain America physically.

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

The Handbooks appear to have done a very poor job with him.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, without his rings he really is only about as powerful as a chi-using supergenius Captain America.

 

[Dark649]

Liam is right, Mandarin suffers from the same case as Ultron.

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

Supergenius sounds too high. He kidnaps scientists too often for that rating.

Captain America sounds too low physically when chi-amping. His martial arts strikes are too destructive for that rating.

 

[Antvasima]

The handbooks list him as a tier 6 in intelligence.

 

[Antvasima]

Traditionally speaking (before his Matt Fraction retcon), he was also portrayed as a supergenius, but we could go with Extraordinary Genius instead if you wish.

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

Again, the Handbooks have done a horrible job with him, underrating his chi-channeling abilities, and overrating his intelligence. His most impressive scientific feats mostly involve kidnapped scientists. Extremis, the Dragon of Heaven, those things he forces Stark to invent for him during Matt Fraction's run, all done using kidnapped, enslaved scientists.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. He used to be able to handle Makluan technology far more advanced than the Earth's though.

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

Yes, he definately qualifies as a genius, as even reverse-engineering that stuff is extremely impressive. Maybe even an extraordinary-genius. But a supergenius?

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. I will bump him down to extraordinary genius.

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

His striking power has nothing to do with a force-field. His force-field creation is very distinct, taking the form of a bubble. The comics are typically quite clear that his striking power is the result of his sheer skill combined with superhuman strength. The Handbook entry is just....*sigh*


Quoting Iron Man in the actual comics-"not only is The Mandarin an undeniable master of science, he's also a savage, super-strong fighter whose strength can almost match my own! And, in a fight, his greatest weapon is his mastery of karate, which might have shattered my armor if I made one wrong move!"

 

[Antvasima]

Well, the Deluxe Edition handbook said that his strikes are that powerful due to encasing his hands in force fields, if I remember correctly.

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

Nothing in the comics backs that up. The original handbook in the eighties seems to have made that up, and handbooks afterwards just keep cut-n-pasting it.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, it is due to that an extremely highly trained human should not be able to pierce Iron Man's armor, no matter how skilled, so it is explaining away a plot hole.

 

[Liam_Thibodaux]

That was probably the intent, but considering the existence of characters like Iron Fist and Karnak, an unnecesary one. And again, it contradicts the actual comics, which attribute his striking power to a combination of super-strength and sheer skill.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, Iron Fist manipulates supernatural energy to enchance his striking power, and Karnak uses an illogical ability to find weak spots, but alright then.

 

[Antvasima]

Never mind. By that logic we would have to scale Captain America from the Hulk, and Cyclops from Dormammu. Marvel is illogical and filled to the brim with Plot-Induced Stupidity. I would appreciate if you immediately and permanently drop this subject, as I am extremely tired and busy, and do not have the time to deal with you anymore.

 

[Promestein]

Mandarin is a chi user like Iron Fist (who we have as City level, which is higher than his guidebook ratings), and is obviously vastly superhuman. The Guidebooks are, obviously, wrong in many cases (Tier 6 Spider-Man villains, for example), and I thought we agreed to stop using them as our primary resource. When Mandarin repeatedly breaks Iron Man's armor and takes him down, he's obviously vastly superhuman. The Guidebooks are worthless here. Look at his feats. He has various feats of tanking things far above Wall level, for one.

We're not going to make such awful, ridiculous scaling decisions. It's insulting to the staff's intelligence that you think that we'll let things like that get through. Mandarin = Iron Man is reasonable and supported by things in the comics. Captain America = Hulk is not only bullshit, but very obvious bullshit, and anyone who says otherwise is either a wanker, very misinformed, or a troll.

I would much prefer it if Mandarin was scaled to the strongest Iron Man armor he's fought, and his rings to their best feat.

 

[Antvasima]

The problem is that Iron Fist specifically has physical feats of that scale, and a striking strength enhancement, derived from absorbing the power of a dragon, whereas the Mandarin is just supposed to be a highly trained martial artist without his rings.

 

[Promestein]

I don't care what he's supposed to be. Isn't that an unspoken rule? We don't go by author intent, we go by feats.

When Mandarin does things like tear apart Tony's armor with his bare hands, he's obviously not just a normal highly-trained martial artist. Besides, I've seen plenty of stuff saying that he has a mastery of chi, so he's not just a normal human.

 

[Antvasima]

The Mandarin is also currently scaled to Iron Man, in terms of the power of his rings. It simply seems ridiculous to scale a character with no physical enhancements other than training in the martial arts to High Continent level without his power sources.

 

[Promestein]

Again, I've seen a lot saying that Mandarin has a mastery of chi, so he's not a normal human with no physical enhancements.

I'm not even asking to boost him to Multi-Continent level. Isn't he dead in the comics right now? Why would he scale to a relatively recent armor? The feats I linked up there are Large Island level, and unless he's fought a Multi-Continent armor, he should be Large Island level. (Or at least Large Island level?)

 

[Antvasima]

Also, I am starting to reconsider regarding the handbooks. I thought that it would help, but given the mess that the Marvel profiles are currently in, it may simply be preferable to get better feats to scale from, and use the handbooks for the sake of convenience, unless strongly contradicted.

 

[Antvasima]

He has fought and damaged quite recent armors during the Matt Fraction run on the book.

The point is that Iron Fist absorbed the power of a dragon to empower the force of his blows. In Marvel lore a regular human cannot get any more physically powerful than Shang-Chi and Captain America through mere physical exercise, training, and meditation.

I am fine with scaling the Mandarin to Iron Man with his rings, but not without using them to empower himself.

 

[Antvasima]

Also, the only two Spider-Man villains that would scale as high as you say are Rhino and the Sandman, who have both been able to fight the Hulk and the Thing, so their handbook ratings are not entirely unwarranted.

 

[Promestein]

I'm not saying they're like, complete bullshit, but they're far more consistently on or slightly above Spidey's level.

Anyways.

None of the Mandarin's rings seem to amplify his strength, and though I'll admit it's a bit weird for him to be this strong just through chi alone, that is what his feats seem to show.

 

[Antvasima]

I dunno. The handbooks retconned any such feats into him using his force field to enhance the force of his blows. I also do not remember him damaging the armor by punching it in any recent storylines.

 

[Promestein]

I mean. He's dead. So there are no recent storylines.

This isn't recent, but there it is. And there are the things I linked up there.

 

[Antvasima]

Your last scan seems to be some kind of flashback episode, as it is an early Iron Man armor.

Anyway, I doubt that those explosions will reach higher than High 6-A, and I think that that Iron Man feat was from Kieron Gillen's run, which came after Fraction's, but it is still a much closer model of armour than the High 6-C one.

 

[Antvasima]

Perhaps we should change the Mandarin's ratings to "Likely High 6-A" instead?

 

[Antvasima]

Anyway, I am going to bed now, as I have worked with the wiki at least 8 hours today, and read lots of depressing news as well. I am tired.

 

[Promestein]

I think "At least High 6-C, possibly higher" or something to that effect would be best?

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. You can change it to that then, but I think that we have to chalk up the instances of the Mandarin harming Iron Man with physical blows as Plot-Induced Stupidity, similar to how Spider-Man and Captain America regularly harm opponents far out of their weight class.