Marvel Studios finally plans to give fans a showdown they were promised over a decade ago in Iron Man 3. The third Iron Man film falsely marketed a battle between Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark and the Marvel comics villain the Mandarin. However, a late twist in the movie revealed that the Mandarin was nothing but an actor (Ben Kingsley's Trevor Slattery) employed by Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) as a cover-up of terrorist attacks that were linked to his company.
The real, comic-accurate Mandarin was introduced years later in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, where Tony Leung played him. At this point in the MCU timeline, Stark died in the battle of Avengers: Endgame, meaning a showdown between the two was never on the table.
Fans were disappointed that they never saw Iron Man face off against one of Marvel's great mystical antagonists, particularly as the Ten Rings kidnapped Stark in his first MCU film, leading to him becoming Iron Man. It seemed that Iron Man finally facing the Mandarin in his final solo film could be a battle that would bring the Iron Man trilogy full circle, but it never happened.
While this exact showdown has been impossible since Iron Man's demise, Marvel Studios is finally attempting to rectify its promise in Iron Man 3 by providing a similar dynamic in one of its new 2025 projects.
New MCU Show Will Follow Through on Iron Man 3's Villain Promise
While Tony Stark is gone from the MCU (although Robert Downey Jr. is not), his legacy lives on in several ways. In particular, Iron Man inspires Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a young tech genius who builds her own iron suit in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and will have her story continued in the Disney+ series Ironheart.
In Ironheart, Riri's mission is to build her own legacy, using her technical prowess to create something new and "undeniable". In some ways, the Disney+ show could be considered a successor to Iron Man. However, there will be some distinct differences between Riri and Tony Stark.
While Riri won't be up against the Mandarin in Ironheart, the series will explore a dynamic that had been promised and never delivered on in Iron Man 3: a battle between technology and magic.
The main adversary in Ironheart is Parker Robbins, aka The Hood, played by Anthony Ramos, a known magic-user in Marvel Comics. With Riri representing the technology side of the equation and the Hood the magic half, Ironheart will finally explore who wins in the battle of science vs. sorcery.
As this is a core theme of the Disney+ series, it seems like Marvel Studios will finally deliver on the showdown promised in Iron Man 3 through Ironheart, with six episodes dedicated to exploring this dynamic. Assuming Marvel doesn't pull another bait-and-switch with the Hood like it did the Mandarin, Ironheart will hopefully satisfy a question 12 years in the making.
Ironheart Will Defy a Common MCU Trend
This tech versus magic dynamic in Ironheart, represented via its major hero and antagonist, is an angle that should work in the show's favor.
Some fans take issue with MCU projects for having protagonists and antagonists who are too similar. While heroes and villains are often depicted as two sides of the same coin, it can seem less exciting when this results in the two being an exact mirror or having powers or abilities that are too similar.
This has been the case often in Marvel Studios, such as in Black Panther, where Killmonger and T'Challa both had the powers of the Black Panther via the Heart-Shaped Herbs, or in WandaVision, which pits the Scarlet Witch against Agatha Harkness, who have similar magic powers. The battle in Ant-Man between Scott Lang and Darren Cross sees them both use Pym's shrinking technology as their primary weapon.
The trend goes all the way back to the first Iron Man film, which pitted Tony Stark against Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane, aka Iron Monger, a character whose iron suit was designed to mirror Stark's.
With Ironheart making the powers of its hero and villain vastly different, via the tech versus magic conceit, this ensures the show won't fall into the same trappings of some of these past Marvel projects (hopefully it can also avoid the villain issue that many MCU Disney+ shows have).
