• Ice Blast: Remarkable intensity cold, Endurance FEAT to adviod being stunned; Range 2 areas.
• Mento Intensifier: Remarkable Mind Control, Range 1 area.
• Electro-Blast: Remarkable energy blast, range 3 areas
• Flame Blast: Remarkable intensity heat, range 2 areas
• White Light: Remarkable intensity Light or Radiation up to 5 areas away
• Matter Rearranger: Remarkable intensity Matter Manipulation, but not Transmutation. This ring cannot work on Force Fields.
• Impact Beam: Incredible Force attack, range 2 areas
• Vortex Beam: Remarkable Air Control, permitting flight by the user at Excellent speeds and other Power stunts.
• Disintegration: Monstrous disintegration, with no effect on living targets. 1 area range, and requires 20 minutes to recharge after use.
• Black Light: Remarkable intensity DarkForce, 2 area range.

Talents

Martial Arts A, D, and E. He is also skilled in Electronics, Biochemistry, Engineering, and Repair/Tinkering.

Contacts

None

History

The man later known as Mandarin was born in pre-Revolutionary China, the son of a wealthy Chinese man and an English noblewoman. His parents died while he was very young, and he was raised by a bitter aunt. At an early age he showed promise in various fields of science. He used his inherited wealth to study in China and abroad. After coming back to China, he became a high government official, a Mandarin.

When the Communist Revolution took place, the Mandarin found himself without any power or wealth to his name. Desperate to gain power once again, he entered a supposedly haunted "Valley of the Spirits" that no one had explored in centuries. There he found a crashed spaceship and the skeleton of its pilot. The pilot had been a dragon-like alien from the planet Maklu-4, that had died on Earth centuries ago. The Mandarin spent several years in the valley, learning the Makluan technology. He was able to figure out how to use the rings he found in the ship, which had apparently served as the ship's energy source. He then used the rings to help build himself a castle in the Valley, and to take over all the villages in the area. With his alien science, the Chinese Army could do nothing to oppose him.

The Mandarin then embarked on a long series of attempts to take over the world. His usual techniques involved causing a nation's weapons and missiles to turn against its owners. At first, the Mandarin sabotaged and stole a number of missiles and spy planes built by Tony Stark. Stark, as the hero Iron Man, was asked to check out the disappearances by the Pentagon. He flew to China and encountered the Mandarin for the first time, and defeated him.

Over the years, Iron Man became the Mandarin's constant enemy. Each time, Iron man was able to defeat the Mandarin, but he was never able to bring him to justice. In his fifth encounter with the Mandarin, Iron Man was able to defeat him in hand-to-hand combat for the first time. Iron Man then reprogrammed some missiles the Mandarin had launched, aiming them back at the Mandarin's castle. The Mandarin teleported to an orbiting satellite before his castle was destroyed.

The Mandarin then returned to China, hoping to increase his ring's powers. He learned of a powerful magical artifact, the Eye of Yin, and tried to get it. He tricked the Royal Family of the Inhumans, a genetic offshoot of humanity, into finding the Eye for him, but he was beaten by their ruler Black Bolt before he could drain the Eye's power into his rings. Black Bolt then took his rings and hid them from him.

Unable to find his rings, he returned to the Valley of the Spirits. There he found a headband of Makluan origin, that helped him regain his rings and rebuild his castle. Later, the Mandarin and his villainous ally, the Unicorn (who was dying at the time), went to America to destroy Iron Man. During the battle, the headband somehow caused the Mandarin and the Unicorn to trade bodies. The Mandarin immediately returned to his castle, fearful of dying in the Unicorn's diseased body. He returned to find his castle already taken over by the villain, Yellow Claw.

Forced to flee, the Mandarin set up another base and eventually returned his mind to his original body, with the reluctant help of Sunfire, Japan's mutant hero. He was also forced into battle with Iron Man again and had to flee again. He then attacked Yellow Claw, in an attempt to regain his castle. The Mandarin was critically wounded in a battle with a robot double of Yellow Claw, which exploded.

Later, while Stark was trying to set up a branch of Stark Enterprises in Hong Kong, Iron Man and the Mandarin came into conflict. The Mandarin had taken the name of Zhang Tong, and had become a financial leader in Hong Kong. As Tong, he controlled a number of government officials and industry leaders of Hong Kong.

The Mandarin thwarted all of Stark's attempts to set up a business branch, even resorting to murder. The Mandarin now employed a group of followers, called the Hand, to do his dirty work. When on a mission, a Hand member was allowed to take one of the Mandarin's rings and use its powers. If the Hand member was captured, he would fanatically try to kill himself. If the Hand member was killed or knocked out, the ring would automatically teleport back to the Mandarin.

At one point, the mutant hero Psylocke passed through the mystic portal known as the Siege Perilous. The portal transformed Psylocke slightly and relocated her to an Asian shore, where she immediately encountered the Hand assassin Kwannon and the two somehow merged their minds/personalities. The Hand brought Psylocke to the Mandarin, who oversaw Psylocke's transformation into the Hand's ultimate assassin. Psylocke was eventually rescued by her X-men teammates Wolverine and Jubliee, and Psylocke defeated the Mandarin, causing events which led to Mandarin's exile from the Hand.

Somehow, the Mandarin had discovered the Heart of Darkness, an orb of apparently mystic energy, which he used to turn back time itself in China. Iron Man, with his team Force Works and ally War Machine, broke his power, but not before the Mandarin discovered that Tony Stark was the man inside the Iron Man armor. Iron Man infected Mandarin with a techno-organic virus, and the orb, seeing him infected with technology, rejected the Mandarin and impolded. Iron Man believed him dead, but in reality the Mandarin was transported and transformed by the last flare of the orb's magics, turned into a janitor in the Hong Kong branch of Stark Enterprises.

Eventually, Mandarin's memories returned to him, and instead of trying to crush technology, Mandarin believed that the feudal system of yesterday had merely been transformed into the capitalism of today. Mandarin set into motion plans to create a giant flying fortress called the Dragon of Heaven through which he could conquer Russia and eventually the world. During this time, Iron Man reappeared after being believed dead in a battle against the psychic menace Onslaught. The Mandarin initiated a series of attacks on Iron Man, cumulating in a battle in the Dragon of Heaven. Mandarin's primary purpose was not conquering Russia, but to test Iron Man and prove him worthy as a foe and to justify Mandarin's own thoughts on capitalism. Mandarin staged his own death as Iron Man escaped.