User blog comment:TheOne1000/Mandarin Twist/@comment-1895174-20131028180307/@comment-1895174-20131028224312

@Mako - There are different modern and classic Mandarins? News to me.

The Mandarin did not run AIM. Aldrich Killian did (in the movie, at least). Yes, superhero movies make changes from the source material all the time, but there's only so much they can change before it becomes a different character. There was only so much Tim Burton could tweak Rupert Thorne before he stopped being Rupert Thorne and became Max Shreck. Maybe Guy Pearce's character started out as the Mandarin, but Shane Black and the rest of the production crew tweaked that character so much that he stopped being the Mandarin and became Aldrich Killian, an entirely different character whose abilities come from one character and his role in the story from another, neither of which are the Mandarin.

What do I mean by how he was treated? Well, as you said, a lot of people were angry that the film took the Mandarin, Iron Man's arch-nemesis in the comics, and made him into a joke, a facade, in Iron Man 3. Personally, that was the best part of the movie.

By the way, Aldrich Killian as the Scientist Supreme is further emphasized in (of all things) the Iron Man 3 video game adaptation, where his consciousness is reborn as MODOK. The Mandarin's never done anything like that, either.