![\"\"](\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/files\/2013\/02\/Iron-Man-3-210x300.jpg\")
<\/a>t episode in this successful movie franchise, hits cinemas around the end of April\/start of May (May 3 in the US, a bit earlier in some places … such as the Philippines apparently<\/a>). It has been getting a fair bit of advance publicity this week, especially with an ad slated for the Super Bowl.<\/p>\nWhile descriptions of the plot are still suitably vague\u00a0(and who wants to read a slew\u00a0of spoilers when cinematic release is still\u00a0three months away?), it appears\u00a0that Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, is headed for a huge fall, literally and metaphorically, from which he’ll need to pick himself up in heroic style.<\/p>\n
In the process, he is evidently going to come into conflict with his most\u00a0iconic enemy from the 1960s comics: the Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley. In his original manifestation, the Mandarin is an intellectually and physically formidable opponent, with superhuman skill in the martial arts – his blows can even shatter Iron Man’s armour – backing up his set of rings on each finger that each give him a different power. I look forward to seeing how the Mandarin is presented, and especially whether the moviemakers\u00a0succeed\u00a0in create a convincing villain,\u00a0while avoiding the racial stereotyping that has made the Mandarin far\u00a0less viable a character than 40 or 50 years ago.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Marvel Studios are leading up to more movies in the universe of The Avengers<\/em>. We are getting a new Thor movie in late 2013, followed by Captain America: The Winter Soldier<\/em>, Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em> (this one should be fun!) in August 2014, a sequel to The Avengers<\/em>, and Ant-Man<\/em> at the end of 2015.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Iron Man 3, the latest episode in this successful movie franchise, hits cinemas around the end of April\/start of May (May 3 in the US, a bit earlier in some places … such as the Philippines apparently). It has been getting a fair bit of advance publicity this week, especially with an ad slated for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,24],"tags":[136,137,31],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-diversions","tag-iron-man-3","tag-movies","tag-sunday-supervillainy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/hellfireclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}