The Marvel Super Heroes · Season 1 · Episode 7
The Death of Tony Stark / The Hands of the Mandarin / The Origin of the Mandarin
Synopsis
From the terrace of his palatial home, Tony Stark watches Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts drive away. They do not trust Iron Man, and they have set out to prove he cannot be trusted. Half a world away, inside a mountain stronghold, the Mandarin fires a beam from one of his rings and gives a hijacked satellite its command. The target is Tony Stark. A long-distance ray tears through the mansion and reduces the room to rubble. Iron Man escapes the blast, but no one else knows that. To every tracking station, every police desk, and every radio bulletin, Tony Stark is dead. Happy and Pepper grieve him, and their suspicion of Iron Man becomes an accusation of murder.
Iron Man computes the trajectory of the ray, identifies the Mandarin, and boards a plane for the Asian coast in disguise. He parachutes toward the castle and goes straight into a trap. Granite walls close on him and he is unable to break free. He finds a convenient grate in the floor that leads directly to The Mandarin's office. A paralyzer ray freezes him. A high-frequency blast hits the beam from The Mandarin's rings. Gaining the upper hand, the Mandarin binds Iron Man to a spinning wheel and boasts of his origin. He tells of an interstellar ship found on a lonely mountain road and of ten rings holding unlimited energy that he studied until he commanded them all. Ultimately, it is the wheel that saves Iron Man, who siphons its spin to recharge and shatters his bonds. He then turns the Mandarin's own test missile back on its launch site and slips past a giant robot and guards. The villain flees as Chinese soldiers open fire upon him, believing he bombed their base intentionally. The next day, inside his own office, Tony Stark greets Happy and Pepper very much alive.
Reality Designation
This story takes place outside the main Marvel continuity: 600026
Reality numbers are Marvel's official designations.
Where a universe has no official number we follow the Marvel Database and use its Temporary Reality Number (TRN-1092). Where there is neither — official or temporary — at the time we watch it, we assign a Snark Industries number of our own (SI-001).
Characters in the Episode
Industrialist and armored hero; survives the satellite strike, lets the world think him dead, and hunts the Mandarin to his castle.
Ring-powered warlord; kills Stark by satellite, captures Iron Man, and reveals how he gained his power.
Stark's driver; distrusts Iron Man and pushes the police to investigate the "murder."
Stark's secretary; mourns Tony and turns on Iron Man before Stark reappears.
In-Universe Date
No on-screen or spoken date. Ballparked to the September 14, 1966 air date.
Nothing on screen contradicts it: the orbiting satellite needs post-1957, and "Red Chinese" needs post-1949.
Comic Roots
Where the episode's people and places come from on the page.
This block runs on two issues of Tales of Suspense and borrows the name of a third. The plot is Tales of Suspense #61, "The Death of Tony Stark!" (January 1965), rolled straight into #62, "The Origin of the Mandarin!" (February 1965), both by Stan Lee and Don Heck. The killer satellite, the faked death, the siege of the castle, the spinning wheel, and the ring origin all come from that two-parter, traced close to panel for panel. The middle chapter takes its title, "The Hands of the Mandarin," from Tales of Suspense #50 (February 1964), the villain's actual first appearance, yet none of #50's story is here. The cartoon wanted the ominous title and simply grabbed it.
The Mandarin himself is a Lee and Heck creation from that 1964 debut, built, by Heck's account, on Stan Lee's request for "a character like Fu Manchu." The comics give him a long backstory as the impoverished son of a wealthy Chinese aristocrat, raised bitter and drilled in science and combat. The cartoon has no patience for any of it. It keeps exactly one origin beat, the discovery of the rings, and lets the rest fall away.
The ten rings arrive on the page in that same #50, powered by the engines of a crashed interstellar ship. In the comics the vessel belonged to Axonn-Karr, a dragon-like alien from the planet Maklu IV, downed in the Valley of Spirits, and the rings are Makluan technology. On screen the Mandarin describes only "a ship which travels between galaxies" and ten rings of unlimited energy, with not a dragon or a Makluan in earshot.
Recommended Reading
Where to go next if the episode left you wanting more.
The Mandarin's first appearance and the debut of the ten rings, and the source of the title this block borrowed.
The two-parter adapted here, from the faked death to the ring origin.
A modern retelling that reimagines these earliest Stark-versus-Mandarin encounters.
The Snark File
Easter eggs, callbacks and technical tidbits.
The Format
Like most of the others in the this series, this is xerography more than animation. Photocopied comic panels given a flicker of lip and eye movement. This block very tightly to Tales of Suspense #61-62
