Robert Downey Jr. may have gracefully bowed out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the end of Avengers: Endgame, but the shadow of Tony Stark will continue to loom large over the franchise for the foreseeable future. Almost every major story beat across the Infinity Saga connected to the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist in some fashion, and the trend looks set to carry on for a while yet.
Tony was integral to Peter Parker’s arc in Spider-Man: Far From Home, while Black Widow‘s villain Taskmaster is also rumored to have a connection to Stark Industries. The most notable, though, is Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which seems set to finally pay off a slow burning storyline that was first put into motion in Iron Man twelve years ago.
The plot of Jon Favreau’s blockbuster introduced the nefarious Ten Rings organization, which was then picked up again in Iron Man 3, leading to the divisive Trevor Slattery reveal. However, Marvel retconned the twist in One-Shot All Hail the King, where it was revealed that the Mandarin was very real and wasn’t happy about his name being appropriated by a jobbing actor, while they were also mentioned as one of the parties interested in buying the Pym Particles from Darren Cross in Ant-Man.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has cast Tony Leung as the genuine Mandarin, and based on the title alone, we know that the titular terrorists are going to be heavily involved. Given the connective tissue that’s always been so integral to the MCU, Tony’s death may even be the catalyst for the group to emerge from the shadows, as Simu Liu’s title hero figures out his adoptive father is up to no good and makes it his mission to put an end to the Ten Rings once and for all.
