Whenever Hollywood changes something from the comic book source material of one of their movies or television shows, it’s a balancing act; the change had better benefit the work in the long run, lest they run afoul of the hardcore fans of the comics for nothing. We’ve seen it on The Walking Dead and in nearly every every superhero movie ever made. And we’ll see it again in Iron Man 3, according to Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige.Feige told Entertainment Weekly that Mandarin, the central villain of the film, has “a different backstory from the comics, in which he was a Chinese exile who discovers a crashed alien ship and harnesses the power of the 10 rings aboard it to unleash havoc on the world.”As a result, Feige said “we won’t get ice rays and fire beams from these rings.”Which raises the question: How does a guy with a gun, a bunch of terrorists in caves and a less-impressive-than-expected arsenal of semi-magic rings stand up against Iron Man, who recently went toe-to-toe with a thunder god?We’ll find out when the movie hits in May.
