[5] The character is described as being born in China before the Communist revolution to a wealthy Chinese father and an English aristocratic mother, both of whom died when he was young.

Though his primary obsession is Iron Man, given his high status as a supervillain, he has also come into conflict with Thor, Hulk, Shang-Chi and other superheroes in the Marvel Universe.

[12] There he finds the starship and skeleton of Axonn-Karr, an intelligent dragon-like alien from the planet Maklu IV, who had come to Earth centuries ago and died.

[15] During three of their early confrontations, the Mandarin manages to take Iron Man (or his alter ego Tony Stark) captive, but fails to kill him.

Some of the Mandarin's early technological achievements are the launching of a small orbiting satellite whose "death-ray" he aims at Stark Industries, and the building (later retconned as "the reprogramming, the refitting, and the recharging") of Ultimo, a 30-foot (9.1 m) humanoid android possessing vast destructive power.

Hogan is wearing the Iron Man armor at the time to help protect his employer's secret identity, and the Mandarin mistakes him for his foe.

[19] The Mandarin then establishes a base in China's Gobi Desert, and turns his attention to the Hulk for a time, hoping to make the dull-witted brute into an accomplice.

The Mandarin manipulates the Royal Family of the Inhumans who, at the time, live in the nearby Himalayan Mountains of Tibet, into locating the idol for him.

The Mandarin is forced to flee to another laboratory to try to restore his mind to its rightful body, which he manages with the unwilling aid of the Japanese mutant Sunfire.

The Mandarin's agents kidnap James Rhodes and several of Stark's other employees, forcing Iron Man into single combat in exchange for their lives.

The Mandarin's minions are left without their weapons when their master is knocked unconscious, causing his rings to teleport back to him automatically and leaving them unarmed and unable to stop Stark's employees from fleeing.

[36] At one point, during a period in which the then thought-dead X-Men had disbanded, the mutant heroine Psylocke passes through the mystic portal known as the Siege Perilous.

Iron Man believes him dead, though in reality the Mandarin has been transported away and transformed by the last flare of the orb's magic into a janitor in the Hong Kong branch of Stark Enterprises.

The Mandarin believes that the feudalism of yesterday has merely been transformed into the capitalism of today, leading him to set into motion plans to create a giant flying fortress called the Dragon of Heaven, through which he can conquer Russia and eventually the world.

[volume & issue needed] One day, Temugin receives a package containing the severed hands of the Mandarin, bearing all 10 rings of power.

[48] After Tony Stark reveals a conspiracy for mass murder in his own ranks, Temugin appears to have forgiven Iron Man for the death of his father and to have turned to more lofty pursuits, but events indicate that the evil power of the rings has corrupted his soul.

[50] Nevertheless, he later reappeared without the rings, and with a cybernetic arm, as a member of the Atlas Foundation, having been selected as a secondary candidate for the position of its ruler by the ancient dragon Mr. Lao.

[volume & issue needed] The Mandarin is revived in a subsequent Iron Man story arc, in which he is revealed to have been in a prison in central China for some time.

[51] After attacking Iron Man, via S.H.I.E.L.D.—with dozens of unwitting proxies in the form of extremist splinter groups, equipped by him with hyper-advanced biological weapons—he eventually resurfaces as Tem Borjigin (yet another name of Genghis Khan), now employing artificial hands.

He appears to be using Tony Stark's former love interest Maya Hansen to produce an army of soldiers enhanced with Extremis,[52] an artificial biotech virus created by Hansen that when introduced into a subject with a specific gene receptive to it (which only 2.5% of the population possess), grants that subject a super-boosted immune system and a greatly enhanced healing ability that can spontaneously generate new, improved organs, but which increases aggression and kills anyone injected with it who lacks the gene for it.

[53] The Mandarin is also financing and arming terrorists around the globe, and plans to unleash the Extremis virus on the public, expecting the 97.5% fatality ratio to cause a mass catastrophe of deaths.

The Mandarin slaughtered the Red Chinese army officials for daring to cross him, while financing his operations with drug and gun smuggling, aided by the mercenary Raza.

[56] At the conclusion of the 2010–2011 "Stark Resilient" storyline, it is revealed that the Mandarin is the father of Sasha Hammer, as she introduces her boyfriend Zeke Stane to her parents.

[59] Among these actions were implanted design ideas for "Titanomechs", huge squid-like war machines apparently capable of taking over the world (as seen in an alternate future in The Invincible Iron Man #500).

Each of the rings later started finding new hosts with the purpose of "saving Earth from Tony Stark", using persuasive language and mind control to bend them towards their cause against Iron Man.

As part of his revenge on Hydra for manipulating him during the "Secret Empire" storyline, the Punisher finds the Mandarin making a speech at the United Nations and kills him.

The rings' operations cannot be explained by contemporary Earth science, but it is known that they served as near-limitless power sources for the warp-drive engines of the Makluan starship of Axonn-Karr.

In writer Kieron Gillen's tenure on Iron Man, the rings are given names and temporarily gain sentience after coming into contact with Recorder 451.

[citation needed] He has also used a headband enabling him to transfer his mind into his rings or into another's body and a teleportation device hidden on his person, both examples of Makluan technology.

[83] This version is an ancient ruler of a Chinese dynasty who was served by two dragons, Fin Fang Foom and Zhen Ji Xang, before being defeated and losing his rings, which were scattered around the world.