It is a clandestine criminal organization founded one thousand years ago by Xu Wenwu, an immortal warlord, and named after his mystical ten rings.
[2] Thousands of years ago, Xu Wenwu finds the Ten Rings, mystical weapons that grant their user immortality and great power.
In 1996, Wenwu attempts to invade the mystical realm of Ta Lo, but is stopped and defeated by village's guardian, Ying Li.
In 2010, Obadiah Stane, who has been trafficking Stark Industries weapons to the Ten Rings, hires the organization's Afghanistan cell to attack a US military convoy in the country.
Knowing Raza will not keep his word, Stark and fellow captive Yinsen build a prototype suit of powered armor to aid in their escape.
The Ten Rings learns of their plans and attacks their workshop; Yinsen sacrifices himself to save Stark, who uses his armor to defeat his captors and destroy their weapons.
Stark dons a sleeker, more powerful version of his improvised armor suit and flies to Afghanistan, where he saves the villagers from the Ten Rings.
In an alternate 2010, Erik "Killmonger" Stevens saves Tony Stark when the Ten Rings attacks his military convoy in Afghanistan.
Having previously infiltrated the Ten Rings, Killmonger uses his intel from his time within the organization to expose Obadiah Stane's involvement in the attack, leading to his arrest.
Iron Man's Marvel Comics premiere in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963) was a collaboration between editor and story-plotter Stan Lee, scriptwriter Larry Lieber, story-artist Don Heck, and cover-artist and character-designer Jack Kirby.
In his origin story, wealthy industrialist Tony Stark is injured and taken prisoner by hostile forces in war torn Vietnam, but escapes his captors after building and donning a suit of powered armor.
Screenwriter Alfred Gough said in 2007 that he had developed an Iron Man film for New Line Cinema which included the Mandarin as the villain, conceiving the character as a younger Indonesian terrorist who masquerades as a rich playboy Tony Stark is acquainted with.
[6] However, while working on Iron Man (2008), director Jon Favreau omitted the Mandarin in favor of Obadiah Stane as the main antagonist of the film, believing that the character and the fantasy elements of his rings felt unrealistic and were more appropriate for a sequel with an altered tone.
[8] Due to the Iron Man films' setting of Afghanistan, the Ten Rings is depicted as a Middle Eastern terrorist group; the group's logo consists of ten interlocking rings adorned with Mongolian script, an easter egg referencing the Mandarin's claim of being descended from Genghis Khan in the comics.
Following complaints from the Mongolian government of the language's usage being linked with terrorism after the release of Iron Man 3 (2013), Marvel issued an apology.
[13] Due to Leung's casting and the decision to make Shang-Chi the son of the Mandarin rather than Fu Manchu (later renamed Zheng Zu), the Ten Rings was completely redesigned to have a Chinese theme, with its members closely resembling those of Si-Fan, the criminal organization that Shang-Chi's father leads in the Master of Kung Fu series.
The organization's existence was teased in Ironheart #1 (November 2018) by writer Eve Ewing and artists Kevin Libranda, Geoffo and Luciano Vecchio, and it made its official comic debut in the following issue.
[21] During her fight with Midnight's Fire, Ironheart learns that the Ten Rings is a terrorist organization whose ways of covert actions cause some people to believe that it is a myth.
[24] Ironheart later discovers that her father Demetrius "Riri" Williams had faked his death in a gas station robbery gone wrong and joined the Ten Rings, where he somehow develops geokinesis.
The Ten Rings has the highest authority in K'un-L'un due to its master, Emperor Zheng Zu, winning the Thirteen Chambers tournament for almost 100 years.
[29] In the Secret Wars Volume 2 for Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game, there is an adaptation of the Battleworld version of Zheng Zu as Emperor of K'un-Lun and the Ten Rings school.