Official teaser poster for Iron Man 3 arrives! Plus, a first look at Mandarin!

Did I tell or did I tell you that the studio has hit the marketing button?  By Crom, the goods are rolling in and now we have the first official teaser poster for IRON MAN 3, which shows Tony Stark “piece-mealing” his armor together, while facing his row of armor.  It’s a perfectly suited (pun intended) poster that falls in line with the concept of “stripping” Tony down to his basics in order to build him up again for the third entry of the series. 

Take a look:

And, we now have our first look at Ben Kingsley as the film’s (main?) villain, Mandarin.  Mandarin, as per the comics, is “a Chinese exile who ventures into a remote, forbidden valley and discovers a crashed alien spaceship. Inside the ship are ten rings, each with a different power, which allow him to seek revenge on a world he considers unjust.”  However, Marvel producer Kevin Fiege has said that will not be the case for the sequel.

“It’s less about his specific ethnicity than the symbolism of various cultures and iconography that he perverts for his own end,” Feige says. “From his samurai hair, to his royal robe, to his bin Laden-esque beard, and the AK-47 he keeps at his side, Kingsley’s interpretation is a hodgepodge of various warrior motifs.”

Fiege elaborated on the theme of IRON MAN 3, saying,“A lot of this movie is about characters going back into the shadows for various reasons and characters who have been in the shadows coming out and into the light for the first time. It is Tony who, for various reasons, finds himself receding into the darkness. I don’t mean emotional darkness, I mean literally ducking out of the spotlight. And we’ll see other characters stepping up who have pulled strings from the background, starting to show their hand.”

The official site for the film has gone live as well, which doesn’t feature anything we haven’t already seen, but it’s still worth a click to take a look.  If anything, all of this signifies the beginning of Iron Mania, which I’m certainly getting a case of, as we progress into the beginning of Marvel Phase 2. 

Here’s the synopsis:

Marvel Studios’ Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

IRON MAN 3, directed by Shane Black and starring Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley, James Badge Dale, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, and William Sadler unleashes on theaters on May 3, 2013. 

Remember to come back tomorrow for the first trailer!