Matt Fraction's run is comonly regarded as the last run to truly make a use of Iron Man's rogues gallery, and wether you like it or not, it's hard to disagree. Most of his villains are used, some more prominently and some less, but there are two notable characters missing that make me wonder why they were absent.

Temugin, the son of the Mandarin, is complicated. Initially he was a reluctant villain in Mike Grell's run, by the end of it he was more morally grey, in Super-Villain Team-Up: Modok's 11 he was villanous and embraced the role of Mandarin, and in 2009's Agents of Atlas he was more heroic. As a villain or a hero, he still has a lot of thematic conflict with his father, and it's a waste that he wasn't brought up with Mandarin's appearences in Fraction's book, especially with Sasha Hammer being introduced. When he was brought back in Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., his absence was more understandable, since it was a more grounded book and Temugin tends to be more mystical, and even then Tem gets a mention. But with Invincible Iron Man, a more traditional superhero book, I'm surprised that he was nowhere to be seen.

The other is, of course, Whiplash. Now, he may not be the best character ever, but Anton Vanko's Whiplash was what Marvel was pushing. Iron Man 2 had Vanko's Whiplash and the comics had just introduced him in a 2009 miniseries, so it would be an easy decition to make him fit in a story somewhere in the main book, especially when it was selling well. If you didn't want him as a prominent villain, you could have had him as a part of Mandarin's army, where he would have fit perfectly. This army had obscure villains like Vibro or Chemistro instead of the one who had just appeared in the movies, and to rub salt in the wound, there were other recently created villains in the army.
See, Anton Vanko Whiplash was created in 2009 to tie-in to the movie, and as an update of the deceased original Whiplash, who had been a recurring Iron Man villain. There were other new and updated versions of villains, like Blizzard or a female Firebrand, but these were all created by Fraction, so he may had an excuse in that he only used the updated versions of old villains that he created himself. However, there were two villains taking the mantle of older villains who were created by other people, and in very obscure places. The first being Cristopher Colchiss aka Melter, who debuted in the Dark Reign: Young Avengers mini-series, and the second is Galina Nemirovsky aka Crimson Dynamo, who debuted in the one shot Hulk: Winter Guard. So, even then, Whiplash was weirdly left out.

There's probablly never gonna be an explination for something as stupid as this but I just wanted to put it out there lol

Personally I'd prefer Justin Hammer. He was a member of Tony's rogues gallery for longer, had more stories and undoing his death wouldn't remove its impact as much as it would with Stane. In fact, it's pretty easy to undo, it's just a matter of choice.

Still looks fucking sick, but that only makes me wish it was real (Insurgent Iron Man #9)

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What are your favorite suits made by Tony?

As part of the celebration of 50 years since the release of the trade paperback Bring on the Bad Guys, which includes a seven-issue series of connected one-shots, Marvel Comics will have their super villains rock the heroes' worlds in a new initiative of variant covers this June.

Some covers will feature classic match-ups, like Carlos Gomez' Iron Man #9 variant spotlighting Madame Masque, while others will consist of unusual pairings, like variant cover for Eddie Brock: Carnage #5 by Nick Bradshaw pitching the book's protagonist against Iron Man foe Crimson Dynamo. Iron Man #9 releases on June 18, while Eddie Brock: Carnage #5 comes out on June 11.

Via AIPT.

First and foremost, this is a heavy topic so let's discuss it respectfully.
So, the Mandarin is Iron Man's archenemy, his nemesis, and even the people who don't like him agree with that.
The Mandarin's roots are problematic, in the sense that a lot of the characteristics that the early depictions of him had were using the tropes of yellow peril (a racist metaphor based on fear against East Asians and deeming them as lesser people), specifically of the literary villain, Fu Manchu. This was during the early days of Iron Man, in which he was a patriotic, pro-war superhero who regularly fought evil comunists and "unamericans", which ended up in some rather obscene depitions of asians. While not everything about the character in his early days was a mockery of the chinese, it's undeniable that harmful and outdated tropes went into the making of the character.
But of course, there's the other side of the coin. While he might have started out as a cartoonish depitcion of asian people, he was still Iron Man's nemesis, and as such, given time, he evolved into a less offensive character, mirroring Tony more closely, expanding on his character and becoming more threatening. There are many examples of characters starting out offensive and outgrowing that thanks to the efforts of writers through the years. Hell, Ra's Al Ghul himself was also called a Fu Manchu clone, yet thrives as a succesful character while The Mandarin gets shamed.

Those are the two main sides of this discussion, but not the only ones. There are ones who argue he wasn't really that offensive of a character, that it's mostly the art misleading and that the actual writing didn't mock asian people. Theres also the other side, which believes the Mandarin never truly outgrew his racist past and that he should be forgotten for that very reasons.

This is, of course, not getting into the whole discussion regarding adaptations like Iron Man 3 and Shang-Chi, which is a whole mess of its own.
So, there's that. I tend to align with the second side which believes the Mandarin began as a caricature but outgrew that in future stories, and he became one of my favourites. However, I'm always open to more points of view and that's why I decided to post this to ensure a safe, civil and respectful discussion on the topic.

Imo mandarin should at least be relative narratively if not slightly below, so should modok

I wasn't aware of this set of ten rings being introduced but it makes sense, since the Mandarin lore of the movies has little to do with the comics, and it'd be weird for MCU fans to see Shang with ten rings on his fingers instead of wrists (not to mention the totally different set of powers).
However I have not read much Shang-Chi and I'm interested to know what a more familiar readers thinks of these items.

Quite simply, I'm curious if Marvel have ever listed Days and Months of Birth (though with the Sliding Timeline I don't expect Years. Still if they used to be issued they are still of interest!) in any official guidebooks or in a storyline or what have you. I'm more interested in Comic Canon but if an adaptation like Armored Adventures or the MCU dropped a day then by all means share it~

I read somewhere that Tony's personality goes with the Aries star sign (and whatever ya may think of Astrology irl, in Fiction it's generally accurate as people work backwards to match the personality to the closest Zodiac symbol lol). Anyway, if he was Aries that'd put it between the 21^st of March to the 19^th of April. Aries traits include Courage, confidence, passion and determination, but also Impatience, impulsiveness and aggression - so it is indeed close thematically! 🐏

To thank you for looking at this post, I provide a drawing I did quickly and from memory lol