Marvel Reveals The Mandarin And More In New ‘Iron Man 3′ Images, Poster

A day ahead of the release of the movie's first teaser trailer (Well, second if you include the teaser trailer for the teaser trailer... Don't ask), Marvel Studios has released new images from - and the first poster for - next summer's Iron Man 3, including the first peek at Ben Kingsley as the bad guy behind the whole thing: The Mandarin.

Images from the movie have been released to both USA Today and Entertainment Weekly, revealing new armor for Iron Man (as glimpsed very briefly in the pre-trailer trailer that went live over the weekend), intense looks between Iron Man and Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts, and Kingsley's shadowy bad guy.

According to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, the movie Mandarin won't share the same origin as his comic book incarnation, but instead be revealed to be connected to the Ten Rings terrorist group from the first movie. "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," Feige told EW. "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."

As if these images weren't enough, Marvel has also released the first official poster for the movie, showing that Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark has his choice of armors to choose from in the new movie. If only someone could convince him to go with a different color scheme one of these days...

Iron Man 3 will arrive in theaters on May 3, 2013.