Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1971498-20140219002039/@comment-1971498-20140219121943

Here's another quote from Drew Peace where he talks about the "Mandarin" mantle and how they incorporated it into Killian's scheme and how adopted it:

''On developing the Mandarin for the movies: We didn't even really consider, beyond a couple of days of conversation, any version of the traditional character. We did kick about, briefly, the "Story of My Life" Matt Fraction version that appears in the "Invincible Iron Man" annual, which is, appreciably, the darkest story that has ever appeared in "Iron Man." It's so brutally dark, and because of that, it didn't feel appropriate either. We talked about the modern version, Khan kind of as a businessman, and we just -- it was kind of there, in our pool of ideas. It was definitely something that we loved the idea of as, literally, the force of a foe and a title, a mantle. that's part of how we kind of came to [our] own place with the Mandarin. For a while, the bad guy was [Mallen]. We were using elements way more from "Extremis" than we did.But it just came back around and came in, because there's something about the idea of a powerful-seeming nemesis, that actually played into the thematic idea that we wanted to do.'' -source

So uh yeah, Killian essentially adopted the mantle of the "Mandarin" as his own and this quote showcases how they came about with the idea behind his conception as a Mallen/Mandarin combination.