Although they've appeared in Marvel Studios films, in one form or another, the Red Skull and Mandarin remain in the mix for future assaults against Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

In an interview with IGN, studio President Kevin Feige spoke about the possibility that the "real" Mandarin — as in the actual ring-clad legend, not washed-up actor Trevor Slattery — could factor into an upcoming Marvel movie.

"There have been [talks]. That's one of the reasons we wanted to do the fun [All Hail the King] short that Drew Pearce wrote and directed," Feige said. "That was to clarify, 'Hey, just because we did this thing doesn't mean this other thing doesn't exist.' And as we were making Iron Man 3 — and I think Drew's spoken about this — that was always our intention, was that Aldrich Killian was perverting the notion of these things he's heard."

As for Red Skull, the Hydra villain's days aren't necessarily numbered — not even after he was seemingly incinerated by the Tesseract.

"Well, the way we showed his 'demise' in The First Avenger was to showcase to people that he could perhaps pop up again sometime," Feige said. "I honestly don't know when or where that would be."