In "Bits 'n Chips", it is revealed that Monitor's security system includes an energy mesh which instantly incinerates anything which touches it. Presumably, Rick designed this with Ming's Ice Robots in mind, but the episode has Ming turn Dynak-X against the Defenders, causing her to deploy this trap when Mandrake, Lothar, Rick and LJ enter Monitor after returning from the chess tournament. Lothar's grappling rope starts to fray while the four of them are crossing over the mesh and breaks while Mandrake is still on it, which would have led to him falling to his doom had Lothar not been able to save him. Burning to death is not a very pleasant way to go and watching it happen is even worse. Not to mention that, with Mandrake dead, there would have been no-one to "make mental contact" with Dynak, so even if Rick still figured out that he needed to get inside Dynak in order to fix the problem, he, LJ and Jedda would have had no way of knowing about Ming's Electronic Maggot until they came face-to-face with it. There would also have been no-one to warn Rick when Ming tried to trick him into smashing the crystal at Dynak's centre, which would give Ming access to the Earth's military arsenals - and there's no telling what that would have led to.
Apparently, Ming has never heard of the Grandfather Paradox. In one episode, he manipulates the Defenders into a time vortex and sends them back in time, along with an amorphous mutant life-form which he has developed. Said life-form is designed "to wipe out all life on Earth." However, if you stop to think about it, the Defenders must have ancestors in the time period they end up in, and if life on Earth were wiped out at that point, there would be no Defenders for Ming to send back in time, so the mutant life-form wouldn't get sent back in time either, so life on Earth wouldn't get wiped out, so the Defenders would still exist and Ming could still send them back in time with the mutant . . . Admittedly, Ming could take the mutant back in time himself, but he likes to get others to do his dirty work for him. In any case, cancelling out Flash's existence would mean Flash and Ming never became enemies, and Ming would likely never have heard of Earth in the first place, so he wouldn't attempt to invade the planet. And no invasion of Earth by Ming's forces means the plot to send the mutant back in time wouldn't happen either.
