| Mantis | |
|---|---|
 Mantis Art byTom Raney | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | The Avengers #112 (June 1973) |
| Created by | Steve Englehart (writer) Don Heck (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Species | Human mutate |
| Team affiliations | Guardians of the Galaxy Avengers Knowhere Corps |
| Partnerships | Swordsman Kang the Conqueror Vision |
| Notable aliases | Willow Lorelei Mandy Celestine Celestial Madonna |
| Abilities |
|
Mantis is a character appearing inAmerican comic books published byMarvel Comics. Created by writerSteve Englehart and artistDon Heck, the character first appeared inThe Avengers #112 (June 1973). Mantis has been depicted as a member of theAvengers and theGuardians of the Galaxy, as the bride ofKang the Conqueror, and as the mother ofSequoia.
Pom Klementieff portrayed thecharacter in theMarvel Cinematic Universe filmsGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017),Avengers: Infinity War (2018),Avengers: Endgame (2019),Thor: Love and Thunder (2022),The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022), andGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).
In an interview, Englehart commented on the character's creation: "I wanted someone to shake up the Avengers, so I came up with afemme fatale, but right after I did, I also came up with the Avengers-Defenders Clash, and I needed to use my femme as a solid team player, not a disrupter. I found that interesting – a character I'd created for a purpose who now had no purpose, and as a young writer exploring my parameters, I started letting her tell her own story – meaning, every issue I'd tell my overall Avengers story, with my various character developments, and things then would happen that she had to react to. Those reactions – or what I conceived her reactions to be – revealed her character for me, step-by-step, as the worlds I was definitely creating grew bigger and bigger, and in that way the femme fatale became the Celestial Madonna."[1]
Mantis first appeared inThe Avengers #112 (June 1973), drawn byDon Heck and created by writerSteve Englehart, beginning the "Celestial Madonna" saga.[2] After leavingMarvel Comics, Englehart carried Mantis's tale through three other companies before returning to Marvel,[3] moving from Marvel toDC toEclipse toImage and finally back to Marvel again.[4]
InDC Comics'Justice League of America #142, she appears asWillow. Asked where she came from, Willow replies, "This one has come from a place she must not name, to reach a place no man must know." (Mantisrefers to herself in the third person as "this one"[5][6][7]) By the end of the issue, she leaves to go give birth.
In theEclipse Comics seriesScorpio Rose #2, the character calls herselfLorelei.[8] By this time, she has given birth to a son. What would have been issue #3, a "lost" Lorelei/Scorpio Rose story was later published inCoyote Collection #1 fromImage Comics, the character's fourth company. Lorelei is later mentioned in Englehart's 2010 novelThe Long Man (page 355, mass market paperback edition).
Mantis is the half-Vietnamese, half-German daughter of Gustav Brandt—Libra—and was born inHuế,Vietnam. In her childhood, her father leaves her in Vietnam at the Temple of the alien Priests of Pama, a sect of theKree. The Kree believe she might become the Celestial Madonna and mate with the eldestCotati on Earth to become the mother of the Celestial MessiahSequoia, "the most important being in the universe".[9]
She excels in hermartial arts studies, but upon reaching adulthood, she ismind-wiped and sent into the world to gain life experience. She becomes asex worker and barmaid in aVietnamese tavern, where she meets theSwordsman. She helps him regain his self-respect and follows him when the former villain attempts to rejoin the Avengers.[10] She becomes an Avengers ally when the Swordsman rejoins the Avengers, and she battles the Lion God alongside them.[11]
With the Avengers, Mantis has many adventures. She battles the originalZodiac, and learns that Libra is her father and that she was raised by the Priests of Pama. She encounters theStar-Stalker,[12] battlesThanos,[13]Klaw andSolarr,[14]Nuklo,[15] and then alongside the Avengers,Fantastic Four, andInhumans, she facesUltron at the wedding ofQuicksilver andCrystal.[16]
Mantis becomes taken with theVision, and—although rejected by the android—neglects the Swordsman. Alongside theScarlet Witch andAgatha Harkness, she was abducted byKang. She was revealed as the Celestial Madonna and witnessed the death of the Swordsman at the hands of Kang, only realizing the depth of her love for the Swordsman just as he dies.[17] She then buried the Swordsman, and battled theTitanic Three.[18] She would learn the origins of theKree-Skrull War, the Cotati, and the Priests of Pama.[19] Mantis then formally joins the Avengers and is revealed to be, indeed, the Celestial Madonna. She marries aCotati in the reanimated body of the Swordsman, leaving the Avengers and the Earth to mate with him.[20]
After she bears her childSequoia,[21] she takes the name "Mandy Celestine" and lives with him for a year inWillimantic,Connecticut before handing him to his father's people and going into space with theSilver Surfer and battling theElders of the Universe alongside the Surfer.[22] The Silver Surfer finds himself falling in love with Mantis. However, Mantis (whose body was now green and had begun to manifest new powers of invulnerability that allowed her to survive in space due to side-effects of her pregnancy) grows bitter with her life and the way she was forced to abandon her child.[volume & issue needed] This comes to a head when Mantis is caught in an explosion and presumed dead by Silver Surfer.[volume & issue needed] She survives, but the strain of the previous years causes her to literally split into multiple versions of herself, each representing conflicting aspects of her psyche that could no longer co-exist inside her mind.[volume & issue needed]
The fragments arrive on Earth and one version of Mantis rejoins theWest Coast Avengers team, with portions of her memories missing.[volume & issue needed] (Steve Englehart intended the storyline involving Mantis and her amnesia to be his next major plotline, but editorial problems caused him to quit the series, with the plotline resolved hastily.[citation needed]) Mantis discovers, through the temporarily resurrected corpse of the Swordsman, that her psyche had shattered and that she needs to find her counterparts in order to restore her memories.[volume & issue needed] She made her way toNew York City where she encountered theFantastic Four as they dealt with the effects of the "Inferno" storyline.[23] Kang pursued Mantis, not realizing she had lost her power and hoping to use her to attack theDreaming Celestial, and in the process the Surfer was summoned to Earth.[24] With the aid of the Cotati, Kang was defeated but Mantis realized she must leave her body and join with the Cotati to raise her son.[25]
Aside from mentions by Silver Surfer, Mantis does not reappear until 1995's controversial Avengers crossover story "The Crossing". In "The Crossing", Mantis returns as the villainous bride of Kang the Conqueror with the intention of bringing death to the Avengers; her father Libra (who by now was going by the name "Moonraker" as part ofForce Works); and the Cotati alien who had possessed the Swordsman's body and married/impregnated her. Her anger at her father (whom she hadvivisected) and the Cotati center around their "defilement" of her and that she hates the Avengers for believing their manipulative lies.[volume & issue needed]
The storyline was controversial, so much so that Kurt Busiek, inAvengers Foreverlimited series,retconned the Mantis who appeared in the story as being aSpace Phantom brainwashed into thinking he was Mantis.[volume & issue needed]
Eventually, Mantis reappears in the Steve Englehart writtenAvengers: Celestial Quest limited series. She returns to Earth and merges with her remaining fragmented portions of her personality after the first four are killed by a clone ofThanos.[volume & issue needed] The final Mantis merges with them to become a "complete" Mantis for the first time since her dispersion. Thus reformed, she and a group of the Avengers go into space to stop "Thanos" from killing her son, Quoi, who by this time is a rebellious teenager desperate to leave the isolation of the Cotati home-world and travel the stars. During the adventure, Mantis flirts with Vision (with the implication that she has sex with him), but ultimately ends the flirting when she realizes that he has feelings for his estranged wife Scarlet Witch, who is jealous of Mantis and Vision's friendship. Mantis also appears in the "Avengers Disassembled" storyline, although many occurrences in that storyline are illusions.[volume & issue needed]
Mantis appears in the 2007 miniseriesAnnihilation: Conquest: Star-Lord, where she is shown as a Kree prisoner who volunteers for a mission led by Peter Quill, a.k.a.Star-Lord.[26]
After the defeat ofUltron and thePhalanx, Mantis takes up residence onKnowhere with the rest of theGuardians of the Galaxy, and becomes their counselor.[27]
During theSecret Invasion storyline, it was discovered that Star-Lord had Mantis use her mental powers to manipulate the members of the Guardians of the Galaxy to join the team against their will. Overhearing Mantis and Star-Lord converse about their deception,Drax shared this knowledge with the rest of the team. This caused most of the members to leave. Mantis was promoted to field status byRocket Raccoon.[28]
Mantis was apparently killed by theMagus, who shot her andCosmo with a powerful blast of energy.[29] He holds them,Phyla-Vell,Gamora, andMajor Victory in suspended animation before they are eventually rescued.[30]
Mantis later rescuesPeter Quill from a group of pursuing Spartax soldiers. Though she refuses to join his new incarnation of the Guardians, she helps him track down the source of mysterious "time quakes" that have been plaguing him in the wake of theAge of Ultron storyline.[31]
During the "Empyre" storyline, Mantis returns to Earth upon being contacted byBlack Panther about the Cotati invasion and plans to reason with her son.[32]
Mantis has attained a mastery ofmeditational disciplines, giving her an unusual amount of control over her body, including autonomic functions like heartbeat, bleeding, and breathing, as well as awareness of pain, allowing her to more quickly heal injuries through sheer force of will and affording almost superhuman reflexes and reactions. She also had psychic empathy, atelepathic power that allowed her to sense the emotions of others.
Mantis gained additional abilities as a result of communion with the Prime Cotati. Her empathic ability enabled her to communicate with the plant-likeCotati and with plant life.[33] She has the power ofastral projection.[34] Mantis had the ability to separate her physical andastral forms, projecting her consciousness from her body, allowing her to travel interplanetary distances. She also had the ability to transfer her astral form to any place where plant life exists. She could form and inhabit a plant-likesimulacrum of her human body for herself out of the destination planet's local vegetation. Her fighting skills remained intact, and her empathic abilities were heightened to a superhuman degree and extended to the planet's flora and biosphere. She could control the vegetation within her vicinity.
During her confrontations with a powerful Thanos clone, she displayed superhuman strength, a talent to simultaneously inhabit multiple simulacra, and the ability to project strong blasts of energy. She has not been seen using these powers since.[35]
As of her appearance inAnnihilation Conquest: Star-Lord, Mantis also appears to have gained telepathic and precognitive abilities, and apparently now labors under a constant awareness of future events.[36] During the series, Mantis displayedpyrokinesis.[37] She can remain invisible to thePhalanx and extend her power to cloak others.[38]
Additionally, Mantis was trained by the Priests of Pama to become a grandmistress of the martial arts, demonstrated as capable of defeating opponents as skilled asCaptain America (although he was distracted while fighting a dragon).[39] She could also instinctively sense weak points in an opponent and with her skills in pressure points, knock out beings as powerful as the thunder god,Thor.[39][40]
In her first appearances, Mantis represents the "Dragon Lady" archetype, that of a mysterious Eastern seductress whose sexuality causes tension among the male Avengers.[41] She is assertive and confident in her powers, and while she appeared somewhat arrogant at first (as illustrated by her breakup with Swordsman when she chose Vision over him),[42] she renounced her pride after Swordsman's tragic death.[43] Mantis is highly intelligent, with her deductive skills rivaling those of Vision's;[42] in Vision's own words, she has a "remarkable mind".[44]
She almost alwaysrefers to herself in the third person as "this one", "she", and occasionally "Mantis",[6][7] which has to do with her upbringing at the Temple of the Priests of Pama (her husband the Cotati Elder, who spent a significant part of his life at the Temple, also referred to himself as "this one" instead of "I").[20][5] This speech mannerism is of importance for her, for when the Silver Surfer asked her to stop speaking in the third person, she refused to comply.[45]
She wears a green-and-yellow dress,[41] a hairstyle which mimics insectile antennae,[42] and goesbarefoot.[46][47]
In theHeroes Reborn reality, the alternate version of Mantis is the womanKang the Conqueror loves, and Kang's motive to attack the 20th Century and the Avengers is to show that he is worthy of her love. Mantis recognizes her love for Kang after he is killed byLoki, who kills her shortly after.[54]
In theHouse of M reality, Mantis is a member ofShang-Chi's Dragons criminal organization, alongside,Swordsman,Zaran, andMachete.[55] Mantis is arrested after the Dragons are ambushed by theKingpin's assassins. She and Shang-Chi are two of the three survivors of the group.[56]
DuringOld Man Quill, Mantis continues to work with the Guardians for decades, long after Quill drops out. The main threat they encounter in this timeline is the Universal Church of Truth, which commonly destroys entire planets.[57]
Mantis appears in media set in theMarvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), portrayed byPom Klementieff. This version is the daughter ofEgo the Living Planet and half-sister ofPeter Quill who initially serves the former before helping to stop him and joining the Guardians of the Galaxy. She first appears inGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2[59] and makes subsequent appearances inAvengers: Infinity War,[60]Avengers: Endgame,[61]Thor: Love and Thunder,[62] andGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3[63] as well asThe Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.[64] Additionally, an alternate reality variant of Mantis appears in theWhat If...? episode "What If... Thor Were an Only Child?".[65][58]
Mantis, based on the MCU incarnation, appears in theGuardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout!, portrayed again by Pom Klementieff.[72]
[Mantis] often referred to herself in the third person as "this one"
