Earlier today, Marvel Studios announced that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has begun production in Atlanta. Director James Gunn also confirmed the rumors that actress Pom Klementieff will play Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Casual Marvel fans are probably wondering “who the hell is Mantis?!” The short answer is that she’s going to be the newest member of the Guardians, and she was one of the founding members of this incarnation of the team in Marvel’s comic book universe. But her origins are quite strange.
Mantis made her debut in Avengers # 112 by writer Steve Englehart and artist Don Heck. While the Mantis in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will likely be an alien, the original version of the character was half-German and half-Vietnamese, and her father was the supervillain known as Libra!
While fighting alongside the Avengers, Mantis became a member of the team and she formed close attachments to Swordsman and the android known as Vision. She was initially depicted as a martial arts expert, but later incarnations of Mantis have shown her with telepathy, precognition, pyrokinetic powers, enhanced empathy with all living beings, and the ability to control plants. The antenna on Mantis’ head have also become more prominent over the years.
Later, Marvel saddled Mantis with an overly convoluted origin, that basically wrote her out of the Avengers for several years. Mantis was revealed to be the Celestial Madonna, the woman destined to give birth to the Celestial Savior. When Swordsman was killed, his body was reanimated by an alien, who married Mantis before they departed Earth forever. It was also a double wedding with the Scarlet Witch and Vision, which totally wasn’t weird at all.
But forever isn’t a very long time in superhero comics. Mantis resurfaced in the Silver Surfer ongoing series in the late ‘80s as she took on a more alien appearance and her skin turned green. It was broadly hinted that Mantis and the Surfer were falling in love before she appeared to die. Another version of Mantis appeared on Earth soon after, before she also seemed to die to help raise her son on another plane of existence.
Officially, Mantis didn’t reappear until Englehart’s 2001 miniseries Avengers: Celestial Quest. Basically, everyone pretended that Mantis’ appearance as a villainess in Avengers: The Crossing never happened. And because The Crossing was a terrible story, no one argued about retconning it away. However, Avengers: Celestial Quest wasn’t exactly a masterpiece either, as it attempted to finally deal with the destiny of Mantis and her son defeating the son of Thanos and Death alongside a few of Mantis’ former Avengers teammates.
After that, Mantis wasn’t used until Annihilation Conquest: Star-Lord, a tie-in miniseries to the Annihilation Conquest crossover series. Mantis, Star-Lord, Groot, Rocket Raccoon, Bug, and Deathcry were a makeshift team who were sent on a suicide mission to stop the advance of the alien Phalanx invasion. Inadvertently, writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning had created a new team that became known as the second version of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
From there, a new Guardians of the Galaxy ongoing comic book series was launched featuring Mantis and most of the team introduced in Annihilation Conquest. Mantis stayed with the Guardians through the end of the ongoing series and the Thanos Imperative crossover.
When Guardians of the Galaxy was relaunched in 2012, Mantis was no longer a member of the team. However, Mantis has appeared sporadically in the Guardians comic, and she will likely rejoin the team as the second movie comes closer to release in May 2017.
Have any questions about Mantis? Let us know in the comment section below!
