Mantis is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Don Heck, the character first appeared in The Avengers #112 (June 1973). Mantis has been depicted as a member of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as the mother of Sequoia.
Pom Klementieff portrayed the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Guardians 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), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). The character has also appeared in the animated series Guardians of the Galaxy, where she was voiced by Jennifer Hale, and several video games.
Creation In an interview, Englehart commented on the character's creation: "I wanted someone to shake up the Avengers, so I came up with a femme 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."
In the book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe, Englehart described how Mantis was introduced to force her male teammates to act as adults.
Publication history Mantis first appeared in The Avengers #112 (June 1973), drawn by Don Heck and created by writer Steve Englehart, beginning the "Celestial Madonna" saga. After leaving Marvel Comics, Englehart carried Mantis's tale through three other companies: moving from Marvel to DC to Eclipse to Image and finally back to Marvel.
In DC Comics' Justice League of America #142, she appears as Willow. 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." (Mantis refers to herself in the third person as "this one"Guardians: Trivia About MantisGuardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Turned Mantis Into the Butt of a Joke) By the end of the issue, she leaves to give birth.
In the Eclipse Comics series Scorpio Rose #2, the character calls herself Lorelei. 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 in Coyote Collection #1 from Image Comics, the character's fourth company. Lorelei is later mentioned in Englehart's 2010 novel The Long Man (page 355, mass market paperback edition).
Fictional character biography Mantis is the half-Vietnamese, half-German daughter of Gustav Brandt (Libra) and was born in Huế, Vietnam. In her childhood, her father leaves her in Vietnam at the Temple of the alien Priests of Pama, a sect of the Kree. The Kree believe that Mantis may become the Celestial Madonna and mate with the eldest Cotati on Earth to become the mother of the Celestial Messiah Sequoia, "the most important being in the universe".
Mantis excels in her martial arts studies, but upon reaching adulthood, she is mind-wiped and sent into the world to gain life experience. She becomes a sex worker and barmaid in a Vietnamese tavern, where she meets Swordsman. She helps him regain his self-respect and follows him when the former villain attempts to rejoin the Avengers. She becomes an ally of the Avengers when the Swordsman rejoins the group.The Avengers #114 (August 1973)
With the Avengers, Mantis has many adventures. She battles the original Zodiac, and learns that Libra is her father and that she was raised by the Priests of Pama. Mantis becomes taken with Vision, and—although rejected by the android—neglects Swordsman. Alongside the Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness, she was abducted by Kang. 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 after he dies.Giant-Size Avengers #2 (November 1974) Mantis then formally joins the Avengers and is revealed to be the Celestial Madonna. She marries a Cotati inhabiting the reanimated body of Swordsman, leaving the Avengers and the Earth to mate with him.Giant-Size Avengers #4 (June 1975)
After she bears her child Sequoia, she takes the name "Mandy Celestine" and lives with him for a year in Willimantic, Connecticut before leaving him to the Cotati and leaving for space with the Silver Surfer.Silver Surfer (vol. 3) #4-5 (October - November 1987) The Silver Surfer falls in love with Mantis. Mantis developed green skin and increased durability during her pregnancy; she grows bitter with her life and the way she was forced to abandon her child. This comes to a head when Mantis is caught in an explosion and presumed dead by Silver Surfer.Silver Surfer (vol. 3) #9 (March 1988) She survives, but splits into multiple versions of herself, representing conflicting aspects of her psyche that could no longer co-exist inside her mind.West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #37 (October 1988)
Aside from mentions by Silver Surfer, Mantis does not reappear until the 1995 storyline "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, and her Cotati husband. The storyline was controversial, so much so that Kurt Busiek, in Avengers Forever limited series, retconned the Mantis who appeared in the story as being a Space Phantom imposter.
Eventually, Mantis reappears in the Steve Englehart written Avengers: 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 of Thanos. 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.
After the defeat of Ultron and the Phalanx, Mantis takes up residence on Knowhere with the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and becomes their counselor.Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #1 (July 2008)
During the Secret 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 shares this knowledge with the rest of the team, causing most of them to leave. Mantis is promoted to field status by Rocket Raccoon.Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #4-6 (October - December 2008)
Mantis rescues Peter 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 the Age of Ultron storyline.Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 3) #5 (July 2013)
During the "Empyre" storyline, Mantis returns to Earth upon being contacted by Black Panther about the Cotati invasion and plans to reason with her son.Empyre: Avengers #1 (September 2020)
Characterization Powers and abilities Mantis has attained a mastery of meditational 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, a telepathic 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-like Cotati and with plant life. She has the power of astral projection. Mantis had the ability to separate her physical and astral 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-like simulacrum 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.Avengers: Celestial Quest #1-8 (2001)
As of her appearance in Annihilation Conquest: Star-Lord, Mantis also appears to have gained telepathic and precognitive abilities, and apparently now labors under a constant awareness of future events. During the series, Mantis displayed pyrokinesis.Annihilation: Conquest #5 (May 2008) She can remain invisible to the Phalanx and extend her power to cloak others.Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord #3-4 (November - December 2007)
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 as Captain America (although he was distracted while fighting a dragon).The Avengers #114 (August 1973) 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.The Avengers #123 (May 1974)
Personality In her first appearances, Mantis represents the "Dragon Lady" archetype, that of a mysterious Eastern seductress whose sexuality causes tension among the male Avengers. 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),Mantis at Writeups.org she renounced her pride after Swordsman's tragic death.The Avengers #130 (December 1974) Mantis is highly intelligent, with her deductive skills rivaling those of Vision's; in Vision's own words, she has a "remarkable mind".The Avengers #134 (April 1975)
She almost always refers to herself in the third person as "this one", "she", and occasionally "Mantis", 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"). 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.Silver Surfer (vol. 3) #6 (December 1987)
Costumes She wears a green-and-yellow dress, a hairstyle which mimics insectile antennae, and goes barefoot.10 MCU Characters Who Still Haven't Worn Their Comic-Accurate Costumes 16 Years Later
Reception Accolades In 2011, Comics Buyer's Guide ranked Mantis 99th in their 100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list. In 2015, Entertainment Weekly ranked Mantis 43rd in their "Let's rank every Avenger ever" list. In 2019, Comic Book Resources ranked Mantis 10th in their "10 Most Powerful Telepaths In The Marvel Universe" list. In 2019, Sideshow ranked Mantis 6th in their "Top 10 Bug-Themed Comic Book Characters" list.