Mantis (Marvel Comics)
| Mantis | |
|---|---|
 Mantis. Art by Tom Raney. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Avengers (vol. 1) #112 (June 1973) |
| Created by | Steve Englehart Don Heck |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Mandy Celestine |
| Team affiliations | Guardians of the Galaxy Avengers West Coast Avengers |
| Notable aliases | Willow, Lorelei, Mandy Celestine |
| Abilities | Martial arts skills Ability to communicate telepathically with the Cotati Empathy Plant manipulation Accelerated healing factor Astral projection |
Mantis is a fictional character, a superheroine in the Marvel Universe, and former member of the Avengers. She first appeared in Avengers (volume 1) #112 (June 1973), drawn by Don Heck. Created by writer Steve Englehart, the character may be unique in the fact that she later appeared (in slightly different name and form) in books published by other comic book companies, moving from Marvel to DC to Eclipse to Image and finally back to Marvel again.
Fictional character biography
Marvel beginnings
Mantis is the half-Vietnamese, half-German daughter of Gustav Brandt—Libra—and was born in Hue, 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 she might become the Celestial Madonna and mate with the eldest Cotati on Earth to become the mother of the Celestial Messiah, "the most important being in the universe."
She excels in her martial arts studies, but when she reaches adulthood, she is mind-wiped and sent into the world to gain life experience. She becomes a prostitute and barmaid in a Vietnamese bar, where she meets the Swordsman. She helps him regain his self-respect and follows him when the former villain attempts to rejoin the Avengers. She became an Avengers ally when the Swordsman rejoined the Avengers, and she battled the Lion God alongside them.[1]
With the Avengers, Mantis battled the original Zodiac, and learned that Libra was her father and that she was raised by the Priests of Pama. With the Avengers she battled the Star-Stalker.[2] Alongside the Avengers, Captain Mar-Vell, and Drax the Destroyer, she battled Thanos.[3] With the Avengers, she then battled Klaw and Solarr.[4] With the Avengers, she then battled Nuklo.[5] Alongside the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Inhumans, she battled Ultron at the wedding of Quicksilver and Crystal.[6]
While with the Avengers, Mantis becomes taken with the Vision, and — although rejected by the android — neglects the 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 the Conqueror, only proclaiming her love for the Swordsman as he dies.[7] With the Avengers, she then buried the Swordsman, and battled the Titanic Three.[8] Alongside the Avengers, she learned the origins of the Kree-Skrull War, the Cotati, and the Priests of Pama.[9] Mantis then formally joined the Avengers and is revealed to be, indeed, the Celestial Madonna and marries a Cotati in the reanimated body of the Swordsman, leaving the Avengers and the Earth to mate with him.[10]
DC Comics: Willow
After leaving Marvel Comics, writer Steve Englehart carried Mantis's tale through two other companies before returning to Marvel.[11][12]
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 as "this one".) After two issues, she leaves to go give birth.
Eclipse: Lorelei
In the Eclipse Comics series Scorpio Rose #2 (according to Englehart's website [1]), 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.
Marvel history resumes
After she bears her child, Sequoia, she takes the name "Mandy Celestine" and lives with him for a year in the suburbs of Connecticut before handing him to his father's people and going into space with the Silver Surfer and battling the Elders of the Universe alongside the Surfer.[13] The Silver Surfer finds himself falling in love with Mantis. But 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. This comes to a head when Mantis is caught in an explosion and presumed dead by Silver Surfer. 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 mind that could no longer co-exist inside her mind.
The fragments arrive on Earth and one version of Mantis rejoins the West Coast Avengers team, with portions of her memories missing. (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.) 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. She made her way to New York City where she encountered the Fantastic Four as they dealt with the effects of Inferno. Kang pursued Mantis and in the process the Surfer was summoned to Earth. 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.
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 of Force Works); and the Cotati alien who had possessed the Swordsman's body and married/impregnated her. Her anger at her father (whom she had vivisected) and the Cotati center around their "defilement" of her and that she hates the Avengers for believing their manipulative lies.
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 brainwashed into thinking he was Mantis.
Eventually, Mantis reappears in the Steve Englehart written Avengers: Celestial Quest mini-series. She returns to Earth and merges with her remaining fragmented portions of her personality (which we learn represent "freak, mother, prostitute, mystic and Avenger") after the first four are killed by Thanos (later retroactively declared to be a clone of the real 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. 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 "Avengers Disassembled" storyline, although many occurrences in that storyline are illusions.
Mantis appears in the 2007 mini-series Annihilation 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.
After the defeat of Ultron and the Phalanx, Mantis takes up residence on the Knowhere station with the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy. She has assumed the role of counselor for the group, using her mental abilities and knowledge of the mind to maintain a balance with all the very eclectic personalities of the group.
Powers and abilities
Mantis was trained by the Priests of Pama to have total control over her body, and had almost superhuman reflexes, thus making her a mistress of the martial arts as developed by the Priests of Pama. She could instinctively sense weak points in an opponent and knock out any opponent (even Thor). She 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, and the ability to recuperate quickly after being injured. Her control over her body was so powerful, that if she was injured, she could quickly heal her injuries through sheer force of will. She also had psychic empathy, a telepathic power that allowed her to sense the emotions of others.
Mantis gained additional abilities are a result of communion with the Prime Cotati. Her empathic ability enabled her to communicate with the plant-like Cotati and with plant-life. To travel in space, 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.
As of her appearance in Annihilation Conquest: Star-Lord, Mantis also appears to have gained precognitive abilities, and apparently now labors under a constant awareness of future events. The source of the these new powers is as yet unclear.
Other versions
Heroes Reborn
In the Heroes Reborn reality, the alternate version of Mantis is the woman Kang 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 by Loki, who kills her shortly after.
House of M
In this reality, Mantis is a member of Shang-Chi's Dragons criminal organization, alongside, Swordsman, Zaran and Machete[14]. Mantis is arrested after the Dragons are ambushed by the Kingpin's assassins. She and Shang-Chi are two of the three survivors of the group.[15]
Bibliography (incomplete)
Marvel
- "Classical" 1970s appearances :
- The Avengers v1, #112-135, Giant-Size Avengers #1-4. (In flashback The Avengers v1, #157, #280.)
- Defenders v1, #9-11.
- Captain Marvel v1, #31-33.
- Silver Surfer v3,, 1987: (at least) #3-9.
- West Coast Avengers : (at least) #37-39 & Annual #3
- Fantastic Four: #323-325
DC
Eclipse
- Scorpio Rose #2
Image
References
- ^ Avengers #114
- ^ Avengers #120-124
- ^ Avengers #125; Captain Marvel #33
- ^ Avengers #126
- ^ Giant-Size Avengers #1
- ^ Avengers #127; Fantastic Four #150
- ^ Avengers #129; Giant-Size Avengers #2
- ^ Avengers #130-132; Giant-Size Avengers #3
- ^ Avengers #133-135
- ^ Giant-Size Avengers #4
- ^ Comics Should Be Good! » Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #16!
- ^ Doing Comics The Stainless Steve Englehart Way:
- ^ Silver Surfer Vol. 3 #4-5
- ^ House of M: Avengers #2
- ^ House of M: Avengers #4