Mantis (Marvel Comics)
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Mantis is a fictional character, a superheroine in the Marvel Comics universe, and former member of the Avengers. She first appeared in Avengers (volume 1) #112 (June 1973). Her creators were writer Steve Englehart and artist Don Heck.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Marvel beginnings
Mantis is the daughter of Gustav Brandt, Libra. In her childhood, her father leaves her with the alien Priests of Pama, a sect of the Kree who believe she might become the Celestial Madonna.
She excels in her martial arts studies, but when she reaches adulthood, she is mindwiped and sent into the world to gain life experience. She becomes a prostitute 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.
There, she becomes taken with the Vision, and — although rejected by the android — neglects the Swordsman until his death at the hands of Kang the Conqueror, only proclaiming her love for him as he dies. Shortly afterward, she is revealed to be, indeed, the Celestial Madonna and marries a Cotati in the reanimated body of the Swordsman, leaving the Avengers to mate with him.
[edit] DC Comics: Willow
After leaving Marvel Comics, writer Steve Englehart carried Mantis's tale through two other companies before returning to Marvel. [1][2]
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.
[edit] Eclipse: Lorelei
In the Eclipse Comics series Scorpio Rose #2-3 (according to Englehart's website [2]), the character calls herself Lorelei. By this time, she has given birth to a son. A third, "lost" Lorelei/Scorpio Rose story was later published in Coyote Collection #1 from Image Comics, the character's fourth company.
[edit] 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. 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 Coati, Kang was defeated but Mantis realized she must leave her body and join with the Coati 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, who by this time is a rebellious teenager desperate to leave the isolation of the Cotati homeworld 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 appeares in Avengers Disassembled, although many occurences in that story are illusions.
[edit] Heroes Reborn Mantis
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.
[edit] Powers
Mantis was trained to have total control over her body, and had almost superhuman reflexes, thus making her an outstanding martial artist. She could instinctively sense weak points in an opponent and knock out any opponent (even Thor). 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. This ability enabled her to communicate with the plant-like Cotati. To travel in space, Mantis astrally projected her consciousness from her body, allowing her to travel interplanetary distances. She would recreate a 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.
[edit] References
[edit] Bibliography (incomplete)
- "Classical" 1970s appearances :
- The Avengers (1st series) #112-135, Giant-Size Avengers #1-4. (In flashback The Avengers (1st series) #157, #280.)
- Defenders (1st series) #9-11.
- Captain Marvel (1st series) #31-33.
- Silver Surfer (2nd series), 1987: (at least) #3-9.
- West Coast Avengers : (at least) #37-39 & Annual #3
- Fantastic Four: #323-325
