Mantis (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Mantis is a superheroine and a major character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She comes from an unknown alien race of actual humanoid mantises, and has powers based on empathy. She was taken in and raised by her father, Ego. Ever since, she served as Ego's assistant, but after meeting the Guardians, including her half-brother Peter Quill, she grew disillusioned with Ego's evil ways, and joined the Guardians in destroying Ego, becoming a member of the Guardians.
In 2018, Mantis worked with the Avengers and Doctor Strange in trying to prevent Thanos from obtaining the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of the universe. The Guardians failed to stop Thanos on Titan, resulting in Mantis and half of the population being turned to dust. When the Avengers undid the decimation, Mantis returned and assisted her allies in stopping Thanos and his army. After attending Tony Stark's funeral, the Guardians reunited and welcomed Thor into their ranks.
She is portrayed by Pom Klementiff.
==Biography==
===Early life===
Mantis was born many years ago, as part of an unknown alien race of humanoid mantises with powers based on empathy. One day, she was taken by the villainous Celestial known as Ego, who raised her on his planet, and she assisted him in sleeping and more other things without knowing about his true colors.
As she got older, Mantis became increasingly aware of Ego's nature as a monster obsessed with universal cleansing and conquest, presumably due to learning about her adoptive father killing nearly all of his offspring for not inheriting his Celestial powers and hiding their skeletons in the caves of his planet.
====Meeting the Guardians====
In 2014, Ego got to know about the existence of Peter Quill (his biological human son), and found him on the forest planet of Berhert.
There, Mantis was introduced to the Guardians as the adopted daughter of Ego. That night the group sat around a fire and the Guardians talked with Ego and Mantis stayed quite for most of the conversation. Mantis then attempted to introduce herself to Drax by smiling at him which he thought was hideous. When Mantis asked if she could pat Rocket Raccoon believing him to be a puppy, Drax said she could resulting in Rocket trying to bite her which was all apart of Drax's practical joke which both of them found funny.
After convincing Quill to return back to they planet, Quill who was accompanied by Gamora and Drax joined Mantis and Ego onboard their ship as they prepared to leave Berhert. Onboard, Mantis tended to Ego separate to the others, using her empathic powers to induce a state of sleep upon Ego.
===Her Powers===
With Ego unconscious, Mantis took the time to converse with the Guardians of the Galaxy. As Mantis joined them, Drax the Destroyer and Peter Quill questioned her about her antennas and their purpose which Drax believed they were for protecting her from low levelled doors.
Mantis explained that she is an Empath and can read people's feelings. She used her powers on Quill to reveal his attraction to Gamora, due to not be aware of the value of his privacy. This caused Drax to burst out in laughter which Mantis then adhered to Drax, and as a result, she shared in his amusement of the situation. Once the laughter had died down, Mantis tried to move onto Gamora, but was threatened with a broken jaw if she tried.
===Befriending Drax===
A while after the Guardians reached Ego’s planet, Drax and Mantis sit in front of the fountain. Drax asks Mantis how she got onto Ego’s Planet, and she tells him her story. Drax then refers to her as hideous, but assured her that she’s Ian lucky because of that. He tells Mantis next that she reminds him of his daughter. Mantis touches him, and begins to weep when she’s feels husband sadness. She is prepared to tell Drax something, when Gamora comes out of the commons area, and asks about what they were doing. Drax tells her that Mantis is his new friend. Gamora the next asks Mantis to show them to their quarters.
During the walk, Gamora asks about why there are no other lifeforms on the planet. Mantis tells her that it is because the planet IS her adoptive father, and that he would not allow any foreign thing to live on him. When Gamora states that Mantis is foreign, Mantis explains that she is their for a purpose: to help him sleep. Gamora then asks Mantis what she’s was going to say to Drax. Mantis nervously says that she wasn’t going to say anything, then changes the subject by telling them that their quarters were close.
===Joining the Guardians===
Mantis overhears Ego talking to Starlord and beckoning Starlord come with him. She is frightened by this, and immediately goes to the person she’s trusted the most: Drax. Drax misinterprets her arrival, thinking that she harbors romantic feeling she for him. Mantis reassures him that this is not the case, saying that she’s doesn’t like the type of thing he is. She then tells him of Ego’s plans.
Gamora comes at Mantis and strangles her, asking about the skeletons in the cavern. Mantis realizes she is scared and tells everyone that the bodies are Ego’s offspring. She tells the story to Gamora, who then decides to rescue Peter.
Mantis comes with the Guardians to save Starlord and stop Ego from enacting the Expansion. She and the others rush into the quadrant. When Drax states that they handled Ego, Mantis states that he is only gone for a little while, and will be back soon. Starlord mentions a Corey that keeps Ego alive, and Mantis states that it is in the caverns bellow the surface. During the journey to the center of Ego’s planet, Rocket mentions that they will get even more money for this, Starlord tells him that they are doing it to save life. When Rocket says meh about saving humans, Mantis says that he isn’t so cute that he “makes her want to die.”
===Battle on Ego===
The quadrant crashes into an object, and this frightens Mantis. She’s then turns and walks towards the window. She’s points out Ego’s core. A shame the quadrant blasts into the core, Ayesha and a Sovereign fleet fire upon the quadrant, knocking Mantis, Gamora, And Drax our of the ship. The trio land on the ground safely.
Mantis notices that Ego is coming. Drax says to her that she can put him to sleep, but she doubts herself. Drax then tells her that he believes in her, and she puts him to sleep.
A laser from the quadrant comes dangerously close to Mantis’ hand. This frightens her, and Drax shouts up at it.
She is able to hold Ego asleep for a while, when a large rock collides into her, knocking her unconscious. Drax delayedly tells her to look out. He isn’t given an aero ring, and flies up to the shuttle with her. Ego attempts to kill them, but USB’s topped when Starlord clashes with him. Drax gets her aboard the ship safely.
===Yondu's funeral===
Mantis is with the other Guardians. A newcomer to the team, she is at the funeral for Yondu.
A firework show made by the other Ravagers is performed. Mantis states that they are beautiful. Drax then states that’s she is also beautiful, then adds that she is so on the inside.
===Avengers: Infinity War===
In 2018, Mantis and the Guardians respond to a distress signal and rescue Thor from floating in space. She then goes to Knowhere with Quill, Drax, and Gamora where she gets incapacitated by Thanos. Afterwards, she is told by a message from Nebula to go with Quill and Drax to Titan where they have a brief confrontation with Tony Stark, Peter Parker, and Stephen Strange before realizing they were on the same side. After Thanos arrives, Mantis's empathic abilities are used to briefly disable him, in an effort to get the Infinity Gauntlet off of his arm, which fails. At the end, Mantis disintegrates along with Parker, Strange, Quill, and Drax.
===Avengers: Endgame===
In 2023, after being restored to life along with Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Star-Lord, and Drax the Destroyer by the Hulk, Mantis is brought to Earth by Strange for the final battle against Thanos and his forces. She later attends Stark's funeral and leaves with Thor and the Guardians.
=== Thor: Love and Thunder===
With Thor, Korg and Kraglin Obfonteri joining the Guardians, Mantis participates in their adventures such as helping the god of thunder lose weight. After helping Thor fight the Booskans on Indigarr, they answered the distress call of Sif, informing the group that Gorr the God Butcher was killing gods across the galaxy. Learning this, Thor and Korg left the team, having a farewell with the Guardians before departing.
=== The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special ===
In 2025, the Guardians buy Knowhere from the Collector and gain a new member to the team, Cosmo the Spacedog. Mantis helps in refurbishing it following the attack it endured. Knowing how depressed Quill is due to losing his love, Mantis wants to give him a meaningful Christmas and makes plans with Drax to bring Kevin Bacon as a gift for Quill. Mantis pilots their new ship back to Earth and she and Drax land in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. They inadvertently make money as buskers posing for pictures on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and get drunk at a nightclub bar. A seller of star maps offers to tell them where to find Bacon's house, and Mantis uses her powers to take the map without paying and to take all the seller's money. They go to Bacon’s house in Beverly Hills and capture him and steal Christmas decorations from a holiday store. Back on Knowhere, they hold a Christmas celebration and present Bacon to Quill. Later, Mantis reveals to Quill that Ego was also her father, making them half-siblings, which Quill says is the greatest Christmas gift ever.
=== Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3===
Mantis and the other Guardians reside on Knowhere where they are attacked by Adam Warlock, who wants to kidnap Rocket. Together they can put him to rout, but Rocket gets critically injured. They can’t use medical equipment because an implanted kill switch would kill Rocket. With the help of Gamora, they break into the headquarter of Orgocorp and steal the file with all information about the experiments on Rocket. But the Passkey to disable the kill switch was deleted and stored into an implant on Theel’s head a short time before they stole it.
They follow him to the planet Counter-Earth, where Drax, Mantis and Gamora stay at the ship to watch over Rocket, while Peter, Nebula and Groot go to find Theel on the Arête Laboratories, the ship of the High Evolutionary. Drax gets a bad feeling about the situation and decides to follow them to the Arête. Mantis wants to convince him to stay at the ship, but she is tricked by him into following him. As they arrive, they reunite with Nebula, who wasn’t let into the ship by the guards due to her implanted weapons. The High Evolutionary has decided to destroy Counter-Earth, killing all people on it, and starts his ship. Mantis, Drax and Nebula break into the Arête and find the Star Children, which the High Evolutionary has created to populize a new planet.
While Peter, Groot and Gamora escape from Counter-Earth with the Passkey and finally save Rocket’s live, Drax, Mantis and Nebula are discovered by the High Evolutionary and thrown into a pit. When the other Guardians arrive with Knowhere to save Drax, Mantis and Nebula, the High Evolutionary opens the pit and three abilisks appear. Mantis is able to tame them with her empathic powers and they use them to escape from the pit. Drax, Mantis and Nebula reunite with the other Guardians and tell them about the Star Children. After they defeated the henchman of the High Evolutionary, they bring the children to Knowhere.
Rocket discovers that there are also animals aboard and tries to save them too, but is attacked by the High Evolutionary. Drax, Peter, Gamora, Mantis, Nebula and Groot come to his help and together they defeat the High Evolutionary. Then they bring all the animals and the three abilisks to Knowhere shortly before the Arête falls apart. After that, Mantis realizes that she should find out what she actually wants and goes on a self-discovery journey with the three abilisks.
==Personality==
Mantis is a beautifully kind, lovely and caring being. She is managing to prove herself to be kind and mainly lovely, as she is treating the team of the Guardians so well, as well as joining the team in order to help them in their war against Ego. Mantis can be considered as "The Heart" of the team, alongside Groot.
==Powers and Abilities==
===Powers===
*Empathy: Mantis can sense the deepest feelings of another sentient being by touching them. Her sensory acuity is enough to determine the identity of a third person loved by the one she is reading. A side effect of of this power is that she tends to experience others' extreme moods herself, reflecting their happiness and their pain.
*Emotion Manipulation: Mantis has a rudimentary ability to manipulate the emotional state of any person she is in physical contact with. Using this power, Mantis was able to manipulate Kevin Bacon's emotions so that he would be overjoyed at being kidnapped.
*Sleep Manipulation: Mantis can induce a deep sleep in anyone she is in physical contact with. She has primarily used this on humanoid life forms, and has also applied it on Ego via his human avatar and directly via his internal structure. Mantis can also wake anyone she has physical contact.
*Superhuman Strength: Mantis has shown to be much stronger than regular humans, she is able to jump great heights and take down police officers with ease. Mantis was able to throw multiple enemies considerable distances in OrgoCorp and the High Evolutionary’s ship.
*Superhuman Durability: Despite her appearance, Mantis is quite durable, as shown when she falls from the quadrant, and lands almost flawlessly, and the debris that hit her merely knocked her unconscious.
*Superhuman Agility: Mantis is extremely agile as she jumped from wall to wall quickly while chasing Kevin Bacon.
*Superhuman Stamina: Mantis has more stamina than normal humans, being able to leap repeatedly without getting tired while chasing Kevin Bacon.
===Abilities===
*Expert Martial Artist: During the battle of Earth, Mantis proved to be a very efficient fighter when she defeated several members of Thanos' army. Mantis also easily defeated several police officers, using a combination of her empathic powers and martial arts.
*Expert Marksman: With years of experience with the Guardians, Mantis has become an exceptional marksman with alien firearms as shown in the Battle of Indigarr.
==Relationships==
===Family===
*Ego † - Father, Enemy and Attempted Killer
*Peter Quill/Star-Lord - Older Half-Brother, Close Friend and Leader
===Allies===
*Guardians of the Galaxy - Teammates and Close Friends
**Gamora † - Former Enemy
**Drax the Destroyer - Best Friend
**89P13/Rocket Raccoon
**Groot
**Nebula
**Yonda Udonta †
**Kraglin Obfonteri
**Cosmo
*Ravagers
*Avengers
**Thor - Former Teammate
**Tony Stark/Iron Man † - Former Temporary Enemy
**Peter Parker/Spider-Man - Former Temporary Enemy
**Steve Rodgers/Captain America
**Clint Barton/Hawkeye
**Sam Wilson/Falcon
**James Rhodes/War Machine
**Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch
**Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel
**Scott Lang/Ant-Man II
*Pepper Potts/Rescue
*Hope van Dyne/Wasp II
*Masters of the Mystic Arts
**Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange - Former Temporary Enemy
**Wong
*Golden Tribe
**T'Challa/Black Panther †
**Shuri
*Dora Milaje
**Okoye
*M'Baku
*Brunnhilde/Valkyrie
*Korg
*Miek
*Kraglin Obfonteri
*Howard the Duck
*Gamora (2014 timeline)
===Enemies===
*Sovereign
**Ayesha
*Thanos † - Killer
*Black Order
**Ebony Maw †
**Cull Obsidian †
**Corvus Glaive †
**Proxima Midnight †
*Chitauri (2014 timeline)
**Leviathans (2014 timeline)
**Chitauri Gorillas (2014 timeline)
*Outriders (2014 timeline)
*Sakaarans (2014 timeline)
==Quotes==
==Gallery==
===Promotional===
Mantis Profile(1).png|Mantis' character poster for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Mantis Promotional.jpg
Mantis.JPG
Mantis AIW Profile.jpg
541ACCE4-D79F-4474-8D7E-593399042DCC.jpeg
Mantis (Avengers Infinity War Textless).png
Mantis Endgame Textless.jpg|Mantis' "Avenge the Fallen" poster for Avengers: Endgame.
Avengers-members.png
GOTG Vol. 3 Character Poster 06.jpg|Mantis' character poster for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
===Screenshots===
IMG 6390.jpg|Mantis in Vol. 2.
Mantis Death.png|Mantis turning into dust in front of Peter and Drax.
Doctor-Strange-Funeral.png
Guardians of the Galaxy Funeral.png|The Guardians of the Galaxy attend Stark's funeral.
Thor-love-and-thunder(2022) 0572.jpg
Thor-love-and-thunder(2022) 1811.jpg
Christmas-special(2022) 2529.jpg
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 Stills 260.jpg
==Behind the Scenes==
In an interview, executive producer Jonathan Schwartz said “She has never really experienced social interaction, everything she learns about dealing with people, she learns from the Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a very weird group to learn your social intricacies from.”
==Trivia==
*In the comics, Mantis was a human of Vietnamese and German descent whose father left her in the care of a sect of the Kree Empire called the Priests of Pama, who raised her with the intent of eventually mating her with the Cotati to produce a Celestial Messiah, as part of their religious prophecies. She later had her memory wiped and was sent to live alongside mankind to gain life experience, and has been a member of the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Fantastic Four and the Inhumans on various occasions.
**This change in adaptation is similar to the one her fellow Guardian Drax went through, since he was also a modified human in the comics who was adapted into an alien for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
==External Links==
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