A new variant cover by R.B. Silva displays the cosmic significance of Marvel’s Mantis, highlighting how the MCU has failed this iconic celestial hero.
The fan favorite MCU character Mantis from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise actually plays a much more meaningful and important role to the Marvel Universe within the pages of Marvel Comics, revealing that the cinematic reimagining of the character failed her. A new variant cover Avengers Forever #4, by Marvel Stormbreaker artist R.B. Silva, highlights the celestial beauty and importance of Mantis as the literal mother of the universe’s “Celestial Messiah,” setting her apart from her more infantilized and “cute” MCU counterpart.
While there are many fans of the MCU Guardians of the Galaxy franchise who absolutely adore the on-screen depiction of Mantis, there are also many others who feel that her characterization stripped her of much of the agency and power that she wields in the comics. Beholden to Ego, her “savior,” the MCU Mantis is naïve, submissive, and meek, playing into some troublesome stereotypes about Asian women, as well as being the complete opposite of her comic book self. The superheroine Mantis debuted in 1973s The Avengers #112, introduced as a half-Vietnamese, half-German woman who was raised in a Kree-worshiping religious sect called The Priests of Pama. The Priests of Pama believed Mantis to be the “Celestial Madonna,” destined to mate with the oldest living Cotati (a race of plant-derived alien beings) to birth the “Celestial Messiah,” who would change the fate of the universe. Decades later Mantis’ son, Sequoia, would go on to take his place as the Celestial Messiah alongside his Cotati father in the devastating events of 2020’s Empyre crossover, which heavily featured Mantis as a character.
Mantis has always been framed as an intergalactic being of cosmic importance, and a new variant cover for Avengers Forever #4 revealed by League of Comic Geeks and illustrated by the incredibly talented Marvel Stormbreaker artist R.B. Silva (X-Men, Fantastic Four) gives Mantis the attention she deserves, painting her as a woman caught between two worlds central to her being.
R.B. Silva’s gorgeous variant cover highlights the struggle Mantis has had throughout her entire history in the Marvel Universe, attempting to balance her status as the Cotati-connected Celestial Madonna with her love for her role as a Guardians of the Galaxy teammate. Mantis was trained to be an incredibly skilled martial artist, able to beat almost anyone in a hand-to-hand fight including Captain America and Thor, and she also had strong empathic powers, the only part of her power set that the MCU version of the character kept. She also was highly skilled in advanced meditational practices which gave her superhuman reflexes and healing and after communing with the Prime Cotati, in the form of her dead ex-partner in the Avengers, the Swordsman, she was also able to communicate with plant life, control vegetation close to her, separate her physical and astral forms, as well as a slew of other abilities, making her a wildly powerful opponent. While Mantis did join the Guardians of the Galaxy in the comics and has worked with them on-and-off since, it was revealed that she used her empathic abilities to convince the team to give her membership, again showing how she has always been portrayed as a highly intelligent woman with agency and power within Marvel Comics.
R.B. Silva’s absolutely beautiful dual-sided portrait of the hero Mantis gives her the celestial gravitas and emotional depth that her character has not been afforded in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, showing just how much the MCU has truly failed this iconic and important Asian female hero.
Source: League of Comic Geeks
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