Today's Fact
Before she was a Guardian, she was inventory — a prisoner the Kree kept in a cell until a thief with a plan came collecting specialists.
Long after the Celestial Madonna saga, Mantis left Earth for the stars — and the stars were not kind. When the Phalanx overran the Kree empire in Annihilation: Conquest (2007–2008), the woman Kang once hunted as a cosmic bride was sitting in a Kree prison, held by the very people whose priest sect had raised her.
Peter Quill, building a dirty-dozen strike team to hit the Phalanx, sprang her. Quill collected the inmates and strays nobody else wanted — and Mantis, with her empathic senses and telepathy, became one of the recruits who fought through the Conquest at his side. When the war ended and Quill decided the galaxy needed a team standing watch before the next catastrophe, she stayed.
So in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 #1 (2008), Mantis took her post at the team’s headquarters inside Knowhere — a severed Celestial head at the edge of space — serving as the Guardians’ telepath and counsellor, the one who could feel a teammate’s breakdown coming before he said a word. The Avengers’ martial artist had become mission control for the galaxy’s most unstable strike force.
Why It's Obscure
Earth’s most prophesied woman ended up doing emotional IT support for a raccoon, a tree and several armed felons — and it was an upgrade.
Gallery
Cosmic-era Mantis facing Thanos, her classic Avengers-era panels, and the man who recruited her out of a cell.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.
Bullpen Bulletins
- Who is Mantis? A Comics History — ComicsAllianceComicsAlliance’s history records that Mantis was revealed as a prisoner of the Kree and sprung by Star-Lord to join the group that became the Guardians of the Galaxy.
- 15 Things You Never Knew About Mantis — ScreenRantScreenRant’s trivia history covers her Priests of Pama training, her empathy, and her path from the Avengers into the cosmic side of Marvel.