*Mantis-related spoilers, including for the holiday special.*
Mantis is a character I never got around to reviewing after her debut in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I’ve never disliked her, but I haven’t been thrilled with how the MCU has depicted her. However, she takes center stage in the recent holiday special, and some of the developments there suggest she might play a more prominent role in the upcoming Vol. 3 as well.
We first meet Mantis in the company of Ego, for whom she appears to be a live-in servant. She’s able to use her empathic abilities to calm his restless mind and help him sleep, and she generally does whatever else is asked of her. She is very devoted to her master, but when the Guardians come to Ego’s world, it’s clear that something is troubling her.
That might have a little something to do with the big reveal of Vol. 2: the discovery that Ego is in fact a megalomaniac obsessed with his own propagation. Because even though she serves him, Mantis herself is sweet and fairly gentle. When Ego throws himself wholeheartedly into villainy, she aligns with the Guardians to help take him down.
In both her initial introduction as Ego’s servant and her later appearances as a Guardian in the larger MCU, Mantis hasn’t been served particularly well. She’s constantly mocked and insulted by Drax, and even though the joke is supposed to be on Drax for his bluntness and warped perception of her, it feels extra mean-spirited because Mantis rarely dishes it out in return. She’s poorly socialized, since she’s spent the brunt of her life with only Ego for company, but she’s kind and generally means well in her interactions with others. As such, Drax’s treatment of her feels a little like sneering at a kitten for how “ugly” it is.
By the time the holiday special rolls around, Mantis has gained a little more of an edge. “Sweet” is still her default setting, but she naively delights in some of the same twisted things that Drax does on their Christmas trip to Earth. Neither of them have any issue with kidnapping Kevin Bacon to give him as a gift to Peter, and she demonstrates how flexible her morals can be when she uses her empathic powers to compel someone to give her and Drax money.
Despite all that, her overall intentions are still good, and she goes overboard largely because of the secret she’s been keeping—she, like Peter, is a child of Ego. She wants to tell him she’s his sister, but she knows how painful the whole encounter with Ego was for him and doesn’t want her mere presence to cause him any more pain. So she overcompensates by kidnapping Kevin Bacon. Could happen to the best of us, right?
On a side note, I suppose the bit about her and Drax both being disappointed and disgusted when they learn that Kevin Bacon, rather than being Earth’s greatest hero, is actually an actor, is just for laughs. But I wonder if Mantis getting physically nauseated by the thought of actors has anything to do with her powers. If she’s so plugged into other people’s emotions, how does it feel for her when she sees people who convincingly fake emotions they’re not actually feeling? Is it like empathic vertigo for her, hence the nausea? That would be more interesting to me than if it was simply, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if Mantis starts dry-heaving when she finds out Kevin Bacon is a movie star?”
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