Creation Story
Mantis is Steve Englehart and Don Heck’s Avengers addition. The Avengers #112 (June 1973) introduces her in the middle of Englehart’s extended Avengers run. Englehart writes; Heck pencils. The framework: a half-Vietnamese woman, raised by Kree Priests of Pama in a Vietnamese temple after her mother’s death, trained in martial arts and empath abilities to a level that places her among the most physically capable street-level Marvel characters of the era.
The Vietnamese-American framing was substantial for early-1970s Marvel, where Asian and Asian-American characters were rare. Mantis’s mother was Vietnamese; her father was Gustav Brandt, a German criminal. The cultural framework gave the character a distinctive register that Englehart developed extensively across subsequent issues.
The Celestial Madonna Saga
Giant-Size Avengers #4 (June 1975) is the conclusion of Englehart’s most ambitious Mantis arc. The framework: Mantis is prophesied to be the Celestial Madonna who will give birth to the next stage of cosmic evolution. The arc culminates with Mantis marrying the Cotati (an alien plant-being inhabiting the body of the Swordsman, who had died protecting Mantis) and ascending to cosmic consciousness. The Celestial Madonna Saga is widely regarded as one of the strongest extended Avengers Bronze Age arcs.
The arc has been adapted in modified form across various subsequent Avengers stories, particularly Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run (2010s) which referenced the Celestial Madonna framework prominently.
The modern Guardians
Annihilation: Conquest #6 (April 2008) by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning integrated Mantis into the modern Guardians of the Galaxy lineup. The framework had been dormant for decades; the Annihilation crossover reactivated her as a cosmic-team operator. The Abnett-Lanning Guardians run (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, 2008 to 2010) is the framework that the 2014 James Gunn film draws from, though Mantis didn’t appear in the first Gunn Guardians film.
The MCU era
Pom Klementieff’s Mantis debuted in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017, James Gunn). Klementieff has reprised the role across Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). The film’s Mantis substantially modifies the comics character: lean on the empath powers as primary, downplay the martial-arts framework, adopt a comedic-supporting register.
Collector context
The Avengers #112 is the Mantis Bronze Age first-appearance key. High-grade CGC 9.6+ copies have crossed $1,000 at auction. The book’s value spiked sharply after Pom Klementieff’s casting in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and has held.
Secondary keys: Giant-Size Avengers #4 (June 1975, Celestial Madonna Saga conclusion). Annihilation: Conquest #6 (April 2008, modern Guardians founding).
