[TheBlueMarvel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Nash

Either is fine. I did mention her but she's not really a character I've read deeply or am that partial to - just would like to see her made before some others I'm negatively set to. She would fill out another spot of classic Avengers though which is always good. I think it's very likely we'll get her in GOTG 2 wave though, and likely with that it'll be more the DNA version of her.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VonPooten

This is Englehart, quoted from Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story...

"Basically, Mantis was supposed to be a hooker who would join the Avengers and cause dissension amongst all the male characters by coming on to each of them in return [...] She was introduced to be a slut."

In a nutshell, he's "always been a big fan of sex," (okay dude) and wanted the men to have someone they could fool around with. Luckily editorial scrapped that idea of his, so he could never make her his fantasy sex slave for the Avengers men, but unfortunately the prostitute aspect did make it into her origin. So, yeaaaaaah. Not the greatest vision for a character, and sadly I can't see her as anything other than a big perv's yearning to get sex into the Avengers.

Haven't read DnA's Guardians run though, so, can anyone say if she's portrayed well in that?

@Nash
I was going to get back to you on this with similar details to what Von revealed, but I became busy and he beat me to the punch. I'm no Mantis expert or super-fan, but I've had a curiosity with the character since Annihilation. You may recall that I mentioned on this thread that I never knew what happened with Mantis and the 'Celestial Madonna' story arc; it came up during a convo we all had about uber powered Marvel women. Well, recently - about a month ago, I was able to track down the TPB for the culmination of that story: The Avengers - Celestial Quest (written by none other than one Mr. Steve Englehart - bless his heart - really, he needs some kind of help).

It was the very worst Avengers story I've ever read and very possibly the worst comic story I've ever consumed. Bad dialogue, silly plot, gross mischaracterizations, and piss poor art. I'll spare you the plot details, but it went just as Von laid out Engelhart's intentions to be. Mantis is a collective of five personas: a "freak" - sideshow attraction as a result of her green skin, "mother" - she bore the 'Celestial Messiah' (I won't even get into the mess that character turned out to be), "adept" - she trained in the mystic arts and looked exactly like Moondragon, "Avenger" - ok(?), and "woman" - aka prostitute (an interesting thematic connection that makes more sense now, given the explanation of his plans for the character and potential thoughts on women in a larger sense). As detailed in Von's breakdown of the mind of a pervert, Englehart has her bed down Vision in the presence of Wanda who claims it's ok only to be secretly furious about it later. The best part is that the Vision falls in love with her only to kick her to the curb in the end, relating that things would never work out between the two given their 'differences.'

It's the first TPB I've purchased that I actually considered trying to return, but I couldn't think of a good enough reason to give to my LCS owner that would validate him handing my money back.

@Von
'Guardians' Mantis wasn't written in either a groundbreaking or compelling manner...but she wasn't this bullshit. On second thought, there was a sexual fascination with her written into Bug and she and Starlord ultimately end up falling in love...hmmmmmmm, I'm seeing a pattern.

Edit: but yeah, I'll take a fig of her!