By now, we’re assuming most of you have gotten a chance to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 at least once, and if you haven’t, you need to do two things: first, drop whatever you may be doing (even if you think it’s important) and go see it. Then, come right back here and check out our review of the movie. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we hope you enjoyed the film. Steven Englehart, co-creator of Mantis, seems to have. What he didn’t like however, was the film’s interpretation of the character. He recently sat down with Polygon to express his opinions about the MCU’s iteration of his classic comic character.
“Well, I was not happy with Mantis’ portrayal,” Englehart said. “That character has nothing to do with Mantis. I will say that I liked the film quite a bit overall, they’re doing good stuff and I enjoyed my night at the movies so long as I turned my brain off to the fact that that’s not Mantis up there. I really don’t know why you would take a character who is as distinctive as Mantis is and do a completely different character and still call her Mantis. That I do not know.”
While he seemed to enjoy the film as a whole, he was pretty straightforward about his opinions of Mantis in the movie. If you think about it from his point of view, his opinion is understandable. The version seen in the film is definitely a massive departure from the old school comics, and we’re not just talking costume. For those of you who don’t know, Mantis debuted back in the pages of the Avengers #112 way back in June of 1973. In the comics, her costume was green, but that’s about the only thing it has in common with the film version. You can check out her original threads below.
Other than the obvious differences in her costume, the character of Mantis was also drastically different in the comics. In the books, Mantis’ heritage comes from German and Vietnamese roots, obviously meaning that she was fully human and not hatched from an egg (like she was in the movie). She was also a highly-skilled martial artist and while we didn’t see her in action in Vol. 2, we could see it in the future.
What do you think? Did you like the film’s interpretation of the character, or do you prefer the classic version? As always, sound off in the comments below!
Source: Polygon
