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Robert Greenberger

by Robert Greenberger

Avengers: The complete Celestial Madonna Saga

To the casual fan, there had to be a lot of questions about the young Asian woman with antennae seen at the end of the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 trailer. For more aware readers, there had to be a thrill in seeing Mantis brought into the Cinematic Universe. Mantis hasn’t been seen in a while and marvel wants to remind everyone who she is with the release of Avengers: The complete Celestial Madonna Saga. While portions have been collected before, this single volume encapsulates one of the Bronze Age’s longest cosmic epics including Avengers #124-125, 129-135, Giant-Size Avengers #2-4, Captain marvel #33, and Avengers: Celestial Quest #1-8.

As with other Madonnas, Mantis had humble origins. “Basically, Mantis was supposed to be a hooker who would join the Avengers and cause dissension amongst all the male members by coming on to each of them in turn,” writer Steve Englehart told Sean Howe in marvel Comics: The Untold Story. “She was introduced to be a slut. I’ve always been a big fan of sex, and I would see these full-grown super-hero guys fight super-villains, then they’d meet a woman, they’d bluish and stammer. They were like big teenage boys, which always seemed dumb to me, because I was accepting them as full-grown men, so why didn’t they act like full-grown men?”

Englehart, only the third regular writer for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, was well-served by long-time penciller Sal Buscema, who was ably inked by Joe Staton for much of this run. The opening two-parter teased the cosmic tale to come when Kang the Conqueror arrived looking for the Madonna so he could mate with her. This led to a battle across time involving Kang’s earlier incarnation of Rama-Tut.

It took something like twenty issues for her complete story to be told but she was a Vietnamese girl who was trained by the Priests of Pama. The Priests were secretly a sect of the Kree, who gifted her with telepathic powers because they believed she was to become the Celestial Madonna. When she turned eighteen, though, they erased her memories and led her to believe she was an orphan so she could experience a normal life before ascending. From there, she struggled to survive, becoming a prostitute in a local bar where she met the down-on-his-luck Swordsman.

Mantis, who concerned refer to herself as “this one”, arrived at Avengers Mansion to petition for membership. She was accompanied by their one-time foe the Swordsman, but both were brought onto the team, setting off the sexual politics that briefly touched on a Scarlet Witch-Vision-Mantis-Swordsman love quadrangle.

But first, the Avengers had to step in and aid Captain marvel in his never-ending battle with Thanos in #125, penciled by Sal’s brother John, which crossed over with Captain marvel #33 (which we discussed in Captain marvel by Jim Starlin complete Collection).

Mantis’ first cover appearance on Avengers #129

Things got stirred up nicely with #129’s capture of Iron Man, Thor, and Vision, prompting Agatha Harkness to summon the Swordsman to Egypt to free them in Giant-Size Avengers #2, where Mantis is identified as the future Celestial Madonna. “I never liked Mantis. most of the marvel staff at the time hated Mantis’ guts. I think it was mostly that ‘this one’ crap,” said Dave Cockrum, who drew the issue and stepped in to ink other chapters of the event.

Still, the exciting tale ended with the Swordsman’s sacrifice to save the team and his burial as a hero. He was buried in the ruins of the Priests of Pama in #130 which included a battle with the Titanic Three: Radioactive Man, Titanium Man, and the Crimson Dynamo.

While in Vietnam, learning about Mantis’ youth, the Avengers are attacked by Immortus, another incarnation of Kang and Rama-Tut. He has assembled a legion of the Unliving: Frankenstein’s Monster, the original Human Torch, wonder Man, Baron Zemo, Midnight, and the Ghost. As they battle in Limbo, Mantis is distracted by the Swordsman’s ghost, who is thankfully not fighting his teammates.

As a result, things spill into Giant-Size #3 as Englehart, dialoguer Roy Thomas, Cockrum, and Joe Giella move things along. At the same time Englehart was exploring Mantis’ origins and evolution into the Celestial Madonna, he was also dipping deep in marvel lore and also revised the Vision’s origin in #133. When he was constructed by Ultron, we learned, the android used the inert artificial body that was once the first Human Torch. In this issue we also learn of the Cotati, a plant-like race, which once co-existed on Hala with the Kree. It was the Skrulls’ arrival that pitted one against the other as they fought to earn access to the Skrulls’ technology.

The next issue exposes that the surviving Cotati concerned earth and formed the Priests of Pama in what became Vietnam. and after that, in a story drawn by George Tuska and Frank Chiaramonte, it is revealed that Moondragon was being groomed as the Madonna, should Mantis prove unworthy.

Giant-Size Avengers #4

Then in Giant-Size #4, with art by Don Heck and John Tartaglione, the Vision’s travels through time and space to learn his true nature takes him to the Dark Dimension, where he must rescue the Scarlet Witch. Meanwhile, the Cotati reveal that everything withstood by the heroes was a test for Mantis. Upsetting matters, though, were the warring Immortus and Kang as the latter wanted Mantis for himself. once the dust settles, Immortus presides over the double wedding of Mantis and the Cotati spirit and Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Mantis and the Cotati left earth to travel the stars and rarely appeared again but did, to the point that Englehart was annoyed by her interpretation. He returned with artists Jorge Santamaria and Scott Hanna for the Celestial Quest miniseries. As he notes on his website, “The main point here was to resurrect Mantis from the drek forced upon her at the end of West coast Avengers and fantastic Four, but I also wanted to provide the vast epic marvel no longer knows how to do.

Avengers: Celestial Quest #1

“That was an interesting challenge because I had eight issues, no more, and the original Mantis epic had run more than twice that. In addition, that first epic had run long because new avenues kept opening up and I followed them wherever their stories led; this time, eight issues, no more, so I had to consciously cover over new openings in a way that, hopefully, no one would notice.

“But the reader response showed a real pent-up hunger for a story that would stretch the current limits, even with constrictions. people want a ‘House of Ideas’.”

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Avengers: The complete Celestial Madonna Saga

Classic covers from the Grand Comics Database.