Got a few questions about the Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2? You’re not the only one! Sure you could go out and spend hours researching through mountains of comics! Or you could just use our cheat sheet to some of these pesky questions!
Consider this your SPOILERS warning! I advise you not to read any further unless you’ve already seen Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.
Mantis
Pom Klementieff has found her place in the MCU. Bringing life to the empathic Mantis, she settles quite quickly into the crew of the Guardians. But who is Mantis? Where did she come from?
The MCU incarnation of the character is very different to the original comic book version. First appearing in The Avengers #112 in 1973, Mantis was a martial arts expert with empathic abilities bordering on telepathy. Her character would go on to ally with the Avengers before going into space with the Silver Surfer, almost dying, fracturing her psyche and joining the Guardians of the Galaxy. Perhaps the most interesting development in Mantis’ character came when her creator Steve Englehart left Marvel and brought the character with him… sort of!
A character appeared in the Justice League of America, known as Willow. This character only refers to herself as ‘This one’, just as Mantis often did. When asked where she’s from, she replies that ‘This one has come from a place she must not name, to reach a place no man must know.’
She returns to the Marvel comics when Englehart does but retains her green makeover. So you can see our MCU Mantis has had quite the makeover of her own. With no weapons or combat training, just what Mantis will do as part of the Guardians? Here’s hoping James Gunn follows a similar path with the comics and we see a Mantis that develops some kick ass fighting skills or at the very least some of her plant manipulation powers. Can you say Groot and Mantis spin-off?
Celestials and Ego
When Peter, Gamora and Drax land on Ego, they learn that Ego is in fact a Celestial. Or as he put’s it himself, a God with a lowercase ‘g’! Interestingly enough this has caused a bit of shift from the source materials and comic book universe.
In the comics Ego the Living Planet is just as his namesake implies; a sentient planet. The MCU Ego claims to be a Celestial. In the comics, a Celestial is a 2000ft tall humanoid alien that wields tremendous amounts of cosmic power. These beings have visited Earth, experimenting and altering the course of human evolution. If you have (and I know you have) watched the first Guardians movie you might even remember catching a glimpse of something like that:
Yup that was a Celestial wielding the ‘Power’ Infinity Stone. So was Ego referring to himself as just another celestial being, space faring creature or has James Gunn changed the origins of the Celestials? And if he has then what the hell is that giant scary hammer wielding dude!?
Adam
You better have stayed for the post/mid/pre (all of the) credit scenes! If so you caught yourself some pretty sweet tidbits. Most importantly though one of those scenes could hold the key for the next Guardians adventure. Adam, a being created by the Sovereign Priestess Ayesha, is an immensely powerful creature possessing the abilities of superhuman strength, agility, endurance and stamina as well as flight and energy manipulation.
Ayesha creates Adam with the intent of destroying the Guardians we know that much! However Adam’s origin story in the comics could see a very different outcome. First introduced in Fantastic Four #66-67 as ‘Him’, Adam is created by a group of scientists known as the Enclave. He escapes and betrays his creators, fights Thor then leaves Earth to go into space. Here he is given the ‘Soul’ Infinity Stone and is set upon a path that sees him come head to head with Thanos.
Gunn has confirmed that Adam will not appear in the Avengers: Infinity War movie but will appear in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. So that leaves us two questions: will Adam be the big bad of Vol. 3? And just who the hell has the ‘Soul’ Stone?
Got some extra facts/cheats we should know? Let us know in the comments below!
Editor-in-Chief, part-time super villain and hoarder of cats. If you can’t find me writing, I’m probably in the kitchen!
