Here’s Why Mantis Left Guardians of the Galaxy
One of the things that we know about the events of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ is that this was James Gunn’s final run in the MCU before taking over as the head of the DCU. In that regard, the movie’s characters would get a final run that would allow them to have a good conclusion to their story arcs. One such character was Mantis, who decided to leave the Guardians of the Galaxy at the end of the movie. So, why did Mantis leave the Guardians?
Mantis left the Guardians of the Galaxy because she felt she hadn’t done anything in her life that was her choice. Throughout her life, she only followed other people, including Ego and Peter Quill. As such, she wanted to follow her choices and find her path in life.
The thing about Mantis’ character arc is that she was a character that was seemingly just following other people around the entire time. But it was during the events of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ that she realized it was time to find her path after spending years doing what other people told her to do. That said, let’s look at why Mantis left the Guardians.
Mantis has been a follower her entire life
When the Guardians of the Galaxy were introduced during the events of the first ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movie, some fans knew that this group was not yet complete. However, the group eventually got one more member during the events of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ when they met her on Ego’s planet.
Ego, the father of Peter Quill, was living on his planet with a woman named Mantis, who was there to help him with his inability to rest and sleep because her powers as an empath allowed her to put people to sleep or manipulate their thoughts. In that regard, the Guardians could befriend Mantis and even take her in as a part of their group after Ego went wild and was eventually defeated.
In that movie, we learned that Ego only took Peter to his planet because he was the only child compatible with him. Ego also had other children throughout the universe, and all of them were killed when he discovered they didn’t have the Celestial gene. Of course, we also found out that Mantis was one of Ego’s children as well, as that is something that she revealed in ‘The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.’ And probably the only reason Ego spared her was that she had special abilities.
After Ego’s death, Mantis started traveling together and working with the Guardians of the Galaxy by going on missions to save different people in different areas throughout the universe. And it seemed like this was natural for her to do because she had nowhere else to go after Ego’s death.
So, for as long as Mantis could remember, her life was dictated by other people in the sense that she has only been following the path these people laid out in front of her. She lived with Ego on his planet for years because he needed Mantis to fall asleep. And after Ego’s death, she followed the Guardians because her brother was there and because she probably had nowhere else to go.
Mantis never had an opportunity to make her own decisions in life because her decisions were either made for her by Ego or were conveniently laid out in front of her by Peter Quill and the Guardians. In that sense, she didn’t have a chance to truly know who she was or what she could do because she never did things out of her own decisions. Of course, she had a good life with the Guardians and was a hero during her time with them. But that wasn’t exactly the path she chose for herself in life.
Mantis needed to find her own path
So, after the Guardians of the Galaxy defeated the High Evolutionary during the events of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,’ the main members of the Guardians had a meeting. It all started when Peter decided to return to Earth to visit his grandfather and face the past he had been avoiding his entire life after his mother died. Meanwhile, some of the other members also made their own decisions.
Mantis, of course, finally made a big decision for herself in what was probably the first time in her life. Along with the other members of the Guardians, who also made decisions that made them leave the group (except for Rocket and Groot), Mantis said that she had to step away from the Guardians of the Galaxy because she thought that she needed to find her own path in life.
She confessed to the group that she never had a chance to find her path in life because everything was seemingly dictated to her by Ego in the past. And when she joined the Guardians, she followed them wherever they went.
In that regard, this was a huge step in her character development because she was seemingly never the most assertive character in the Guardians. And after growing together with her friends, she now realized that it was time for her to move on and learn more about herself and what she could do on her own.
Of course, Pom Klementieff, the actress playing Mantis, said in an interview that she wasn’t sure if she would come back to play the character again because there’s no real assurance whether or not there would be more Guardians movies.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen with the characters, if there’s going to be more movies, if we’re going to come back. We have no clue. Mantis is going to go riding and see what’s up.”
So, in a sense, we aren’t sure if Mantis’ decision to leave the Guardians is permanent or not. We aren’t even sure if this decision also means that she will no longer return to any of the MCU movies in the future. But we do know that Pom is somewhat open to the possibility of returning to her role as Mantis, especially if her character is going to be written into one of the future movies that are in Marvel Studios’ full schedule.
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