Mantis

Mantis is a fictional character portrayed by Pom Klementieff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film franchise, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. She is a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy with empathic powers and is the paternal half-sister of its leader, Peter Quill. Introduced in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), she is an alien ward of Ego with the power to control the emotions of people by touch. She is commonly depicted as having a naive and innocent personality. , the character has appeared in five films: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, as well as The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. Creation and characterization In May 2014, director James Gunn said that he had planned to introduce two major new characters in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, Mantis and Adam Warlock. Talks had begun with an actor Gunn had in mind to portray Mantis, while he had decided to remove Warlock due to the film "getting too busy". Gunn added that Warlock was "one character too many and I didn't want to lose Mantis and Mantis was more organically part of the movie anyway." Klementieff was cast in October 2015.