Does The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special Confirm Mantis' Status As A [SPOILER]?
Contains spoilers for "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special"
After a less than flattering stint as early-movie second fiddle players to Thor Odison's (Chris Hemsworth) heroics in "Thor: Love and Thunder," the Guardians of the Galaxy are back on their own in James Gunn's warm-hearted Holiday offering, the aptly named bundle of intergalactic Holiday cheer known as "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special." Gunn's self-described easy TV film (via The Hollywood Reporter) precedes the 2023 conclusion to his Guardians saga, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" — a filmmaking experience that he says has been much more arduous.
Before the third "Guardians" movie drops, then, the Holiday special offers a welcome look at the team that's now seemingly based on Knowhere. Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) is growing ever bigger and stronger. Nebula (Karen Gillan) continues her gradual defrosting, to the point that she steals Bucky's (Sebastian Stan) arm for Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), who's had his eye on it for a while. The diminutive not-a-raccoon is also getting along with new Guardian Cosmo the Spacedog (voiced by Maria Bakalova), and even Kraglin (Sean Gunn) gets some choice moments in the limelight.
The special's most important character is quite easily Mantis (Pom Klementieff), who teams up with Drax (Dave Bautista) to kidnap Kevin Bacon as a Christmas present for Peter Quill (Chris Pratt). As it turns out, Mantis has a good reason to go all out in her efforts to cheer up the Guardians leader — they're both children of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" villain Ego (Kurt Russell). Mantis has kept this hidden from Quill, knowing how badly things went with Ego and fearing his reaction.
Mantis' fear of rejection is baseless, of course, as Quill is absolutely delighted to find out he has a sister. As for the viewer, however, several questions about her newly revealed status as Ego's daughter remain. The most pressing one of these is: Did "The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" just confirm that Mantis is a Celestial?
The fact that Mantis is alive means that she may have some Celestial powers
Ego's endgame in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" is to create another Celestial and use their combined powers to turn countless planets into versions of himself. Lacking access to cooperative members of his species, he's attempted to do this by romancing members of various species for a long, long time. Chillingly, he's also fallen in the habit of killing the many, many, many children who haven't inherited his Celestial powers, and ditching their remains in a cavern deep within his planet form.
The movie makes pretty clear that out of Ego's numerous children, Quill is the only one who can wield Celestial might — at least, to a degree that enables Ego to execute his plan. Yet, Mantis is Ego's child, but nevertheless very much alive — so there must be a reason he spared her and made her his servant. This reason is likely her soothing empath powers, which the Celestial appreciates and uses to relax. Knowing what we know now about her family history, it's easy to deduce that said powers likely come from some minor version of the Celestial gene.
The thing is, Mantis may be a bit of a goofball, but she's deceptively powerful. In "Vol. 2," she manages to force a powerful Celestial to sleep, and in "Avengers: Infinity War," she uses her power to restrain Thanos (Josh Brolin). With a power level like that, it's not hard to believe that at least some of her spark might come from her half-Celestial heritage.
"The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special" is available for streaming on Disney+.