Mantis Is Unrecognisable And Totally Alien In This Wacky GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 Concept Art
Some very cool new concept art for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has surfaced and it features a lot of alternate designs for Mantis, including some weirdly alien, colourful, and bug-like versions...
Avengers: Infinity War may not mention Star-Lord's team in the title but the Guardians of the Galaxy will play a big role in the battle against Thanos. Seeing them assemble alongside Earth's Mightiest Heroes promises to be extremely satisfying and we're now taking a look back at Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, a movie which firmly established this group's place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy introduced us to James Gunn's brilliant take on the group of A-Holes, the follow-up fleshed them out to an even greater extent and gave them new looks to boot.
It also gave us some new characters with the likes of Mantis, Ego, and Taserface among the most memorable additions to the cosmic franchise. In the case of Mantis, James Gunn faced a tough task in bringing the character to the big screen but he succeeded perfectly and her look worked really well. However, some newly surfaced concept art points to her looking an awful lot different to both what we ended up seeing on screen and her comic book counterpart. Some are actually pretty gross too!
To check those out, all you guys need to do is click on either of the buttons below for the entire list.
A Vastly Different Style
Well, this is cool! Red skin on Mantis works really well and while she's very alien (which could have been a pain in terms of the effects needed to bring that to the big screen), her human features remain.
Classic Comic Book Green
However, Marvel considered going green with Mantis for a little while at least and the mixture of that skin colour and the purple hair definitely go a long way in giving her a unique big screen appearance.
A Bug's Life
Mantis seems to be almost robotic here and while her bug like features have been accentuated, an argument could definitely be made that she looks a little too alien and detached from humanity.
Blue Skinned Warrior
With Gamora rocking green skin in Guardians of the Galaxy, it was obvious Mantis couldn't be the same colour. Blue looks good on her, though, and she looks more like her comic book counterpart here.
Monsters Inc.
It's fascinating seeing just how many different concepts Marvel explored and this version of Mantis would have clearly been massively different both in terms of appearance and personality.
More Blue Skin
Another blue-skinned take on the hero, her costume appears to finally be coming together here and it's almost a shame that Marvel decided against giving her a slightly more alien skin tone in the sequel.
Experimenting With Mantis' Costume
Not only is the character's skin colour being toyed with here but so is her costume. As you can see, she's rocking a very different style, many of which fit in better with what Ego has on in the movie.
Wait, Is That Mantis?
There are certainly similarities to what ended up on screen here but this is a totally different take on Mantis and one that would arguably work better in an animated movie than a live-action setting.
Putting Mantis in green was a smart way to pay homage to her comic book roots but grey suits the character too. What will be interesting is seeing if she ever gets a Guardians-style uniform to wear.
Summer Glau Lookalike
Is it me or does this version of Mantis look a little like Summer Glau? The Firefly actress entered the world of superheroes with Arrow but has never made the leap to a big screen comic book adventure.
A Familiar Face
Here, we see a photo of Pom Klementieff where some work has been done to make her look a little more alien. Below, you'll find a number of other, startlingly different takes on Mantis' appearance.
Pretty weird, eh? Marvel clearly toyed with the idea of a number of skin colours, patterns, and markings which would make Mantis visually distinctive on screen and help her stand out from the crowd.
Ego's Servant
Seeing as Ego raised Mantis, you'd think that she would have had a costume more along the lines of this. James Gunn, however, clearly wanted to take more inspiration from the source material.
More Alternate Designs
In order to bring some diversity to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, James Gunn decided that Mantis would have Pom Klementieff's natural skin colour, a smart move which definitely worked here.
However, looking for a way to make Mantis stand out from the crowd, Marvel's team of concept artists clearly wanted to make her look a little different and that's fully on display in this piece of art.
The Final Design
As you can see, this version of Mantis is pretty much identical to what we ended up seeing in live-action and it's truly amazing witnessing the work which went into getting the hero to this point.