Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 featured a massive revelation about Peter Quill’s parentage, as it was revealed that he’s actually half-Celestial, as his biological father was Kurt Russell’s Ego the Living Planet. One fan’s spotted a cool easter egg hidden in the movie, though, that suggests Peter met another relative of his at the same time and he never even noticed. Specifically, Pom Klementieff’s new Guardian, Mantis.
Think back to the scene in Vol. 2 where the truth about Ego comes out. He wasn’t exactly faithful to Peter’s mother and actually, er, left his mark on countless planets across the cosmos, hoping to produce at least one child that shared his Celestial genes. He finally found that in Star-Lord.
But notice the figure in the top left of the image below, as shared on Reddit. It’s practically a dead ringer for Mantis. So does this mean that Ego’s her father, too, making her and Peter half-siblings?
This would actually make a lot of sense given what we know about both Ego and Mantis. Firstly, Mantis tells Drax at one point that Ego found her as an orphan on her homeworld and raised her as his own. We know that Ego kills the mothers of his children when he’s had enough of them, so it’s possible he killed Mantis’ mother as well as Meredith Quill.
Likewise, we know Ego sought out his kids to find out if they could help him undertake the Expansion. Obviously, Mantis wasn’t powerful enough to do that, but her empathetic abilities – which helped him sleep – saved her the same fate as her potential brother and sisters, whom Ego slaughtered when he discovered they were of no use to him.
Lastly, it’s worth pointing out how powerful Mantis’ abilities are – she was able to pacify both a Celestial and Thanos, a Titan, in Avengers: Infinity War. Even if she doesn’t share Ego’s Celestial genes, she may have inherited a certain amount of strength.
Director James Gunn has previously teased that there are many major easter eggs still hidden in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – could this be one of them? Possibly, and just maybe, Mantis’ parentage will be confirmed in 2020’s Guardians Vol. 3.
