Lords Of Empyre: Celestial Messiah #1: Review

Aug 2020
Alex Paknadel, Alex Lins

Story Name:

(no title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Lords Of Empyre: Celestial Messiah #1 Review by (August 8, 2020)
This issue doesn't really show how Quoi got turned from good guy to bad guy. It's more an exploration of Mantis' history than his.

It obviously occurs before Empyre #2, but the Avengers equally obviously don't get Mantis' message before then.

The scene of the Cotati taking Quoi from Mantis depicts something from Fantastic Four #323-325. In fact there they *weren't* taking him but refusing to give him back. She claimed in #325 that the plants stole her son while she was discorporated between Silver Surfer Annual #1 and West Coast Avengers #37. But in SS#4 she said that she had handed Quoi over to the Cotati after being his mother for some years, which she repeated in Avengers: Celestial Quest.
It is significant that the FF issues (and the Galactus The Devourer mini-series) were the only Mantis apps up to and including Av:CQ not written by Steve Englehart. In Av:CQ Mantis claimed that she had only just recovered from her dispersion and her apps in between were merely 'ghosts'. Thus Englehart downgraded not only the FF and Galactus issues but also his own West Coast Avengers stuff.

Mantis makes another comment this issue supporting the idea that she never wanted the Cotati to have her son. But in contradiction the newly-invented memory of Quoi expressing his plant side provides a reason why she *would* give him to the Cotati. In Av:CQ she uses her discorporation to explain why she never came back for him.

This issue *does* do a bit of continuity-fixing. There has previously been confusion as to whether Willimantic was in Connecticut or New Jersey. Here it says Connecticut but they just moved from New Jersey (or at least claimed to have).





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Lords Of Empyre: Celestial Messiah #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
In the Cotati Garden in the Blue Area of the Moon Quoi prepares to undergo a purification rite that will test is worthiness to be the plant-universe's Celestial Messiah. His father, the Cotati who bears the form of the Swordsman, tells him it will burn away any sympathies for his mother's meat heritage. He drinks a sacred potion and 'Swordsman' leaves him to it.

But from far away across the Galaxy his mother Mantis mentally intrudes and causes the surrounding vegetation to grow her a body. Her memories flood into it:- A childhood being trained in martial arts by the Priests Of Pama to suit her to be the Celestial Madonna. Joining the Avengers, and much later the Guardians Of The Galaxy. In between having a relationship with the original Swordsman, Jacques DuQuesne, who died saving her from Kang, and whose corpse was reanimated by the Prime Cotati to be her lover. And their son Sequoia/Quoi who was taken from her by the Cotati.

The 2 begin to fight. But Mantis' post-Madonna human/plant hybrid status allows her to restrain Quoi with the Cotati's own plants. And she says they need to talk. But instead she shows him a vision of an incident in her past.

She and Wanda Maximoff are discussing her and Jacque's application for Avengers membership. Wanda thinks Mantis should apply solo because the team will find it difficult accepting their foe Swordsman. When Mantis joins her lover he says the same thing, after all he made Captain America walk the plank (off a high building in #20 of the original Av series). He says he doesn't deserve her and she should leave him. She replies that she saved him from alcoholism and he saved her from her life as a bar-girl, and whatever they do they'll do together.

Quoi breaks free and they fight again until he generates a spike from his elbow and stabs his mother in the heart. But she shows him another vision.

It is Giant-Size Av #4 and she and the Cotati Swordsman are being married by Immortus (alongside Scarlet Witch and Vision). She says that the Celestial Messiah was meant to unify the plant and animal worlds, not turn plants against animals as that Swordsman has taught him. Mantis now says that becoming Swordsman twisted that Cotati's mind, as she started to discover during their honeymoon on the Cotati planet Tamal. There the local psychic conclave of Cotati refused to admit his mind, fearing pollution from his human memories. Swordsman is now condemned to being a lonely outsider.

Now Mantis snaps off Quoi's spike and removes it from her 'heart'. Her son says that his father tried to be a bridge between the species and it lost him community with the green and left him with disgusting animal feelings. And Quoi watched his father's suffering after his mother abandoned him. Mantis protests that she never wanted to leave him with the plants. But her son mentally causes the phosphorus in her body to ignite. However mom reminds him this isn't actually her body, and she's still in mental contact with him to show him 1 of their combined memories.

It's Willimantic, Connecticut and they're fitting in as a suburban family (minus a father), claiming to have just moved from New Jersey. Human-looking young Quoi tries to join a group of kids playing Avengers. He has a Captain America costume but is rejected because the leader Connor already has that role. So he makes himself a Swordsman costume. The group don't know who Swordsman is, but they are impressed by the home-made outfit.

Quoi *does* remember how he was happy there and Connor became his good friend. And he does settle down to talk. His mother reminds him that the Cotati are planning to massacre people like Connor. But her son says he can't betray his father because Swordsman has no-one else left. Mantis says that if he calls a halt to the war then she can use her empathic power to help 'Jacques'. But this makes her son suspicious of how she's invading his mind, and he forces her to show him a particular memory of hers involving the formation of the Guardians.

It was after the Phalanx invasion of the Kree homeworld Hala (the Annihilation: Conquest event). Star-Lord Peter Quill convinces Mantis to help him 'persuade' the others to form the initial GOTG team. She is loath to use her power to coerce the others into joining, but gives in. We see her talking individually to Adam Warlock, Drax, Gamora, Phyla-Vell (then Quasar) and Rocket Raccoon.

Now Quoi is antagonistic again, and he forces his mother to remember yet 1 more thing, how their suburban life ended. 1 day his Cotati genes took over and Quoi sprouted branches and leaves, which understandably horrified his pals. But strangely they forgot about it afterwards, and Quoi now realises that was his mother's doing. Now he questions whether she mentally made Jacques DuQuesne want to become an Avenger. And if she made his father become Swordsman. And he turns her body to flowers and casts her out.

On the outer edge of the Lamora system Mantis sends a message to the Avengers telling them that they must let the approaching Kree/Skrull armada defeat her son and the Cotati. And she heads to the Solar System in the insect-like spaceship we saw at the beginning of Empyre #2. (And this issue says it continues in #3 where Mantis arrives on Earth.)



Alex Lins
Alex Lins
Matt Yackey
Rod Reis (Cover Penciler)
Rod Reis (Cover Inker)
Rod Reis (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Ariana Maher.
Editor: Darren Shan. Editor-in-chief: C. B. Cebulski.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.


Plus: Quoi (Sequoia), Swordsman (Cotati).

> Lords Of Empyre: Celestial Messiah: Book info and issue index

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