Synopsis / Summary / Plot
In Bombay a female green 'freak' is made to do her regular dance (and probably strip) for a paying audience. A blazing star appears in the sky above, and she has the confusing thought that it's like the 1 5 years ago - before this life. But then Thanos arrives and kills her.
In Willimantic, New Jersey another green woman wakes from a dream of the above. She knows she's Mantis and that her unhuman son Quoi has gone to live with his dad. She changes colour to her 'autumn hues' so as to pass in public. Then a star shines like the 1 in the dream, and the 1 5 years ago that announced her as the Celestial Madonna. Then Thanos arrives here too. She fights back with her martial arts but soon dies.
In Melbourne, Australia a prostitute flesh-coloured Mantis is surprised to get images of 2 copies of herself dying. She tries to run away as a 3rd star blooms. She somehow knows that the essence of the 1st victim was transmitted to the 2nd, and then both to her, and that she's not the last on the list. Then she runs into Thanos and dies like the others.
The 4th Mantis is a bald Moondragon look-alike meditating in Kew Gardens, London. She receives the knowledge of her 3 sisters and a star of her own. She also works out that their 4 longitudes are equally-spaced around the globe 72° apart, but that leaves room for a 5th copy to become the sum of them all. But before going to face Thanos she mentally sends all this information ...
... to the brain of Vision in Avengers Mansion. He rushes to interrupt the only other people in the place, Edwin Jarvis, Scarlet Witch, Silverclaw and Thor playing a holographic video game. He explains what he's just somehow come to know, that they have to fly to Alaska to save Mantis. He'll explain more on the way. Thor and Wanda Maximoff trust the synthezoid's judgement and they board a quinjet. Edwin doesn't want his young ward Lupe to go with them, but she insists she's 1 of the Avengers too (even if only a reserve 1). She tries to recall what she's heard about Mantis, and then understands a certain tension between Vision and Wanda.
Back in London Mantis IV engages in a mystic duel with Thanos (possibly on the astral plane). She holds her own but the villain claims to be a god, while she is but the 4th of 5. He has killed the freak, the mother, the prostitute and now he will add the priestess. And with her death the true complete Mantis, the sum of 2 realms, will be reborn and will know that Thanos comes for her. Then the priestess dies.
In the quinjet Thor reminisces that Mantis was very striking for a common bar girl. Vision remembers that too, and Wanda recalls how her husband, as he was for some time later, confessed that Mantis had professed love for him (original Av#128). Lupe admits to confusion about the woman, so Thor gives her a potted bio.
When they 1st met her (original Av#114) Mantis was the lover of ex-villain and 1-day Avenger (original Av#20) Swordsman who wanted a 2nd chance to be a hero. They both proved themselves, Mantis with her martial arts, but Swordsman died fighting Kang (Giant-Size Av#2). A star (Av#128) announced the imminent Celestial Madonna. The choice boiled down to Mantis and Moondragon both trained by Kree Priests Of Pama, on Titan and Earth respectively. Mantis was chosen and she married a representative of the intelligent plant race the Cotati, taking the likeness of Swordsman (GS Av#4). After that they left for space and nothing was heard about her for a long time. But there have been rumours of her return, living as a mother.
As they approach a certain spot in Alaska we jump ahead to find a young man backpacking near there, whose thoughts tell us he is from a parallel Earth. He sees strange lights over Mt Gruenwald (obviously invented in the comic in honour of Mark Gruenwald). He has forsworn getting involved in stuff like this again but he can't resist going for a look. And what he sees is Thanos fighting the 5th Mantis, in the costume she wore in the original Avengers stories, with a star overhead.
The man leaps in to help the woman, revealing himself as superhero Haywire firing his tanglewire to enmesh the villain. He and Mantis exchange names but then Thanos breaks free. However that's when the Avengers drop in. Some of them recognise Haywire from the Squadron Supreme (most recently #5-6 of the current Av run and the Av/SS Annual 1998). Vision phases through Thanos' hyper-dense body but he easily ejects the android, and holds off Scarlet Witch's hex and Thor's hammer. Silverclaw doesn't know what she can do to help.
But then the 'star' sends down a light to bathe Mantis. She proclaims that her scattered versions are joined, and her power is multiplied not by 5 but by 5 X 5 and "this 1 is once again 1". And her blast of power rocks Thanos.