I think the label of “Mary Sue” is a generally misplaced concept.

Of course people are going to write about the characters that they like. Of course.

You could make the same argument about Kitty Pryde when she came into UNCANNY X-MEN in the early 1980s. For a few years there, every story seemed to revolve around Kitty. But nobody (or mostly nobody) would think of her as a Mary Sue.

Mantis was a character that Steve Englehart was able to do a lot of stuff with because she was his creation and not tethered to any other series, so she was freer to manipulate than an Iron man or a Thor. And the readers of that time responded well to that storyline–a storyline that wasn’t just about Mantis, but also about the Vision and the Scarlet Witch and the Swordsman and a whole lot of other characters.

And sure, Steve has come back to do more stuff with her since, but that’s entirely because he likes the character, and I’m sure that many of the people who come up to him to express love for his run specifically talk to him about that character and those storylines.

But the original usage of a “Mary Sue” label was in regards to fan fiction, as a term for a character who was a thinly disguised version of the author themselves being inserted into a story in an unnatural way.

Mantis isn’t Steve Englehart. Kitty Pryde isn’t Chris Claremont.

You can like a character or not, or be sick of a character or not. That’s completely fair. But I think you’re using the wrong terminology for what you’re talking about.

And now, inevitably, we’ll here from a few Mantis fans who’ll express why she’s cool to them.