Will Yondu And Mantis Survive 'Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2'?

Excitement is building for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, not least because the team dynamic is set to change - new recruits include Karen Gillan's Nebula, Pom Klementieff's Mantis, and Michael Rooker's Yondu! The film remains something of a mystery; although the trailer promises the same tone and style of Guardians of the Galaxy, we're remarkably light on plot details.

Guardians Of the Galaxy Vol. 2: News, Trailer, Release Date, Plot & All You Need To Know

Now, though, a casting call for Avengers: Infinity War has changed the game. If that casting call is right, then #InfinityWar will indeed feature the Guardians of the Galaxy. But two names are missing from the cast-list...

Where are Yondu and Mantis?

We first met Michael Rooker's Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy, where we learned he was the one who took Peter Quill from Earth. Rather than do his job, though, Yondu chose to keep Quill as a member of his crew, the Ravagers, and so Quill grew up as something of a space-pirate!

According to Sean Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will pick up a couple of months after the first film - and Yondu has seriously irritated his crew. Rather than seek revenge on the Guardians for not giving him the Infinity Stone, he's instead gone easy on them. His position with the Ravagers is in doubt, and we can presume that will be why he ends up joining the Guardians.

Meanwhile, Pom Klementieff's Mantis is much more enigmatic. The character has been subtly redesigned from the original comics, and is set to be introduced alongside Kurt Russell's Ego the Living Planet. The trailer gave us a taste of how the film will handle Mantis; her empathic abilities look set to generate real humor!

Here's the catch: Although most of the other Guardians are mentioned in the cast list, neither Mantis nor Yondu are. Why not?

The Possibilities

There are two distinct possibilities. The first, of course, is that one or both of these characters don't make it out of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 alive. This is distinctly possible; we know that the stakes are going to be high (the trailer includes Rocket mentioning "the fate of the universe"), and the Ravagers will be out for blood.

The other possibility, of course, is that one or more of these two only join the Guardians for a while. Both, after all, have their own contexts; Yondu is traditionally associated with the Ravagers, and would no doubt ideally want to take back control of them, while Mantis is presumably living on the surface of Ego. It's distinctly possible that they join up for a time, before going their own separate ways.

One New Recruit

The casting call does, however, reveal that one character stays with the Guardians; Karen Gillan's Nebula. We're expecting some fun interaction between Nebula and her sister, Zoe Saldana's Gamora, and no doubt we'll get more of that dynamic in Infinity War. In an earlier post, I've already pointed out that Nebula's inclusion in Infinity War could well be absolutely key to the movie's development - she plays a key role in the original comics. Still, it's something of a surprise to see that Nebula is the only one sticking around!

Of course, the truth of the matter is that we won't know until we get to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in 2017. In the meantime, though, we fans can surely be forgiven combing through all the details as they emerge, in the eager hope that we might just get a hint of what's coming!