Mantra (comics)


Mantra is an American comic book series written by Mike Barr, mainly penciled by Terry Dodson and published by Malibu Comics in the mid-1990s, until it was purchased by Marvel Comics, leading to the cancellation of the title after 24 issues. Adam Hughes is credited for the character designs.
Mantra is the name of the lead character, an Ultra within Malibu's Ultraverse line of comics.

Fictional History

An eternal warrior named Lukasz and his compatriots had been fighting the villain Boneyard for centuries: whenever an individual soldier dies, his soul would be placed in a new body, and take up the fight once more. In the 1990s, Lukasz' leader Archmage was betrayed and captured, leading to the permanent death of most of the warriors and a final reincarnation for one, Lukasz himself: to his shock, Lukasz was put into the body of a woman, Eden Blake.
In addition to being forced to deal with life as a woman, Lukasz also faces the particular challenges of Eden's life — in particular, her two children and her ex-husband. For the first time, Lukasz confronts the fact that for 1500 years he had been destroying families by stealing men's bodies and forcing them to walk away from their lives. He fell in love with her soul, which still existed within him.
He also discovers that Eden had vast latent powers, including a mystical armor activated by a specific invocation including the word 'mantra', leading to the media dubbing her as such.
In his last battle with Boneyard's men,commanded by Notch, the male body of Lukasz was killed by a mercenary with precognitive abilities called Warstrike, who was deceived by the soldiers of Boneyard. When Lukazs was adapting to the corpse and family of Eden Blake, Warstrike found the Blake's house and told Lukasz-Eden that he had discovered the fraud of Boneyard's men. Lukasz-Eden convinced him to help him in the battle against Boneyard. Later, Lukasz recovered a magical mask that was being sold in an auction. With this mask, Lukasz become Mantra and defeated with magic the soldiers of Boneyard that were attacked the auction.. Lukasz-Mantra knew that someone close to Archimage betrayed him. He suspected their lawyer, John Dalmas. In the office of Dalmas, Mantra began to search evidence, but was attacked by a magical construct called Kismet Deadly, created by Archimage with the intention of testing him. Mantra defeated Kismet and later found two of his old companions, Hamath and Yaron, reincarnated as an old man and a dog, respectively. Kismet Deadly appeared to the trio and killed Hamath and Yaron. Confronted with the nature of mortality, Kismet left. After the battle, Mantra was captured by Boneyard, who took the sorceress to his kimgdom.
Boneyard tried to force Mantra to becomes his fourth wife, but he escaped with help of Warstrike and the local resistance. Later, Mantra fought a demon vassal of Boneyard, that had adopted the form of a wolf cartoon character. Mantra and the demon fought in a cartoon-like reality, and the demon was banished Mantra later joined the government agency Aladdin.
Mantra found the Queen of Gwendor, Topaz in the Godwheel and defeated her in a battle Mantra also encounters Prime who develops somewhat of a crush on her female aspect.
Lukasz was separated from the body of Eden Blake and transferred to a male body. He, Warstrike, Eden Blake, and other heroes and villains were transported to the Godwheel by the god Argus. The corpse of Eden was taken over by Thanasi, who called himsef Necromantra and joined the Argus' side. Lukasz, Warstrike and other heroes were forced to make alliance with Boneyard in the search of certain magical objects. In the end they fought Necromantra, Primevil and a Pumpkin possessed Argus with the help of the Marvel hero Thor. After the battle Thor and the other heroes returned to Earth.
On Earth, Lukazs and Eden finally were together and they conceived a child. The pregnancy of Eden was abnormally fast and the child born was revealed to beNecromantra, who proceed to grow to adult size and fought Lukasz. Later Mantra meet again Primevil, who gained sapience with the Soul gem. Primevil was infatuated with Mantra, however the Asgardian god Loki took advantage of the situation to take the Soul gem. When Mantra meet Topaz again, in the Ultraforce's ship, the queen of Gwendor demanded the return of a sacred sword that Mantra took of her kingdom. They begin to fight and were interupted by a villain.

Post-Black September

Following the Black September event, the Marvel-led Malibu began publication of a second volume with a new Mantra, removing the magic from Eden/Lukasz and casting it onto a minor character from the first series named Lauren Sherwood, a young blonde woman who was a teenager babysitter of Eden Blake's children. This new version, becomes stuck in the Ultraverse. Lukasz-Mantra became a supporting character until the issue 5. The second volume lasted only 7 issues.
In her last appearance, Mantra meet Ghoul from Ultraforce, who was working as taxi driver, and gives him a ring that transformed his appareance to other people, letting him work without scaring the people.

Powers and abilities

Lukasz was an extremely experienced warrior whose master would reincarnate him and eleven other warriors into new bodies each time they fell in combat throughout the centuries. In Eden Blake's body, he could use the latent potential for magic inherited by those of her bloodline; the longer he was in her form, the more he could access this power, slowly becoming a vastly powerful sorceress. She could summon a mystical armor by invoking the word "Mantra". The armor acted as a "focus" for her powers, increasing the abilities greatly. She could also accomplish great things requiring vast power by reciting over and over the mantra given to her by, "Change, Growth, Power" while the power inside her built.
Lauren Sherwood's abilities were similar, but developed more rapidly.