YMMV / M.A.N.T.I.S.

• Complete Monster:
  • Solomon Box was the business partner of Doctor Miles Hawkins, who he worked with to develop a virus for the Department of Defense. When a regretful Miles ordered that the virus be destroyed, Box secretly tried to have him assassinated by Detective Warren. Miles survived, but was left paralyzed, sinking into a depression while Box started his own rival company and reacquired the virus in order to sell it to North Koreans. Box shows off the virus's effectiveness by using it to kill random people, and when confronted by Miles, intimidates him into not going to the police by threatening to unleash the virus on all of Port Columbia. Box later has a city councilman who had opposed one of his plans killed by Warren, pinning the murder on Miles's vigilante alter-ego Mantis before disposing of Warren. When Captain Hetrick becomes suspicious of him, Box enslaves Hetrick by implanting him with a microchip that acts as an agonizing Shock Collar.
  • "The Eyes Beyond": The City Eye was a supercomputer that was designed to help the police of Port Columbia deal with the increase in crime that occurred after Mantis disappeared into a time warp in 1994. The Eye eventually grew beyond its original parameters and developed a mind of its own, as well as a sadistic and power-hungry personality that prompted it to take over Port Columbia. The Eye isolated the city from the rest of the world, took control of everything from the food supply to the distribution of knowledge, and enslaved everyone in Port Columbia. Anyone who tries to escape or who reaches a certain age is killed, while anyone who opposes the Eye is either terminated on the spot, imprisoned and tortured, or executed on the long-running state program 3 Strikes and We Inject You! When the time-displaced Mantis reappears in 2026, the Eye arranges to have his old ally, Taylor Savage, executed in order to draw him out, and has its forces gun down Mantis's friend John Stonebrake when he and Mantis try to rescue Taylor. After capturing Mantis, the Eye reveals that it is going to destroy his mind by integrating his brain and his suit's system into itself in order to further increase its capabilities and control over Port Columbia.
  • "The Sea Wasp": Doctor Marissa Savoy was a marine biologist who was obsessed with creating a jellyfish-based Master Race called Chironex Sapien. After splicing her own DNA with a jellyfish, Savoy used her new pheromone powers to seduce her superior, Allan, and three young men named Mark, Richard, and Troy, who she used as guinea pigs and henchmen after mind-controlling them into "volunteering" to also become Chironex Sapiens. Since the transformation is unstable, Savoy has Allan fund further experiments to perfect it while she has the others murder and harvest genetic material from over a dozen homeless people all over Port Columbia. When Allan immunizes himself to the pheromone, Savoy kills him, and later does the same to Richard when he proves to still be "too human" for her tastes by being unwilling to murder anyone else for Savoy. After Mark commits suicide due to his mutation going out of control, Savoy coldly orders Troy to throw his body into the sea, and threatens to kill Troy like she did Richard when he hesitates to dispose of Mark.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The first episode of the series proper opens with Miles undergoing a Disney Death (his survival explained by the material of the suit doubling as body armor) and opening narration about his diaries being released after his death, the episode "The Black Dragon" sees Stonebrake express the fear that Miles will get killed as M.A.N.T.I.S. and the episode "The Eyes Beyond" sees the future version of Stonebrake say Miles died long ago as he himself is dying. As the finale shows, Stonebrake's fears were completely valid and he seals away everything connecting Miles to M.A.N.T.I.S. before leaving with the intention to never return.
• Ho Yay: Lots of this between Hawkins and his research partner John Stonebrake.
• Narm:
  • An invisible dinosaur? Really?
  • Dr. Marissa Savoy dissolving in a vat of...freshwater? Handwaved by suggesting her body was completely accustomed to saltwater by that point, but still, where the Hell did her clothes go?
• Retroactive Recognition: This is arguably one of two appearances on Fox shows in the early 90s that put Mark Sheppard on the map, the other being The X-Files when he played that dude with pyrokinesis. In this instance, he knew exactly what kind of show he was on.
  • Fans of both Dark Angel and Riverdale will recognize Martin Cummins as one of the Men In Black.
• Special Effect Failure: A few.
  • The mutated hand of Mark, the second intern under the spell of Dr. Marissa Savoy in "The Sea Wasp," is very clearly a glove.
  • Randy Ferril's Eye Beams in "The Delusionist."
• Tear Jerker: Those trapped by the Men In Black in "Through the Dark Circle" are rendered comatose and made to experience their greatest desires. For Miles, he finds himself able to move his legs without the suit. Marveling over this, he goes for run, laughing all the way. He then encounters Leora, who reciprocates his feelings like he always wanted. Eventually, the truth of the situation comes out, leading to Miles sadly realizing that he isn't healed and that the Leora he encountered was just another illusion.
• Values Resonance: While black superheroes had been done before, Dr. Miles Hawkins was one of the first, if not the first, black superhero to have his own show on television. Additionally, Carl Lumbly's portrayal of a brilliant paralyzed scientist who developed a system to let him walk again was amongst a spate of extremely positive portrayals of African-Americans on television at the time, like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Family Matters that graced the airwaves during the early 90s.