Earlier this week, pro wrestler and Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista broke longstanding protocol when he told reporters that Avengers: Infinity War would feature just about every current Marvel Cinematic Universe character, saying, "I don't think anybody who is a current character is not going to be in Infinity War." While it seems like an innocuous statement, it fails to take into account that the entertainment media relies on a series of individual clickbait articles tracking the inclusion of every single character that could appear in superhero films individually, over a long period of time.

You start with an article speculating on how likely it is that a given character will appear in the film. Then you publish a few as the actor playing the character drops hints that they could be in the film. Then you publish one when it's unofficially confirmed by the brother of the director of the movie. Then, finally, you publish a new story when the official cast list is revealed. Repeat for every character in the film. And in Avengers: Infinity War, there are quite a lot.

In truth, the amount of entertainment news that's actually relevant to readers is enough to support one to two dozen websites updating twenty times per day, but there are literally hundreds of prominent entertainment news websites updating fifty times a day on a daily basis, so we've got to really stretch the available news out, savor it, make it last. Simply saying, "all of the characters will probably be in it," is an insult to all of the hard work entertainment "journalists" put into carefully monitoring social media feeds looking for actors posting photos of comic book covers that can be extrapolated on to form a clickbait article about a possible superhero movie appearance. It threatens to upset the delicate balance of the click economy, sending the entire blogosphere into turmoil.

So what are we in the entertainment media going to do to prevent a disaster from which the industry might never recover? We're going to totally ignore it, and just proceed with business as usual.

It's with that in mind that we are eager to tell you that Mantis has been confirmed to appear in Avengers: Infinity War. The news comes via Eisner Award winning website Comic Book Resources (though it is being reported in essentially the exact same article on dozens of similar sites), based on a social media photograph of Mantis actress Pom Klementieff wearing an Avengers: Infinity War hat.

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This exciting news comes just one week after Klementieff posted the cover of Avengers #123 to Instagram, which sparked its own round of clickbait articles:

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A comic book cover AND officially licensed headwear?! Mantis's appearance is all but certain. Of course, there's still the confirmation of the confirmation story to come next week, and the official cast announcement, and then five or six articles speculating on what role she might play…but let's take this one step at a time.

Stay tuned to Bleeding Cool for all the superhero movie news you didn't know you would ever care about!