It was 1994. Fox was a weird, experimental network back then. They were willing to take big swings, and M.A.N.T.I.S. was perhaps the biggest swing of all. Created by the legendary Sam Raimi (before he was the Spider-Man guy) and Sam Hamm (the guy who wrote Tim Burton’s Batman), it featured the first Black lead superhero on primetime TV.
But if you look at the cast of M.A.N.T.I.S. television show, you’ll notice a bizarre, almost jarring shift between the pilot and the actual series. It’s a story of corporate cold feet and a total "re-tooling" that honestly broke the heart of what the show was supposed to be.
The Pilot Cast: A Vision That Almost Was
The original two-hour pilot movie was something special. It was gritty. It tackled race, police corruption, and systemic inequality in a way 1990s TV just didn't do.
Carl Lumbly starred as Dr. Miles Hawkins, a brilliant scientist paralyzed by a police sniper’s bullet. To walk again—and to fight back—he builds the Mechanically Augmented Neuro Transmitter Interception System. Yeah, that’s where the acronym comes from.
In this version, the supporting cast was almost entirely people of color. Gina Torres played Dr. Amy Ellis, a pathologist. Bobby Hosea was Yuri Barnes, a hungry reporter. You even had Wendy Raquel Robinson and Christopher M. Brown playing African students interning for Hawkins. It felt grounded. It felt like a community.
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Then the network executives stepped in.
They liked the "guy in a bug suit" part. They weren't so sure about the "social commentary" part. By the time the series actually aired in August 1994, everyone was gone. Except for Carl Lumbly.
The Series Cast: A Drastic Shift
When the weekly show premiered, the entire world around Miles Hawkins had been swapped out. It's one of the most famous (or infamous) examples of "whitewashing" a supporting cast in TV history.
Carl Lumbly (Dr. Miles Hawkins)
Honestly, Carl Lumbly is a national treasure. Even with the scripts getting weirder—moving away from street crime and into parallel dimensions and time travel—he grounded the show. You’ve probably seen him recently as Isaiah Bradley in the MCU (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier). He’s also the voice of the Martian Manhunter in the Justice League cartoons. He’s got that gravitas that makes you believe in a man wearing a shiny green exoskeleton.
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Roger Rees (John Stonebrake)
Replacing the entire intern squad was John Stonebrake, played by the late, great Roger Rees. He was the "British sidekick" archetype. He provided the tech support and the dry wit. Rees was a phenomenal Shakespearean actor (and you might remember him as Lord John Marbury in The West Wing), but his presence shifted the show’s dynamic from a community-based struggle to a "buddy-science" adventure.
Galyn Görg (Lt. Leora Maxwell)
Galyn Görg played the primary police contact. She was one of the few holdovers of color in the main cast, though she wasn't in the pilot. She brought a necessary toughness to the role of a detective who eventually learns Hawkins' secret. Sadly, Galyn passed away in 2020, but fans still remember her as the heartbeat of the show’s more "human" moments.
Christopher Gartin (Taylor Savage)
Then there was Taylor Savage. He was the "cool guy" driver and bike messenger who helped Miles get around. He was the youth-appeal character that networks in the 90s were obsessed with.
Why the M.A.N.T.I.S. Cast Matters Today
The show only lasted 22 episodes. It ended on a total downer, too—basically everyone dies in the finale while fighting a prehistoric monster. Not exactly the "superhero saves the day" ending people expected.
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But the cast of M.A.N.T.I.S. television show represents a massive "what if." Carl Lumbly has spoken openly in recent years, including at Space Con 2025, about how the show strayed from its roots. He’s mentioned that the pilot was the true "document" of what they wanted to achieve—a hero who didn't kill and who fought the very system that put him in a wheelchair.
Instead, Fox turned it into a "monster of the week" show. They even tried to make the suit look more "toy-like."
The 2025 "Mantis" Confusion
If you're searching for the cast today, you might stumble across a 2025 Netflix film also called Mantis. Don't get confused! That’s a South Korean action thriller starring Yim Si-wan and Park Gyu-young. It’s a spin-off of the movie Kill Boksoon. Totally different vibe, though equally cool in its own way.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Collectors
If you're looking to revisit this 90s relic or understand its place in history, here’s how to do it right:
- Watch the Pilot First: If you can find the original TV movie (often sold separately from the series on DVD or hidden on streaming sites like Amazon Prime), watch it. It's a completely different experience than the episodic show.
- Follow Carl Lumbly’s Recent Work: To see the DNA of Miles Hawkins in the modern era, watch his performance as Isaiah Bradley. It’s a spiritual successor to the themes Raimi and Hamm were trying to explore in 1994.
- Study the "Re-tool" Phenomenon: For students of film and TV, M.A.N.T.I.S. is a textbook case of how network interference can strip the soul out of a project. Compare the credits of the pilot vs. Episode 1. The shift in writers and producers is staggering.
The show was messy. It was compromised. But the cast of M.A.N.T.I.S. television show—especially Carl Lumbly—proved that there was an audience for a different kind of hero. It just took the rest of the world thirty years to catch up.