Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4913740-20130628164607/@comment-8245466-20130701112353

If Skullface is the father of Psycho Mantis, it would only take a simple retcon as an omission of words on the part of Psycho Mantis for it to be true.

My theory would be that Mantis is hated by his father,  and was probably abused by his father (Skullface is obviousley a heavy- handed military type). Mantis said, "I thought he wanted to kill me." Unless his father was actually planning out the details of his murder, this could merely reflect a wish for Mantis to die, which coming from an abusive figure would frighten any child enough to believe they were in legitimate danger. After their village burnt down they were both recovered by the KGB as the only survivors. The Soviets used to have a medium soldier, so of course they would be very interested in a psychic with powers like Mantis. We know that Mantis went from working with the KGB to the CIA, so it's possible that Ocelot heard about him and Skullface and arranged for both of them to join Cipher. It's also possible that Zadornov was the one who brought Mantis to the attention of Cipher.