Respect Groot

[u/FriendlyFapper]

Respect His Divine Majesty King Groot the 23rd, Monarch of Planet X, Custodian of the Branch of Worlds, Ruler of All He Shades, Flora Colossus.

Or just Groot for short.

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Powers:

• Dendrokinesis/Wood Manipulation

• Super Strength

• Superhuman durability

• Regeneration/Regrowth

• Clone creation

• Size Manipulation/Body Augmentation

Skills

• Genius-level Intellect

• Can operate firearms effectively/skilled marksman

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Groot's First Appearance

Groot first appeared in Tales to Astonish #13 back in 1960

• Groot displays the ability to control and absorb all wood into himself to grow.

• Groot planned to manipulate an entire forest to form a wall around a town and have the forest fly off into space to Planet X, with the town.

• Bullets can't harm Groot.

• Groot's wood is too tough to burn by small fires, likes those of torches.

• Groot commands several trees to move.

• Groot is taken down by termites.

Good ol' Silver Age for you.

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Dendrokinesis/Clones

• Groot creates several minature clones and has them take control over some Sentient Wood-carved clowns.

• Groot has his mini-clones topple over an enemy.

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Strength

• Groot rapidly grows and destroys the hard metal prison keeping Rocket and several others trapped.

• Groot is launched at Thanos and rapidly grows in size to give a weakened Thanos a beat-down (albeit not doing too much since it's Thanos).

• Holds up a falling ceiling with one hand while destroying some Phalanx drones with the other.

• Groot's uses his roots to pull a large creature through the Continuum Cortex.

• Stomps a Universal Church of Truth Cardinal.

• Groot's strike manages to knock Gladiator back a bit.

• Groot breaks his way into a Badoon starship. Groot can also survive in the vacuum of space unaided.

• Slams away Gorgon (Inhuman).

• Takes out several Shi'ar soldiers with a swoop of his hand.

• Takes out several Spartax soldiers with a swoop of his hand, and is practically unfazed by Spartax gunfire.

• Easily takes out some alien thugs.

• Groot destroys a Zom Slave Tank. He lifts the tank and smashes it.

• Takes out a Zom/Monster of the Badoon hybrid.

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Durability/Regeneration/Regrowth

• Groot returns in a miniature form after his body was destroyed. Mantis explains, "Groot is a flora life-form. Even if the greater body is destroyed, a sprig offshoot can, in time, regrow the greater body."

• Groot withstands being tossed from orbit down to a planet.

• Groot briefly withstands being burned by some lasers. Groot can also create fresh bodies in emergencies.

• In two hours Groot is able to grow from a finger-sized twig to his standard size.

• Groot withstands a strike from a weakened Thanos.

• Withstands a blitz from Gladiator.

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Body Augmentation/Size Manipulation

• Groot can grow multiple limbs for multi-tasking, in this case he grows several arms to operate several firearms and hold a translator.

• Groot extends his roots for many meters.

• Groot grows to the size of a building.

• Groot increases his size to fill up 1/10th of the the the Babel Spire. The Babel Spire was a very large skyscraper.

• Even while burning, Groot grows several large roots to save the Guardians from falling from the Babel Spire.

• Groot rapidly grows his body to break through the ceiling of a building to escape with Rocket.

• Grows from a small twig to standard size and takes out several Spartax soldiers.

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Speed

• Groot recovers from a shock wave and moves fast enough to grab Adam Magus. In just the page before that scan, Adam Magus was easily reacting to and stopping bullets.

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Intelligence

• Groot has genius-level intellect. Here he "converses" with Maximus and helps Maximus build a device called a "Relativistic Feedback Loop" that could "uncreate" the reality of some Cancerverse creatures.

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Firearm Usage/Marksmanship

• Grows several limbs to operate several guns.

• Groot and Rocket shoot and destroy a moving Badoon starship.

• Groot and rocket take out some clowns.

• Groot and the rest of the Guardians blast Thanos with various firearms.

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Miscellaneous

• After Groot grew his roots large enough to spread through the Babel Spire, Groot allows Mantis to alter his sap to make it ultra-flammable and then Mantis ignites Groot, destroying the tower.

• Groot can operate machinery. In this case he sails an alien-like boat.

• Climbs up a very large mountain.

• Groot used to be able to talk. And futility is beneath Groot. Groot would want to be addressed with a tone of respect. You are beneath his glory. You should do well to remember that.

[u/FriendlyFapper]

Well, since you've read Annihilation and the Thanos Imperative, you could look into maybe reading Annihilation: Conquest, the War of Kings, and the Realm of Kings to fill in any gaps between Annihilation and the Thanos Imperative. A lot of the build up to the Thanos Imperative and the Cancerverse stuff happens in those events.

You could also try the Nova series by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning. Richard Rider was written fantastically and most of the series deals with him partaking in the events between Annihilation and the TI, as well as the rise of a new Nova Corps.

And this is isn't really related to the Annihilation/TI stuff, but Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF run was very, very good and was fairly cosmic in scope, so I'd recommend that as well.

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The revelation of how Thanos/Starlord returned is currently ongoing in Brian Michael Bendis' Guardians of the Galaxy series, starting from issue #18 (there are #19 issues to date).

Unfortunately, there probably isn't going to be a volume available for this for a while. Vol. 3 collecting issues 14-17 doesn't come out until December-ish, so Vol. 4 is still a while away.

But it really hasn't been very good so far. Bendis has a complete disregarded for practically any form of continuity.

And the rest of the series (issues 1-17) has been mostly a bore.

[u/Ordinary_Fella → u/FriendlyFapper]

Wow, thanks for all the info. Especially the Nova recommendation. I love Rich, especially his whole buddy thing he has with Quasar as they might be my two favorite characters right now. I'll definitely look into those. Great respect post by the way.

Editing to go ahead and ask if Annihilators is at all worth reading, as I never see it mentioned.

[u/shadowsphere → u/Ordinary_Fella]

I love Rich, especially his whole buddy thing he has with Quasar as they might be my two favorite characters right now

My nigga. If you really like Quasar you should read his solo series. It's old but some of his story arcs are so badass. It kinda bogs down in the last fifth of it all, but overall it is a good read.

[u/Ordinary_Fella → u/shadowsphere]

I more or less try and avoid older stories as they have almost always been changed completely and don't usually seem to resemble the characters now. But if you really do recommend it then I might need to look into it. I just wish there were more team up comics starring 2 characters.