Character Analysis: Groot

 

Background

• Name: Groot

• Age: Unknown (Young by Flora Colossus standards)

• Height & Weight: Variable

• Species: Flora Colossus

• Member of the Guardians of the Galaxy

• Likes: Rocket, fruity drinks, Tweenlight

• Dislikes: Fire, being abused, human experimentation (pretty normal things to dislike tbh)

• Currently mutated into a planet-eating monstrosity

Groot was born on Planet X, the capital of the branch worlds and home to many sentient tree creatures called Flora Colossi. From a young age, Groot didn’t see eye to eye with his kin, and upon learning of a human girl who was kidnapped for research, he took action and freed her. This act caused him to be exiled by the planet’s Arbor Masters for “tree-son”, and led to him leaving the planet forever and journeying across the galaxy. In his travels, he soon became well known as a criminal who had committed at least 19 serious offenses, not the least of which being impersonation of Planet X’s king.

As Groot’s bounty became higher and higher, even exceeding a certain raccoon he’d soon meet, he ended up being captured and thrown in prison. It was here that he met his long-time bestie and the Han Solo to his Chewbacca, Rocket Raccoon. Though they didn’t hit it off immediately, Rocket soon became the first person to understand Groot’s unusual speech patterns, and the two began an unlikely friendship by breaking out of a maximum security prison. Partners from then on, Rocket and Groot would go on to have many adventures across the galaxy, and eventually meet fellow outlaw Peter Quill, becoming members of his new team: the Guardians of the Galaxy! Among them, Groot became a real hero and saved the galaxy time and time again. Though he may not have found it with his own people, at long last, Groot finally had a real family to call his own.

Oh and right now he’s a planet-sized thing called Grootfall that eats planets. We dunno why or how yet, it’s new.

Experience & Skill

Groot has a fair amount of experience with the Guardians, having fought in multiple cosmic wars and defended the galaxy from countless threats. Contrary to the common perception that he is rather simple-minded, he is also a genius who has received the finest education from the most gifted tutors, and his grasp of quasi-dimensional superpositional engineering alone is described as “breathtaking”. This allowed him to devise a brilliant strategy involving relativistic feedback and quantum inhibitors, which he used to stop an alien invasion by creating a feedback loop that “uncreated” their reality and reimposed the main one.

At the time it was believed that he was the monarch of Planet X and that this is the reason for his high level of education, but this is later revealed to be a lie. With this in mind, it is impressive that his intelligence was great enough to pass as the king.

Arsenal

Guardians Uniform

Though he forgoes it pretty early on in his history, in his first appearances Groot wore a uniform like all the rest of the Guardians. The most notable attribute of this uniform is that it dampens his heat signature, which made him impossible for the Phalanx to trace unless using technology.

Space Suit & Jetpack

On one occasion, Groot was seen wearing a suit to protect against the vacuum of space (unnecessary, since he’s survived it without one before) and a jetpack to rocket himself around in space.

Guns

Though he typically doesn’t rely on them as much as his diminutive partner, Groot has been known to carry around giant guns on occasion, sometimes even wielding many at once by growing himself more arms. He can store guns inside of his body and then pull them out in the event that they become needed.

Abilities

Superhuman Physical Attributes

Groot is physically superior to any ordinary person in every regard, to the point of being considered the strongest Guardian from a physical standpoint. This is especially impressive considering said team includes Drax, who is strong enough to rip out Thanos’ heart, and Gamora, who once proved too fast for big ol’ purple Shrek to hit in a one-on-one fight. Groot himself has proven capable of boxing Edgy Grimace on a couple occasions as well. The Guardians really just be out here bullying Thanos tbh.

Shapeshifting

Groot’s primary ability that he uses for attack and defense; he possesses the power to grow and alter the shape of his wooden limbs, transforming his body parts into different weapons and tools for a variety of situations. Notable examples of him using this power include:

• Growing vines/branches outward to act like ropes

• Growing four more arms to wield six things at once

• Forming blades out of his arms

• Wrapping wood tendrils around someone

• Transforming his hand into a wooden box

• Creating multiple sharp tendrils from his hand to stab people

• Stretching tendrils very far out of his arms

• Stretching his foot to plug up a hole in a spaceship wall

• Stretching both arms to smash people into walls

• Stabbing a robot with branches from his hand

• Wrapping roots around Venom to restrain him

• Growing out his arm and impaling it through an alien’s head

• Making vines to restrain Thanos

• Growing roots out of his feet and into the ground in order to escape without anyone noticing

• Acting as a root system underground, growing roots up through the ground to stab people from below

• Forming a head and then an entire body out of roots

• Making his fingers sharp and slashing Rocket with them

• Growing spikes out of his body

• Turning his arms into a basket to catch Nova

• While amped with growth by god Star-Lord, grows his roots through an enemy’s body and out of its orifices

Size Changing

An extension of his shapeshifting, Groot is capable of rapidly changing his size, often growing to gigantic proportions whenever he is serious or angry. Additionally, it is possible for him to grow individual portions of body (i.e. his arms) at a time while leaving the rest of himself unchanged. He can also diminish in size to a baby-like state when he is weakened or still in the process of regenerating. Notable examples of him changing size (outside of regen) include:

• Spontaneously growing gigantic

• Immediately growing giant

• Growing giant when he gets angry

• Growing his hand larger to block an attack

• Growing his arm big to clobber some dudes

• Grows to kaiju-size in a simulation of the future

Regeneration

One of Groot’s most useful abilities is the power to regenerate his body in the event that it is damaged or destroyed. This is sufficient to survive and regenerate near-instantly as long as even a small splinter of himself remains intact, though complete incineration would kill him if there were nothing left to come back from.

• Even if his greater body is destroyed, a sprig offshoot can, in time, regrow the greater body

• Needs moisture for sustenance and growth

• Grows back to his normal / larger than human size after a couple issues of being small

• Regrows from a twig planted in a pot after having the rest of his body incinerated

• Creates a new nearly full-sized body almost instantly from an emergency cutting

• Splitting off a cutting of himself

• Larger body is still able to act in addition to the smaller cutting

• Surviving a laser piercing a hole through his torso

• Survives being smashed into pieces by Angela

• Survives having a hole blasted through his chest and one of his arms cut off

• Regrowing his arm

• Reforming a small body from a splinter in moments

• Survives getting his upper torso blown off

• Survives getting chopped in half

• Reforming his body out of roots

• Being completely incinerated to the point of not leaving even a splinter would seemingly kill him

• Ability to regrow his body is reliant on regeneration cells, which can be interfered with via certain poisons

Self-Duplication

Due to his ability to split off cuttings from his main body, Groot is capable of essentially duplicating himself, creating an army of smaller Groots that can fight alongside him while his larger body continues to operate.

• Splitting off a cutting of himself, which is able to act independently

• Can germinate smaller versions of himself from sentient wood (w/o splitting directly from himself, though the wood needs to be special)

• A bunch of Groot fragments getting planted elsewhere and grown, though this was done without Groot’s knowledge and he didn’t have control over them

• Making a bunch of mini Groots to fight alongside him against Cosmic Ghost Rider

Dendrokinesis

Groot possesses dendrokinetic abilities which grant him control over other plants separate from himself. In his own words, this allows him to “be all trees” and telepathically control wood, as well as do things like grow vines and flowers at will.

Spore Production

Though he has only used it once, and it lacks applications beyond very specific circumstances, Groot possesses the ability to produce and release organic micro pollen spores from his body, which are invisible to Phalanx sensors. They were able to spread out to every crevice of the Babel Spire.

Absorption

Groot’s body is absorbent in certain ways. Notably, he has been shown to be capable of photosynthetically absorbing sunlight, and is implied to be able to absorb moisture, as well as sponge up poison from a person’s body through his roots/leaves, which he has used to heal (or attempt to heal) both Rocket and the Gardener.

Feats

Overall

• Defeated Mother Entropy

• Defeated Shuma-Gorath and pushed him back through his portal

• Battled in multiple cosmic wars alongside the Guardians

• Fought in the second superhero Civil War

• Broke out of Devin-9 alongside Rocket, the highest level security prison in the known universes at the time

• Created a relativistic feedback loop that uncreated the reality of a bunch of aliens and reimposed the main one, killing them

Strength

• Stated to be the strongest member of the Guardians, above Drax and Gamora

• Punching out Gladiator

• Punching out Thanos and then restraining him with vines

• Clashing with Cosmic Ghost Rider

• Punching Thanos, though is clearly overpowered

• Beating up some Drax clones, though they were very likely not as strong as the original

• Restraining Venom

• Easily overpowering Gwenpool physically

• While increased to giant size by a planet’s sentinel projector, punched out Shuma-Gorath and forced him back through a portal

• While transformed into Grootfall, stated to have consumed entire worlds

• In a simulation, future Groot becomes large enough to tower over skyscrapers and strong enough to eat the Hulk

• Future Iron Man and Cap think that this Groot will kill everyone on Earth and that no one can stop him

• He also ripped the S.H.I.E.L.D. heli-carrier in half

• Stabbing a robot with branches from his hand

• Decapitating a big cyborg-looking thing with a right hook

• Biting a gun in half

Speed

• None notable

Durability

• Taking a punch from Thanos

• Tanking a lightning bolt from a planet-destroying cosmic storm

• Taking a blast from Acari, who created the aforementioned storm and was able to overpower the Silver Surfer

• Surviving a fire blast from Death’s Head, who is shown fighting a bunch of high-tier characters later in the issue

• Survives an explosion that made a large crater

• Survives a fall from orbit, though loses the lower half of his body

• Literally eating an energy projectile

• Surviving in the vacuum of space

• Difficult to kill due to high survivability

Scaling

Groot is capable of contending against a confident Gladiator, and foes such as Cosmic Ghost Rider and Thanos, though usually only briefly before being overpowered or having the fight interrupted. Regardless, he should be in their general ballpark, especially considering the fact that he is stated to be the physically strongest Guardians member over Drax, the Thanos killer himself. Though he is lacking in speed feats generally, he should likely be comparable in this aspect as well to some of the people he’s fought like Gladiator and Ghost Rider, who are on a similar level to herald tier characters like Hulk and Thor.

Weaknesses

Groot only has a few major weaknesses, the biggest one being fire. His sap and wooden body are flammable, making him more vulnerable to burning than most other forms of attack, and complete incineration would kill him beyond his ability to regenerate. His regeneration and duplication also use up some of his energy, which has been taken advantage of on occasion. Most notably, on one occasion, a bunch of Groot fragments being planted elsewhere caused Groot to become weak, sleep frequently, and grow slower, robbed of his strength.

Fun Stuff

• Singing karaoke

• Has a higher bounty than Rocket

• Participating in an underground wrestling match

• Watching Star Wars with Rocket, they argue over which one of them is Han and which one is Chewie