‘Groot: Uprooted’ sees an influential creator apply curiosity to a neglected history

One of the character’s most influential creators applies a larger curiosity to the universe he had such a hand in defining.

Colin Moon

November 29, 2023

Dan Abnett wasn’t the one who created Groot, according to the various sites one checks to look this up, nor was his old writing partner Andy Lanning; one could say that even the accredited creators (the late Keith Giffen and Timothy Green, II) shouldn’t necessarily get all the credit, given the involvement, 47 years before our Groot’s first appearance, of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in Tales to Astonish #13.

Still, it would be hard to argue that few other comic writers deserve the credit for raising an initially oddball, borderline cartoon tree character to the perennially beloved status Groot has achieved – without the work done in the young character’s early years, throughout the Annihilation saga and the debut volume of the second Guardians of the Galaxy team, there would have been no MCU Guardians franchise; the talking tree would never have become the most unlikely of household names.

Abnett’s return to the character (alongside artist Damian Couciero and colorist Matt Milla), then, in no small part feels like a momentous reunion. How better to further develop the character, to celebrate the tree’s rising influence and heart-string tugging ubiquity?

Except, of course, that 2023’s Groot miniseries (collected in Uprooted) is not exactly a Groot story. It’s a Mar-Vell story.

Sure, Groot’s in there, adorably baby-sized and leading a couple more cute-overload twigs named Tweeg and Gleef; the trio forms a sort of motivation engine for a young, pre-superhero Mar-Vell. Inexplicably snatched from their home by a galaxy-wide network of pirates, the tree babies are in need of a Kree-backed escort home to Planet X, the origin planet of the Flora Colossi.

Mar-Vell, seemingly sweet and heroic even in his earliest days in the Kree military, politically manipulates his commanding officers (including Captain Marvel big bad Yon-Rogg) into allowing him the duty of hanging with the tree babes – it is the morally correct thing to do; that there is the added benefit of further exposing the pirate threat is all the better.

But Mar-Vell is only here by logistic necessity; it seems unlikely that the whole of a four-issue miniseries could reasonably be carried by repeated utterances of ‘I am Groot’. That this is a Baby Groot book compounds the problem: without Rocket and the crew, how might Groot get around? As amazing as a book wholly set on Planet X sounds, it might not lend itself to the larger cosmic narrative.

Delivering small doses of insight into that cosmic mythology is what Uprooted excels at. Playing with the under-explored Flora Colossi during an under-represented time of Mar-Vell’s life not only provides new details to the Marvel Universe, it continues the hard work of keeping Mar-Vell in the public consciousness. As one of Marvel’s most prized dead men, it’s getting harder and harder to convince new readers that the original Captain Marvel is as important to the Universal story as reverence for The Death of Captain Marvel implies.

It isn’t just Mar-Vell’s relevance or the developing of Groot’s timeline that deepens our understanding of the Marvel Cosmos; the inclusion of Prey-flavored Centaurian badass Yondar nicely ties together the tapestries of both sets of Guardians – Groot’s pals and the originals from the year 3000. It implies a richer history yet untapped.

Couceiro’s contribution hammers home that larger history, opening up the vast cosmic stage while still committing to those old Kree spacesuits, mixing the classic with the modern take of all-around space weirdness. Yondar’s incredible Indigenous Peoples-inspired design sings on the page, implying a larger cultural heritage than the original Yondu ever had the freedom to express.

Groot: Uprooted sees one of the character’s most influential creators apply a larger curiosity to the universe he had such a hand in defining. Rather than focus on the tree baby, Uprooted looks to continue that exploration, and it does so with a radiant visual style.