At this point in the MCU, Scarlet Witch and Kang the (messy) Conqueror are the only loose cannons — one can do anything in her grief while the other’s ambitions hardly leave any boundaries he won’t cross. But turns out they are nothing compared to an MCU hero who, if left even momentarily alone, is capable of massive destruction all on his own with no flashy superpowers aiding his single-minded agenda to simply get what his heart wants in the moment.
We are of course talking about a Guardian who has been recently crowned as one of the most powerful and important heroes in the MCU. No, it’s not Rocket and certainly not the Star-Lord…
It’s Groot.
The second season of I am Groot has debuted on Disney Plus and though you and many others would like to skip the 3-4 minute-long episodes that you think make no contribution to the MCU (WRONG!), it confirms that if left unsupervised even for a while Groot harbors the capacity to be very, very destructive — the way Scarlet Witch, Thanos, and Kang have never been.
Wanda’s grief controlled her as she killed without any reserves to find her children; Thanos had his devotion to the greater good fueling his insane plans; Kang functioned on the lofty ambition of conquering and destroying entire timelines. But Groot doesn’t need such big reasons or catalysts behind his actions — not getting the ice cream he wants is enough for him to savagely dismantle an ice cream truck, not caring that it probably has a living being in it who would probably die in the vacuum of space.
We already know how powerful the normally adorable Groot is. But seeing the unchecked chaos he mindlessly unleashes when any of the Guardians are not in sight after being included in the list of most powerful MCU heroes is frankly terrifying. He is a ticking bomb waiting to explode any day the Guardians decide he will be “fine” all alone (not with Rocket screaming at him from the next room) for a few hours.
Also, don’t forget that while Groot is described as a “sentient tree-like humanoid” in the MCU, his original appearance in the Marvel comics — in Tales to Astonish #13 in November 1960 — presented him as a tree-like monster that wanted to capture humans and study them. Guess someone will always hold the potential to revert back to their roots, no pun intended.