Guardians of the Galaxy Confirmed Groot Is Venom’s Most Terrifying Host

The symbiote Venom has had a number of different hosts since the alien’s Marvel Comics debut, but Guardians of the Galaxy confirmed that none were ever as terrifying as Groot. Groot is one of the Marvel Universes most low key over-powered heroes as he has regenerative healing abilities, the power to grow at will as well as control plants, and has superhuman strength and durability. Based on his established power set, Groot proves that he has the capability of becoming a terrifying villain with the Venom symbiote accentuating that fact. 

Groot proves himself to be a horrifying Venom host in Guardians of the Galaxy #21 by Brian Michael Bendis and Valerio Schiti. In the issue, Flash Thompson’s Venom has been assigned to the Guardians by the Avengers as Earth’s representative on the team. However, deep space travel is having a strange effect on the Venom symbiote, making it act aggressive as it so desperately wants to get back to Earth. By the end of the issue, Venom jumps from Flash’s body and eventually lands on Groot, giving fans a first look at the terrifying creature that was formed by their bond. 

Venomized Groot takes the hero’s core powers and amplifies them with a horror element only a symbiote could capture. Using Groot’s powers of manipulating body size and plant growth, Groot’s Venom grows to an enormous size with large spiky petals surrounding the Venomized face like a mutated carnivorous plant. Groot’s Venom is lean and sharp with symbiote-laced thorns poking out of him from every corner of his body. While Venom Groot is a terrifying sight to behold, as if looking at a Xenomorph on acid, this form is only a glimpse into what the original Groot is capable of all on his own. 

Groot can twist and manipulate his body much like a symbiote without the need to rely on a host body in order to survive. This similarity in abilities makes Groot the perfect host for Venom, but it also implies that he doesn’t need the symbiote at all to be equally as terrifying. Groot can form his body the same way he did while possessed by the Venom symbiote any time he wants, minus the black aesthetic, as most of the physical attributes had nothing to do with the symbiote’s influence but from Groot’s own biology. If Groot were to break bad, this vision of the character would assuredly be his villainous template. 

While Groot may be the most terrifying host for Venom on the Guardians of the Galaxy roster, he apparently isn’t the most effective on the team. In the very next issue, the Venom symbiote possessed Drax and with that beast of a hero as its host, Venom took out the entire Guardians lineup. While it is clear that Groot isn’t the most powerful version of Venom, even when only considering other members of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel proves that he is definitely the most terrifying both because of the way he looked as Venom as well as the implication that he could take on that horrifying form anytime he wants.

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