Groot #3 // Review
The Kree’s Captain Mar-Vell is chained to a tree. He finds himself in a place that is known as the Deadwoods. He’d come to the planet in question to repatriate a group of juvenile flora colossi. Things got ugly. They’re going to get a whole lot uglier in Groot #3. Writer Dan Abnett continues a fun little adventure that moves around distant corridors of the Marvel Universe. Artist Damian Couceiro brings the story into the visual with colorist Matt Milla. Once again, Abnett manages to find a clever and simple way to draw Groot into an action story with familiar characters.
The one responsible for the captain’s incarceration is named Agz. And since he’s a flora colossus as well, Mar-Vell can’t get a whole lot more than that from the being until his Kree Uni-Translator can activate. When communication is established, Agz lets the captain know that he and his group (known as Spoilers) intend on consuming and stripping the life off various planets in the Kree Empire. Mar-Vell reminds Agz that this will mean the deaths of millions. Of course...being the villain, Agz isn’t exactly in a position to care about all the death.
Mar-Vell doesn’t often make appearances in the Marvel Universe very often anymore. There was that whole...death thing that happened in the early 1980s that kind of slowed him down, but it’s cool to get a more contemporary look at Marvel’s original Captain Marvel as he works to try to save Groot and a few million others from the threat of total annihilation. Groot’s other ally, Yondar, is largely a bearer of exposition, but once again--it’s really fun that even a series centered around Groot chooses not to translate his dialogue into English for the reader. Groot’s conversation with Yondar has an element of adorability in and around all of the moroseness of the heroes’ current predicament.
Couceiro gives the pulpy visuals of Planet X a richly-rendered darkness that is filled with earthy, sylvan shades by Milla. The tension of the drama is maintained throughout the issue with a clear grasp of the emotional elements of the story. The immensity of Agz could have been amplified quite a bit more than it is in the course of the issue. Mar-Vell’s heroism and defiance would have looked much more heroic if there was just a bit more in the way of dramatic angles and perspectives.
Though he’s clearly the center and soul of the issue, the title character serves as more of a sidekick to the guest stars, which tends to be the case with characters that don’t speak clear English. It’s difficult to maintain a central focus on the title character if they’re not going to allow a deeper perspective on his own articulated thoughts and emotions, but it’s just really nice to see him hanging out with an old hero from the Silver Age in a story set some time ago on a distant planet.
