Groot

A Flora colossus of Planet X speaks a language of infinite nuance that unfortunately all comes out as three words. Groot is the muscle, the shield and the soul of the Guardians of the Galaxy: a walking tree who grows weapons from his own arms, shrugs off gunfire, and lights the dark with his own spores when his family is afraid. When the ship came down over Xandar, he wrapped them all in himself and answered the only question that mattered with the only sentence he ever varied: We are Groot. What survived was a twig in a pot, then a toddler, then a teenager who plays videogames at the end of the world. Same soul, new rings. He is Groot. He always was.