I don’t about you, but when signing into Disney Plus today to check out the second season of I Am Groot — you know, the most throwaway of all Marvel’s Disney Plus shows, which are already of dubious importance — I was not anticipating a cloaked reference to the MCU’s best option at a big bad to follow Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror. And yet that’s exactly what we got, proving that the miniseries actually is more than just Vin Diesel getting paid bazillions to voice some Looney Tunes-esque shorts.
As previously discussed, season two’s finale is unexpectedly revelatory for its plot concerning a great prophecy that Groot will usher in a new age of peace and prosperity in the universe one day, which feels like a concept that’s begging to be picked up in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4. The potential hints at the franchise’s future don’t stop there, though, as the location for the Watcher’s cosmic babysitting endeavor actually gives us the vaguest of hints at a grand threat destined to decimate the MCU one day.
Episode five is set on the planet Drez-Lar, which has a tragic history in the comics. On the page, the world is a Kree colony — does anyone else smell potential The Marvels connections? — that was left a lifeless wasteland after being hit by the Annihilation Wave, the destructive force unleashed by Annihilus. Not familiar with Annihilus? Basically, this guy — the ruler of the Negative Zone, with strong ties to the Fantastic Four — is one of the few who could one-up Kang as the central foe of the MCU’s third saga.
While he isn’t namechecked in I Am Groot, the introduction of a planet that has a dark destiny at Annihilus’ hand, especially in a story that teases something big happening in the franchise’s future, can certainly be taken as the MCU laying the groundwork for what’s to come after Kang is finally conquered in Secret Wars. Whether it’s intentional or not, the seeds from which a mighty oak of an MCU plotline will grow have already been sown.