Tales To Astonish #13 - Nov 60
     "Groot, the Monster from Planet X" - Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Dick Ayers
Amazing Adult Fantasy #9 - Feb 62
     "The Threat of Tim Boo Ba!" - Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
Journey Into Mystery #72 - Sep 61
     "The Glop!" - Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Dick Ayers
Strange Tales #75 - Jun 60
     "Taboo, the Thing from the Murkey Swamp!" - Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Dick Ayers
Tales To Astonish #15 - Jan 61
     "The Blip!!" - Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Dick Ayers
Tales To Astonish #25 - Nov 61
     "The Creature From Krogarr!" - Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Dick Ayers
Strange Tales #78 - Nov 60
     "A Martian Walks Among Us!" - Stan Lee & Jack Kirby with Dick Ayers

Review/plot: How can you not love these stories? The art, mostly by Kirby, is fantastically bizarre.

Krogarr:

The stories generally end with some neat little twist.

Most of it doesn't have much effect on Marvel continuity, but that doesn't mean that there weren't weird aliens popping up on our planet now and again.

Taboo:

Taboo will appear again. In this story an adventure novelist ignores the warnings of "superstitious" Amazonian natives and enters the forbidden stomping grounds of the muck monster Taboo.

Taboo turns out to be an alien.

Taboo claims to be just in the need of a ride home, so the novelist agrees to help and goes to the United Nations and convinces them to compile all of Earth's scientific knowledge, which Taboo says he needs in order to build a spaceship. But Taboo turns out to be evil, and just after Earth's knowledge.

He can also actually fly under his own power. But the crafty humans hid a nuclear bomb in the computer they gave him, and they detonate it when he tries to leave.

Note that "so we thought". Taboo will be back in two issues.

Next up is Blip:

Ditko's art on Tim Boo Ba is a nice change of pace.

One of these creatures, a giant tree named Groot, would go on to become a member the Guardians of the Galaxy. No telling how come he used to be able to talk, or how he survived those termites, although we'll later learn that there's a whole planet of tree men on Planet X and the Groot in the Guardians is just a chip off the old block, so to speak. He might not have even been the same Groot we see here.

Here's a quick look at Groot's homeplanet.

And here's a few panels from the Groot issue that i'm including here only for comparison with some panels in Fantastic For #271.

    

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - first Groot!

Chronological Placement Considerations: These stories take place after WWII. They definitely take place during a time when there were few super-heroes.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Monster Masterworks

The Martian/Venusian thing is interesting. The Twilight Zone had a similar premise in one of their episodes - a Martian who can shape-change has assumed human form to scout for an invasion, is discovered, and is gloating about this to a human who turns out to be a Venusian in disguise, who reveals the Venusians have intercepted the Martian invasion force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_the_Real_Martian_Please_Stand_Up%3F

It's the timing that really makes this interesting to me - the Twilight Zone episode came out about a year after the comic. So... did Rod Serling read the comic and like the idea? Were both Serling and Lee/Kirby/Ayers mutually referencing a third source (and if so, what)? Or was it just one of those ideas that were "of the moment", where two different creators had the same idea around the same idea with no direct connection?

That last premise is something which supposedly happened a lot in the 60's, like with Swamp Thing and Man-Thing being invented around the same time but with neither specifically copying the other. Hard to say now exactly what really happened, though.

I do sort of wonder how the Groot we know and love relate to these guys...probably just the same race but he's way kinder and simpler compared to these generic "giant monsters abducting for science!"

Groot should definitely meet Squirrel Girl someday BTW.

Groot actually speaks normally in his first few appearances in the Annihilation Conquest - Starlord mini. I'm not entire sure why he eventually stop saying anything other than "I am Groot"...

Be. Cause. It's. AWESOME!

I am Groot!

One of those destructive morons has came along at some point and has decided to implement the bonehead retcon that this Groot is not Groot and the real Groot's first appearance was in Annihilation Conquest.

It accomplishes nothing. The only reason it appears to have been done is to distance the popular Groot who only says "I am Groot" from his original appearances where he was verbose. But that just proves how rubbish Marvel editors are because, as Berend notes, Groot speaks normal in Annihilation Conquest too.