The Marvel Cinematic Universe is filled with Easter eggs based on the comics that inspired the popular films, with one involving Thanos being particularly brutal. In Avengers: Infinity War, after the Mad Titan arrives on Earth to acquire the last of the Infinity Stones, Groot attempts to stop him by wrapping him up in tree roots - to which Thanos easily breaks free. In the comics, the scene that inspired the moment was much more violent.
Thanos Quest by Jim Starlin, Ron Lim, John Beatty, and Tom Vincent is the story that leads directly into The Infinity Gauntlet, which sees Thanos acquire the Infinity Stones. Thanos Quest shows the villain's quest in acquiring all of the powerful cosmic gems in order to impress Death by wiping out half of the universe's population. Thanos' journey sees him come face-to-face with some of the biggest cosmic players in the Marvel Universe, including the In-Betweener, the Grandmaster, and the Collector. It's his meeting with the Gardener that would inspire a scene with Groot in Infinity War, but one that ended very differently in the comics.
In Thanos Quest #1, after acquiring two Stones from the In-Betweener, and the Champion, Thanos meets the Gardener at his lush, beautiful garden. The encounter starts off peacefully, as Thanos says he doesn't want to hurt him, he just wants the Soul Stone to achieve his ultimate goal. The Gardener responds telling him he doesn't want to cause harm either, but can't let him steal his Stone. The Gardener attempts to stop him by wrapping him in branches and tree roots but Thanos breaks free. Check out the scene here.
The scene would later be adapted in the MCU. But, instead of the Gardener, Groot wraps Thanos in tree roots, with the Mad Titan breaking free from them with the exact same brute force (and pose) he showed in Thanos Quest. However, in the comics, Thanos also murdered the Gardener by using his own special garden against him, making tree roots grow inside his body, which horrifically killed him.
Killing the Gardener was actually one of the few times Thanos expressed some level of shame for killing someone who stood in the way of his quest to win Death's hands. As he's leaving the garden, he admits the Gardener's "fate with lay heavily on my heart, though by all rights it shouldn't." The scene showed Thanos was willing to kill anything or anyone that prevented him from acquiring all the Infinity Stones. While the MCU took a different approach, it was still fun to see the small Easter Egg of Thanos being wrapped up and breaking free of Groot's hold, much like the Gardener's failed attempt to stop him. However, Thanos straight-up murdering the Gardener in horrific fashion was a much more brutal scene.
Source: Reddit