6. What's With The Raccoon?
Marvel ComicsOh boy, the raccoon. Rocket might actually be the sharpest member of the Guardians: he's a master tactician, expert marksman, and highly intelligent. And, yes, he's an anthropomorphic raccoon. Huh? Okay, so for a start, his creation was principally inspired by the Beatles song "Rocky Raccoon". So that should give you a good idea of the mindset that Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen were in when they came up with him, and why there was an issue of The Hulk which saw Rocket team up with the jolly green giant to steal "Gideon's Bible". Sigh. Look, the seventies were a very different time, okay? When he was still solo, Rocket acted as the "Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant", a space cop patrolling a specific part of the cosmos in much the same way Star-Lord used to. He piloted a ship called the Rack 'n' Ruin, along with a talking walrus who came from the same planet as Raccoon. Halfworld was a planet for people with mental health problems, where animals were given human intelligence and taught to walk upright as comforting companions to these troubled souls. After a while Rocket was promoted to protecting the planet, not just acting as a caretaker, which is when all the gunfighting game into play. Eventually Rocket Raccoon and his buddies managed to cure the "Loonies" of their mental illnesses and left them to run the Halfworld by themselves whilst they went off and had cosmic adventures. Which they did sporadically - pretty much whenever Marvel thought that people might actually buy a comic about a talking space-faring raccoon - before joining Star-Lord and then the Guardians. Oh and also he may or may not have OCD, which we feel might gilding the lily somewhat.