Meet Rocket Raccoon of Marvel’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

Fans of the last year’s The Avengers (like this article’s author) who were willing to pay at least US$150 (unlike this article’s author) for the ”Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 1: Avengers Assembled” Blu-Ray six movie combo pack were given a glimpse at Marvel’s “Phase 2” of movies, including next year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, featuring Rocket Raccoon. Most of the revealed content for the upcoming movie was available online fairly soon afterwards, including this concept artwork for Rocket Raccoon.

It’s pretty cool.

Rocket Raccoon is probably best known to furries for his role in the video game Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but he was created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Keith Giffen in 1976, appearing in a variety of space-based series, including a cosmic adventure in The Incredible Hulk, where he gained a small cult following, despite later writer’s efforts to kill the character off. The highlight of his early career was a four issue mini-series penciled by none other than Mike “creator of Hellboy” Mignola.

After decades of disuse, Rocket Raccoon was one of several obscure space-based superheroes who writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning would use in 2008 to form the cosmic superhero team, the Guardians of the Galaxy. (The team also contained psychic Russian dog, Cosmo, who unfortunately did not make the cut for the movie.) Their book lasted 25 issues before cancellation; the team, complete with Rocket Raccoon, recently appeared in Brian Michael Bendis’s run of Avengers Assemble before the series was relaunched this year with Bendis at the helm, with none other than Neil Gaiman co-writing at least one issue later this year.

So, it’s a good time to be a fan of raccoons with rocket launchers.