GOTG: First Appearances of Rocket Raccoon-Retro-Review
By Roger Lee
Rocket Raccoon is about to hit the big time. His new Guardians of the Galaxy movie comes out August 1. In this review, we look at Rocket Raccoon’s first appearance (actually his first two appearances), and provide some background information on the walking, talking and big-gun-shooting Rocket Raccoon.
Rocket Raccoon’s first appearance came in 1976’s Marvel Preview #7, which was a black and white magazine featuring comics-style stories primarily in the genres of sci-fi and fantasy. Marvel Preview #7 featured a swords-and-sorcery type story set in space, with the primary character being a humanoid named Prince Wayfinder of Ithacon. While traveling among the stars, Prince Wayfinder, (who both looks, acts and sounds like a blatant rip-off of Conan the Barbarian), lands on the planet Hallaile (also known as “Witch World” ) for supplies, and encounters a giant tree that attempts to kill him. Upon defeating the tree, Wayfinder looks up to find a talking raccoon sitting nearby, smoking a stogie. And carrying weapons. This is the first appearance of Rocket Raccoon (though in this story, he identifies himself as “Rocky Raccoon”).
Rocket Raccoon’s 1st Appearance in Marvel Preview #7 (1976)
Becoming fast friends, Rocket and Wayfinder soon encounter and defeat a creature called the Plageosaur. At this time, a female with apparently mystical powers named Kirke arrives. The story ends here, and this talking Raccoon does not make another appearance in the Marvel Universe for several more years.
Rocket Raccoon was created by writer Bill Mantlo, who also gave Marvel the Micronauts and ROM. In Marvel Preview, Mantlo creates a talking raccoon, basically as a one-off joking reference to the song by the Beatles called “Rocky Raccoon.” This story came out in 1976, only about six years after the Beatles famously broke up. In the mid-1970s, most adult comic book readers would likely have gotten the Beatles reference right away.
In 1982, Rocket Raccoon appears again, this time with a supporting cast and a bit more back story. In the Incredible Hulk #271, the Hulk wakes up on an alien planet and encounters a talking raccoon and a talking walrus. The raccoon is referred to as both “Rocky” and as “Rocket.” The Hulk decides to travel with his new-found friends, who explain that their home planet, called “Halfworld,” is inhabited by many more talking and walking animals in the midst of a civil war. The planet also is home to a population of deranged humans and a race of sentient robots. The conflict is over possession of “Gideon’s Bible,” a book written by an ancient people the animals call the “Shrinks.” The book is supposed to contain secrets that the animals believe will confer power.
Rocket Raccoon in Incredible Hulk #271
Hulk helps Rocket Raccoon and Wal Rus as they battle an evil mole named Judson Jakes, and prevent him from harming Rocket’s girlfriend Lylla. In the end, one of Jakes’ henchmen, Uncle Pyko, realizing that the Hulk’s presence gave Rocket and his allies an incredible advantage, manages to get Hulk off of Halfworld and back to Earth.
The story picks up some three publication years later when Rocket Raccoon gets his own first mini-series. In Rocket Raccoon #1-4 (1985), writer Bill Mantlo (Rocket’s dad, so to speak), fills in more of the Raccoon’s back story. We learn that all of the humans on the planet Halfworld were mental patients brought there to separate them from the “sane” population of their homeworld. Part of the therapy for the patients was the presence of animals for the ill humans to interact with. Due to budget cuts, the doctors were recalled home, but before they left, they constructed robots to care for their patients. At some point, these robots became sentient, and decided that they had more important things to do than care for some human “Loonies,” as the patients and their descendants became known. The robots used science to anthropomorphize the animals, giving them the ability to talk and walk like humans. These animals then began caring for the humans. Rocket Raccoon at one point became the head of security in the half of the world inhabited by the animals and the humans. Thus, we have the origin of Rocket Raccoon and his fellow talking critters
In the end we see that “Gideon’s Bible” was a record left by the group of psychiatrists who turned the planet into an insane asylum. The book was the doctors’ written record of what they had done and created. (NOTE: As it often happens in the comics, pieces of the original origin story would be retconned by future writers. The version depicted here is the origin as created by Bill Mantlo).
Rocket Raccoon and Wal Rus
The Beatles references, from which Rocket’s original name derived, are all over the story in Incredible Hulk #271. The title of this story is “Now Somewhere In the Black Holes of Sirius Major There Lived a Young Boy Name of Rocket Raccoon!” This is a direct take-off of a line from the Beatles’ song “Rocky Raccoon,” which goes like this: Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota, There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon …
“Now Somewhere In the Black Holes of Sirius Major There Lived a Young Boy Name of Rocket Raccoon!”
Also, Rocket’s companion in this Hulk story is Wal Rus (a talking Walrus), which is a reference to Beatle Paul McCartney, who was at times referred to as “The Walrus.” In the song, Rocky finds a Gideon’s Bible in his hotel room. All this leads one to believe that Bill Mantlo was a fan of the Beatles, and it is a clever way of weaving what at that time in the 1970s was a major pop culture reference into his comics. Oh, and in case there is any doubt that the “Rocky” who showed up in Marvel Preview is the actual Rocket Raccoon who will appear in the movies, in an afterward to his Rocket Raccoon #1 in 1985, Bill Mantlo does specifically state that Rocky and Rocket are the same character. So there you have it, True Believers, the first appearances and origin of Rocket Raccoon. His first movie opens everywhere on August 1.
Now, if only we can get that song out of our heads …