25 of Marvel’s best spacefaring characters

Rocket Raccoon (Image via Marvel)

11. Rocket Raccoon

Rocket Raccoon, Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant, is indeed an intelligent, talking raccoon. Does what it says right on the tin.

However, Rocket is somewhat more than a smart aleck, anthropomorphic Earth creature. He’s also a master tactician with a stupendously high intellect. At various points in his comics history, he does indeed have rocket shoes. He’s also good friends with a giant talking (kind of) tree.

Rocket Raccoon starts off as a kind of warden of Halfworld, a planet set aside as a gigantic asylum for the mentally ill. Scientists engineered animal companions in an attempt to create non-threatening warders. It kind of worked. I mean, Rocket initially has a vintage named Wal Rus. He is, unsurprisingly, a gigantic, talking walrus.

Raccoon joins up with the Guardians of the Galaxy either because he’s been selected to the team or because of his friendship with Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord. Rocket Raccoon also brings Groot to the team, the beloved tree creature that can only utter a single phrase.

Rocket is, well, a raccoon. He’s a highly trained one, and very intelligent besides, but there is otherwise no especially strange or mystical note in his origins. Don’t let that fool you, though. Rocket Racoon is not to be messed with.