Rocket Raccoon & Groot's Secret Pasts

All break-ups are hard. No matter how you might feel at the time, losing an important person in your life due to unforeseen circumstances can leave a person wondering about their choices in life. Rocket Raccoon fell pretty hard after the Guardians of the Galaxy broke up, as can be seen in the back-up stories in ANNIHILATORS by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Timothy Green II.

As the story kicked off, Rocket tried keeping himself busy by working as a mail person for the intergalactic corporation called Timely Inc. Being a one-time Guardian, though, his life could not stay boring for long and he soon found himself batting a clown made out of living wood from Planet X, otherwise known as Groot’s home!

Upon arriving, Rocket discovered that Groot had been punished by his people for claiming to be king of Planet X. After a rescue mission, the reunited pals joined up with a group called the Undergrowth Resistance that wanted slightly better treatment from the trees.

With that problem taken care of, the pair followed the clown trail to Halfworld, Rocket’s home planet. While there, he and Groot discovered the place actually existed as a lunatic asylum that Rocket used to work for as head of security. While there, a patient by the name of Star-Thief broke out and the former Guardian had to get back to his old gig to regain control!

The duo returned in ANNIHILATORS: EARTHFALL by the same creative team. In that story, Rocket and Groot ventured into a series of wild locales that didn’t make much sense until they realized Mojo had been pulling their strings. At the end, they walk away not only victorious, but potentially very wealthy thanks to the deal they struck to capitalize not only on their newly-launched show, but also the action figure tie-ins!

As it happens, these two Rocket and Groot stories would act as the finale to their run before Brian Michael Bendis took the space reins!

Transmissions from Knowhere

As mentioned above, these stories came as back-ups in the pages of two limited series called ANNIHILATORS and ANNIHILATORS: EARTHFALL written by Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett with art by Tan Eng Huat that spin out of the THANOS IMPERATIVE: DEVASTATION one-shot. In that issue, Cosmo attempted to get Gladiator, Quasar, Silver Surfer, Ronan, Beta Rey Bill, and Gladiator to form a team of galactic defenders. The idea came from Peter Quill who asked the Space Dog to make it happen if he didn’t make it back from the Cancerverse. Joined by the Space Knight Ikon, the group fought the Dire Wraiths in the first volume and the Universal Church of Truth on Earth who had resurrected Adam Magus as a child in the second.