Appendix 3: Info for Canon Readers
Note: this chapter has a limited layout due to restrictions of ffnet. If you want to see the full story, with pictures, tables and links, go to Archive of Our Own (AO3), look for The Suit by SaterHelberg. AO3 supports many html tags in publications.
Universes: Marvel Canon
There are a number of Marvel universes:
- Earth-199999 aka the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
- Earth-616, the mainstream Marvel comic Universe
and many more. Groot, Rocket Raccoon and the other Guardians of the Galaxy mainly or exclusively appear in these two universes. When writing fan fiction, a general rule is to stay close to 'canon', meaning, try to use the same world and characters in your story and write it like it could have been written by the original author(s).
Of course, such a rule can be broken purposefully.
Staying close to the Marvel canon is almost impossible, because Marvel itself doesn't stay close to Marvel canon. Marvel uses a large collection of characters and worlds, which they kind of reinvent every couple of years. They deliberately persiflage themselves. If the reappearance of a character in a new context creates a plot gap, issues with retrofitted explanations may appear later. They will spawn alternate universes on the fly to bridge storylines.
Many authors and many graphic artists work with many characters. Sometimes authors and artists will switch halfway a single issue. Frequently, they will take over each other's work within a series, especially 'open' series (as opposed to series that are limited and closed after two to six issues). The supervising editors do not seem to care much for consistency, but leave room for each artist to create stories and characterisations in his own style.
In the Cinematic Universe, old storylines are reshaped and new ones appear.
What I wanted to do in 'The Suit' is to base a story on the Cinematic Universe, but at the same time get in as much story background as I could from the comics. This leads to contradictions however, so I had to create a kind of 'blended' universe as a base for my story, in which I made several choices.
Universes: Technical Data
In Star Trek, there are more or less precise manuals about technology, space topology, species, history, etc.
In the Marvel universe(s), there is a lot of information about species and history. However, the 'hard' tech data are hard to come by.
It seems that the terms 'galaxy' and 'universe' are sometimes mixed up. I try to be consistent with real astronomy:
- The Milky Way, Andromeda, Large Magellanic Cloud and about 50 smaller galaxies are part of the Local Group of Galaxies. Andromeda is also known as M31. Some Marvel sources treat Andromeda and M31 as two different galaxies.
- The diameter of the Milky Way is 100,000 light-years, the diameter of Andromeda is 200,000 light-years.
- The distance between Andromeda and the Milky Way is 2,5 million light-years. The Local Group is slightly bigger. Most smaller galaxies are satellites of either the Milky Way or Andromeda.
- The diameter of the visible universe is 13.8 billion light-years.
- The real size of the universe is unknown. Theories predict that it has to be at least three times as big as the visible universe. The possibility exists that it is a lot bigger than that.
Transportation devices in the Marvel universe use FTL (faster than light) drives and teleportation. FTL drives seem to create custom wormholes to travel at fast speed through (sub?) space. Teleportation devices, sometimes called teleparture, portals, etc., can create a direct passageway between two distant places in space.
There is not much information about capacities of FTL and teleportation. I have the following working theories:
- Common FTL drives in the Marvel universe allow to cross a galaxy within an our and to move between two galaxies between a day. This gives an average FTL speed of a billion times light-speed.
- Knowhere contains a powerful personnel teleportation system. Knowhere is situated at the edge of the known universe. If this is interpreted as the edge of the visible universe, it's about 14 billion light-years from Earth. The teleport device of Knowhere is known to be powerful, probably unique. To reach all of the visible universe, it needs to be able to bridge a distance of 28 billion light-years max.
- Knowhere needs to be connected with a custom ship-size portal system across the visible universe, so spaceships have fast access to it. If ships would arrive at FTL speed, it would take them many years to get to Knowhere. The Marvel storylines suggest Knowhere can be reached within a day.
Universes: Story Background Universe
In 'my' universe, events happen in the following order:
1. Rocket Raccoon is created on Halfworld as a genetically engineered, sentient raccoon. He has no cybernetic components. This is consistent with (3).
2. He leaves Halfworld in a ship to save the planet but has lost many of his memories (13).
3. He gets implants. In (19) is described that he has spinal implants. In a scene in the movie, the implants are shown (C), (D).
4. He meets Groot. In the comics this will happen in (5).
Here my story ends
5. He joins the Guardians of the Galaxy (in the comics, this happens in (5), right after he meets Groot.)
In the movie (A), Rocket teams up with Groot before he meets Star-Lord and will join the Guardians later. He already has implants when the story begins. The movie does not mention Halfworld.
I could have chosen to have Rocket and Groot meet before Rocket got his implants, but I chose to reverse the order for greater dramatic impact. This is in contradiction with the comic universe. The movie leaves this option open.
Characters: Groot
Groot appears in many forms, there are a number of inconsistencies:
1. A monster from outer space (1) vs. a noble, self-sacrificing hero (7)
2. He speaks human language (6) vs. he speaks only 'Grootspeak' (8)
3. Self-proclaimed monarch of Planet X (5) vs. King Groot from Planet X (11) vs. a fraudulent impersonator of the King of Planet X (12)
4. A physics genius (10) vs. a funny sidekick with a good heart but no brain (A)
5. A guy who loves small furry animals (18) (various)
6. Rocket's friend and partner in crime (various)
OK, which Groot can we pick here?
Attributes 5 and 6 are pretty constant, so that's a keeper.
Groot may have been introduced as a monster once in ancient history, but since his first reintroduction in (5), he's a hero. He started out speaking human language, but this evolved to 'I am Groot' pretty fast and it stayed since then.
It's apparent that he is not a king, but an impostor. However, this makes no difference to his friends.
The physics genius (attribute 4) was presented in an inconclusive way in (10). However, I think that in the movie, he has been dumbed down more than he deserves. In my future stories, I want to play a bit with his intelligence. What's for sure, is that Groot has many unexpected qualities.
About his physical appearance: I can go with the movie look. His appearance is friendly, maybe a bit childish. This is the Groot I can imagine holding Rocket and petting him gently.
Characters: Rocket Raccoon
1. Halfworld chief of security (2) (13) vs. thief, arsonist, prison breaker, mercenary and bounty hunter (A) vs. a hero (various), for example (A) and (13)
2. A genetically engineered, sentient raccoon (3) vs. genetically engineered and cybernetically augmented (A)
3. A love for his life type with Lylla (2) vs. a wanna-be womanizer (22) (23)
4. A figure roaming space by his own (4) vs. a duo with Groot (A) (22) vs. a person who is part of a team (various)
5. Shows emotions in a balanced way, composed personality (2) (5) (6) vs. sarcastic, gun-slinging psychopath (15) (17) vs. foul-mouthed, sarcastic raccoon with a trauma and a less severe personality disorder (A)
6. A real person (A) vs. Yosemite Sam in Space cartoon character (17)
7. A raccoon (2) vs. not a raccoon (15) (16) vs. "What is a raccoon?" (A)
8. Curious, smart above average (2) vs. tactical genius (5) vs. tactical genius, master hacker and smart tinkerer (A)
9. A guy who has a thing for big guns (various)
10. Best friends with Groot (various)
If you add up all versions of Rocket Raccoon, you get a person who is too self-contradictory to exist. Although some of the contradictions can be interpreted as developments. That's not a bad idea: consider Rocket Raccoon to be a 'round' character who had a more than interesting life and changed by what he experienced.
However, even in such a development scenario, there are some extremes that need to be taken out because they would make the character unbelievable.
My choice is to stick as closely as possible to James Gunn's movie (A) version and add in elements from the comics that enrich his past and personality.
I like the Halfworld Rocket (2), (3) and I think that after the lasting reintroduction of Rocket (5), his whereabouts can be used to create a profile of a developing character. My biography of him would be somewhat like this:
Rocket is genetically engineered and born on Halfworld. He grows up with his animal, human and robot friends/ colleagues and falls in love with Lylla. He becomes chief of security.
After and incident, he leaves and has his memory erased in an act of self-sacrifice. He roams the cosmos and is confused. He can't get back to his old job and starts criminal activities for lack of alternatives.
He ends up in the wrong hands and gets implants. This is severely traumatising. He gets to know Groot, who becomes his only loyal friend. Together they continue to do a lot of illegal stuff and finally go bounty hunting.
This could have happened before the movie (A) starts. Rocket has a bit of an extraverted borderline personality and likes to push people away by being sarcastic and sometimes obnoxious. At the other hand, he likes to be respected. He's no longer a hero, but acts in a self serving way. He's a lot smarter than everyone else and knows how to make the right decisions. His friendship with the Guardians allows him to rediscover his heroic inner self, which brings him more happiness than the pursuit of wealth.
I solved contradictions in his personality this way:
1. He starts out with a respectable job but slips into criminality, as he needs to make a living in a rough universe.
2. He is genetically engineered on Halfworld. This means: he has started as a fertilised egg cell containing plain raccoon DNA. The robots have changed this DNA, to add human capacities to his genome. The modified egg cell has probably been inserted into the uterus of a host animal, he grew like any embryo and has been born like a normal baby. If the robots have done a good job in genetic engineering, he doesn't need any additional operations or implants.
The movie seems to suggest that Rocket has been created as a genetically engineered cybernetic organism. This can be interpreted as if he would have been created as a kind of Frankenstein Monster, be it a more fluffy and cute one. There is great fan fiction that follows this line.
But I choose to let the implant story happen in a much later phase of his life, outside Halfworld. The comics support this 'theory'. Before (19), there is no mention of implants. For example, in (12), you can see Rocket sitting on his bed with no shirt on. On his back, there are no implants yet. So he has been genetically engineered on Halfword, but got implants long after he left.
3. I choose for a Rocket who has romantic needs buried deep inside him, more than a macho one-night stand guy. I think he needs loyal friends and loved ones. But in the future after my story, maybe he will change and become more of a Don Juan, who knows? His personality problem kind of chases the women away, he probably has to work on that a bit.
4. Rocket is a team player, despite all his social and personality problems. I think the lonely period between him leaving Halfworld and meeting Groot is something that didn't agree with him.
5. Rocket is basically a composed guy with good leadership capacities. In the Abnett and Lanning stories, for example (9), he is second in command after Peter Quill. He has a good working and friendship relation with Peter. He can be a know-it-all from time to time, but OK, he's incredibly smart.
In the Bill Mantlo (2), (3) and Abnett and Lanning episodes (7) - (13), there are no serious signs of personality disorder. The idea of Keith Giffen to give him OCD (5) is quickly abandoned.
Unfortunately, Bendis has given him many anti-social tendencies. This starts right in (14), where Rocket is killing a prisoner by shooting him in the face, without even looking at him! One of the worst scenes is in (15), where he tries to shoot a young Nova who called him a raccoon. In (17) he says "Blam! I murdered you" for the first time. Some fans, including myself, believe that this is ruining the character.
I hate the psychopath tendencies that Bendis put in. It's not funny. Not inside the nuthouse and not outside. Rocket is a hero character. He saved two planets(13), (A), for crying out loud! A hero can never be a psychopath. You can love a hero, but you can't love a psychopath. Because a psychopath doesn't give a damn about you either.
In the movie (A), Rocket shows signs of PTSS and personality problems, but not nearly as extreme as Bendis makes them. Of course, such personality traits can't just pop out of nowhere because a new writer is in charge. There has to be a past history. It makes sense that his period of solitude, his criminal career and especially the experiments that have been performed on him will have traumatised him and changed his personality.
In The Suit, I try to fill in one of these gaps in his personal history.
6. James Gunn, the maker of (A), decisively wanted to make a real person out of Rocket. I admire his choice and I'm going with it all the way. I regard the cartoon version of him in some comics and some animated cartoons as ignorable sidetracks.
7. Rocket Raccoon clearly is a raccoon. Or, if you really want to be politically correct: a genetically engineered sentient raccoon. The fact that, in the movie, he forgot what he is may be due to his memory erasure after he left Halfworld.
8. Apparently, an astonishing thing happens to his brain later in his life. It's like his I.Q has grown by 50 points. His tactical insights are sharper as ever, he has a knack for operating and hacking machines. How did he learn all this stuff? Another story gap that needs to be filled?
9. Rocket has been a good shot from the start. Probably his sensitive and dexterous raccoon hands allow him to be very precise. Very gradually, his guns grow larger and larger. Maybe because the action gets more serious, maybe because the universe treats him badly and he needs to step up, maybe because he becomes more aware of the fact that he is small on average and he needs to compensate?
10. Best friends with Groot: this is a constant in all stories where he knows Groot.
Appearance: I use the movie CGI model to imagine how he looks like. I believe he should look a lot like a raccoon. Bill Mantlo's Rocket looks nice too, except for the ineptly long legs. The more he does not look like a raccoon (red eyes without pupils, fantasy patches on his face, protruding rodent teeth, etc.), the more he just is not Rocket.
Inspiration: Marvel Comics
I was inspired by comic (19). If you're a Rocket fan, this comic is a must-have! In the comic, the raccoon is handed over to a Kree science lab, tragically. There, his body is enclosed in a metal device, his head, arms and legs sticking out. The scientists wear operation masks and gloves. The Kree want to extract whatever knowledge they can from this 'specimen'. The indifferent attitude of the scientists and the various reactions of Rocket, from fear to begging to anger, are excellent. The way his expressions are drawn are brilliant.
One issue later, in (20), the Kree Supreme Intelligence orders the disappointed scientists that Rocket should be let go. One picture shows our poor furry friend after the ordeal is over. Again, Kudo's for the graphic artist. The way he looks, sad and defeated, makes you feel so sorry for him. Why him?! How can anybody do this to Rocket?!
I noticed that some tubes run out of his lower body in (19). I decided to make this point a little bit more explicit. It fits in with the 'dehumanising' treatment the Kree give him. He is humiliated, which adds to his psychic trauma.
I think that the follow-up in issue 17 (21) is an anti-climax. This has inspired me even more to write a story that fills the gap.
In (21), Rocket has been released after a dreadful, humiliating experience. But when he gets back to the Milano, all we get is half a page of him making jokes with Drax. Case closed. This scene is even drawn by another artist, halfway the comic.
In later issues, no deliverance either. Rocket is just hunky-dory. Doesn't torture in a Kree lab have consequences for a character's personal development? That's a trademark Marvel story: a being ends up in a lab and then something goes terribly wrong. Why didn't Rocket get a proper follow-through? Why did the writers pass this chance for character development and drama?
I sometimes have the feeling that Marvel treats Rocket as a step-child. Now he's a star. As a result, there is an explosion of Rocket appearances in Marvel magazines. Rocket in ten different flavours, pick and choose. His appearance in animated cartoon series is even worse, with a different voice actor for almost every episode. Cheap entertainment.
Why not take the character more seriously? I think James Gunn has treated him with more respect than his legal owners. He's not some kind of Bugs Bunny you can turn into a cash cow. Rocket has the potential to be a character with depth. After thirty years, he's here to stay. Honour and respect to Bill Mantlo for giving birth to him!
Inspiration: Guardians of the Galaxy Movie
Quote from the movie:
Rocket Raccoon: "He thinks I'm some stupid thing! He does!"
[points to Drax]
Rocket Raccoon: "Well, I didn't ask to get made!"
Rocket Raccoon: "I didn't ask to be torn apart and put back together over and over and turned into some little monster!"
[begins to cry]
That's heartbreaking! I based the name of one of the chapters on Rocket's outcry. We don't know what actually happened to him, but can use our imagination.
What I describe in The Suit is cruel and sickening. I felt the need to depict it as explicit as possible. To make Rocket a real person who suffered a lot. So it makes sense how his personality will develop hereafter. I also want to enable you, the reader, to be with him, even in his darkest hours. If you love him, can you bear with him what he had to bear?
But OK, my story is an interpretation, I hope it works. There are other legitimate interpretations. To quote James Gunn:
"It's a real, little, somewhat mangled beast that's alone. There's no one else in the universe quite like him, he's been created by these guys to be a mean-ass fighting machine."
Makes you wonder what will happen in the 2017 sequel ... will we learn more about what happened to Rocket?
Inspiration: Fan Fiction
The story Flowers for Rocket, written by Hyaena, inspired me to give the surgeon a stoic attitude that led him to not give Rocket anaesthetics. I love your story! Unfortunately, in my story there was nobody there to help Rocket. In the 'Flowers' story, Peter was there to support him, which I liked very much.
The story Breathing by DontBeAZombie. I really enjoyed that one and other ones you wrote about Rocket and his intimate moments with the crew. I'm especially grateful for the tip you put in the comment section: the Youtube movie Smokey the Sleepy Raccoon. Smokey is so adorable! I watched it over and over again and used it to try to describe Rocket's yawn in chapter 13 as accurately as possible.
Footnotes:
References to comics published by Marvel Comics
Ref - - Title - - Vol. - - Issue - - Year - - Writer
1 - - Tales to Astonish - - (-) - - 13 - - 1960 - - Stan Lee
2 - - Rocket Raccoon - - 1 - - 1 - - 1985 - - Bill Mantlo
3 - - Rocket Raccoon - - 1 - - 3 - - 1985 - - Bill Mantlo
4 - - Sensational She-Hulk - - (-) - - 45 - - 1992 - - John Byrne
5 - - Annihilation Conquest - Starlord - - (-) - - 1 - - 2007 - - Keith Giffen
6 - - Annihilation Conquest - Starlord - - (-) - - 2 - - 2007 - - Keith Giffen
7 - - Annihilation Conquest - - (-) - - 5 - - 2008 - - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
8 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 2 - - 9 - - 2009 - - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
9 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 2 - - 13 - - 2009 - - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
10 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 2 - - 17 - - 2009 - - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
11 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 2 - - 24 - - 2010 - - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
12 - - Annihilators - - (-) - - 1 - - 2011 - - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
13 - - Annihilators - - (-) - - 3 - - 2011 - - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
14 - - Avengers Assemble - - 2 - - 5 - - 2012 - - Brian Michael Bendis
15 - - Nova - - 5 - - 2 - - 2013 - - Jeph Loeb
16 - - All-New X-Men - - (-) - - 23 - - 2014 - - Brian Michael Bendis
17 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 3 - - 2 - - 2013 - - Brian Michael Bendis
18 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 3 - - 14 - - 2014 - - Brian Michael Bendis
19 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 3 - - 15 - - 2014 - - Brian Michael Bendis
20 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 3 - - 16 - - 2014 - - Brian Michael Bendis
21 - - Guardians of the Galaxy - - 3 - - 17 - - 2014 - - Brian Michael Bendis
22 - - Rocket Raccoon - - 2 - - 1 - - 2014 - - Skottie Young
23 - - Guardians of the Galaxy Annual - - (-) - - 1 - - 2014 - - Brian Michael Bendis
References to movie, reels and Fragments
(A) Guardians of the Galaxy movie (2014).
(B) In the movie, a body scan of Rocket is shown in the scene at 22 minutes and 4 seconds (capture of the Guardians by the Nova Corps). On the site The Science of… GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, you can see a the following screen capture of this scene.
I wanted to introduce an explanation of the magenta parts of the scan. What they are, how they got there and why those locations.
(C) Rocket's mutilated back can be seen in the movie after he leaves the shower in the Kyln prison at 25 minutes 12 seconds.
(D) The visual effects company FrameStore VFX, the creator of the model for Rocket in the movie, has a show reel that contains a very detailed look at the implants at 1 minute 43 seconds. Google for Guardians of the Galaxy - Rocket Reel.