The Guardians of the Galaxy was a little movie that made a little bit of change back in the summer of 2014. You may have heard about it. It was also the screen debut of one of the most unique comic book characters to disappear for large chunks of time only to come roaring back into prominence and become more popular than one would have believed possible: Rocket Raccoon.
Rocket Raccoon was created back in the ’70s by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Keith Griffen. After a couple of appearances, Rocket received his own limited series written, again, by Mantlo and illustrated by future superstar Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame. It’s an excellent series, so track down a copy of it to read if you haven’t.
Rocket made a couple of appearances after that, but it seemed his day in the sun was gone. The potential of a second limited series was stymied by Mantlo’s decision to leave comics — and then by a tragic accident that left him brain-damaged.
And then an “Annihilation” happened.
Rocket returned from obscurity to rejuvenated life under the skilled hands of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who took Marvel’s cosmic arena and made it theirs. Rocket Raccoon became an instant hit, one thing led to another, and this obscure little anthromorph is now a full-fledged celebrity, adorning pretty much every bit of merchandise possible.
When it was announced that Hot Toys was going to be making figures based on characters from The Guardians of the Galaxy, I knew I’d have to have Rocket. I kind of want to get Groot also, but if I can only get one, Rocket will be it. My love of the weird, the obscure (as he once was), and Mr. Mantlo’s body of work demanded it.
Hot Toys figures are high-ticket, high-end collectibles, so you pretty much have to resign yourself to paying out the ass if you’re going to grab a character you want. Most of the regular 12-inch scaled figures top out at $200+ nowadays. At 6 inches, Rocket is half the size of a standard Hot Toys figure, but unfortunately, he’s not half the price. At 160 bucks for 6 inches of Raccoon, there is a definite sting. Luckily I had a birthday coming up, so Rocket ended up being a pretty awesome present, but I would have paid the $160 myself if I had to.
Rocket was easily my favorite part of Guardians of the Galaxy. I’m an outlier in not liking Chris Pratt much at all — his performance never grew on me from trailer to actual movie — so it was up to the rest of the Guardians to provide the watchable elements of the movie. So basically I was in it for the computer generated ball of fuzz. The future, right? Weird. This cloth-and-plastic representation of that non-existent fuzzball lives up to most of what I wanted. He looks great just standing there.
His fur is excellently sculpted, and the paint is shaded very well and is very clean. The eyes are eerily human despite the fact that he is, indeed, not human. Hot Toys eyes have a sparkle and a warmth in them that pull together the entire photorealistic package into something very real. I have yet to get a Hot Toys figure with their moveable eye system, but I imagine if I did, I’d have to put him in another room while I slept.
Rocket’s uniform is impeccable, although the nature of the fabric inhibits a little bit of his articulation in the knees and hips. He’s still able to spread his legs and bend his knees, but the full range of motion he might be able to have if nude is compromised, and I doubt he’d like it if I stripped him down to just fur.
His arms, however, are unimpeded and have plenty of range. The shoulders are ball-and-socket and the elbows are Hasbro-elbro-style with a nice clearance and a full 90 degree bend to them. His neck has two joints, one at the base and one under the chin, but neither of them seem to give as much clearance as they could, so he can look around but there’s not a lot of wild posing options available there. So as far as the articulation goes there is a trade off.
He does come with three sets of hands. He comes with a pair of neutral palms, a pair of fists, and a pair of gun-holding hands. It took a bit of effort to get the gun handle into his grippy hand, but once I did, it held firm. In fact, I don’t remove the gun from that hand, instead puling out gun and hand both if I want to swap hands because I don’t want to go through trying to get it in again. This works out very well for me.
He comes with two pair of feet: regular and kneeling. The kneeling feet are a nifty idea but the legs obstruct his ability to kneel so much that you won’t get too much use out of them.
The tail is ball jointed and can be posed in any direction you want.
His Big Honkin’ Gun is appropriately large, but, despite its bulk and his tiny feet, you can position his tail to get a pretty decent amount of balance in a wide variety of poses. He’s almost like a tightrope walker in that respect; as long as you find the appropriate counterbalancing, he’ll stand. The gun is appropriately techy and complex, and it looks like it could do some damage. And, of course, Rocket looks like a total micro-badass holding it.
Speaking of stand (I wish I had planned that) he does come with a stand emblazoned with the Guardians of the Galaxy logo and his name. There is also a clamp that will hold him in any pose that his two little furry legs won’t accommodate.
Rocket does suffer some hindrances in his articulation, so for the price tag that may turn you off, but for a fan of the character like me, this was a must-have figure. The sculpting is excellent, the articulation above the waist does what I need it to do, and overall the benefits outweigh the negatives. Plus, it just boils down to the fact that it’s Rocket Raccoon. Some things you just have to have.