Rocket Raccoon (Earth-616)/Expanded History

Early Life

Somewhere in the black holes of Sirius Major there lived a young boy by the name of Rocket Raccoon. Possibly snatched from Earth, he was used by a group of alien humanoids as a therapy animal for the inmates in the Halfworld Asylum for the Criminally Insane. A young raccoon with no intelligence, Rocket was used as the service animal for a patient named Khevix, a war veteran with a mouth like a sailor and bad dreams. He liked Rocket to sit in his lap while they watched dumb old war movies. He was good to Rocket; in his opinion, the last one who would ever be.

When the humanoids' funding was cut, they left back to their home planet, but not before building robot stewards to provide for the mentally ill. When a nearby star went nova, ensuing radiation gave sentience to the robots, who quickly chafed at the illogical directives of the humanoids. Seeking to end their servitude, the robots used genetic engineering to give intelligence and awareness to the animals that had been left as companions for the patients. The robots made the animals anthropomorphic to engender a cheerful atmosphere, keeping the most dangerous inmates happy. The robots experimented on Rocket to give him intelligence through painful and traumatic surgery, a “chorus of razors.” Rocket's DNA was altered similarly to how the Kree made the Inhumans.

Rocket gains intelligence

This event made Rocket who he was, an open wound he had to hide under sarcasm and snarls. Even during happy times, what was done to him festered inside. After the surgery, his extended limbs and human-like body had to be maintained with a metal exo-skeleton. Rocket and his fellow animals knew it was their duty to look after the least dangerous patients from the surface of the planet, whom they called Loonies, but the animals were initially unaware of their true roles and history. Halfworld's surface was divided into two, half industrialized and manned by robots that created technology for the animals, and half a verdant paradise where Rocket and his fellows lived with the Loonies. Over time the animals created their own society, with the major industry being toymaking for the Loonies' amusements. Rival companies arose, with the saurian Lord Dyvyne's Dyvynities, Inc. challenging Inter-Stel Mechanics, run by the mole Judson Jakes.

When Rocket turned one-year old, he was granted a ranger uniform by his friends Pyko, Lylla, and her uncle Wal Rus, but the bunny Blackjack O'Hare stole the birthday cake so that he, Dyvyne and Jakes could eat it. Retrieving it was Ranger Rocket's first mission. After this, Rocket flew a kite and helped Pyko replace Wal Rus's teeth for weaponized, mechanical prosthesis after he broke his original ones. Later, Halfworld hosted a talent show. Rocket dressed up as a magician and performed magic tricks; this angered Dyvyne, as Rocket's tricks drew attention away from the music band he'd formed with Jakes and Blackjack. Pyko attempted exposing the trick to Rocket's magic, but ended up with a face full of confetti, unaware that Rocket was employing a compact teleporter in the shape of a wand to make anything appear from his hat. Later, Rocket and all his friends watched a horror movie. While Rocket slept that night, he was awakened by a noise which turned out to be a sentient robot called Micah 2.0, who became Rocket's friend. Rocket played bowling with Micah, Lylla, Wal and his usual friends. After that, he participated in a soap box derby, for which Lylla gave him a kiss on the cheek, flushing Rocket. Although it seemed like Blackjack would win due to cheating, a gadget in Rocket's car gave him the first place.

When Rocket was six years old, he was somehow spotted outside Halfworld, where he met Gamora, the most dangerous woman in the galaxy, and the two of them were captured by Badoons. They were rescued by Jesse Alexander and his Supernovas, and Rocket and Gamora formed a friendship with Jesse.

Back in Halfworld, Lylla became Rocket's girlfriend and her uncle Wal Rus became Rocket's partner. When Rocket bought a ship for the two of them, Wal Rus wanted to name it Wailing Wal, but Lylla proposed Rakk 'n' Ruin, and Rocket liked the alliteration with his own name. Wal Rus was left playfully resentful about this, refusing to refer to the ship as belonging to the two of them. As they used the ship to travel Halfworld, Rocket became known as the fastest gun in the Quadrant. Once, the Hulk arrived to the planet, but he experienced a "comforting children's tale" version of the world, presumably from being immersed in a virtual reality, perhaps even along with Rocket and his friends. Hulk was promptly sent back to Earth to prevent him from upsetting the status quo.

Contest of Champions

Around this time, Rocket was teleported to an arena along with every Earther super-hero when the Grandmaster and Death decided to make a deal wherein each would choose twelve champions from Earth, the fact that Rocket was brought there as well giving weight to the theory that he's from Earth. If the Grandmaster's team won, he would be given the power to restore the life of his deceased brother, the Collector. If he lost, he'd forfeit his life as well. However, Rocket was not picked for either team and was returned to Halfworld.

Soon after, war erupted between Dyvyne and Jakes' companies. Blackjack attempted to usurp power himself, becoming a target for both Dyvyne and Jakes, and forcing him to join forces with Rocket. The Rakk 'n' Ruin was destroyed, but the group ended the conflict when Pyko deciphered the Halfworld Bible, the logbook of the hospice ship Gideon, one of the vessels that founded Halfworld. Armed with the knowledge of their origin and true nature, Rocket and his associates expanded their operations to the entire asylum.

Rocket became security chief, with Blackjack as his number two and Dyvyne as head of psychology. Initially the revised system worked well, and new patients from around the cosmos were safely admitted and treated, but problems arose with the arrival of alpha class psychic Barry Bauman. A villain known as the Star-Thief, his body had been killed by Warlock, but his mind had survived, jumping from one body to the next until it was taken to Halfworld. Bauman withstood all therapy; possessing guards and inmates alike, he caused riots and disruption, the first security breach in 30 years. If he got out he could infect the entire galaxy, and Rocket knew it was only a a matter of time, so he turned the bio-organic nature of Halfworld against Bauman. Halfworld became the lock, and Rocket turned the wardens into the key: only their unique cellular patterns could combine to open the lower levels of the asylum. Unless they were all present and willing, Bauman could never escape. To ensure this, Rocket had to leave the planet; it was his duty as security chief. He handed his badge to Blackjack; Judson Jakes became the new number two. As a part of his redesigns before leaving, Rocket suggested making all the security clown drones out of bioreactive dendronic wood from Planet X because it was better suited to Halfworld's eco-security system. Rocket then used immersion therapy to wipe his mind so he would never be tempted to return, only taking half-memories of adventures he had participated in. After Rocket left in a ship, Lylla moved on and married Blackjack O'Hare, although they eventually divorced, something for which Blackjack blamed Rocket. Rocket's mind-wipe process led to regular memory losses that would make him forget his origin or that others like him existed out there.

Rocket acknowledges he blocked out many memories

In these whimsical memories, the clowns guards that protected Halfworld became killer robots, and Dyvyne and Jakes played the part of mad tyrants who constantly chased riches, power, and kidnapped Lylla. The otter, in turn, became a helpless princess who pleaded for her hero, Rocket, to rescue her, and Blackjack was the criminal leader of the mercenary team called the Black Bunny Brigade. In these memories, Rocket wrongly remembered Jakes and Dyvyne dying and Rocket leaving the planet with every single animal like a quadrupled Noah, looking for adventures and to discover whether there existed normalcy outside of the Keystone Quadrant.

Space travels

Back in reality, Rocket found himself piloting a ship called Rakk 'n' Ruin II. When he spotted an injured Kang The Conqueror floating in space, he brought him into his ship. As a time traveller, Kang saw the threat the King in Black would pose in the future, so he convinced Rocket to head to Earth, where they found the Black Knight in the Avengers Mansion. He had been attacked by a servant of the King In Black, Mister E, who stole his Ebony Blade to destroy it because it was one of the only things that could harm his king. Mister E piloted the Quinjet Wayfarer and headed to Knowhere, where he could hire the Troll Ulicia to destroy the sword. Rocket, Kang and the Black Knight headed there after picking up Spider-Man and Captain Marvel. The heroes arrived to find Mister E in a fight with Ulik, Ulicia's brother. Although Rocket shot at the enemy, he used the Sword to return the fire, and only Kang's force-field saved Rocket's life. Working together, the heroes defeated Mister E, whom Kang sent to The Collector. Afterwards, Rocket and company fought Ulik for possession of the Ebony Sword, and beat him with the help of Cosmo. However, it turned out Ubik had been sent by The Watcher, who wanted the sword to kill the King in Black. Soon, Mister E returned, and Spider-Man shouted they would be guardians of the galaxy against him, a name Rocket liked. Rocket managed to wield the Ebony Blade, but failed to destroy Mister E, a feat Captain Marvel pulled off. Afterwards, she used the sword to extinguish a giant shadow that was eclipsing the Earth's Sun. After the adventure, the Watcher erased everyone's memories.

Some time afterwards, Rocket was captured by the enigmatic Stranger, and imprisoned in his Laboratory World for study. Rocket remained there until freed by Overmind.

When Rocket stopped by the planet Dandesh Four to refuel his ship, he saw an alien D'bari shapeshifting into a Xartan and realized the Xartans were hiding from the Skrulls by posing as the extinguished D'bari. Because of this discovery, the D'bari started fighting him. Rocket was doing fine until the arrival of Taryn O'Connell, a member of the Ovoid race, and the trucker-turned-space explorer Razorback. He distracted Rocket and the D'bari Vuk used a petrifying gun on him. When the planet was invaded by Skrulls, Vuk set his device to overload, threatening to petrify everything within 100,000 miles. This had the reverse effect on Rocket, who changed back to flesh and blood. After being freed, he got acquainted with She-Hulk.

Rocket meets his mentor, Frankie.

Later, Rocket had an encounter with the Troyjans, which resulted in a copy of his hide being mounted on the Troyjan king Armaggedon's wall.

Overall, Rocket's travels were less than stellar. Eventually, he became homeless, having to search for food in the trash to survive. In this state, he met Frankie Fat Hands, an alien who took Rocket under his wing and taught him how to steal and be a lowlife – how to survive in an uncaring universe.

After this, Rocket became a bounty hunter. One of Rocket's first bounties was Chammy, a low-level loser smuggler who powered his ship with baby powder. During this time, Rocket freebooted regularly with the Starjammers. He did business in Penasco with Macho Gomez before turning him to the authorities. Later, Rocket paid a visit to his old friend She-Hulk at her office in Timely Plaza, Earth. When the Time Variance Authority put She-Hulk on trial for temporal meddling, they briefly pulled Rocket out of time to serve as a witness. Back in the present, Rocket was caught on camera by Heather Hudson, who proposed selling a program about him to Mojo. Mojo gained an interest in Rocket that he would pursue years later.

Rocket is framed for Otta's crimes

Despite everything, Rocket was not able to move past Lylla. In this rebound he met Otta, who had come to the rimworlds looking for adventure. She played the broken heartstrings of Rocket's heart like a Stradivarius, or maybe he played himself, just to hear something again. He followed her willingly into her life of crime, of big scores wherein Rocket used his heightened senses to crack safes. They lived in high-class bars or beach planets for a month, until the cash ran dry, and then went back to the piggy bank for more. Rocket had rules; only hit the bad guys, the fat cats, the creeps. And zero killing. Nobody got hurt, until Rocket and Otta were caught by a lousy Restricted Zone Infraction that got out of hand. True to her nature, Otta blamed Rocket for everything, and he was sent away to a Kree prison.

Rocket meets Groot for the first time

There, he met his cellmate Groot. Rocket couldn't understand Groot's three-word language, which angered him. Rocket kept his distance and stayed in his side of the cell until he saw some guards bullying Groot for his speech. This brought out the security chief in him; after he scared the guards off, the two prisoners began a friendship and Groot built Rocket a bed of leaves. When the guards came back for revenge, Rocket discovered he could now understand Groot's speech and the two friends took out the guards.

Endwar

While Rocket and Groot were in prison, they were recruited by Star-Lord (Peter Quill) for a suicide mission. The universe was under attack, as supervillain Ultron had reached the mechanic species Phalanx, taking control of them and upgrading them. They started spreading throughout the galaxy, infecting everyone with their mechanic virus and taking over their wills. They infected Hala's empire, and built a gigantic tower with which they created a barrier across Kree-space, sealing them off from the other empires.

Peter was tasked with leading a team of expendables pulled from prisoners – some of them which volunteered, inspired by the legend of Star-Lord. While arming them, Rocket gravitated toward larger weapons and exceeded expectations. Groot acted as Rocket's heavy ordnance transport.

The prototype Guardians of the Galaxy are formed

Rounding out the team were Bug, ex-Micronaut; Deathcry, a Shi'ar berserk; Mantis, the celestial Madonna, and Gabriel Vargas, the latest Captain Universe. The team was given uniforms that dampened heat signatures and avoided technology, making them invisible to the Phalanx.

Infiltrating Hala, the team accessed a sub-level the Phalanx had set up shop in, looking for the replication plant. When they were caught in a fight between Phalanx robots and Annihilation bugs, Deathcry went feral and Captain Universe was forced to kill her for the safety of the team. Being a rookie, Gabriel was left traumatized. As they were being swarmed, Groot stayed behind to allow his team to escape; Rocket wailed as his buddy sacrificed himself and they got away. Peter was cold about the whole ordeal; he considered everyone expendable.

The team spent two days running in circles. The drones knew what they looked like, so Peter came up with the idea of changing clothes with a civilian; his crew was multi-colored, so he was the only one who could pass for a pink-skinned Kree. When he had been made an honorary Kree, he had been given a special universal password; with it, he was able to access the computers and look for something that wasn't there before. Peter found out the Phalanx were doing large-scale insemination through an airborne nanovirus; they were using the Kree people as incubators without them even knowing it. Meanwhile, the wait was killing Rocket, who cleaned his weapons over and over, making his teammates wonder if he had any obsessive/compulsive behavior they should know about. Suddenly, Groot showed up, this time the size of a hand. He was a flora life form, capable of regrowing from a single sprig. Rocket caught many rides in Groot's shoulder, so now it was only fair he let Groot ride in his. Peter came back with the intel and they discussed what to do. After Groot said they should just genocide the inferior, infected Kree people, and demanded moisture to grow, Rocket responded by spitting on him. Afterwards, they were swarmed by maintenance drones; the Phalanx were purging the sub-levels of all life forms. Rocket used his super-smell to find a water pipe, causing a flood and buying them time. However, Captain Universe was forced to stay behind to let the others escape. The team reached the surface, but they were captured all the same; everyone except for Mantis. On top of that, all of them had been infected with the Phalanx airborne virus.

The team was useful for the Phalanx as a way to study the effects of the virus on diverse life forms, so they weren't killed. Mantis reunited with Captain Universe, who barely survived. The Captain's Uni-Force suggested the Phalanx were pathologically methodical; they wouldn't release the virus unless they had an antidote for it. To find information, Gabriel released the Uni-Force so that it'd find a new host in one of the Phalanx. Meanwhile, Mantis helped the others escape detention. While they were fighting the guards, Groot received a shot and they discovered their enemies guns were set to stun. It turned out the Kree guards had no intention of obeying the Phalanx, and felt honored to be next to Star-Lord; despite Peter's claims that Star-Lord was dead, his ideals couldn't die. The Uni-Force used its Phalanx host to access the Phalanx's common core, download the contagion countermeasure and purge the program. It then killed its host and returned to Gabriel. The team reunited and stole a ship to escape the planet. Peter warned Rocket, who was piloting, about the orbital security perimeter he himself designed, but Rocket used his enhanced instincts and superior tactic skills to work around it. Afterwards, every member earned a pardon, but they were not off the hook yet. The Phalanx threat was very much still real, so Peter's team wasn't decommissioned, much to Peter's dismay.

The Annihilation Conquest war raged on; Peter led the resistance efforts together with his crew. He took Blastaar to the Phalanx to be captured just to get some of Groot's spores inside; they filled every crevice of the Phalanx's Babel spire, and Mantis used her telepathy to construct a schematic of the place. They then infiltrated the spire and filled it with explosives, but Peter was captured by Ultron and Gabriel was killed.

Ultron began torturing Peter to get the secrets of the resistance, but Mantis reinforced his mind from the distance, protecting him. As the team's tactician, Rocket took over and tried to think of a plan B. When Ultron moved over to bigger concerns, Rocket pulled off a rescue operation and freed Peter. His plan was to have Groot sprouting below the spire, with Mantis using her telepathy to boost his cellular growth rate until he covered one-tenth of the facility, plus reconfiguring him to make him ultra-flammable. It was Groot's idea: he could grow back from a cutting he gave Rocket. They made him explode and blow up the spire, then every-body jumped to their deaths. With his last strength, Groot created a giant arm to catch the team, saving them. Peter did enough: the spire was down. Afterwards, Phyla-Vell, going as Quasar, took down Ultron and the crisis was aborted.

Aftermath of the Conquest

Two days after the Phalanx conquest, Peter nobly blamed himself for everything that had happened, but he was feeling very inspired. He had the idea to create a team to avoid future crisis like that one. A team of guardians for the galaxy. There had been two wars in rapid succession; he wanted to assemble a team to stop the next ones from happening, to be proactive. He recruited Rocket — he needed the military smarts, and he had the best tactical mind Peter had ever met — along with Quasar, Groot, Drax, Gamora, Warlock and Mantis. To ensure everything ran smoothly, the diverse personalities didn't clash and nobody questioned the team's dynamic, Peter had Mantis tamper with the team's minds, making everyone compliant. And so the Guardians of the Galaxy were formed, although they still didn't have a name. Nova recommended they set up a base in Knowhere, where they were backed up by the place's security chief, Cosmo, a talking dog. Rocket was naturally predisposed against him; anthropomorphic animals gave him the willies.

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Guardians' key mission was to prevent fissures from opening in the fabric of space after the successive wars left reality in a fragile state. In their first mission, they boarded a Templeship from the Universal Church of Truth to prevent it from flying into one of these fissures. When they got too close, the leaders teleported away, abandoning their followers. Right then, a squid monster from beyond the rift invaded the ship. Rocket used his “special six” grenade to blow up the power battery, destroying half the ship. Then, Warlock and Quasar absorbed the energy to drive the monster back to where it came from. Once the team guided the templeship to a safe port, they teleported to their base in Knowhere.

However, as soon as the team got home the deep-range monitor alerted them of another fissure. The team teleported to the vicinity of 56 Hydronis, where a hole in space was altering space/time and spewed out an island of limbo ice; frozen time. The things entombed in the ice began waking up, and the Guardians were attacked by monsters. But someone else woke up: Vance Astro, Major Victory of the 30th Century's Guardians of the Galaxy, and he took out the monsters. The team contained the anomaly, and they teleported away. Star-Lord was inspired: what really cemented the Avengers was finding Captain America frozen in a block of ice, and now they had found their own hero with a Captain America shield. Rocket thought the name “Guardians of the Galaxy” was pretty cool, too, so that was when they got the idea for their own name. Shortly after, the Guardians' deep-range monitor notified them of another fissure in Binary Stasis Twelve, a Dyson Sphere located on the edge of the Rebreg Nebula, a sun enclosed inside an artificial shell. They arrived in a habitable zone protected from the sun by a dome, but they couldn't find any of the inhabitants, despite getting life readings. Suddenly, enemies teleported in: Raker, commanding the Cardinals of the Universal Church of Truth. They sought revenge on the Guardians for wrecking their Templeship. The church was powered by the prayer-power of its trillions of faithful followers, so bullets didn't hurt them, but Rocket thought they just hadn't met a gun big enough yet. Suddenly, a wave of green goo appeared and swallowed up the Cardinals; that was the anomaly they had come to fight. The biomass was the sphere's population, all fused together after their genetic research went wrong. It was going critical, which would result in a fissure. Rocket brought along plenty of bombs, but not enough. Star-Lord came up with a plan: lift the sun-shield protecting the habitable zone and let the sun fry the biomass. However, when they tried to teleport away, they found Knowhere was not responding.

Indeed, the base got wrecked when Vance Astro was attacked by another citizen of the 30th century, Starhawk. He worked with the Council of the Guardians of all Realities; a gathering of Guardians of the Galaxy groups from different timelines who started to see their realities collapse under the Timeflux War; a disruption in time that erased history or replaced it with dark alternatives. It all originated from some crucial error in the past, near the period when the concept of the Guardians was first created. To find that error and solve it, Starhawk traveled back in time. He attacked Vance, believing him to be that error, and fled.

Back in Binary Stasis Twelve, Quasar covered everyone from the sun with a magic shield, but she couldn't resist for long. Heroically, Gamora left the protection of the shield, running to the dome controls to lower the sun-shield again. She only barely survived thanks to her healing factor, and all her skin was burned off. The situation was solved, albeit inelegantly.

Secret Invasion

After the Guardians returned to Knowhere, they tried to get answers from Vance about his attacker, but he couldn't remember anything. Rocket was suspicious; his amnesia was just too convenient. Shortly after, there was a bombing incident in Knowhere, resulting in thirty-eight dead. Three of the corpses revealed themselves to be shape-shifting Skrulls, and Rocket mentioned the elephant in the room: they had to assume there were more of them, disguised as citizens. Tensions rose, with the Guardians accusing each other of being skrulls. They were interrupted by the Luminals, a strike-force that policed Knowhere before the Guardians arrived. They thought the Guardians brought trouble with them, so Star-Lord promised they would cooperate. When Vance was attacked under suspicion of being a Skrull, Cosmo was forced to order the Guardians to stay confined to their quarters. Rocket couldn't believe they were taking orders from a dog he couldn't stand. Inevitably, problems arose when Drax was not found in his quarters.

As the Luminals went find him, Rocket and Star-Lord shared a moment. Rocket told Peter to be careful; this crisis could cause the team to unravel. They had only just been put together, the glue wasn't set. Peter said he wouldn't let that happen, and neither would Mantis. Before Rocket could ask what he meant, the team was attacked by Starhawk, only this time it was a female version of her — which Rocket happened to find very attractive. She explained she thought the “error” was Vance, but since the Guardians shouldn't exist yet in the timeline, it must be all of them. Right then, Drax triggered bombs all over Knowhere, killing all of its inhabitants.

In reality, he just rendered everyone braindead for ninety seconds to be able to locate the Skrulls. Rocket and the rest woke up shortly after, and they resumed trying to hold Starhawk down until Peter knocked her out. They got a call from Quasar, who explained what happened and where to locate the Skrulls. As it turned out, Cosmo was helping the Skrulls remain hidden because they were refugees. They were pacifists Skrulls, fleeing from the empire; the bomb that started everything had been triggered by an agent of the jihadist regime. Not knowing this, the Luminals arrived and started wrecking everything. Cosmo got mad, knocking everyone out telekinetically. Afterwards, Drax told everyone Peter had tampered with their minds to make them join the team. Peter thought calling it brainwashing was too strong – it was gently rinsing, maybe. Despite joking, he made no apologies. The universe needed the Guardians, so he asked for an ice-breaker. He'd figured once they had bonded it wouldn't matter how they had come together. The team couldn't forgive him, and everyone split up. Rocket stayed, however, puzzled at how they had a team just a moment ago. He wouldn't let the dream end. Meanwhile, Mantis wept; her future vision showed her things going differently. Somehow, Starhawk's tampering managed to disrupt the Guardians.

Team Leader

After the break up, Peter left as well, but it wasn't the end of the Guardians. When Mantis was woken in the middle of the night by a psychic scream for help, Rocket decided he had to throw together a new team and do something about it. He called his old buddy Bug, along with Vance Astro, a fully-grown Groot and Mantis, and threw himself in as team leader, helped by his experience as captain of the Rakk 'n' Ruin. They went to Benthus Colony, a Spartax Empire dependency in the Callisto sector. Vance Astro recognized the monsters they were fighting as Zom slave troops from the Badoon. In his timeline, the Badoon had conquered the galaxy and exterminated the human race. His fears were justified when the Badoon released a monster against them, a super-heavyweight battlefield bio-construct.

The whole time, Rocket thought “what would Star-Lord do?” Groot destroyed the monster, and the Badoon decided to communicate with the Guardians. They explained they were performing a weapons test against live targets. Rocket announced that that world was under the protection of the Guardians, and the Badoon left. Afterward, the team continued trying to find Star-Lord. The Kree ambassador told Rocket they had no knowledge of Peter's whereabouts, despite the continuum cortex logs showing Hala as the last destination in Star-Lord's passport. Suddenly, Mantis screamed, having received a psychic S.O.S. from Star-Lord; he was trapped in the Prison 42 in the Negative Zone. Cosmo teleported the team in, sending them in the middle of Blastaar's army, who was trying to conquer the prison to access the Positive Universe. Amidst the fighting, Rocket found Star-Lord's helmet, and realized Blastaar must have taken Star-Lord's armor off as spoils of war. They'd locked onto Peter's teleportation passport, but he wasn't wearing it anymore. Mantis located Peter telepathically, and Cosmo teleported them to him. They grabbed Peter and his new friend, Jack Flag, and they teleported to Earth. From there, they told the Fantastic Four to keep the Negative Zone portal closed so Blastaar couldn't come in, and Rocket's short tenure as team leader ended.

War of Kings

Shortly after, Phylla (calling herself Martyr) and Drax returned to the team, bringing Moondragon, and Warlock and Gamora came back as well. Warlock explained the Kree and the Shi'ar had gone to war. The Shi'ar had already used Nega-bombs; the fabric of space/time would not withstand such abuse. The war had to be put to an end. He still wouldn't take orders from Peter, but he thought they should work together for this common purpose. Peter and Rocket discussed tactics: They would make two teams and send them to try to talk some sense into the rulers, King Vulcan for the Shi'ar and Black Bolt of the Inhumans for the Kree. The Inhumans were civilized, so Rocket called the heavy hitters for his Shi'Ar team: Warlock, Groot, Major Victory and Drax.

Rocket stares down Gladiator

Before confronting Vulcan, they had to contain the Nega-bomb damage at Disradi, where a fissure had appeared. While Warlock cast a sealing spell, the scan showed Vulcan's ship was in the vicinity, watching the planet cook. Rocket asked to be teleported there after they were done with the fissure. Unfortunately, the ship was teleport-shielded, so the team ended up dispersed in space. Only Warlock made it inside, being magic-based. Rocket and the rest were rescued by the Starjammers. The Shi'ar were pissed because the orders were to fry the Guardians, so the Starjammers flew away. They had a plan to rescue Majestrix Lilandra, restore her to the throne of the Shi'ar Empire, and topple the tyrant Vulcan. The group boarded the Shi'ar warbird holding Lilandra, where they faced the Shi'ar's Imperial Guard. Rocket went face to face with Gladiator, their leader, and came out on top.

The good guys freed Lilandra, but Gladiator realized Rocket's gun couldn't possibly have defeated him; it was all a psychic illusion cast by Marvel Girl. He rushed to Lilandra's side, but she convinced him to join them. Gladiator accepted his true allegiance and fought off his fellow Guards. After completing their mission, Rocket and the other Guardians returned to Knowhere, which they found overrun by Shi'ar forces. They counterattacked, but the Shi'ar soldiers told them Lilandra had been assassinated. Rocket was depressed; he thought they had stopped the war in its tracks, but now things were ten times worse. The Guardians reunited, except for Star-Lord, Flag, Mantis and Bug, who had disappeared. Suddenly, Knowhere came back to life, as the gigantic head of a Celestial that it was, and announced it had detected a great threat. Knowhere was voicing a message Star-Lord had sent from the future, from a doomed timeline. The timestream was breaking down because of a catastrophic “error” and Peter believed it to be the ending of the War of Kings. The Inhumans possessed a Terrigen Bomb, and detonating it would cause a fissure in space-time so big it would be called The Fault. Sadly, the message came too late; both kings killed each other, the bomb was detonated and the Fault was created.

The Fault would keep expanding until it swallowed up the universe. The team teleported to Attilan, to make sure the Inhumans didn't have another super-weapon. Rocket exclaimed, “I told you so” to the Royal Family. Suddenly, gigantic tentacles came out of the fissure, grabbed the city and began dragging it in. They started to hatch, spawning organisms from pustules on them. The Guardians decided to work together with the Inhumans. Rocket and Groot followed Maximus the Mad to his inventions room. Maximus pretended to understand Groot's speech, acting like Groot was well-educated royalty. As it was later learned, however, Groot was just pretending to be a king. Regardless of the truth, Maximus got an idea for an invention that destroyed the monsters. Later, a fleet of ships from the Universal Church of Truth arrived. They were led by Warlock, who was using the church's faith power to cast a spell to seal the Fault. Time and space had torn loose; Adam intended to connect the timeline to an inert timestream, a stable, unused future. The spell worked, and the Fault's expansion ceased, but it was still open. Before they could celebrate, Martyr killed Warlock. She revealed that to bring back Moondragon from the death she had to become an agent of Death, and she promised to kill the Avatar of Life as soon as she recognized him. This was the first step of the Endwar, the eternal war between Life and Death. In retaliation, Gamora killed Martyr, but it was a mistake; the future to which Warlock anchored them was the one where he became his evil double, Magus. Warlock woke up, having become the Magus, and killed Gamora. Fortunately, this chain of events was prevented when Star-Lord appeared from the future into the past and stopped Martyr from stabbing Warlock. When Rocket heard Peter's voice, the rest of the Guardians teleported in. Sadly, Warlock explained he didn't displace the timestream; he overlapped it, meaning he'd been Magus for months by then. He turned evil, killing Cosmo and Mantis. Rocket lost it, but bullets were nothing against the Magus. Martyr, Gamora and Vance were the next to die. In the end, Star-Lord was forced to kill Magus with a Cosmic Cube he had obtained in the future. The church Cardinals went insane with grief, which detonated their ships. The Guardians saved the universe again, but it didn't come cheap.

Realm of Kings

Later, in the interest of sealing the Fault, the Guardians reunited with the Nova Corps, Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. and Wendell Vaughn. Wendell traveled into the Fault to gather info, and he found a Cancerverse, where every hero had been twisted and corrupted by the Many-Angled Ones. He managed to escape, just barely.

Around this time, Rocket, working with his old friend Wal-Rus, and Groot, infiltrated a cargo ship to rescue the stranded princess Lynx from Lord Dyvyne for the King of Felis-1. They fought against Rocket's old foe Blackjack O'Hare and his Black Bunny Brigade, who apparently served evil once more. The princess was mad that Rocket had ruined the element of surprise for her own troops, which were on their way: what she didn't know was Rocket had hacked their navigation system so that they were halfway across the galaxy. In the end, Rocket stole Dyvyne's crown and rescued the princess. But he grew to like her, so when it came to cashing in the bounty for her to Uncle Pyko, Rocket lied and said Dyvyne thwarted them. Even though Lynx's bounty could have cleared Rocket's debt, he did the right thing. He could sell Dyvyne's crown, anyway.

Later, the Guardians organized another scouting mission beyond the Fault, and they sent Rocket and Drax. Drax was attacked by a snake monster which dragged him underground. Rocket was scared from the tip of his tail to the roots of his whiskers, but he went after him. He found that Drax had killed the monster all by himself, but they were swallowed by its father. Groot pulled from his end of the lifeline, bringing the monster to their side. They shut the portal down, slicing the monster in two; Rocky and Drax crawled out, covered in slobber.

Later, during a council meeting, Moondragon passed out. Peter suggested she just hadn't had time to grieve, but Rocket was surprised she showed emotions at all. When some Universal Church of Truth pilgrims entered the bar, Rocket got pissed off and wondered what was the point of a chief of security, until he remembered Cosmo had died, too. Suddenly, xenomorph filter alarms went off. The Luminals had sent a scouting mission into the Fault, and one of their members had come back infected. The parasite inside him grabbed Moondragon. The monster began invading her, and she barely managed to repel it. The Guardians arrived, but the situation got messy when they were overrun by Church pilgrims who believed the parasite was a holy being. In the end, the monster went inside Moondragon, infecting her completely. Ignoring common sense, the Luminals chained their leader Cynosure to Moondragon to ensure she would go with them to take the parasite inside her to trial. Before either side could do anything, however, Moondragon and Cynosure were kidnapped by the Universal Church of Truth. As Rocket was the resident tactical genius, he planned a strategy to rescue them. He hid the whole of Knowhere's population inside a miniature tesseract storage crystal, figured out how to fly Knowhere, and threw it against the Church. The Guardians and the Luminals rescued Moondragon and Cynosure, and the Church leaders flew away. When the billions of faithful realized this, their belief evaporated, and the power levels died right away, instead of being sacrificed. Rocket saved Moondragon and a planet thanks to his strategy. In return, the Luminals supported the Guardians and prevented them from being punished for hijacking Knowhere. Moondragon got rid of her parasite, and everything seemed fine, but there was something: she saw a vision of Martyr. Their dead teammates were still alive.

The Guardians were hired as guards for Lady Crystal of the Inhumans in a gathering of the Galactic Council in Planet Ovar. Right as the council was attacked by monster assassins, Moondragon received a psychic warning from Martyr, telling her Magus was still alive. Rocket and all the Guardians rushed to protect Crystal from the monsters. After Rocket killed them, king Blastaar ordered the Guardians removed, but they managed a seat on the council by claiming Groot was a delegate from Planet-X. After calming down, they heard the message that Magus was still alive. The Guardians traveled to Sacrosanct, the home planet of the Universal Church of Truth, where there were zero life signs. A cocoon the Church was worshipping had opened: It was Thanos, and he killed Martyr. The Guardians bumped into their kidnapped teammates, whom they believed dead, and a happy reunion took place until Thanos came rampaging. Star-Lord used his cosmic cube to knock the Titan out. The Guardians earned a brief respite, and they used it to celebrate those who came back and to grieve Martyr, who didn't. Rocket and Peter had a toast to the future. At this point in time, Nova considered Rocket one of the smartest and funniest persons he'd met, calling him brave and sharp and saying humans could learn from him in a Nova Corps report.

The Thanos Imperative

With Thanos as their prisoner, the Guardians debated whether they should kill him. Rocket explained Thanos was a part of the game the giant abstracts like Eternity and Oblivion played. They were little people; they couldn't touch him until they understood the consequences. He pondered if all the wars they had been through were a result of Thanos being dead recently. Meanwhile, events began unfolding: Magus sacrificed all the followers of his church to rip the Fault open. He met his master, the Cancerverse Mar-Vell, who killed him. At the same time, Thanos escaped. Thanos grabbed Star-Lord, but Rocket managed to intimidate him into letting Peter go.

Rocket stares down Thanos

With that, the telepath Guardians were able to contain Thanos. When the Guardians heard about the situation at the Fault, Peter theorized that maybe they just needed to give the Cancerverse the only thing that it was missing - Death, meaning Thanos. The Guardians escorted Thanos into the Cancerverse, but upon arriving he shut down. To make things worse, they bumped into the Cancerverse Defenders. The Guardians beat them, but in an universe without death, they could just keep getting up. Suddenly, Thanos recomposed and delivered permanent death to the foes. The Guardians then met that universe's Vision. They traveled to that universe's Titan, Thanos' birthplace. There, they found out Mar-Vell had caused the end of Death, and only an avatar of Death could reverse the process. Luckily, Thanos was one - but Drax snapped, and killed him.

However, Death had rejected Thanos. He could not die, so he healed himself atom by atom in excruciating pain. Drax attacked him again, and Thanos responded by killing him. They were then attacked by that universe's Avengers, the Revengers. The fight ended when the Cancerverse Scarlet Witch betrayed her teammates, helping the Guardians. Exhausting her powers, she sent Thanos and the Guardians to the necropsy site - the place where Death died - to execute the ritual. They were intercepted by Mar-Vell and the Revengers, so the avatars of Life and Death began fighting. Suddenly, Thanos revealed he just sought death - so he knelt before Mar-Vell, submitting. As Mar-Vell began killing Thanos, the Guardians were captured by Cancerverse demons.

Rocket grieves

But Nova appeared as the cavalry, freeing them. Thanos revealed his plan: killing him would bring Death close, it would bring her to the Cancerverse, allowing her to claim Mar-Vell. Life lost, and the Cancerous beings were destroyed. As the universe began to collapse, Star-Lord teleported everyone away except for him and Nova. Staying behind to make sure Thanos didn't escape, they sacrificed themselves heroically. Days later, Rocket and every hero involved in the crisis attended a grim celebration in Attilan. Afterwards, the raccoon visited Peter's statue.

Life After the Guardians

Without Star-Lord, the Guardians disbanded. Rocket had nothing to do but return to a more ordinary life, working in an office as a mail clerk for Timely Inc. He was hired to boost the morale, to help them meet their quota of cute sentient animals to uplift the people who did actual work. When he received a mysterious mail, a murderous robot clown came out of it and tried to kill Rocket. After disposing of it, they tried to fire him, but he just quit. Analyzing a broken limb from the clown, he discovered it came from Planet X, the home of his dear friend Groot.

When he arrived in Planet X, Rocket asked for King Groot, but the real King Groot explained his friend was a pretender to the throne. Indeed, he had come back to the planet and was arrested and tried for his crimes of deception and impersonation of the king; Groot was found guilty of tree-son and exiled. He was currently serving his life sentence, chained to a training post in the isle of punishment.

Rocket had come prepared; he had left a bunch of goodies in an orbital drop-box. He asked his Timely Inc analysis device to arrange a priority delivery, and he armed himself. Groot was surrounded by Cyborg Punishment Birds, so when Rocket approached they set Groot on fire. Groot burned and Rocket wept, but the tree managed to grow itself from an emergency cutting, albeit smaller. The birds were about to attack again when they were saved by the Undergrowth Resistance of Planet X: a group of tiny talking animals and plants who lived doing the bidding of their oppressive tree overlords. The only tree-form that ever noticed the hard work they put in was Groot; he was an inspiration to them. Rocket offered to guide them to throw off that yoke of subjugation, but they explained they just wanted an extra day off every month or so. Now that Groot was there, Rocket could ask him where the killer clown was made. Groot answered “Halfworld”, Rocket's birthplace. Rocket wondered why there was so much of his past he couldn't remember – until Groot said Halfworld, Rocket had forgotten there had been such a place. Rocket realized whoever sent the clown knew they couldn't get much past Timely Inc's security systems, so they carved the clown out of sentient wood because they knew that would bring Rocket to Planet X, a lawless rimworld where it was much easier to deploy a full-scale hit squad. And sure enough, the forest was attacked by a squad of killer clowns. Rocket, Groot and the Undergrowth disposed of the clowns, but the forest caught fire. To kill it, Rocket fired a cloud missile from orbit and created rain. Not wanting to stay for the celebrations, Rocket and Groot borrowed the clown's ambulance ship. Groot explained it was an ambulance because Halfworld was a lunatic asylum; Rocket began to understand why he had blocked so many memories. They reached Halfworld and the doors opened for them, but as soon as they were inside they were attacked by missiles.

Their ship was destroyed, but Rocket and Groot escaped by hiding in a crate and using Timely Inc's priority teleport delivery system. Inside Halfworld, Rocket began to recognize people: Wal-Rus, Blackjack O'Hare, Lylla - but they knocked him out and tied him up. They administered a cortical stimulator to restore his suppressed memories: Rocket learned that his past was not full of colorful adventures, but grey and gritty experiences. Rocket was not a ranger, but a security chief.

When Rocket had shown up in Halfworld, they thought Bauman had gotten to him somehow, lured him back to open the vault and let him out. Recently, Judson Jakes had been possessed. Rocket realized the killer clowns were used as bait to drag him in, so they went to interview Judson. He screamed that Bauman was as good as escaped already and the asylum's immersion systems crashed, with Judson's head exploding. Rocket rushed to open Bauman's cell, and he found a skeleton: his host body had died a long time ago. As the killer clowns turned against the good guys, Star-Thief revealed himself: he had taken control of the facility.

Star-Thief put everyone in an immersion environment to have everyone pacified. Rocket woke up in an idyllic reality, like the one from his fake memories. Soon enough, Groot appeared and rescued him. They escaped and found Star-Thief was herding all the inmates into a giant ark ship that he was using as a body. If he got out in the galaxy, he would be a bigger threat than Thanos or Galactus. Rocket grabbed Blackjack and made him snap back to reality; he needed his knowledge of Knowhere's security system. Groot created a distraction by controlling the living wood the clowns were made out of. Meanwhile, Rocket and O'Hare reached the control center and looked for something in Star-Thief's past that they could use to disrupt his attention and sedate him. He used to have a dog, so Rocket was forced to dress in a full body dog costume. The trick worked, and Star-Thief was sedated. Rocket was invited to come back to Halfworld as co-chief of security, but he explained he realized he must keep the legacy of the Guardians of the Galaxy alive. He and Groot, saving the universe whether it wanted to be saved or not.

Rocket and Groot were next seen engaged in a bar fight with Badoons. They escaped, but Rocket felt there was something odd about it all. When their ship began to be chased, it just so happened to be missing their stardrive. Everything was a simulation in Mojoworld, using Rocket's adventures as a TV Show. Rocket and Groot's ship was destroyed, but the narrator explained: “Luckily, our heroes managed to scramble into combat space armor suits!” Rocket couldn't find the logic in any of that. They took control of one of the badoon ships, then the action changed the scene to an ice planet where they were being chased by ships. When Rocket couldn't be any more confused, his Timely Inc analysis device explained to him they were in a simulation. Rocket realized he was in a TV studio, but when a weapon made him bleed, he also realized the danger was real. Mojo began to switch the environment constantly, from an ice planet to a jungle, to underwater, to a futuristic city, to a post-apocalyptic world, to deep space, to Planet X. When they were about to be crushed by a giant Groot, the simulation stopped; the Timely Inc analysis device was holding Mojo at gunpoint. They had been bought a second chance. Rocket and Groot reached Mojo and killed him, but he was just a robot. His lackey explained he was running things on his own, but before they killed him, they should listen to how lucrative the whole thing was. Groot and Rocket accepted the endorsement, as long as they got 60/40 of the profits.

Another adventure took place during this Guardians hiatus: Rocket and Groot were resting in the bar Leery's from Xarth Three. They were minding their own business, looking for someone to buy them forty-eight tons of Zunk, when a group of badoon arrived. They were searching for a stray Rigellian Recorder, and when they found he was hiding in the bar violence broke out. Rocket wanted to mind his own business, but he knew the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was for good men to do nothing. So he protected the poor Rigellian, who didn't even remember what vital information he had recorded. As they escaped the Badoon, Xarth gladiators and Sakaar monsters they found a victim of the mayhem: a Zunk trader who was looking to move exactly forty-eight tons. What terrible irony. They began escaping from one galactic empire after another, first in their jump freighter “White Stripe”, then in a stolen, sentient Nova Corps ship. They escaped from the Badoon, the Nova Corps, a Galadoran SpaceKnight, Kree Accusers, Kree Sentries, and the Shi'ar Imperial Guard before realizing Recorder 127 came from the Timely Inc. corporation in planet Alpha Centauri. By this point, they had been joined by Gamora, who was actually hired by Annihilus of the Negative Zone to capture the Recorder. She quickly turned around; It became clear the Recorder was sought because he was vital for the completion of Project 616, which seemed capable of controlling the multiverse. The Guardians couldn't be immoral mercenaries about this.

Thanks to a cloaking device from Pip the Troll and Rocket's knowledge from having worked in Timely Inc. before, they were able to infiltrate its building and reach the secret room that held Project 616. They learned the corporation kidnapped every Recorder they could find to download their knowledge and map out the entire knowledge of the universe. Their primary objective was to make better marketing, but at its full power, it could reshape reality. Recorder 127 was all that was missing. As security guards overpowered Rocket, Gamora and Groot and forced 127 to join the Project, every empire that followed Rocket reunited in the planet, plus the Universal Church of Truth. A massive war broke out, the Recorder was assimilated and the Project was completed. But 127 decided to send the Power Cosmic to Groot, whom he had grown to trust. Groot used it to stop the conflict, sending everyone home, bringing back the dead, destroying the project and preventing anyone from remembering how to build it again.

The Galadorian Spaceknight, Roamer, was touched by the heroism he witnessed and decided to stop being a mercenary and turn to good deeds again. The Badoon War Brotherhood Commander, Droook, swore revenge on Rocket, and Sharnor the Kree Accuser was equally inconvenienced. Nova Centurion Grekan Yaer and Shi'ar Imperial Guard Guardsman Ebon, however, respected the raccoon. The Guardians said goodbye to the Recorder, who would never forget them.

Cosmic Avengers

As time passed without the Guardians, Rocket lost what little decency the Guardians had taught him and fell into his old habits, getting thrown in jail so often, he became an expert in escaping them. He forgot his manners, becoming an irritated mass-murderer who became wanted in six systems. During this period, Rocket rescued a princess named Amalya from a gang of criminals. She instantly fell in love with him, and the two had a brief relationship before Rocket left her and pilfered a small fortune from her family. Cast out for dishonoring the reputation of her house, and heartbroken by rejection, the now "General" Amalya began assembling a team of Rocket's ex-girlfriends from across the galaxy over the following three years to make him pay at any cost. Meanwhile, Rocket forgot, or made himself forget, about his true past; he started believing he was the only one of his kind in the universe.

Star-Lord didn't stay in the Cancerverse for long. Nova used the Cosmic Cube to turn himself into a gateway so Star-Lord, Drax and Thanos could escape. Once back, Star-Lord put the team back together, this time without Mantis, Vance Astro, Moondragon nor Jack Flag.

Just before rejoining the Guardians, Rocket was boasting in a bar and trying to score chicks when heard a rumor that there was another talking raccoon just like him. He tried interrogating the person who saw it, but the witness was suddenly murdered by a hooded figure. Unbeknownst to Rocket, this figure was the other raccoon, who was none other than Blackjack O'Hare, posing as Rocket to give him an identity crisis and land him in prison in revenge for Rocket having foiled his assassination attempt of Princess Amalya three years prior. After joining the team, Rocket flew to a farming planet to pick up Groot; he found him helping a family that was being bullied by Tribbitite aliens into paying them for protection.

This smaller, more compact team helped a planet that was being enslaved by the Badoon; in fact, they had been sent there by Thanos. He used the Badoon as bait so that the Guardians would be far away from Earth while he grabbed the Cosmic Cube in it. The Guardians found out and headed to Earth, where they met the Avengers and got formally acquainted with them. This was the start of a new era where the Guardians would work more closely tied to Earth, visiting it frequently and accepting several new members from there.

Thanos used the Cosmic Cube to banish the two teams of heroes, but it was a weaker Cube made on Earth so they were only sent to the Cancerverse. There they meet the Elders of the Universe, who had also been banished by Thanos, and they helped the heroes escape. Together, they defeated Thanos, and the Elders captured him for themselves. As the day was saved, Iron Man mentioned how he envied the Guardians for being able to explore uncharted lands freely, and Star-Lord invited him to join the team.

A crisis arose when someone kidnapped the embodiment of Death, stopping everyone in the universe from dying. The Guardians figured it must be Thanos' doing, so they tracked down one of the Blood Brothers, who worked as henchmen for Thanos, and found out the Titan's current location. They found him in a Shi'ar mining operation abandoned after the Annihilation Wave: the Dwindling Light. It was home to the Order of the Glorious End, death cultists who sacrificed half of their number to summon the physical aspect of Death, after which she was taken. Among them was a rabbit from Halfworld, even. The Guardians found the Order worshiping Thanos, who was travelling with Deadpool to try to find who took Death. The Guardians thought Thanos was responsible and they started fighting. They overpowered Thanos by ganging up on him, but Star-Lord kept things simple and pointed a gun into Thanos' throat, forcing him to talk. Rocket was proud; Star-Lord was starting to take after him. Thanos laughed, saying that because all of the Guardians had once been dead and were now alive, one could say they served Mistress Death better than him. While Star-Lord was distracted by this, the Order of the Glorious End attacked and let Thanos escape. Thanos got away, but eventually he freed Death and the cycle of life continued as usual.

When Groot, Rocket and Star-Lord engaged in a fight against Badoons, the space continuum broke apart due Wolverine's extensive abuse to destroy Ultron. However, only Star-Lord noticed.

When the Guardians found out the Chitauri had obtained an Ultimate Nullifier and were heading to Earth, Rocket and Gamora visited Earth to try to find Jesse Alexander, an old friend of theirs. When it turned out Jesse had disappeared, Rocket and Gamora gave his helmet to his son, Sam. Sam became the new Nova, and Rocket and Gamora trained him for a short while. They planned for Nova to go on a recon mission to the approaching Chitauri fleet, but things went wrong and Nova ended up stealing their Ultimate Nullifier. When he accidentally activated it, Nova destroyed the entire fleet and the crisis was averted. Rocket told Sam he had earned the title “Nova.”

Afterwards, Rocket was present when Star-Lord told Iron Man his origin story, prompting Tony to join the team, although this lineup got rid of Bug. Star-Lord's father, J'son of Spartax, warned the Guardians a galactic council had declared Earth off-limits, but Star-Lord felt all this did was paint a target on it. His hunch turned out to be right: The badoon were angry at Earthers for having spoiled their alliance with Thanos, so they invaded. The Guardians defeated them, but they were arrested by Spartax soldiers for violating the “Earth is off-limits” rule. They captured everyone but Groot, who was plant-sized then, so he grew in size and rescued the Guardians.

After this incident, Rocket set up an “Earth signal” to warn them if anything came near Earth. The signal went off when Angela appeared – the sister of Thor, who had been banished to another realm but came back after the fabric of spacetime was broken by Ultron. After a short fight, they figured out Angela was just trying to do sight-seeing, so they let her visit Earth. Later, Rocket was present when Iron Man quit the team.

Infinity

Always orbiting around Earth, they had to help the planet again when Thanos and his armies invaded. The Guardians went to help The Peak, a station orbiting around Earth. Thanos' armies overwhelmed them, but they were rescued by Angela. Gaining control of The Peak, the Guardians managed to open Earth's shield so that the Avengers could fly down and defeat Thanos.

The Trial of Jean Grey

After this event, Iron Man had to stay on Earth to deal with the consequences, so he quit the team, and Angela joined them. Thanos disappeared after being defeated, so the Guardians attacked a Badoon planet in hopes of finding intel. They didn't find anything, but Rocket took the chance to plant a signal into their communications signal so that they would be alerted if there was any mention of Earth. A week later, through Badoon gossip they found out the Shi'ar planned to put Jean Grey of Earth on trial for her crimes as the Phoenix, so they traveled to Earth to help the X-Men. As it turned out, Jean Grey was dead, and the Shi'ar captured her past self that had traveled through time to the present, so she technically hadn't committed her crimes yet. The Guardians teamed up with a team of young X-Men from the past and went to rescue young Jean. When a Shi'ar ship started attacking their much smaller ship, Angela jumped into space to fight back, fearless. Rocket was never much attracted to femme fatales like Gamora – too many daddy issues, he said – but seeing Angela he couldn't help but wish to marry her. The Guardians made it to the Shi'ar homeworld, where they clashed with the Shi'ar Imperial Guard led by Gladiator. Rocket wasn't intimidated and took the first shot.

Of course, the Guardians didn't stand a chance. They were saved by the appearance of Jean, who escaped imprisonment and unlocked new psychic abilities that put her in Gladiator's level. The Imperial Guard was defeated, and the heroes got to return home. Now the Shi'ar had their sights set on the Guardians, just like the Spartax.

Right after meeting the X-Men, the Guardians became acquainted with another Earther. They found Captain Marvel travelling through space under attack by mercenaries. After helping her and sending the bad guys on retreat, Carol explained she was taking a Nowlanian refugee, Tic, to the planet Torfa. As Rocket fixed Carol's ship, explanations were interrupted when he saw Carol's cat, Chewie, and freaked out. Rocket shot at it, claiming it was a Flerken]], a monster that shouldn't be allowed to lay eggs. The free shooting short-circuited Tic's chamber, so Tic woke up. As Star-Lord explained Carol must be doing something wrong, because Torfa was a poisoned planet, Tic showed up and tried to kill Star-Lord for being the prince of Spartax. Carol prevented it, but Tic escaped from the Guardians' ship and stole Carol's ship.

Rocket meets Chewie

Tic started using the ship to attack the Guardians, but Carol flew into space and quickly subdued her. Handcuffed, Tic explained the king J'son of Spartax was forcing everyone in Torfa to evacuate. Tic refused to believe the planet was poisoned; she was convinced they just wanted to take their lands. Tic's home planet had been destroyed by Builders and now they were taking her refugee planet from her - it was easier to believe in a conspiracy than to accept she had to start over again. Captain Marvel said goodbye to the Guardians and headed to Torfa to deal with whatever was making the planet poisonous. She left in a borrowed shuttle and Rocket kept the Captain's ship, fixing it. When she came back with Tic she was outraged that Rocket stayed with her cat, but Rocket insisted it was a Flerken. Suddenly, they were boarded by an unknown enemy; Rocket kind of put the word out that he had the universe's last living Flerken, so people were coming for it. They went to check on the cat and discovered she had laid eggs - it was an alien after all. Her eggs were hatching rapidly, so they put them on a shuttle for safety. Captain Marvel drew back the aggressors, but one of them got into the ship, only for the Flerken to devour them. Rocket fell in love. Afterwards, the Captain left to drop the pups in a rescue center.

Rocket and the Guardians freed a slave encampment from the Badoon. Later, Iron Man introduced the hero Venom to the Guardians, feeling there must always be an Avenger in the team, representing Earth. At first, Rocket wasn't impressed, seeing the man lacked legs, but he could stand and was fully armed in his Venom form. Venom accepted, and Iron Man gave Star-Lord a little fail-safe device that could knock down Venom's symbiote if it ever lost control and went rogue.

Shortly after, the Guardians were attacked aggressively, targeted separately by all of their enemies: the Spartax, the Shi'ar and the Badoon. Rocket, Groot and Star-Lord were caught in their ship by the Spartax. Rocket was sold to the Kree Empire, and its scientists began experimenting on him to try and figure out his unique biology. When Captain Marvel came to the rescue and saved Star-Lord from his father's grip, J'son was exposed as a tyrant to the entire galaxy. The Supreme Intelligence of the Kree realized the tables had turned and let Rocket go. The Kree delivered Rocket to the Guardians as a gesture of good faith, but Rocket refused to talk of the traumatic day he went through. The team was reunited, except for Venom, who went missing.

Back on Earth, the demonic organization Mys-Tech opened a gateway to Hell and created a global invasion, so every superhero was called to defend Earth, including the Guardians. They went to Paris, where Rocket complained about hating Earth. Even though Britain's heroes dealt with closing the portal, oddly enough the Guardians got credited with saving the world, and Paris hosted a celebration for them. While he was on Earth, Rocket attended Quentin Quire's 17th birthday in New York, where he fell asleep watching a screening of the movie Doop Hard along with M.O.O.D.O.K., Maggott and some Bamfs.

A Chasing Tale

When Rocket and Groot took some time apart from the Guardians, Groot participated in a wrestling match in the Bonavaglia Arena on the planet of Nivlent. Rocket witnessed the match with Kaleeko, a date who was actually working undercover for General Amalya and her league of Rocket's former exes. Before Kaleeko could act, Rocket was spotted by a security camera, causing an alarm to sound and the local law enforcement to arrive in the arena. During his escape, Rocket learned he was wanted for committing several murders, even seeing footage in which someone resembling Rocket murdered another man. In order to find out who this impersonator was and clear his name, Rocket and a splinter of Groot handed themselves over to the local law enforcement. The next step in Rocket's plan was requesting to be sentenced to the highest level security prison planet. Once he was in Devin-9, he performed a prison break with Groot's help and headed to meet an old friend he once turned in, Macho Gomez. Gomez wanted to kill Rocket, but Rocket promised him a lot of money if Gomez could just lead him to his boss, Funtzel, an expert on info on people off the grid.

Rocket was feeling something of an identity crisis. He had always thought he was the last of his race, the last of Halfworld, but now there was someone else - this could change everything. Suddenly, Rocket, Groot and Gomez were cornered by a fleet of spaceships: the League of the Ex-Terminators. They were led by Amalya, a princess Rocket rescued three years ago. Rocket and his team escaped by hyperspace and arrived on planet Sendak. They visited Funtzel and Rocket revealed his true reason for wanting to see him: the person who told Rocket about another raccoon worked for Funtzel. That person ended up dead, so Rocket figured Funtzel had reason to look into the raccoon. Funtzel admitted he did, but he didn't find anything other than whispers about the Halfworld bible. Rocket was shocked at its mere mention, but suddenly the lights went out; the impostor Rocket had come by himself. He took out everyone in the building until it was just Rocket and him. He gloated about messing with Rocket's head, enjoying making him wonder if he was the last of his race. He then revealed his true identity: Blackjack O'hare. He plotted everything to take vengeance on Rocket: Three years ago, he was supposed to murder princess Amalya; it was his retirement plan. But Rocket rescued her, spoiling everything. He turned Blackjack into a joke and he could barely get jobs afterwards. The two animals started fighting, but they were interrupted by Amalya and the Ex-Terminators. She took out Blackjack and started hurting Rocket. Rocket was forced to fight with everybody at once, but in the end he was the last man standing. Right then, the Guardians came to rescue him. They threw a party for Rocket finally discovering his people, but all Rocket discovered was that the Guardians were his people. In the privacy of his room, Rocket allowed himself to cry. Around this time, perhaps to cheer him up, Rocket, Star-Lord and Groot performed a karaoke act.

Original Sin

Back on Earth, Nick Fury worked as The Man on the Wall, a protector tasked with taking out threats to Earth in the dark, unseen by others. When someone stole the Watcher's eyes, he asked Fury to murder him. Fury sensed his time was coming, so he assembled a team of potential replacements for his job. He tasked them with finding out who killed the Watcher to prove their worth. Among these chosen few was Gamora. She teamed up with Moon Knight and Winter Soldier to collect clues.

The eyes of the Watcher, holding all the secrets he had witnessed, were stolen by the villain Orb, who exposed all the secrets telepathically. This led to Nova having a vision of his dad killing a fellow Nova, so he went to his dad's friend, Rocket. Rocket was busy killing some mercs; he wasn't very good at consoling Sam since he had never consoled someone before. Sam elaborated on his vision; he explained that what he saw was his father's initiation to enter the Black Novas, and he was being led by someone named Adomox. Rocket recognized Adomox as a bad guy who owed him money. He wanted his units, so he led Nova to the ship-cluster Oblitus, where Adomox owned a casino. Rocket proposed entering guns blazing, but Nova was subtler and used Rocket as a furry hat to enter unnoticed. They reached Adomox, so Rocket held off the guards while Nova got his answers. Adomox only gave half answers, but he revealed he'd released poison into the room and Rocket and Nova were infected. If they wanted the antidote, they would have to fetch Adomox a machine that would reprogram his Nova helmet so he could wield the power again. While Nova looked for the machine, Rocket headed to Quainbo to try to find a cure. When the doctors had no answers, he knocked them out. After Nova found out his dad was just pretending to kill that Nova so he could pass his initiation, Rocket visited Cosmo, who controlled Adomox telepathically to force him to give them the antidote. Rocket lived to fight another day.

One of the secrets exposed by the Watcher was that Angela was Thor's sister. While Gamora was gone, the Guardians were attacked while jumping in hyperspace by Warpjackers, rich snots who liked the thrill of killing people while they were in warp. They fought them off, but when Angela realized Thor was looking for her she left in the middle of the fight.

Rocket meets the Punisher

Back with Gamora, Winter Soldier blew up her ship and left her and Moon Knight stranded in space. Gamora called Rocket to rescue them, and together they headed to the satellite where all the candidates were together. Tensions were high as anyone could be the Watcher's killer, but Rocket wasn't intimidated. Eventually, Fury showed up and explained his job and his purpose. In the end, he died in a fight with the person who stole the Watcher's eyes: Dr. Midas. Winter Soldier became the new Man on the Wall, and Rocket and Gamora left, pissed off.

Afterwards, Gamora assembled the Guardians and forced Star-Lord to reveal how he came back from the Cancerverse. Rocket said he didn't care – the cool thing about the team as they didn't question or judge each other. Star-Lord explained he came back to Earth thanks to the sacrifice of Richard Rider, and tensions rose afterwards.

Death and Rebirth

A new adventure started when Gamora found the missing Venom and signalled the Guardians to come help her: Venom had lost his mind, the symbiote had taken over the human host. The Guardians arrived and subdued him. They took Flash, Venom's host, to the ship and tried to contain the symbiote, but it broke free and took control of Groot. The beast broke havoc, and Rocket cried as he was forced to shoot his best friend. Eventually, the symbiote let go, but it attached itself to Rocket instead. It was trying to make everyone leave the ship and leave it to it; it wanted to go to the symbiotes' home planet. When Drax touched it, it attached itself to Drax instead. This new form was so powerful it knocked everyone out. It then traveled to the Symbiote planet, on an uncharted part of the galaxy. The symbiotes turned out to be harmless, and they bonded with the Guardians to be able to communicate with them. They explained they were called "Klyntar" and were a force of good. They fixed the relationship between Flash and his symbiote and cleansed all the Guardians of any poisons in their organism; they were free to go, feeling relaxed and renewed. Right after they were leaving, they were joined by Captain Marvel, who let them know Star-Lord had been elected as the new king of Spartax.

When Rocket's Earth signal went off again, they headed to Earth to intercept the Silver Surfer before he entered the planet. It turned out he was just taking a human girl back to her parents. In reality, the Guardians were distrustful because Surfer once served Galactus, and wanted to scan him for traces of Galactus' power signature, to know if they had been in contact.

An odd incident occured when the Guardians found an Earther S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier floating away in space. It turned out to be filled with Life-Model Decoys, robots sent from Earth decades ago who keep hunting Skrulls indefinitely in a never-ending war they didn't know had ended.

Later, after the Guardians stopped to repair their ship, they ate in a family restaurant. They found a crying kid, 72596. She was upset because she wanted to be friends with the lower castes of her people, but her other friends didn't accept that. The marginalized kid confronted 72596, telling her she was a coward for not daring to be friends. 72596 didn't want to be hated like they hated the lower-class kid. This resonated on all the Guardians, all of which had been bullied in one way or another. They gave a lesson to the children: "jerks aren't worth impressing, ties forged in cruelty don't last. But true friendship is strong, even for those who have seen little of it in the past. Perhaps for those most of all." The two kids agreed to be friends, and the Guardians did a good thing without needing to shoot anybody.

One time, Rocket and Groot found a treasure map. It led them to a chest that they traded for coins; later they gambled those coins and won a key, and the key let them unlock a sword. With the sword they slew a giant monster, and they used the monster's eye to light their way to an island surrounded by mermaids. In there they found a floating castle, and within it a riddle. Rocket solved the riddle, and found the final treasure was a surprise birthday party from the Guardians.

Afterwards, Rocket was ordered by the Galactic Council to pay back all the money he'd stolen from princesses. One of his bounties was to exterminate a herd of lice bothering Ego, the living planet. When he was done, Cosmo called him to Knowhere to pay back his favor from having helped Rocket and Nova with Adomox. Rocket's job was to help a robot called Brute who came from a planet of misfit, retired machines. Scavengers had discovered the planet was full of potential profit, so they started abducting the mechs and reprogramming them back into weapons of war. Rocket and Brute, who only talked in binary code, headed to a weapon dealer in Knowhere, and the raccoon was bit irked that he was always fated to work with teammates who couldn't speak coherent sentences. The dealer, Wrapje, told them they could find a robot auction on Baxter Prime. Rocket and Brute busted the auction and freed the robots, and Cosmo paid Rocket.

Rocket and Groot celebrated another adventure in Fron, a polar planet. They went for a trip without checking if their drive had expired, so they were forced to make an emergency stop. Suddenly, they were attacked by ice beasts called Nogus, and their weapons were frozen solid. They were saved by a native princess, Jink, but Groot ended up badly hurt. They were taken to the snow natives, who explained Groot has been poisoned and couldn't regenerate anymore. The only antidote was the yolk from the beasts' queen, but it was considered too risky and the mission was forbidden. Rocket cried next to his friend, but he didn't give up. Rocket and Jink went to find the Nogu queen. Jink explained her own mother had died due to the poison, all because her father wouldn't accept sacrificing the many to save the one. They arrived at the queen's lair. The eggs were too big to steal, but they could absorb the yolk out of them. While Rocket was doing that, the beast woke up, so Jink sacrificed herself for Rocket - and then killed the beast from within its belly. They managed to save Groot, and Rocket was accepted as a member of the tribe. As they left, they received a message from the Seer of all Realities: “Rocket should have let Groot die!”

They visited the Seer, who saw bad things happening in one reality and stopped them from becoming true in others. Rocket witnessed what would happen if Groot stayed on Earth and joined the Avengers: They would want to use his regenerative abilities to make humans live longer. Once they tried to extract his cells, Groot's body started to fight for him to live longer. He became a giant, feral monster who destroyed the Earth. In 2046, Iron Man recruited a veteran, jaded Rocket to stop Groot. Rocket and his giant robot sacrificed themselves against Groot, and the power of their friendship restored Groot back to normal. Rocket couldn't believe what the Seer showed him: after his death, he was honored with a statue, finally a hero.

The Guardians got caught up in royal drama when Angela stole the newest daughter of Odin and called the Guardians to help her hide the baby. While hiding, they were attacked by the Dísir, Hela's warriors. The heroes defeated them, but the Dísir let it slip that the baby was Asgard royalty and tensions rose. The Guardians didn't know if they wanted to help kidnap a kid. Angela explained the kid must be taken to her realm, Heven, because she'd been cursed with the power of Surtur and could destroy everything. Rocket put Angela through a lie detector and she passed; she only wanted to put the baby through machinery to siphon out the power of Surtur from her. They reached Heven and the Guardians started fighting against its angels, with Rocket fearlessly opening fire against superior godly beings. At the same time, Asgard's army arrived, but Angela convinced her brother Thor that she would die for the baby. Thor agreed to let Angela siphon out the power from the baby. However, she simply threw the kid into Heven's engines. The engines were reignited, bringing Heven to its former glory. The Guardians turned against Angela when they thought she had killed the baby, but she threw herself into the engines and rescued the kid. She was pardoned, and the baby was named Laussa.

Another time the Guardians visited Earth, they were shot down by a Chitauri ship led by Nebula. They managed to cloak and lose the enemy, but they crashed on New York and attracted the attention of the Avengers. As the Guardians got acquainted with their new roster, the Chitauri came back and an all-out battle started. The enemy stalled for time until they triggered a genetic disrupter, knocking out all of the heroes. Nebula kidnapped Gamora. After they woke up, Rocket revealed he'd slipped a tracking device into the Guardians' food, so he could later find their missing teammate. She was on the other side of the galaxy, on uncharted territory, so they used the Avengers' teleporter, Manifold. They arrived on planet Kindun, where Gamora had been sold to be executed. The ruler of the planet, also named Kindun, revealed Thanos had tried to enslave him as a child, so he had plotted all his life to take vengeance on his daughter. Nevertheless, the heroes teleported away.

Around this time, Rocket let himself be captured by the Collector, a cosmic being who sought to collect unique beings around the galaxy. He wanted to enter his collection to retrieve a Celestial Heart. As it happens, when Celestials die they hearts get turned into power sources, so a planet's survival depended on getting the Heart back. Rocket became cellmate with another anthropomorphic animal, Howard the Duck, and he tried explaining he was going to bust them out, but Howard was too full of spunk to listen. They were singled out and strapped to tables as a Gatherer collected material from them to create clones so they could mate and pass along their oral history. Rocket spit the Gatherer with Azalian acid capsules, helping him and his friend escape. He revealed he'd shaved a map on his belly fur, and also that his acid capsules could reform into computers, so he didn't need to shave his chest anyway. Rocket told his computer to shut down the planet's protective forceweb, letting his fellow Guardians enter. A battle broke out, and things got messier when Rocket told his computer to open all cells. The Guardians collected as many prisoners as they could fit and left, but Howard freaked out about the fact that they were leaving people behind. Rocket promised him they would go back for the rest, but he could tell Howard was speaking out of painful memories. Rocket knew pain, too, so as they dropped him off he told Howard he had to deal with his pain. This wasn't the last time Rocket and Howard would meet. All of this was watched by Mojo of Mojoworld.

Bookends

Later, Rocket continued paying debt to the princesses; he still owed 120.000 credits. While battling a sea monster, he was called by Klep, a lowlife who claimed to know where to find the Book of Halfworld, somewhere in Tower City. Problems arose when the time to pay the Galactic Council ran out, and a warrant was issued for Rocket's capture. Rocket had to escape Cosmo and the Knowhere police, promising he'd turn himself in later. A short time later, Rocket was in Tower City, having stolen the Bible and on the run from the authorities. However, he couldn't open the box holding it. After reaching his ship with Groot, they were boarded by a much bigger ship; the ship of Captain Sale, a female raccoon from Halfworld. Having been fooled by the idea of finding more of his race before, Rocket didn't believe his eyes, but she beat him up. Sale explained he wasn't the only one who couldn't remember, there were many like him out there. Rocket couldn't open the Book because he lacked the key, but Sale had it. Rocket got to read the Bible first, but he just got upset. His past was a mess with toys and clowns and robots and things he couldn't unsee; there were questions that were never meant to be answered. He was done with his past now. He was okay, though; he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Right as he was leaving, he was arrested again. But that was okay; he was an expert on escaping prisons.

Rocket reads the Halfworld Bible

After Gamora went missing, the Guardians tracked her to New Kral, the gladiator asteroid, and Rocket found a mysterious pink crystal on the way. Gamora was looking for Warlock, who the Guardians believed dead. The Guardians sat as spectators as Gamora and Warlock battled together in the gladiator arena, but the situation was interrupted when Annihilus invaded the Positive Universe once again and all hell broke loose. Annihilus started broadcasting fear, but the Guardians were saved by Pip the Troll's teleporting abilities in the nick of time as the planet fell. Rocket's strong personality clashed with Pip's.

Due to the Annihilation Wave, the Shi'ar empire declared galactic emergency and invited the Guardians to join a defensive armada with all their past sins to the empire forgiven and forgotten. However, Pip said gathering everyone together would just give Annihilus the chance to destroy them with a single strike. Warlock and Thanos teleported into the ship, seeking to work with the Guardians to take the battle directly to Annihilus. Annihilus was hunting for a mysterious source of energy; when Rocket suggested it might be his crystal, Thanos simply smashed it into a million pieces. Problem was the ship was bugged with Drones, so Annihilus was listening, and the heroes teleported into an ambush. As they were overrun and Annihilus himself appeared, Thanos offered to sacrifice himself so that the rest could escape. But they couldn't escape; Pip's teleportation was jammed. Gamora took a hit, Warlock was captured, and the situation seemed critical. They stumbled upon one of Annihilus' teleportation devices, and if anyone could figure out how to operate it, that was Rocket. The Guardians escaped to Starlin's Bar. Gamora's wound turned out to be much worse than they thought, and they began to lose her; but Warlock's spirit sensed the situation and healed her completely. Later, Thanos and Warlock traveled to the past and stopped the whole crisis from ever taking place; the Guardians carried on with their lives in ignorance.

Around this time, an event took place that made Rocket hate Earth; they met Spider-Man when they found out he'd been kidnapped by Skrulls. The Skrulls wanted Venom's symbiote, so they would hold Spider-Man hostage until the Guardians arrived. Just as the Guardians predicted, it was a trap and they were ambushed. Still, they were able to defeat the Skrulls and save Spider-Man, who was none the wiser.

A heartwarming tale took place when the controls for the ship broke down in the middle of an asteroid field, so every Guardian had to work together to fix them; for example, Rocket used a lift from Groot to reach high places of the ship. Right as they fixed it, a new alarm sounded: the incoming ship alert. They were boarded by troll-like aliens. Sometimes it felt like they got out of a jam just to fly into the next one, reflected Rocket. But if crisscrossing the universe fighting bad guys had taught him anything, it was that friendship was unstoppable. That was the real definition of a super team: the people you rely on to overcome the challenges you encounter in your adventures.

While Gamora was in a deep trance, she heard Thanos call Nebula for help through their shared cosmic awareness. Thanos was under trial by Eternity, Infinity, the In-Betweener, and the Living Tribunal, and recruited Nebula to rescue him. To stop her, the Guardians arrived at an abandoned jump station on the edge of known space, where they faced off against Nebula and Gamora's ex-team, the Graces, composed of Cerise, Death Metal and Stellaris. To win the fight, Gamora used her mental bond with Nebula to make her understand Thanos would never love them before striking her down. While they jetted away, Rocket bounced the ship off an asteroid, which broke its toilet. Because the team was too poor to replace it, they decided to steal an out-of-production toilet from the Superpooper Spacewaste company's product archive. To do that, Rocket and Peter let themselves be captured by security guards, whom they distracted by telling their recent adventure, giving time for the rest of the team to steal the toilet and kill the guards. Afterwards, they flew off while being chased by the company's spaceships.

The Black Vortex

The Guardians and the X-Men were gathered when Star-Lord collected the Black Vortex, a cosmic mirror capable of granting cosmic powers to anyone. He stole it from his father, who was now a bandit calling himself Mr. Knife. Mr. Knife's killers, the Slaughter Lords, came to recover the Vortex, but they were stopped by Gamora after she submitted to the Vortex and underwent a power boost. The heroes teleported away to Spartax's moon, where they started arguing about whether they should embrace the power or destroy it. Rocket seemed to think fearing it was overkill, but after Beast was evolved by the Vortex he started acting strange and zealous. He attacked X-23, a fellow X-Men, when she attempted to destroy the Vortex, so Rocket changed his mind. After Nova arrived. Gamora showed them all a vision of what they could become with the Vortex, and Rocket saw his evolved self. Despite seeing this, Rocket aimed his weapons at the converted ones, who were acting too aggressively. As Iceman was converted as well, Storm and Rocket flew away with the Vortex. Gamora chased them down and fought with her fellow Guardians, ultimately taking the Vortex and leaving the moon. Suddenly, Mr. Knife appeared and his ship blew the moon apart. Rocket survived thanks to Kitty Pride touching him and making him phase, and everyone reunited. They left the moon and met up with Cyclops and the Starjammers, new arrivals. After they found out the Vortex-powered individuals were destroying Hala, the heroes split into teams and Rocket and some others headed to Hala. In there, Ronan the Accuser submitted himself to the Vortex and gained the power to draw back the aggressors. But the threat was not over: Mr. Knife showed up in his flying fortress and shot the planet until it was literally broken in two.

Vision of a Rocket empowered by the Black Vortex

As Rocket's group escaped, Magik of the X-Men teleported Rocket to Gamora's location and the other Vortex-enhanced individuals. Magik and Rocket convinced them to help the rest fight Mr. Knife. By the time they arrived on Spartax, it was too late; Knife had recovered the Vortex and shown it to Thane, Thanos's son. Thane used his freezing powers to encase the whole planet in amber, freezing millions. To make things worse, Brood ships arrived and began shooting tiny Brood into the planet; the plan was to have these infestoid Brood burrow through the frozen people to their skulls and implant eggs in them, increasing the Brood population by billions. Before the heroes could do anything, the Slaughter Lords arrived and a massive battle began. Meanwhile, Groot submitted to the Vortex and used his newfound powers to give the Vortex back to the good guys. Things came to a halt with the arrival of Gara, an Elder of the universe whose planet was destroyed by the Black Vortex and wanted to spare the universe of it. After she explained the dangers of submitting to the power, Kitty Pryde stepped forward; if they wanted to save Spartax and stop the Brood, she had to accept the power. With it she became one with the universe, and phased all the amber out of the planet, freeing everyone. Once the threat was over, Gara explained they could give back their powers to the Vortex; Groot agreed, but Gamora did not. Afterwards, Star-Lord proposed to Kitty, and everyone celebrated. Storm jokingly told Rocket he could be her date at the wedding.

After this huge event, Rocket was surprised when Nova offered millions of credits for any information on his father's whereabouts, after the kid identified his father, Jesse, as an escaped Chitauri prisoner. Defying the Chitauri backfired when Chitauri lieutenant Warbringer started flinging asteroids towards Earth, but Rocket and all of Nova's allies showed up to stop the asteroids and hold the fort while Nova fought Warbringer. Finally, the bad guy was defeated and they rescued Jesse. Rocket greeted his old friend, telling him he hadn't forgotten about the credits he owed him. Never being one for goodbyes, Rocket left quickly. Sadly, it would later turn out that Jesse was a clone and the real one was still missing.

Around this time, the Guardians were captured by an Interstellar Circus comprised of Saturnalia, Tigrid the Tamer, Hollow-Boned Falkeens and Mekkog, the Living Robot. Saturnalia had developed a calliope whose music siphoned off the energy of their audience, which helped them perform better and increase audience engagement. However, the Guardians were such a big catch that it increased the Circus' appetite. To sate it, they travelled to Earth, where they hypnotized the Avengers with the same methods. Bruce Banner transforming into the Hulk granted the Avengers enough time to free the Guardians. Rocket knocked out Tigrid because he just didn't like cats, and the rest of the Circus fell shortly after. As New York's audience cheered both teams on, Peter felt energized from being set free and got carried away enough to make both teams put on a show for their audience.

After the Watcher died, some of the items in his vault went missing. The Guardians tracked down the Ultimate Nullifier to its potential buyer, the deadly Dannko. He was in planet Ru D'as, and the Guardians took the chance to relax in the saunas while being undercover. Barely dressed, they stumbled upon Dannko and his crew – made of Guardians rip offs – and a fight broke out. Dannko got away and escaped on his ship, so Drax followed him all the way to Earth. Days later, Drax returned after having killed Dannko and returned the Nullifier – and the Guardians were still relaxing in the sauna, lazily.

Later, Rocket noticed a message on the interstellar merc wires saying Macho Gomez had been captured. Wanting revenge from the time Macho betrayed him, Rocket travelled to Earth, where he met the person who captured Macho, Deadpool, in a secret underground weapons cache in Colorado. They found the place overrun with Drakillars, Rocket's old monsters from Halfworld. The duo met other bounty hunters, but working together they managed to defeat them. They were overrun by Drakillars, but they managed to reach the armory and counter attack. Rocket tried to lead the situation with tactics, but Deadpool wasn't having any of it. In fact, his whole plan against Macho seemed to be badly planned; Deadpool admitted he only started the whole thing because he was bored. Rocket got fed up and attempted to leave; not Macho, nor anybody seemed to want to follow his merc code. Deadpool found it adorable: Rocket was trying to impose order on a crazy world with an obsessive compulsive disorder. Suddenly, Macho found them and captured Rocket. But Deadpool found a teleporter, got Rocket out and set the place to explode. Macho was finished and Rocket headed home.

Around this time, Rocket was kidnapped by Kraven the Hunter while buying weapons on Earth, because even though he hated the planet, it was the easiest place to buy guns in. Kraven acted on orders of crazy millionaire Shannon Sugarbaker, and she captured Rocket along with several other anthropomorphic animals like Howard the Duck to serve as prey for hunting. If they made it to the southern gate, they would survive. She attacked them with a cosplay suit, using Iron Man's repulsion rays and Thor's hammer. The group knew there was no way they would be let go even if they made it to the exit, and they witnessed hunted preys were buried in the ground, so they deduced there must be an underground tunnel. While they were digging, Rocket distracted Shannon. Thanks to his sacrifice, Howard and Squirrel Girl made it to the main mansion and freed everyone. Working together, they managed to set the mansion on fire and escape.

Hoping to buy a new piece of Stark Tech, Rocket and Groot decided to put 10 percent of every job into a savings account. They saved up for months, including taking on the job of eliminating techno-roaches called Robopests. However, the Collector desired to preserve them, so he and the Guardians engaged in a fight for the second time. After Rocket knocked Tivan out, he collected his bounty from The Twins and amassed enough for his new toy. However, Groot preserved one of the Robopests inside his skull. Because Peter didn't know how to manage his money as well as Rocket and Groot, he couldn't afford to replace their ship's solar flare shielding, and it caused them to crash on Earth. Luckily, Rocket's emergency savings were enough to cover repairs and his new weapon. The Avengers arrived with the required parts for the ship, but the Robopest inside of Groot adapted to Earth and released a plague of locusts in the middle of the park they were in. After Ant-Man (Scott Lang) removed the Robopest from Groot, Rocket used his newly-acquired pest-exterminator to clear the area. As reward to Ant-Man, Rocket gave him enough money to buy his daughter Cassie a drum set and start saving for the future. The following week, the Guardians attended Cassie's Battle of the Bands.

Last Days

Later, the Guardians of the Galaxy of the year 3000 arrived to try to find out why time was broken in the future. Their arrival in New York caught the present-time Guardian's attention. Rocket called them “copyright infringers” for using the same name; he didn't believe they were from the future and proposed shooting them just to be safe. He remembered they named their team after future Guardians originally, but the members they knew were different. Indeed, time was broken; that was why there were so many contradictions. The two teams went to eat something, celebrating that they avoided the trope of fighting each other. Suddenly, a robot the Guardians 3000 had brought from the future, a Stark, began self-replicating and created an army that attacked the city. The heroes began fighting the robots, and they got unexpected help when the rest of the Guardians 3000 showed up from the future. Among them, an alternate Major Victory who didn't remember his time on the present-Guardians. To avoid further confusion, Starhawk from the Guardians 3000 linked everyone's minds so that everybody could be caught up. They continued fighting the robots; Rocket was very impressed by Nikki of the Guardians 3000 and her weapon expertise; they complimented each other's guns and even tried swapping. The heroes realized the Stark robots were only trying to solve the temporal problem and the time-displaced heroes were the nearest time anomalies, so they masked any trace that they were anachronisms and the fight ended. They followed the Stark to Forest Hills, and Captain Marvel recognized from her time in the Avengers that that was where the villain Korvac used to hide. They went to check Korvac's grave, but he was still dead. They visited Korvac's house, where all the Stark were congregating - but they all had been destroyed. Star-Lord freaked out and tried to call the Avengers, but communications were dead. Two members of the Guardians 3000 went into the house, where they found Korvac, who explained he was dismantling time to rebuild the universe from scratch. The rest of them couldn't enter; an anti-time barrier was raised around the house. To prevent them from breaking it, Korvac reactivated and upgraded the Stark. Rocket thought of reprogramming Star-Lord's phone to project Iron Man's voice, which the Stark robots considered sacred. Everybody started protecting Rocket, but right when he was about to be done, the Guardians 3000 inside the house killed Korvac and time slipped again. Reality shifted, and the Guardians from the present were gone from the scene.

Next thing they knew, the Guardians were in a bar. Drunk, Rocket called Peter his "baby boo" and told him to keep swimming no matter how bad things got, right before Star-Lord was asked to go to Spartax to be their new king. To be able to bring the Guardians with him, he said they were his cabinet and Rocket was his “secretary of raccoon/Spartax relations”. When they were on the planet everyone was given royal treatment, and Rocket enjoyed being bathed by beautiful women. Of course, peace couldn't last and a huge planet appeared on the skyline, shaking the entirety of Spartax. It was Kindun, ruled by the man who'd tried to execute Gamora last time the Guardians met the Avengers. Rocket was pissed off their relaxation was cut short, and as Gamora took the fight to Kindun, the Guardians fought off a Chitauri fleet. They realized the army was a distraction, so they went after Gamora, but by that time she'd already made Kindun leave. Rocket wanted to follow him and blow him up, but the lighthearted mood was broken when Gamora announced she was quitting the team; her connections to Thanos put everybody at risk.

Secret Wars

Later, the Guardians got swept in the Incursions crisis; universes were clashing with each other and being destroyed. The only way to stop it was to destroy the Earths from each universe. To prevent an Incursion, the Galactic Empires decided to destroy 616-Earth, but the Guardians patched into their encrypted security network and heard of this. Rocket was against warning Earth; people who ran towards fire instead of away from it were idiots. Despite this, the Guardians went to Earth, where the heroes told them they wanted to stay and defend their home. Rocket stood next to Earth's mightiest heroes and told them they were idiots for wanting to go down with the ship. The heroes managed to destroy the Galactic fleet, but right afterwards Earth suffered an Incursion: they were invaded by Earth-1610. The Guardians helped shoot down the other universe's helicarriers, but Earth was overwhelmed. A stray beam pierced Rocket's chest, tragically killing him. The two universes collided, and the multiverse was destroyed.

The first death of Rocket

But that wasn't the end of the story. Supervillain Doctor Doom managed to achieve godhood and created a patchwork of alternate Earths to carry on with reality. This was called Battleworld, and Rocket lived on there.

This version of the Guardians lived outside of Battleworld, in Knowhere, a satellite floating above it. Drax, Gamora and Rocket got together and made the vow to protect its people. One day, Rocket met Yotat when he stormed into a bar and killed all of Knowhere's underworld, looking to take control. Yotat noticed Rocket was there and offered him a job, but Rocket just wanted to take out crime, not replace it. They started fighting and Drax came in to help, and eventually even the Nova Corps got involved, a group comprised of previous Guardian of the Galaxy allies: Captain Marvel, Richard Rider, Venom, Iron Man, Moondragon and Warlock.

Later, Gamora still possessed her Black Vortex augmentations, so she could sense that reality was fake, that Doom was not really a God. She left Knowhere, but crossing the borders was a crime, so Angela of the Thor Corps – Battleworld's police forces – went after her. After fooling Angela, the Guardians visited Mantis to see if she could use her psychic abilities to make Gamora explain herself. However, she remained secretive. Suddenly, the place was obliterated by someone hunting Drax: Yotat.

Rocket in Doom's patchwork universe

He wanted revenge on Drax for having humiliated him. The trio of Guardians and Mantis fought him, but Yotat had been empowered by the explosion of a storehouse from the Collector; he was unstoppable, and Mantis was murdered. Yotat dragged the Guardians to the center of Knowhere for a public execution, but this attracted the attention of Angela. This gave Drax a moment to get back in the fight, and the two of them defeated Yotat. The Nova Corps came and picked him up, and that left Gamora to answer to Angela once and for all. She confessed she did not believe in Doom, so Angela began fighting with her for blasphemy. Their fight was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Hala the Accuser. She killed Angela and defeated the Nova Corps; the Guardians had to swarm her all at once to defeat her. Gamora cried over her body, trying to understand all these names rattling in her head, people she somehow knew: Groot, Thanos, Peter. Suddenly, Star-Lord showed up: he'd survived the destruction of the multiverse in a life raft that passed over to Battleworld. He recruited the Guardians for a final attack against Doom so that things could go back to normal. Rocket understood that that whole reality was a lie, so the Guardians signed up. Later, Doom was overthrown and the Multiverse was assembled again. Things went back to the way they were: Star-Lord as the emperor of Spartax, Gamora missing from the team and Rocket and Groot seemingly shot to death.

Rocket posing as Lord Rakzoon

After they woke up in their reality once again, Rocket carved a map in Groot's wood and disappeared. Groot didn't reunite with the Guardians, setting off to find Rocket. As time passed, in Star-Lord's absence his fiancée Kitty became the new Star-Lord and the team accepted a new member from Earth: The Thing. Meanwhile, Groot followed his map to Knowhere and Cosmo and then to Earth's superheroes: Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, Howard the Duck - periodically carving up his body to refresh the tattoos so that they wouldn't get erased. Over eight months Groot visited dozens of planets and completed several quests to get to the following clue. It didn't seem to be leading anywhere, until he spotted Rocket on TV, calling himself Lord Rakzoon; the new dictator of the Yon quadrant, laying waste to the peace that had held the region together. Groot hired a postal device to deliver himself to Lord Rakzoon, hoping to recover his memories. Rakzoon sent Groot to the dungeons, where he listened to his story, but he said he was gonna kill him anyway. Then all of the sudden Rakzoon started laughing, and he said: “Gotcha!” Rocket never lost his memories; he was just getting payback for the time Groot made him follow a treasure map only to celebrate his birthday. It was an eight months long prank. Once the royal guard realized they were lied to, Rocket and Groot had to fight their way out. Suddenly, they were faced with Nasoj, the previous ruler of the Yon quadrant, which Rocket had imprisoned. He was freed by the Postal service Groot sent there: Pockets Possum and his friend Shrub, who claimed to be the best at escaping prisons. Rocket and Groot butted heads with these copycats, but Nasoj ordered to kill them all. The four guys escaped to the port, but Rocket and Groot stole Pockets' ship, so the couriers swore vengeance. Rocket returned to the Guardians, who were celebrating a funeral for Rocket and Groot, and shot an empty coffin into space. Right then Rocket showed up, and the team couldn't believe their eyes. Without Peter in the team, Rocket became the new leader and added The Thing and Kitty Pride to their roster. Rocket, Groot, Drax and Venom were present when Kitty answered a call from Peter, only to tell him she was upset Peter hadn't visited her or the Guardians and also forgot about Kitty's birthday.

Rocket and Groot argue with their counterparts, Pockets and Shrub

New Guard

When the Guardians went to visit Knowhere for a supply run and to teach The Thing the ropes, they met gangster Yotat causing trouble. They started fighting until the Knowhere Corps came in: a police force made of Mantis, Moondragon, Bug, Cosmo and a newcomer named Prism. They took care of arresting Yotat. Rocket and the Guardians later fought an army of droids.

As the new Leader, one of Rocket's first adventures was to take Groot to Earth: Groot wanted to see a human he'd rescued from his home planet many years ago. On their way, their ship broke down, and they were forced to hitch-hike. They were picked up by a space-truck, but this in turn was attacked by space-sharks; Rocket hated the idea of the trip, but he got to have fun when shooting sharks. However, the truck left them stranded, so they were forced to hitch-hike again. This time they were picked up by Skrulls pretending they were humans. They argued among themselves too much, so Rocket and Groot just stole one of their pods and escaped. While resting in a bar, the two friends discussed how there wasn't anyone like them out there. Maybe that's why Rocket didn't want to visit Earth; everyone looked the same, and it made him feel even more different. But if Groot was different too, Rocket would take different over normal any day. Rocket and Groot tried and swapped ships several times, until they were spotted by a bounty hunter army looking for Groot. Rocket couldn't believe Groot had a higher bounty than him, but he sacrificed himself so that Groot could escape and tell everybody what happened. Only problem was Groot couldn't talk. Groot didn't manage to get through to anyone, so he just headed towards Rocket. Meanwhile, Rocket woke up imprisoned by the bounty hunter Eris, who was using him as bait to capture Groot. Groot showed up with a pack of friends he made along the way, but they were ineffectual and Eris made Groot explode. She prepared to shoot Rocket out of the airlock, but Groot had survived in his tiny form. Groot rescued his friends, and together they turned things around and escaped Eris. Later, they finally reached Earth and completed a bucket list of things Groot wanted to do: listening to Star-Lord's favorite bands, watching Captain Marvel's favorite movies, fighting supervillains, partying with the X-Men. Jean Grey of the X-Men was able to telepathically guide Groot to the human he wanted to find, and so he was finally able to reconnect with his old friend Hannah.

Later, Rocket and Groot did a little bounty job on Earth: they had to find Horgon Lokum from Florix. It was Halloween, and Horgon was hiding among costumed kids. When the kids saw Rocket and Groot, they thought they were costumes as well; they loved Groot, but they weren't impressed by Rocket. Horgon revealed himself and fled to a graveyard, where he revealed his minions: an army of mind-controlled, armed children. Rocket decided he hated Earth too much for those risks and he and Groot ran to fight another day.

Rocket finally stepped up as leader of the Guardians when they stopped a magical cult from activating a bomb. The bomb was more magic than tech, so Rocket hadn't got a clue how to disarm it; he decided to separate the team for a little while so that he and Groot could take the bomb to people who know how to disarm them. Drax didn't know what to do with his little vacation; his only pastime was killing Thanos. Rocket tried to change his mind, but he knew it was pointless. He gave Drax a ship he had stashed for emergencies, the Space Sucker — a rusty piece of garbage. And so, everyone went their separate ways.

Later, while escaping from Bounty Hunters Rocket and The Thing crashed their ship into a gladiator planet. The planet worshipped Earth's wrestling industry, and they considered Thing a hero due to his wrestling days. They made him wrestle aliens day after day, while Rocket assembled the parts they got as rewards and attempted to rebuild their ship. Rocket couldn't stand to watch Thing get punched every day; he wanted to intervene, but Thing said to give him a chance. He fought all the challengers at once, but he was overrun. Rocket jumped in with his guns, getting everyone's attention. The planet worshipped wrestling because it was the only broadcast they could receive; but Rocket was able to build a transmitter and radio to bring them 900,000 channels. The citizens calmed down and welcomed their new distraction, giving the Guardians time to wait and be rescued.

When Rocket found Drax's room trashed, he began tracking his teammate by following his trail of trashed bars; Drax seemed filled with rage. In the Broken Empire Rocket met the Spaceknights, whom he'd considered a myth. They explained Drax had left with one of their teammates, and they tracked their ship to Hool, a planet infected with Durgh, a species that lured people in with their dreams. In Hool, people saw what their hearts wanted to see, so Rocket saw it full of adorable things like Teddy bears and cartoon dragons. By the time they broke into the Durgh's fortress, Drax had already freed himself from his dream projection. When they got back to the ship, Drax revealed he had been so filled with rage because it was the anniversary of the marriage he'd once had. Rocket promised Drax to take him out next year. After Rocket's encounter with the Spaceknights, they trained him.

During a night off, Kitty tricked Rocket into thinking the others would come to a bar so that they could hang out, just the two of them. She wanted a chance to bond, to build trust. Suddenly, Maxor, a kree, burst in asking for protection; he was deserting from the government. They agreed to help him for the profit. They left the bar, but they were attacked by the Kree. While protecting Maxor, Kitty discovered he was actually a Skrull. He revealed he was working undercover, but he went native and couldn't bring himself to destroy the Kree. So the people following him were actually Skrulls, and they took them down. When Kitty turned around, Maxor had shape-shifted into Rocket; Kitty didn't know who to shoot. Maxor claimed he was tired and she should just shoot him, but this tipped Kitty off. Rocket never stopped fighting, especially for his friends. The real Rocket was discovered, and the two friends discovered they knew a lot about each other after all.

Millennium

Rocket was flying with Groot and Drax when they found a gigantic structure in space. Rocket figured if something so big poked into our universe it had to contain something valuable, so he convinced his teammates to board it and raid it. They found an ancient scripture, and Rocket was the only one capable of reading the ancient Gramosian; it seemed to say the place was a tomb. Suddenly, they met the Guardians 3000, but they said they were in the year 3016; one of the two teams must have traveled in time. The only explanation was the structure lay outside of time and space; both teams entered it in different eras but ended up in the same place. The heroes were suddenly attacked by a group of armored assailants capable of self-repairing. It was too much for the good guys, so they retreated through a door that turned out to be another entry point; they were transported to Earth in the year 1016. Then the impossible happened: a third team of Guardians of the Galaxy showed up, the Guardians 1000. After an obligatory misunderstanding fight, the Guardians 1000 introduced themselves: They were Stella Nega, Aerolite, Astrolabe, Tua Zon the Colonizer and Skytower. They explained they were fighting the Newcomers of the giant structure, which plundered worlds of goods and life forms. The populations they harvested were turned into genetic stock to be gene-cruited, recycled into serving the enemy as highbreed. The Guardians 3000 lost Charlie in the structure, and it was possible he'd been turned into one of them. Suddenly, the three teams were attacked by Newcomers highbreeds. The Guardians didn't dare use lethal force in fear one of the enemies might be Charlie, but this costed them Skytower, who was captured and gene-cruited. In his rage, Astrolabe lost control of the star he held within him and the whole place exploded. As his last act, Astrolabe managed to protect the Guardians from the explosion. Afterwards, they found the Newcomer portal still active, so they went into the structure, where they were amazed by the sheer size of the place and its armies. They found more scriptures: it seemed the structure was built to worship Hermetikus. Before they could find out more, they were attacked by thousands of Highbreeds.

Rocket with his brain removed

Faced with certain doom, Rocket analysed what each member brought to the group; he was a tactical genius, the main reason he made the cut for his team was his tactical smarts. He was looking for an angle, a miracle play, but he couldn't find any. Then Astrolabe showed up; he hadn't died, he had just teleported away. He teleported again, taking everyone to safety. Astrolabe's star entangled with the structure and established a line of communication; it began a dialogue. The group was able to find out that the structure was a trans-time location assembling an army from thousands of worlds across the timestream in service of their master Hermetikus. Astrolabe convinced them to attempt a peaceful negotiation, but that just led to them being imprisoned by Hermetikus. Only Rocket wasn't in a cage; he was being scanned by Hermetikus, who found out Rocket's brain was unique and wanted it for his collection.

Every Guardian except for Rocket and Stella Nega was taken away. Hermetikus wanted Rocket's brain for his tactical genius; he had a collection of brains he connected to his suit to be the ultimate being. He also knew Stella, back from when he was called Tyreeze Tarolt and was a member of her Guardians. He wanted to take the concept of the Guardians to the next level; to guard all of infinity. Meanwhile, Vance Astro used his telekinesis to release Nikki from her cell. Back with Hermetikus, he painlessly extracted Rocket's brain and left him in a vegetative state. Rocket was able to keep talking from his brain, which Hermetikus connected to his suit hivemind to work in strategic planning. As punishment to his previous strategic commander, Korz, he inserted him in Rocket's old body. Stella convinced Korz that Hermetikus was a psychopath who would kill him next, so Korz helped her escape. Stella headed to Hermetikus, claiming she wanted to join him, while Korz released the Guardians. Hermetikus explained he would attack the capital worlds of thirty-seven empires or species, and Rocket had already perfected the assault plan for him. Hermetikus knew the Guardians had been released, but it didn't matter; he launched his invasion. However, Rocket never opened the shields; so all the ships were accelerating towards a solid wall and crashing. By giving Rocket authority, he gave him the chance to usurp control, to gain autonomy. He controlled Hermetikus' body now. Hermetikus managed to disconnect Rocket's brain, but right then the Guardians showed up. While they distracted the bad guys, Rocket deactivated the highbreed system. He might have been disconnected, but he could still access the WiFi. Charlie of the Guardians 3000 and all the converted Guardians were back to normal; the army was no longer. Rocket was put back in his body and Hermetikus was reduced to a brain. He might have perverted the founding concept of the Guardians of the Galaxy: universal peace, but the dream still remained, and every team, in its own time, could fight for it. A question remained unanswered, about who founded the concept of the Guardians of the Galaxy since there had been a team like that as far back as the year 1000.

When Rocket was captured along with Howard the Duck by the Collector, he took gene samples of both of them to be cloned for reproduction. He used the samples to create female clones. Later, these female clones escaped and reunited with Howard to go back to the Collector and free all the other prisoners that had been left behind. Things got complicated when the whole universe started chasing Howard after it was discovered he was the Nexus Between Worlds, capable of teleporting anyone anywhere. For safety, he teleported his friends to the Guardians of the Galaxy's ship, and Rocket met his clone Shocket. Howard reached the Guardians, but right after that he was captured by the Collector. The Guardians landed on the Collector's planet and started taking out his guards and freeing the prisoners, antagonizing him for the third time. The prisoners went home by touching Howard and getting teleported instantly, but the Collector wouldn't have it and the Guardians couldn't stop him. In the end, Howard touched him and teleported him away. Four hours later, the planet had been emptied. Shocket and the Howard clone exited reality through Howard.

Later, the Guardians cordoned off a road from all traffic to allow passage for a Gamarvian turtle migration. This pissed off a space trucker with a deadline, so he rushed past the blockage and accidentally lost some of his cargo, a box containing Tsum aliens. The box floated away until it ended up on Earth and that was the last the Guardians heard of it.

The Guardians went near Earth for a pitstop for supplies in the A.F.S.S., the Alpha Flight Space Station. While Rocket was taking things – stealing them, you might say – he bumped into ex-Guardian Captain Marvel, who was now leading Alpha Flight. Rocket was surprised to hear the Captain would be taking a desk job; she should be out there kicking butt with the Guardians. Carol later called Rocket to ask for help: she was being attacked by Satori vessels. Sadly, Rocket told her the Guardians were too far away to be able to reach her in time. The Captain had to figure it out by herself.

When the Guardians stole from the Chitauri, they were chased by one of their fleets so they destroyed it. They didn't even know what the package was; they just saw the Chitauri had it so it must have meant bad news. After getting it, they were scared it might be dangerous, so they decided to bring it to experts. Problem is, the only one they knew was Peter Quill, who was now emperor of Spartax. They visited the planet, but Rocket was against visiting; he felt Peter betrayed them by abandoning the team. Right as they arrived, Gamora fell from the skies, hurt. She tried to stop Hala the Accuser, but she had arrived in Spartax. Hala blamed the Guardians for the destruction of planet Hala, so she wanted revenge. Rocket recognised her from their time in Battleworld, but he refered to those memories as a dream. Hala was too powerful and knocked everybody out; while Peter was out, Hala took him to her ship. She wanted to destroy Spartax while Peter was still alive to watch and feel her pain, and then she'd turn to Peter's other home planet, Earth. Down on the planet, Kitty was the first to wake up, so she hid all of her teammates. After they recovered, they tried to get to Peter, but Hala had destroyed all the ships. Rocket rebuilt their ship and they left, but Hala saw them; Gamora had to sacrifice herself so the ship could get high enough to cloak. By the time Hala reached her ship, the Guardians had already grabbed Peter. The Guardians argued amongst themselves about whether they should go back for Gamora: Rocket felt it was too dangerous to go back without a plan, but Peter made himself heard. It was bad enough Kitty had subtly taken the lead since Hala appeared; now Peter was giving orders again, undermining Rocket's leadership. They went back, all the Guardians attacked together and Hala was subdued. Right as they were catching their breath, though, Yotat the Destroyer of Destroyers appeared. Working together, the Guardians took him down. After the crisis was over, the Spartax government held Peter accountable for the destruction of the planet and he was fired from his position. No longer a king, Peter returned to the Guardians, who were now enemies of the galaxy.

No Longer Leader

Later, Rocket, Peter and Kitty answered a distress signal from the Brood that terrified them. After arguing which one of them was closer to Ripley, the main character from Alien, they found the place littered with bodies, and decided to split up. It turned out the people in that ship were raided and impregnated by the Brood, but the Brood had been infected by maggots that turned you into alien hybrids on contact. Rocket set a twenty-minute timer on the ship, and discovered the crew hadn't send the distress signal; they had stranded their ship to keep the parasite from getting out. Peter grabbed the only survivor, who was pregnant from the Brood, and helped her give birth. Meanwhile, Kitty encountered the Brood queen, and Rocket came to her rescue. They escaped and the ship self-destructed. As they were leaving on their ship, the woman they rescued turned out to be infected, but Rocket blew her up. He was the damn Ripley.

Rocket's second death

On another occasion, Rocket and Groot were invited to a mysterious mansion on Earth along with a series of bizarre characters: Spider-Ham, Squirrel Girl and her squirrel Tippy-Toe, The Punisher, Forbush Man, Ant-Man and Howard the Duck. They were invited by Deadpool and his wife, because Deadpool was blackmailing each of them: he knew Rocket and Groot had programmed the Shi'ar's flagship computer to use profanity on every sentence. After getting beaten up, Deadpool explained he just wanted the funniest characters in comic books together for a Christmas card photo. They turned the lights off for the photo, but when the lights turned back on again, Forbush Man was dead. After the funeral, Deadpool decided he would solve the mystery; he'd put a tracker on everybody who was at the mansion. He and Squirrel Girl tracked Rocket and Groot to the Muir Woods in San Francisco by using a teleporter. Rocket said he wasn't the one who did it in that twelve-person group, but Groot argued there were thirteen people at the mansion. Suddenly, the group encountered Squirrelpool, a crazy mix-up of Squirrel Girl and Deadpool created when the teleporter they used mixed their DNA. They subdued the monster and Deadpool and Squirrel Girl left, but right after they left, a mysterious figure showed up and murdered Rocket and Groot. Later, Deadpool went back to the mansion and summoned the one responsible for all the killings: a demon from his wife's realm, Paen-Umbra. The demon was trying to win the love of Deadpool's wife. He cut off the demon's crotch and forced him to bring back all the dead, including Rocket.

When Squirrel Girl accidentally created an evil clone of herself, this clone went around defeating every superhero. Squirrel Girl assembled a group of friends to stop her clone: amongst them was Rocket Raccoon. Even with his help, they seemed to not stand a chance against the clone Squirrel Girl, so the real one picked up Mjolnir and summoned every hero on Earth. Together they stopped the clone and sent her to the Negative Zone.

After visiting a weapon convention on Earth, Rocket was passing through Central Park when he saw Tippy-Toe fighting villain Plantman and decided to help her. Plantman gave the trees intelligence and used them to attack the people, but he lost control of his puppets and got cast aside. Rocket felt a serious emotional conflict at having to shoot trees, considering his best friend was one of them. He and Tippy-Toe decided to run. Things seemed desperate, until Tippy-Toe found Rocket talking to the trees; he could talk tree. By talking, they understood the trees were just angry that Plantman had forced them to move right when they were getting ready to go dormant for Winter. Working together, they managed to arrest Plantman. Rocket told Tippy-Toe they should do that again sometime.

Rocket visited Earth to play Dungeons and Dragons with Earth's heroes, but Iron Man just wouldn't follow the rules; he acted like it was too lame for him. Instead, he left to play Fantasy Football. Rocket and Iron Man argued over what was the better game, so Iron Man dared him to last through only one game of Fantasy Football. The game would be held in Glaxion 9, so while they were travelling Rocket studied all the statistics in the game, thinking it was a math game. When they arrived, however, it turned out to be very much real football. Rocket was outpowered against giants, but he wouldn't back out. Making things worse, the game would last forty quarters. Rocket was beaten to a pulp, until he realized you were supposed to do everything you wanted to win, so he started shooting his opponents. In the last play of the day, he got his revenge against Iron Man by stealing a Wizard's staff and summoning a demon, essentially rolling a D20 from Dungeons & Dragons in real life. Iron Man ended up scorched. Rocket won the bet, and Iron Man was forced to play Dungeons & Dragons as a humiliating little bunny character.

Rocket and Groot were taking a day off in a vacatiocube when they were interrupted by Gunhild of the Elmhold clan, who destroyed their virtual reality. She and her Vikings were there to retrieve the Bardonx, a mysterious box Rocket had won in a card game. But the king wanted the person who stole it as well, so Rocket and Groot were taken to Gunhild's planet. The king had a nefarious reputation, but when he saw Groot he took him for Elmhold's God and treated him with all his hospitality. Rocket, meanwhile, was thrown in prison with Gunhild. She explained the king wasn't stupid; he was just using Groot and he was going to sacrifice him so his people would think he was powerful. Rocket and Gunhild escaped prison and saved Groot right before he was going to be thrown into a volcano, freeing the Elmhold clan from its tyrannical king. Rocket and Groot flew away, but they ended up stranded in the sea, half burnt; at least they finally got the vacation they wanted.

Later, Rocket and Groot competed on several games on Knowhere, but Groot won in each of them. Rocket took things one step further and arranged a cosmic car race. While they were racing, Rocket received a call from General Dock, who told him his people were under attack by the kiffs so he was calling in the favor Rocket owed him. Not wanting to cancel the race, they simply changed the finish line to Olim Seven, their destination planet. Even then, they couldn't agree if the finish line was the atmosphere or the ground, so they challenged each other to see who killed more Kiffs. Their killing was so intense, Rocket and Groot put an end to 1000 years of war in the planet. They were celebrated as heroes, but their bet ended in a tie. The games would never end.

Rocket and Groot took a group of scouts from different races on a camping to the Humpaloof Forest on the planet of Juxx. During a campfire, Rocket told scary stories, then he told the youngsters to go to bed. However, one of them asked for one last story. Since Rocket was in no mood to tell another, Groot stepped up and told the kids of the adventure he and Rocket had to find a treasure. However, all the kids heard Groot say was "I am Groot". One of the scouts started to applaud, a small kid that was seemingly from a plant-like race had understood Groot's words perfectly well. In the excitement, Rocket proceeded to tell the kids about his ruse as Lord Rakzoon, his game of intergalactic football, his encounter with the Elmhold Clan and the time he and Groot nearly drove the Kiffs to extinction, until the kids just wanted to be allowed to sleep.

While Rocket and Groot were fighting a space squid, Rocket got a call: his old friend Frankie Fat Hands had died. Rocket said he didn't care and wouldn't go to the funeral, but he trashed an entire room; his feelings were clear. In the end, he and Groot attended the funeral. Later, they visited Frankie's tombstone, where Rocket apologized for not having said anything during the funeral. Suddenly, Frankie showed up, digging his way up from the grave. He had faked his death. They went to a restaurant to celebrate and, while leaving, Rocket accidentally pushed Frankie out of the train and killed him. While they were being interrogated by the police, Rocket spotted Frankie outside, so he escaped. Confronting Frankie, he admitted he had to fake his death again. He then choked on what he was eating, dying again. So began a long series of fake deaths, until Rocket lost his patience and warned Frankie he'd kill him himself. Under pressure, Frankie admitted he owed a lot of money to a gangster named The Slug. Rocket agreed to help, but when they went to pick Frankie up, they found him dead - for real this time, killed by The Slug. Angry, Rocket and Groot took the fight to the gangster. However, it turned out Slug was a philanthropist, a do-gooder. It was all a trick from Frankie to break into the Slug's vault, and he was in cahoots with the police. As Frankie was leaving, Rocket only had one thing to say: “I love you.” He couldn't bring himself to hate Frankie, no matter what. Frankie's had taught him everything he knew. Suddenly, the squid they had been fighting fell from the sky and killed Rocket. In his anger, Groot knocked out the bad guys and nobody got away. Then, as he was leaving in his ship, Groot found Rocket, who had simply faked his death.

Captured by an Earther satellite from the oil company Roxxon, Rocket got infected with Space Rabies, or more accurately, R.A.B.I.E.s; Robotic Antibody/Bacterial Infection Engines, a new breed of nanobots. Being controlled against his will, Rocket was sent crashing to Earth, to Howard the Duck's car. Rocket had lost his mind and turned feral. Deadpool was sent there to investigate on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s orders, but Rocket bit Deadpool's teleporter, causing it to explode. After the smoke cleared out, it turned out the explosion caused Howard and Deadpool to fuse. This new Deadpool the Duck picked up Rocket and they hit the “return” button on his ship, hoping to find the origin of his rabies. The ship took them to the Roxxon satellite. A janitor told them there used to be all kinds of shady experiments going on there, but the taxes were too high so they were moved to another base. After fighting the security, Ms. Basalt, Deadpool went back to Earth and started busting Roxxon bases, looking for Rocket's experiment. He finally found the Rabies project in “The World”, an artificial island in the United Arab Emirates. There was a mysterious tank labeled “RABIEs” so they just put Rocket inside. Meanwhile, Basalt was also back. While Rocket was in the tank, a fight broke out between Deadpool, Basalt, some Roxxon agents, and some newly-arrived S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. In the midst of this chaos, Rocket exited the tank, good as new. He put an end to the fighting. S.H.I.E.L.D. explained the rabies were nanobots, and Rocket realized he was made to bite Deadpool's teleporter on purpose, by design of the supervillain who was called as a consultant by Roxxon: Doctor Bong. This old obscure villain of Howard the Duck was obsessed with creating animal-human life, so he intended to fuse Howard with Deadpool all along. Deadpool and Howard wanted to go back to their bodies, but they had puked when they first fused, so now they had to eat their puke back, because that was where the RABIEs nanobots were. This was too much even for Rocket, who couldn't watch. When Doctor Bong showed up, everyone ganged up on him, Rocket included. The villain was defeated, and Howard and Deadpool went back to normal.

The bounty hunter Death's Head captured the Guardians in Knowhere, planning to sell them to the highest bidder. He placed them in sleeping pods that showed them a reality where their biggest dreams had come true to keep them sleeping. As the Guardians realized it must be too good to be true and snapped out of it, they got together and jumped onto Rocket's vision: a world where he was king and he was worshipped by Halfworld animal ladies. Rocket had already realized it was a vision, but he had everything he wanted, so he didn't care. Star-Lord tried to convince him he didn't have everyone he wanted. Rocket was forced to admit he missed Groot, so he decided to wake up. As they woke up, Rocket realized they were in Death's Head's ship, whom he called one of the universe's best bounty hunters. Death's Head found them and they started fighting, but Rocket threw Death's Head into one of his sleeping pods, where the villain started seeing his dream reality. While he slept, the Guardians borrowed one of his shuttles and set his autopilot to redirect him to a particularly nasty sector of the Chitauri empire. All that was left was for Rocket to wipe any trace of their bounty from the computers, but first he decided to jump into the sleeping pods a bit longer, to live the dream.

Rocket's secret heart is exposed

Later, the Guardians had a group meeting to discuss their financial problems. They had huge debts to which they all had contributed; some as a group, like damages to Starlin's Bar during bar fights, some as individuals, like Rocket buying 2000 credits of explosives. Altogether they owed more than 200,000 credits. Luckily, Knowhere cops offered them a job: Deacon Delcario, a Ravolian monk, needed a escort home. He'd just retrieved one of his church's most holy relics: the Mother Stone, worth a small fortune. If the Guardians could make sure it wasn't stolen, all of their debt would be lifted. As they traveled, the deacon asked that no more than five souls be allowed near the Mother Stone; more people would cause a catastrophe that would bring about the end of the universe. Suddenly, the Deacon died from a mysterious psychic attack. At the same time, Pip The Troll teleported into the ship to steal the stone — but it activated. The Guardians and Pip found themselves teleported inside the Stone, where a being named Mother Entropy introduced herself. She explained they were to undergo a test to determine who was more worthy of hosting a transference to become this dimension's Mother Entropy; an entire reality teleporting into ours. They each faced visions of their worst fears; Rocket found himself surrounded by other Rockets, making him freak out about not being the only one of his kind anymore. As the test ended, Mother declared she needed further testing, so she made everybody swap bodies; Gamora and Rocket switched. Amidst their confusion, they were teleported to Starlin's Bar, where a bar fight broke out. The heroes couldn't manage their bodies, so they were overwhelmed. Suddenly, they were back inside their ship, back in their original bodies. Mother Entropy chose Pip to host her; he was the one who lacked empathy the most. Rocket wondered why he wasn't picked, but Entropy explained he secretly held affection for two of his fellow Guardians; Groot and somebody else.

As Pip was granted the Mother Stone, he was covered by leaves and became the host for Entropy; his only instinct became to cover the entire universe in what he called the ultimate tranquillity. He barfed all over the Guardians to infect them, but they managed to open their ship and throw Pip into space. Mother Entropy, still a projection, explained their efforts were meaningless; the transition had succeeded thousands of times in countless universes. Pip wasn't killed, he simply fell into Shi'ar Prime. The Guardians landed on the planet, only to find themselves received by Gladiator, the emperor of the Shi'ar. The Guardians tried to warn the authorities, but Gladiator simply imprisoned them because of their past warrants. As Gladiator visited them in jail, Pip appeared in the room. He infected Gladiator, who freed the Guardians as his last action. The team ran to their ship, but Rocket stayed behind; he was infected too. As Rocket stayed in Shi'ar Prime, the rest of the universe began getting infected, because Pip could teleport. Unexpectedly, the Guardians returned to the planet; Groot had a plan. He used his branches to dig into the leaves of Pip's body and dig out the Mother Stone; this stopped the connection. Everyone who was infected returned to normal, and the Guardians left. However, Knowhere wouldn't believe the Guardians' story, so they still had their debts. Luckily, Groot cut open the Mother Stone, and it was filled with precious gems. Everything turned out nice and dandy, but Rocket refused to answer who was the second Guardian he cared about; it was his secret heart.

Around this time, Peter and Kitty broke up. To avoid living somewhere where she ran into her ex every time she got out of the shower, Kitty went to help the Kymellians with their farming project. But game nights weren't the same without Kitty, so Rocket tried to convince her to come back, maybe talk things over with Peter. But no; things between them were over. Rocket went back to the ship unfulfilled; he just wanted to know why they broke up. It might be none of his business, but he was emotionally invested; he was supposed to officiate the wedding. He didn't know this, but Peter and Kitty simply grew apart after he became emperor of Spartax and stopped living in the Guardians' ship. Rocket received an emergency transmission from Peter; he and Kitty were captured by the Collector, the fourth time they'd made contact. Rocket and Groot went to pick them up.

Collect Them All

For a month, Groot became weaker and regenerated more slowly. When space debris was going to destroy a planet, the Guardians rescued the Kree political prisoners that weren't evacuated. After dropping them off in the Kyln, the unexpected happened: They saw another Groot was being brought in, not another Flora Colossus, but a duplicate of Groot. They tried to interrogate it, but a riot broke out and the Groot ended up blasted away. One of the prisoners explained the Collector had been paying anyone who could give him info about any Flora Colossi; he wanted to buy one. The Guardians thought Groot's weakness was linked to these duplicates, so they set out to find the Collector. As this was their fifth meeting, Tivan welcomed them in. He owned four Groots in a beautiful garden full of Earth raccoons, and admitted he created the duplicates. He grabbed one of Groot's splinters after a Guardians battle and tinkered with it until it managed to regenerate. Problem was, his assistant Kiya ran away with the specimen, and she used it to create several other duplicates to sell. The Collector agreed to give them the Groots if they retrieved his DiMavi assistant. The youngest Groot duplicate gave the Guardians the location where he was sold, where they found Kiya. Gamora captured the green lady, but when looking at her closely, she realized she wasn't DiMavi — she was Zen-Whoberian, like Gamora. Instead of capturing her, they rescued her away from the Collector. She explained she was a half breed, the daughter of a DiMavi and a male Zen-Whoberian who was away from their planet when the race was massacred. Her parents were dead now, though. She was kidnapped by the Collector and had implants forcefully inserted in her to make her stronger, traumatizing her. She escaped and sold the Groots to raise money for the extraction surgery, not realizing they were intelligent creatures. She meant no harm. Then it dawned on the team: The Collector was creating a Guardians tribute band with duplicates of each member — a Zen-Whoberian for Gamora, a Groot duplicate, earth raccoons to create another Rocket. Kiya wanted to amend the harm she'd done to Groot, and the Guardians agreed to protect her, so they started collecting all the duplicates.

Tensions ran high. Groot was weaker each day, and Rocket didn't trust Kiya. He didn't have many friends outside their ship, and in their small group, the one person he was closest to in the whole galaxy was pretty much unkillable. When it turned out that friend might be more killable than anyone thought, he was taking it hard. Furthermore, Kiya couldn't manage to figure out how to make the Groots fuse back. Killing them didn't do the trick. They managed to half-fuse if their personalities were similar, but each one had different memories, different personalities.

The most dangerous Grootling the Guardians must find was one that was raised to grow poisonous spores. They visited DiMave to find the buyer, and they talked to the person who acted as the middleman, bartender Annay. They learned that the DiMavi were attacked by Kree raiders years ago, and the Kree never prosecuted, causing a strong resentment between the races. Furthermore, a peace ceremony would be held between the Kree and the DiMavi in planet Vadin. So the buyer — Baran — would use his Groot as a weapon to kill Kree and trigger a war. The Guardians, Kiya and Annay headed there, where they found another Groot buyer: Ka-Lenn. He worked with the government and opened many doors for the Guardians because he was the one who installed the implants in Kiya, and he didn't want anyone to know. Inevitably, a panic broke out in the conference as the poisonous Groot ran amok. When he was about to shoot his spores at an innocent crowd, all the Grootlings jumped from the Guardians' ship to protect the people. This act of heroism overrode all their individual differences, and they fused as they fell. The fall would have killed the weakened Grootlings, but they landed as a single powerful Groot. They protected the crowd, and absorbed the poisonous Grootling. In the end, it turned out Baran was another victim, and the real mastermind of the terrorism had been Annay all along. With that out of the way, they still had the problem of the Collector. But they had a plan. Rocket called him and gave Kiya away in exchange for the four Grootlings in the Collector's possession. Then, the Guardians blackmailed Ka-Lenn: he must convince the Kree, his people, to rescue Kiya and retrieve her experimental Kree implants, or else the Guardians would say Ka-Lenn was responsible. Kiya was rescued and granted protection, and the Collector never learned the Guardians betrayed him. Groot was whole once again, and Gamora met another one of her species she could keep up with. The group asked Rocket if he really would have sold out Kiya for the Groots, and he had to think about it, but he said no. In a way, Kiya was Gamora's family, making it his family.

Around this time, Rocket attended a pool party with Jeff the Land Shark, Shayla Smith, Wasp, Moon Girl, Power Pack, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Hulk, Miles Morales, Ghost-Spider, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Nightcrawler, Devil Dinosaur, Jean Grey, Iceman, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Viv Vision, Ironheart, Misty Knight, Iron Fist, Winter Soldier, Mockingbird, Star-Lord, Gamora, Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, Namor, Tippy-Toe, Howard The Duck, Billy Kaplan, Teddy Altman, Wasp (Janet Van Dyne), Ant-Man, Thor (Jane Foster), Storm, Drax, Groot, Ghost Rider and Daimon Hellstrom.

Later, the Guardians wanted to recover Angela from a Badoon prison planet, so they split the team into smaller units. Rocket worked with The Thing; he allowed himself to be captured by the Badoon so that Thing could strike at the right moment. While Thing dealt with the fighting, Rocket rounded up the slaves so they could leave the planet. As they were leaving, Rocket caught a galaxy-wide message: Star-Lord was captured and about to be executed in the Badoon capital, Moord. The Guardians traveled to Moord, where they rescued Peter and took over the planet with the help of the thousands of slaves they rescued. It was one of their greatest victories. As they were leaving, they received a transmission: Captain Marvel wanted their support in the ongoing superhero Civil War on Earth.

Civil War II

The Guardians voted on whether they should go to Earth to help Captain Marvel, and Rocket voted no, because he hated Earth. Still, they decided to go. They visited Earth and the Captain introduced the Guardians to her team, Alpha Flight. The Captain explained the civil war taking place: they had found an inhuman capable of seeing the future, Ulysses Cain (Earth-616), and they were using him to prevent crimes. This had divided the superhuman community because of those who considered it anti-ethical. Carol was in favor of the inhuman, and so she wanted to stop Iron Man's side.

Captain Marvel assembled her side; Ulysses had predicted an alien invasion and they must stop it. At the start of the invasion a truck of baby powder would be stolen from a factory in rural Georgia, so Rocket and Groot called dibs on preventing that. Rocket had a self-serving reason: only one person could need that much baby powder and he had a huge bounty on his head: Chammy, a low-level loser smuggler who powered his ship with baby powder. He was one of the first bounties Rocket had tried to collect, but after catching him he'd escaped jail. They flew to the factory and spotted Chammy, but suddenly the fourth-wall breaking heroine Gwenpoole arrived and kidnapped him. Rocket and Groot fought her for Chammy, but when they turned around he was gone. It was a small neighborhood, so they asked around and found out where Chammy lived. Rocket and Groot agreed to a peace treaty with Gwenpool, and broke into Chammy's house. There they found Chammy had left, but they tracked him to some swamps. Chammy was captured by Reeve, the alien that put a bounty on Chammy to start with. He was evil and had secret plans, so instead of paying Rocket he beat everyone up and left. Chammy then asked for help. Chammy explained his past: his planet was saved by Captain Marvel and he used to be a smuggler working for Reeve, but Reeve was murderous and wanted to obtain a formula to take away Captain Marvel's powers. To protect her, Chammy hid the formula, but now Reeve had it. The cast rushed over to Alpha Flight to save Captain Marvel from being assassinated, and arrived right in the middle of it. Reeve knocked everybody out, except for Chammy, who saved the day. Everyone went their own ways.

Later, the Guardians got on their mission of being Captain Marvel's cavalry, and waited behind the Triskelion for Iron Man's side to attack. While they were waiting, Rocket ranted about why he hated Earth: humans had all the technology to bring them to the next level and they did nothing with it; they drove cars that they knew were polluting the air they breathed; their communication was still mostly text-based; they killed each other over their skin color; their process to select leaders was so painful it drove away the skilled people and left only the power hungry who'd put up with the torture chamber. It seemed humans couldn't learn from their mistakes. Star-Lord, however, thought Rocket was just resentful of the fact that he looked just like an Earth raccoon.

Suddenly, Captain Marvel gave them the signal that it was go-time. Rocket saw the army of heroes they had to fight and thought: “That's it?” And so began an intense fifty-minute fight. Rocket began to enjoy his visit to Earth as he shot off unsuspecting idiots, but Spider-Man (Miles Morales) knocked him down. During the fight, a stray beam from Vision destroyed the Guardian's ship – irreversibly. The fight was called out shortly after. Rocket was depressed after losing his home, everything he owned. He was losing his mind because Earth was not fit for space travel yet – they were grounded, trapped on that place he hated. Drax tried to tell him the important thing was they had each other, but Rocket didn't listen. Things got worse when the team found out Star-Lord knew Thanos was being held on Earth and chose not to tell Gamora. Instead of discussing it with any of his trusted teammates, Star-Lord went to his ex-girlfriend Kitty. Hurt and betrayed, the team disbanded.

A team torn apart

Grounded

After saying good-bye to Groot in Central Park, Rocket wandered off alone to Times Square. He entered a strip club, but he got kicked out. When a homeless man asked him for money, Rocket entered a fast food shop and stole some food for him; he didn't understand Earth customs. The police went after him, and he started fighting them in a subway train. Ultimately, The Human Torch came pick him up and rescued him. He took him to his home in Attilan of the Inhumans, where he lived among the royalty. He told Rocket Earth could use a guy like him, but Rocket didn't like the planet and thought the planet didn't like him. He met another animal superhero: Lockjaw of the Inhumans, only he couldn't talk. Unimpressed, Rocket waited until the Torch was asleep and he used his computer to find a certain shi'ar, Ra'chaun. Finding him in a bar, the two old friends caught up and Ra'chaun admitted he might know a guy who could get Rocket off Earth. Later, Rocket met Mr. Soft Teeth, a skrull. However, Soft Teeth was suddenly murdered by a human. Rocket quickly shot him dead, and left without any answers. He carjacked a cab and traveled back to Ra'chaun's bar. The shi'ar was not there, but Rocket heard from an alien named Jack Beagle that a group of humans was hunting all aliens for sport. They couldn't work, they couldn't get in the system, so somebody figured they could just die without anybody noticing. Abruptly, all the aliens in the bar picked a fight with Rocket because he drew too much attention by being there; he put them all in danger. The fight was called off by Miles Morales, who showed up.

Rocket meets Lockjaw

Rocket tried to leave and find Beagle again, but Miles didn't want him to walk away with a gun. Rocket got angry and started punching him, basically getting payback from the way he was knocked out by him during the Second Civil War. Wanting to make up, Miles found Beagle's backpack for Rocket. In there, Rocket found napkins from Tyler's Tacos, so that became his destination. He started searching across the city, but he was suddenly captured by Kraven the Hunter: the man who trained all the alien hunters. The two of them fought, but Rocket was knocked out when Kraven ran him over with his van. Rocket woke up in the van, along with all the other aliens from the bar. He managed to escape and crash the van, letting everyone escape. Kraven and him fought again, and the police got involved, so Rocket escaped. Kraven spent the rest of the day tracking Rocket's smell, but it turned out Rocket had swapped clothes with a real raccoon to fool Kraven and run him over with a garbage truck. Kraven survived, so Rocket ran in his underwear and jumped into the Staten Island Ferry. After a short nap, the ferry crashed against a big ship that was hijacked by Kraven. Rocket fell from the ferry onto the Statue of Liberty, where Kraven took the fight. Rocket used a flare gun to combust the hijacked ship, causing a massive explosion that destroyed the Statue. Inevitably, S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived at the scene and they knocked out Rocket. When he woke up, he'd been taken to Camp Oubliette, a camp for alien refugees, where he met all the aliens from the bar. He quickly put together a plan: assembling certain parts from the camp, he built a flamethrower. He helped everybody escape, but he stayed behind to fight with the guards. Things looked grim when his flamethrower malfunctioned, but Kraven suddenly showed up and rescued Rocket. Turned out he considered Rocket too great of a fighter to die. Rocket met up with his bar buddies. One of them, Sycorax, was an inhuman who could use her powers to get everybody off Earth; all that was left to do was pick up her teleporter from Ra'chaun's place. When Rocket peeked inside, however, he saw Kraven and Ra'chaun were in cahoots. Angered, Rocket waited until Kraven left, then set Ra'chaun's house on fire. Having picked up the teleporter, Rocket met the other aliens in Central Park. Sycorax opened a portal to another planet, but as everybody was leaving Kraven arrived to break more havoc. Regrettably, Rocket must stay behind to hold Kraven off. The portal was closed, but Rocket defeated Kraven. The Human Torch and the Inhumans arrived to pick up the bad guy, and Rocket denied he had just acted like a hero.

Monsters Unleashed

The Guardians assembled for an uncomfortable reunion when giant monsters started falling from the sky all over the world, necessitating a global response from every superhero. The Guardians protected Seattle, where Rocket saw the Space Needle for the first time and thought if the humans wanted to reach the stars, they needed to start thinking on a bigger scale. The Guardians got in contact with the Avengers, who were coordinating the efforts, and they sent Thor to help the Guardians. Thor helped them take the monsters down, but more kept on coming; the heroes were overrun. They called for reinforcements, assembling most American heroes in Seattle. When the band of monster met, however, they started fighting each other: it seemed there were good monsters and bad monsters. The good monsters won, then vanished. The heroes were directed to Kei Kawade, a kid who might be the cause for all the monsters: he summoned them when he drew them. Groot and Rocket interrogated him, and Kei was capable of understanding Groot's language because he saw him on TV and started drawing him. To demonstrate his powers, Kei drew Devil Dinosaur, who was summoned into the room. Rocket took a photo of the T-Rex. While the heroes figured out how to stop the monsters with Kei's help, the Guardians kept stopping the oncoming waves. They could barely keep themselves from arguing with each other long enough to fight, but all hell broke loose when a Furnax showed up. The Furnax were natural predators in Groot's homeworld; they set fire to trees. Upon seeing him, Groot froze and was swallowed up. Rocket flew off to rescue him on his own, upset that the other Guardians didn't even know Groot well enough to identify the Furnax. Rocket knew that as Groot was being burned alive, his body kept on regenerating, so he could be suffering for days. Rocket made his way inside the monster and found Groot, who had given up against his natural predator. Rocket scoffed at that – he was so small, everything was his natural predator. The duo escaped, and the other Guardians arrived to help, having put their differences aside. After the beast was destroyed, however, the crisis continued, and the Guardians still couldn't call themselves a team. Kei Kawade solved the crisis shortly after.

Rocket meets Devil Dinosaur

Around this time, Rocket and the Guardians attended the funeral of Jack Flag, an ex Guardian. What they didn't know was he had killed by Captain America, who had been brainwashed by the terrorist organization Hydra and kept pretending he was a hero. The moment he revealed his true allegiance would come very soon.

Rocket and Groot met up with Angela to watch the US elections at the only bar who would serve Angela's friends. Later, Star-Lord found Rocket alone in the bar, trying half the cocktails and hating all of them. Peter's time on Earth hadn't been good, so he apologized for messing up the team and begged Rocket for forgiveness. Rocket, however, needed more time and left.

Later, Rocket and Peter met up with Captain Marvel to discuss possible ways to get off-planet. The Captain realized there was a spaceship graveyard in Indonesia, where they could cobble something together. Before they could do anything, though, a full-scale alien invasion appeared: it was Thanos. Rocket decided to head to the Spaceship Graveyard instead of tackling the villain; he had a plan. As the other Guardians beat Thanos up, Rocket arrived with a fleet he hastily put together, which served as deterrent to make the alien invaders scatter. Now Thanos was on his own, defeated. They delivered him to the Nova Corps, and the Guardians made up. Rocket built a cheap ship for them, and they left Earth; things were back to normal.

Shortly after the team reformed, they received a call from the Collector saying his collection was going to go near Pluto and that they should go check it out, in case they could find something to help them guard the galaxy. It was an obvious trap, but the Guardians fell for it and were trapped, the latest additions to the Collector's collection. It was their sixth run-in with the Elder. The Collector claimed a coming darkness threatened the galaxy, so he wished to save as many people as possible within his collection. Shortly after he left, Rocket managed to build something to short circuit his cell and escape. He snuck into the Artificial Gravity Generator and loaded it into his device, then let himself be caught again. When he tried to reverse the gravity, though, he simply broke it, creating mayhem. The Collector fell on the wrong lever and accidentally opened all the cells, unleashing a horde of monsters upon the Guardians. Suddenly, gravity was fixed back again, allowing the Guardians to escape. They made it outside, but they still had no way of calling for their ship, so Rocket just started calling out for anyone. Luckily, Mantis responded, and she arrived just in time to rescue her ex-teammates. As they left, they heard on the radio that the freed prisoners had taken control of the facility; everything turned out fine.

Due to their fame, reporter Tana'ri Dan'ae of the Intergalactic Network decided to interview Rocket and Groot. Thinking Rocket was Groot's sidekick, she asked Groot why he did what he did. Groot, speaking in his language, said it was to bring honor between species, for the kids, and to be role models, all of which angered Rocket, who stormed off.

All-New Guardians

Rocket's lowest point

Around this time, Gamora realized a piece of her soul was stuck in the Soul Gem. Looking for information, she agreed to steal a baby universe from the city of Citopia for the Grandmaster, one of the Elders of the Universe. The Guardians agreed to stay together for this last heist, a heist so big that they could go their separate ways after it and live comfortably. Rocket and Groot visited the Stohlad Ring, looking for information in its black market. They met Messihi, who gave them the layout of the vault of Citopia. Suddenly, an Elder of the Universe teleported in: The Gardener, who had been poisoned and driven mad by Loki. He killed Messihi and knocked out Rocket. When he woke up, Groot had taken him back to their ship, and he sent him flying away. Groot stayed behind, and Rocket watched as the Gardener killed him. Rocket was heartbroken; he considered it the worst, lowest moment of his life. But he realized Groot had snuck in one of his splinters with him; he could regrow. Rocket quickly rushed to the Guardians' base and planted Groot. However, he didn't grow back to normal; he couldn't grow higher than a foot. Groot was not the same as always, and Rocket swore he'd get revenge on the Gardener. All of this was being watched by Mojo of Mojoworld. The new baby Groot proved hard to control, as he quickly filled the Guardians' headquarters with scribbles over the walls, ceilings and floors. While Rocket was scolding him about it, Groot suddenly teleported away from the scene. When Groot came back, he hugged Rocket in tears of relief after the long journey he'd undertaken to get home, but Rocket simply started barking orders at Groot to clean all of his scribbles up. When acting cute didn't help change Rocket's mind, Groot used his roots to make Rocket lay down and discover a painting Groot had done of the two of them. This relieved the raccoon, until he discovered another painting next to it of himself looking like an angry grump. Finally, Groot was forced to clean it all up.

Later, the entire team was captured by the Nova Corps. They quickly escaped, but on their way to their ship Rocket found the Milano: a better, more beautiful ship. He instantly fell in love and the crew agreed on stealing it. What they didn't know was the ship was from the Shi'ar Empire's Fraternity of Raptors, and they were going to want it back.

Before the heist, several adventures took place; first, Rocket and the Guardians were camped on Moona Station when they were attacked by a group of bounty hunters sent by Star-Lord's half-sister Captain Victoria. In an effort to keep his friends safe, Star-Lord stole a ship to draw the bounty hunters away from them. By the time they found him, Star-Lord's body had shut down from injuries, and he would be dead except for his brain, that showed some crazy activity. Rocket acted as doctor and took care of Peter; turned out after a lifetime of learning how to take people apart, he wasn't so bad at putting them together again. After some work, Rocket managed to make Peter wake up. He acted strangely; while he was out he'd experienced a vision of the afterlife, but he only told Gamora about it.

A space mailman was passing around Earth with a package for the Collector when he was attacked by Yondu's Ravagers. They stole his package, assuming it must be some great weapon. But the trucker managed to send out a distress signal, so the Guardians arrived and shoot the Ravagers down to Earth. While the others entertained Yondu and his men, Rocket fiddled with the package, opening its lock. Then he laughed: it was just an odor-fighting fabric. Realizing he couldn't make any money off that, Yondu left. Rocket sold the tech to some research guys that were hanging around in the park, looking to get rich. But Star-Lord explained to him human dollars didn't have value anywhere else in the universe; they were worthless. Frustrated, Rocket threw all his money around the park as they left.

Secret Empire

Back on Earth, the evil Captain America kept causing problems. Due to some Chitauri eggs he'd hidden, he kept attracting Chitauri hordes to Earth. Earth's heroes managed to destroy them, but the waves kept on getting bigger until a massive horde arrived. The Guardians arrived to help Alpha Flight and the Ultimates defend the planet. Things seemed bleak when their biggest heavy hitter, Quasar, was beaten into a coma, but Captain America managed to activate the Planetary Defense Shield: a force-field covering the entire planet and preventing anyone from entering. The Chitauri threw themselves at the shield, killing themselves. However, at the same time Captain America revealed his Hydra allegiance and took over America. He kept the shield up, trapping all the superheroes in space, forced to face the endless waves of Chitauri. As ammo, food and water ran low, Captain Marvel convinced the Guardians to go recruit help across the Galaxy.

The Guardians split to visit separate planets; Rocket and Groot were sent to New Halfworld, a mysterious planet of which little is known. However, every planet they visited refused to help Earth. As Star-Lord lost himself in drinks, Rocket wanted him to forget about Earth already – he refused to admit they had lived in it for a while, calling it a pit stop at best. Right as the Guardians agreed to tell Star-Lord they were going to drop the mission, he received a message from Mantis. This ex-Guardian informed them of a place in the Jojola Nebula where worshippers of Galactus stored a super weapon that could destroy the Planetary Shield. Problem was, the Jojola Nebula was like the Bermuda Triangle of space — no one had made it out of there alive. Only one man had; Star-Lord's old mentor, Yondu. Star-Lord hated the treacherous pirate, but he agreed to work with him for the sake of Earth. They managed their way into the Nebula, where Rocket accessed a computer that told them the weapon they were looking for was the Transluminal Tuning Fork. Problem was, the planet was overrun with Punishers, Galactus' foot soldiers who defended his stuff. To make things worse, Yondu betrayed the team and called his own team, the Ravagers. He wanted the Tuning Fork to sell it to Earth and become rich. The Ravagers boarded the Milano into their ship, but they all had to retreat to the planet when they were overrun by Punishers. Suddenly, Gamora arrived with the Tuning Fork, defeating all the hostiles. As the Guardians left, the Fork fell apart; using it once burned it out. It was never enough to destroy the Shield. Star-Lord considered abandoning Earth, but Gamora was moved by Peter's efforts and convinced him to stay in the fight. Mantis had foreseen the Tuning Fork would help the Guardians find something to help them take the Shield down; and they found each other. Later, the Guardians tried to make a plea to the rulers of the cosmic empires: the Kree, Brood, Skrull, Shi'ar and Spartax. However, all these empires wanted Earth destroyed so the Guardians had to run for their lives.

Rocket faces Supreme Hydra

The Guardians returned empty-handed, but just in time to join an Alpha Flight plan to use their fleet as a net to destroy the Chitauri waves. After they thought the Chitauri destroyed, Alpha Flight used all of its energy to try to puncture the Planetary Shield, but they failed and lost power. Right then, another Chitauri wave approached. In a desperate gamble, the Ultimates sent superheroine America to find Galactus to ask him for help. While everybody waited for her, Rocket got anxious; he hated waiting. He wouldn't go anywhere because he felt as if he owed Captain Marvel one, but he thought getting locked out of your own planet was a very “Earth” thing to do. Sadly, Galactus chose to stay on the sidelines for that conflict. Even worse, he teleported the Ultimates away, needing them for an Eternity War. Rocket couldn't believe their heavy hitters were kidnapped. Weeks went by of hopeless battle. Some Earthers discussed setting a colony off-world, but others were outraged at the idea of abandoning Earth. Rocket laughed; that bunch made his team look functional. When Captain Marvel began accepting any crazy idea someone might come up with, Rocket mentioned he stole a Nullifier Bomb that they could deliver if they sacrificed the Alpha Flight base. They threw the base at the Shield, but it didn't even put a dent on it. When all seemed lost, Quasar woke up from her coma. She used all her strength to finally destroy the Planetary Shield, killing herself in the process. The Guardians were able to join the fight against Hydra on Earth. Earth's heroes launched a final, desperate attack against Captain America on Washington. They all rushed the Captain, but they didn't stand a chance against his Cosmic Cube. Eventually, the real Captain America came back and defeated his evil doppelganger.

The Blue River Score

After this crisis, Rocket visited a bar on Digriz; a bad bar on a bad world in a bad sector. But nobody asked questions, and after Earth Rocket needed a little time for himself. Getting drunk, Rocket started rambling about his safes-cracking days when he suddenly spotted Otta Spice; his ex-girlfriend, ex-partner in crime. He still remembered how she framed him and put him in jail, so he didn't want anything to do with her, but she explained she needed help for a bigger cause. After they had parted ways she had returned to her homeplanet, Tarka's World, a planet full of natural resources that people wanted to exploit. Recently, an outfit called Beavertron Incorporated had gained power and wanted to build a dam that would devastate the rivers for hundreds of miles. Otta needed Rocket because she needed to acquire the deeds to the land to do anything, but they were stored in a Sekurimax vault — impossible to crack. Rocket played it hard to get, but ultimately accepted. He knew he couldn't do it alone, so he hired the Technet, a group of mercs. The same vault held over a ton of uncut Lux-crystal, so there was plenty of payment. Problem was, the Technet had split up a month ago over a lack of funding, so there was half of them to go around. This was fine for Rocket, so they started to work. There was only one entrance to the vault, uncrackable; it was guarded by an A.I. bouncer connected to the population database. However, a powerful database had to have equivalent power needs, including coolant. The team hypothesized the cheapest coolant available was water, so Otta got into the lake nearby and sabotaged the inflow point with foam, blocking the way. The A.I. overheated and shut down. Making their way in, the next obstacle was a room full of assassins. They didn't put much of a fight; when your only job was to sit and wait you got rusty. So they reached the vault, and opened it using one of the Technet's explosive powers. However, inside the vault they found the other half of the Technet's members; they had been hired as security.

The two Technet teams began fighting, and Rocket got into the vault in the confusion. To find the right item, Rocket used “the eyeball”, a keepsake from his Halfworld days, when he was a warden for crazy humanoids. If they got lost, the eyeball was designed to find them via gene signature, so Rocket programmed it to find a Tarkan river-rush. Rocket got the deeds, but outside the vault all the Technet members had agreed to turn Rocket in, so he was on his own. He spotted Otta on the other side of the room, folded the deeds into a paper plane and threw it at her. Otta grabbed it and ran off in her own, but Rocket felt it was all worth it just to see her smile. Rocket was captured and taken to trial. His lawyer was useless, but he saw the jury was made of Tarkans like Otta. Rocket felt they'd understand he was a good guy, so he decided to defend himself. He claimed he was guilty, but he was just trying to take from scum to give to a better kind of people. Problem was, Otta was working for the Beavertron Corporation all along; they had been stealing from the people. Rocket was taken to prison.

Rocket was taken to the SecuriMax Ultrapen 8000, the safest prison of them all. A floating sphere in space, there was nowhere to even escape to. Rocket had been in private prisons before, and he knew they were about punishment rather than rehabilitation. So he kept his head down and followed the rules: two sentients per cell, complete your work shift, and stay out of “The Hole”, the punishment room with no gravity and white walls that seemed to go on forever. When Rocket heard he'd gotten a visitor, he got his hopes up, but it was just Gatecrasher, the Technet's leader. As Rocket was thinking how sexy she was, she revealed they wanted to break him out of there. The Technet got a permanent contract with Securimax, so if Rocket escaped they got the same bounty for re-capturing him, over and over and over. Rocket could get a life sentence, or worse. He had to make his move that day. First he picked a fight with QGAXBQ-4, his roommate, a gaseous being contained in a humanoid suit. Rocket ripped his suit open, secretly hiding an electro-stylus inside him. They were both sent to the Hole, and it was everything people said. Nothing but white space and a sound only Rocket's ears could hear, the whir of a hidden camera. Pretending he'd been driven crazy, Rocket attacked an octopus alien trapped with him and made him squirt ink at the camera. Now that they couldn't be seen, Rocket retrieved his electro-stylus and short-circuited everybody's shock collars. They were adapted to cause pain to each particular alien, so Rocket grabbed one filled with molecular acid and used it to open a hole in the wall and escape. The EMP charge in a robot's collar took out the security cameras, and Rocket reached the airlock easily. They didn't have a lot of security; there was nothing on the other side. Nothing but the death of space, unless you had an airtight suit. Rocket floated to the guard station in orbit to the prison, where guards jumped in to receive him. He knocked them out with his shock implant, and made it to the other side. The guard station had barely any security, so six hours later he was back where he started, the bar in Digriz, but now he was a fugitive with a price on his head. To do something about that he'd need help - and that was when he saw Deadpool.

The merc with a mouth was hanging out in space to escape from recent sins he'd committed in Earth; he wanted to feel like he belonged somewhere again. So to help Rocket he suggested he paid the Technet off, so that they stopped chasing him. Rocket and Deadpool needed money and Rocket knew they couldn't rob anyone legitimate; that meant mob money. They had to go for Cordyceps Jones. However, he kept all his money in an account only he could open using his actual brain-waves. Still, they snuck into a high-society party Jones was attending and Deadpool jumped from a cake and started shooting at him. Then the truth about Jones was revealed; he wasn't a humanoid, but a spore, a fungus that took over bodies. After his body was shot down, he took over Deadpool. But Deadpool had a healing factor, so he maintained enough will power to escape with Rocket and head to a bank. The brainwave scan checked; Jones was inside Deadpool's head. They were able to get the money. Then Deadpool got Jones out of his system by vomiting, even though Jones promised revenge. As they got ready to part ways, Rocket tried reaching out to Deadpool and talk about his problems, but Deadpool just left. So now Rocket shouldn't have any more problems, but he took it to the next level: Instead of just getting the Technet off his back, he hired them to take revenge on Otta.

Rocket could have left it all behind, but people were going to lose their homes to the Beavertron Corporation because he'd stolen the deeds to the land. It was time for a heist. The target was Beavetron HQ, in orbit above Digriz, hidden in a dimensional pocket. They could get in through Max Sekuri — head of Sekurimax. After Rocket had escaped the prison, Sekurimax's stock was declining, so Max was going to sell his firm to Beavertron. First they cornered Max in a bathroom and used one of the Technet: Joyboy's power was that he could make wishes come true. So Rocket and Max swapped bodies, and Max was sent to Rocket's prison, where he couldn't talk. With Rocket in Max's body, they were able to make it past the gene-scan, but then there was a telepath. Luckily, one of the Technet used his powers to shrink the whole team inside Rocket's case — except for Scatterbrain, which Rocket kept hidden in his hand. When the telepath touched Rocket, Scatterbrain confused his brain and he let them go. Later, Rocket met Gnawbarque, head of Beavertron. Otta was with him, and Rocket stared at her a second too long. Otta recognized him, and Rocket tried to tell her he still loved her, but she pulled out a gun and shot him dead.

In a death-like trance, Rocket remembered his past life in Halfworld, and even Lylla, his old lover. But Joyboy's wishes didn't last forever. The wish wore off, and Rocket turned back to his original body, unharmed. He covered from Otta's shooting, and she knocked out Gnawbarque. Rocket tried to appeal to her morality, but she explained her people always held her down, so they deserved what was coming to them. Rocket opened his case and unleashed the Technet; Gatecrasher knocked Otta out. Rocket realized he'd never met anyone like Gatecrasher, and he probably never would again. He only realized that when it was already too late. Gatecrasher heard Rocket tell Otta he still loved her; she didn't want anything to do with him anymore. Afterward, Rocket took Otta's gun with him and put the deeds on the mail. Everything was solved, and he was back to the bar where everything had started. He waited in the empty bar until Star-Lord came for him. A week had passed; Groot missed him. Rocket went with Star-Lord, leaving his possessions in the table: the gun that killed him and a holotape of somebody else. Of Ranger Rocket, a happier person from times long gone.

After a diseased alien landed on Earth, Wolverine (Laura Kinney) was able to use her healing powers to create a cure for the illness. Tracing where the alien came from, Earth decided to call the Guardians of the Galaxy to ask for help in delivering the cure light years away. Wolverine also brought her protégé Gabby and their pet wolverine, Jonathan. A week later, they reached their destination: a moon that wasn't sending any communications. As they approached the lunar base, they started being chased by Brood; the heroes rushed into the base, but young Gabby got lost. Once they were in the base, the scientists explained that place was a cutting edge disease center. But the Brood arrived and destroyed their communications, forcing them to stay holed up. The Brood also took the animals from the center and turned them into more of their own. When Rocket heard they were experimenting diseases on animals, he lost it, but Star-Lord convinced him not to shoot anyone. The scientists explained the virus that hit Earth was the result of an attempt to reverse the Brood infection, but it simply filled the organism with rage. Wolverine, Gamora and Star-Lord headed into the Brood hive to rescue Gabby, while Rocket and the rest headed to the Milano to send out a message asking for help. While they did so, Rocket found Jonathan the wolverine badly hurt, and started doing everything he could to heal him. He received a call from Star-Lord announcing the situation had changed: they had found Gabby turned into a Brood, and with her healing properties she could create an unkillable army. They needed to evacuate and blow up the moon. Rocket built a bomb, and everybody started leaving, but Wolverine couldn't get herself to leave Gabby behind. She stayed on the moon, trying to reach Gabby. When everything seemed hopeless, Gabby's healing factor purged the entire Brood queen, releasing her. Wolverine grabbed Gabby, and they flew with a jetpack to the Milano. As they arrived, Rocket revealed he stuck a universal translator on Jonathan, allowing the wolverine to communicate with her masters. However, not everything was tied up. The Brood only traveled by an Acanti or a Star Shark, but there were no signs of either of those huge creatures. The heroes realized the Broods were being experimented on, and that was how they got loose. Both Rocket and Wolverine said they knew a thing or two about experiments that got away. The scientist got beaten up, but he begged for them not to destroy the moon – all of his research would be lost, ways to weaponize the Brood. However, Gabby blew it up anyway. As the heroes discussed how to deal with the scientist, Rocket got tired of the moral conundrum and simply threw him out of the air lock, to the vacuum of space.

Later, Rocket heard Deadpool had acquired the Ultimate Nulifier and bounty hunters of all corners of space were going after him. Rocket geared up and followed Deadpool's trail into Knowhere. However, when he found the chaos, mayhem and piles of corpses Deadpool was creating, he decided he'd just take a pass on that one.

Rocket and Star-Lord were present when Captain Marvel returned from a trip to Earth-25271, where she'd met a version of Rocket named Rockette who was a human woman. Carol hugged Peter tightly upon arriving, after which Rocket began teasing Peter about it.

Eventually, Groot being stuck in his baby form became a liability. He was more excited and playful, almost like he'd regressed mentally to childhood; to escape boredom he took control of the ship's wheel, or scared the other Guardians. Rocket decided to give him a stern talk, but Rocket was no parent. He picked the wrong words and made Groot feel like an annoyance. When everybody was called to the front of the ship to see a space-time distortion, Groot jumped into the control panel and steered the ship towards it. The team went through the portal and accidentally found themselves in another dimension. The quickly turned around and got back, but Groot activated an escape pod and got stuck in the other dimension. When he realized this, Rocket freaked out, wanting to rescue his buddy. But the portal had closed; they had no way of going back. As it turned out, the place in which Groot landed was Planet Terminal, a hub across dimensions; but they had shut the door when the demon Shuma-Gorath had tried to enter our reality. Groot punched the demon in the face, and the inhabitants of Terminal helped Groot get back. When he was reunited with the Guardians, only a minute had passed for them, so they didn't believe Groot had been gone for three days.

Later, Drax was summoned by Squirrel Girl and Loki to fight against the Silver Surfer. The fight seemed to be going badly, so Loki summoned Rocket and Groot to defend Squirrel Girl's friend, Nancy. Rocket had no idea what was going on, but he felt magically compelled to defend Nancy. Loki also summoned Cosmo, Beta Ray Bill, Ego the Living Planet and others. However, the Surfer slapped them so hard they each went back to the planets from which they came.

Citopia Heist

Finally, the team executed their heist in Citopia. With their Galactus mecha completed, they showed up in the planet and made everybody flee to evacuate, leaving their vaults unguarded. Rocket flew their mecha to the vault, Drax opened it and they left with the package. They abandoned the Galactus behind and headed to meet the Grandmaster with the Milano. The Elder of the Universe revealed the item they had stolen was a tachyon bubble holding a baby universe; a perfect addition to his collection. But it was just a test; now it was time for the Guardian's real challenge. He wanted them to enter the Collector's collection and steal the Hujahdarian Monarch Egg. At first the team argued that stealing from an Elder was suicide, but the Grandmaster revealed the universe they stole had originally been sold to the Collector, and if they didn't accept his mission, he would tell his brother who stole it. The Guardians had been double-crossed, and it looked like they were sticking together for another job. The Collector's base was heavily guarded, but they entered by hiding themselves in a monster's bowels and being pushed out with its excrement. After fighting some guards they were attacked by ghosts that made them see their worst fears: unlike last time Rocket faced his worst fears, with Mother Entropy, and saw himself not being the last one of his kind, this time Rocket felt himself being pulled apart and reassembled for nothing more than a laugh. Luckily, Drax managed to scare them away. When it seemed they had a clear coast to escape with the egg, they were apprehended by the Collector; it was their seventh encounter. Rocket tried shooting him dead, but he just regenerated. The Guardians tried escaping, and Gamora had a private conversation with the Collector. After she claimed to have an Infinity Stone, he agreed to let them go with the egg they were looking for. Gamora was to find out if the Grandmaster had acquired a Stone; if he had the one Gamora was looking for, she would give the Stone she had to the Collector. On their way back, tensions among the Guardians ran high; there were many unsaid secrets. Things were so tense that Groot snapped and attacked Rocket, which caused him to retreat to his room, depressed.

Afterwards, the team had a meeting and they forced Gamora to spill the beans. She explained she was looking for the Soul Gem because she was trapped inside it for a while, and a piece of her soul was stuck within. Suddenly, the Milano was shut down by the Raptors, looking to take back the Milano. At least that was what the Guardians thought: in fact, the Raptors wanted a corpse hidden in the ship, containing the Nega-Bands. When Rocket saw they were taking it, he stole Gamora's sword and stabbed Talon-R, the boss. However, he stabbed Rocket with his fangs, poisoning him. Wounded, Rocket managed to get back with one Nega-Band. As Rocket faltered, the team got a chance to test the Milano's med-bay. Rocket joked he'd always hoped he'd die screaming in bed — but not like this. Looking to identify the poison, Star-Lord wore the Nega-Band they got and picked a fight with Talon-R, who wore the other Band. Meanwhile, even though Rocket was hurting, Gamora needed his help to locate the Milano's kill switch so they could get it moving again. He gave her instructions as best as he could, but she needed his eyes, so she carried Rocket on a backpack like he was baby. He only asked they didn't let Peter see him like that, but it was too late; Peter was back with the antidote. The only downside was he lost both Nega-bands. With Rocket cured, their next stop was meeting the Grandmaster.

When they met the Elder, they tried tricking him with a fake egg, but Gamora admited their ploy. The Grandmaster didn't mind — the egg exploded to reveal the Collector, who was hiding within to punch his brother for stealing from him. Regardless, the Grandmaster was happy. After the universe was remade during the Secret Wars, the Elders of the universe became lost, along with the Infinity Gems, which became the Infinity Stones. The Grandmaster wanted to find both of these — and it was in the Guardians' interest to help him, because he could smell The Gardener in Groot. Star-Lord revealed the Nova Corps had asked the Guardians for help, and that Thanos had escaped imprisonment right when the Infinity Stones were at large. So the galaxy was at risk, and Peter wanted to help. The Nova Corps might have information relevant to the Soul Stone. The group agreed unanimously to search for the Stones.

Their first stop was Earth: Rocket tried asking Black Panther, but the guy couldn't take a joke. They went to Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, and Cable, but the latter was in reality Loki, who was on his own search for the Stones. He was the one who drove the Gardener mad. When they went back to their ship, they found Deadpool as a stowaway — he wanted to leave Earth as a way to escape his sins. The Guardians didn't have none of it, and dropped him off. As they were leaving, however, Ant-Man showed up, having caught a ride on Rocket's back. He started explaining he had his own sad story for wanting to leave Earth, but Rocket didn't care. He could stick around; he was cool. As they were leaving, they realized they forgot Groot. They went back to Earth to find him with the Man-Thing, the protector of the Nexus of All Realities. Man-Thing didn't have any leads on the Stones, but he knew the Guardians weren't the only ones looking: he showed them a vision of alternate reality versions of the Guardians who were looking as well. Apparently the stones had gone missing on every reality. The team was ready to leave, but they found the Nova-Corps in their ship: the Corps needed them.

Rocket joins the Nova Corps

The Guardians of the Galaxy joined the Nova Corps non-officially. The team dressed up as Corpsmen in The Rock to try to weed out the spies who had infiltrated from the Brotherhood of the Raptors. Rocket took to the job like duck to water, sniffing out crooked corpsmen who were drinking impounded spirits from a crime scene. Later he found a group looting a derelict vessel that had been found deserted. For his efforts, he was promoted to denarian, and he knew at that rate he'd run the place soon. Later, he made his move and tried to arrest all the corrupt Corpsmen, and a riot broke out. Rocket got everyone's attention with a gun and then ordered all the crooked Corpsmen to raise their hand — or be thrown out of the airlock. The bad guys complied and they were incarcerated. The job was not done - it was just a charade for Rocket's plan. As it turned out, most planets didn't want to send the new corps the best they had, at least until it proved itself. So the ones who hadn't been arrested were the problem; those who weren't hiding a little something were hiding everything. They were the spies and saboteurs; they weren't going to get caught shaking down a merchant or ripping the dead bones out of a dead guy. So Rocket and commander Adsit got back to the Brig right in time, as the actual crooked Corpsmen were trying to kill the prisoners. They released the prisoners and armed them — right as the Brotherhood of the Talon attacked The Rock. The Guardians and the Novas began fighting the spies, as the Talons attacked. Rocket flew off and began shooting down their ships with the Nova-Force, but one of them had forcefields that were too strong. Ant-Man boarded the ship and turned giant inside it, destroying it. It was the funniest thing Rocket had seen in weeks, and to him that made bringing Ant-Man along worth it. The attack was called off, but the war wasn't over — the Talons found out the Nova Corps had found out the location of the Power Stone, and the news spread around the galaxy. The Guardians had other concerns, though – the Gardener had made himself known in planet Telferina. It seemed he was using the Groot fragments he stole as giant monsters. As they got ready to leave, Drax unexpectedly quit the team, wanting to stop seeing violence.

Infinity Wars

The Guardians headed to Telferina, along with Nova (Richard). Upon arriving, they began fighting an army of Groot doppelgangers. Rocket wasted no time, and flew towards the Gardener, stabbing him for what he did to his friend. But the old man was an elder of the universe, so he was unscathed. The rest of the team came along to help, but not even Nova's power could harm the Gardener. Everything changed when Groot jumped onto the old man, and used his roots to heal the Gardener from his poison, curing him of his madness. The Gardener in turn let Groot grow strong once more, back to the way he was, except now he could speak full sentences. Groot got ready to face the last evil splinter, a giant Groot named Scar. Groot jumped inside Scar and destroyed him from the inside. The threat was finished, but the team had no time to rest, because Drax sent a distress signal from planetoid Xitaung — where he'd retired to protect the Power Stone, and where the Talon and Chitauri forces had assembled. Rocket decided to arrive on his Galactus mech to cause an impression, but it fell apart upon arriving. On a sad turn of events, the leader of the Chitauri, Warbringer, destroyed the Milano, the Guardians' home. On top of things, the Power Stone was as big as a building, so it couldn't be transported. During the fight, Ant-Man was knocked out and fell onto an outgoing transport, ultimately abandoning the team. As the battle seemed lost, the Nova Corps flew away, and Drax got ready to play his saxophone one last time. But Star-Lord touched the Stone and shrank it to a tiny rock, as it worked according to mind over matter. With the Stone, the Guardians defeated Warbringer and got off the planetoid. Just in time, too, as without the Stone it plunged into the nearest star and was destroyed.

Somewhere around this time, the Guardians stumbled upon a Wormhole Nexus that had been taken over by the Chitauri, who were using it to invade Earth through portals. After notifying Earth, Peter decided to attack the armada because the odds were so against them that the Chitauri would never expect it. As they charged, the Guardians received an astral projection of Doctor Strange, whom Peter recognised. Strange explained to stop the onslaught they needed to simultaneously seal the portal connections between all their locations, so the Guardians shot down the main portal entry access points at the same time as Iron Man hacked the portals on Earth and Strange cut the Chitauri link to the nexus. The Chitauri were yanked back to their homeworld.

Afterwards, the Guardians arrived on Knowhere, where Nova left. Tensions rose when everybody argued about who should keep the Power Stone, Nova Corps included. In the end, though, Drax took it.

After Star-Lord received a visit from a Phyla-Vell from an alternate reality, he realized even alternate universes would be hounding them for the Gems. He was sick of hearing about the Gems, so the Guardians headed to Oblitus to get a safe house and lie low. They crossed the distance on a makeshift C.I.T.T., the Cool Interstellar Travel Travelship, previously destroyed during the second Civil War. On the way they played a version of Monopoly, but Rocket didn't get the rules and kept trying to put three hotels on one property. However, their game was interrupted when the ship was shaken by the proximity of a Celestial on his way to Earth. They didn't recognize him, so Rocket made some calls and they found it was Groffon the Regurger, a Celestial so dangerous few had lived after his passage, which was why he was unknown. Star-Lord broke down crying in fear and called the Avengers to warn them.

The Guardians arrived in Oblitus. Groot complained he needed to plant his feet on dirt on a planet, or he'd start consuming meat and bone; Rocket didn't know when he was kidding anymore. They bumped into ex-Guardian Warlock, who was working together with Kang the Conqueror. Gamora freaked out when she realized Warlock possessed the Soul Stone she coveted, and tried to get it by force. When Drax touched it, however, he realized the Stone was corrupted, so he slapped Gamora away. Warlock and Kang left, and Drax decided to go with them. He was tired of guarding the galaxy. Gamora screamed that they had to go after them, but the rest of the team refused. Rocket thought it was too dangerous to seek the Stones, and there was no upside. Gamora left the team as well. Afterwards, Doctor Strange summoned the remaining Guardians for a gathering of the Infinity Watch — all the owners of an Infinity Stone. They'd gather in New York's Central Park.

Before the gathering, Star-Lord tried to convince Gamora to join them one last time, to no avail. Afterwards, Rocket, Peter and Groot traveled to Earth on a submarine-shaped ship. In Central Park, the owners of the Gems reunited: Captain Marvel wielded the Reality Stone, Turk Barrett the Mind Stone, Star-Lord, Rocket and Groot held the Power Stone, Adam Warlock, Drax and Iron Lad protected the Soul Gem, Doctor Strange held the Time Stone and Black Widow the Space Stone. Strange proposed they all work together for the sake of the Gems, but tensions ran high, and even higher when they received a vision that Thanos had been murdered. The Watch argued whether the Stones should leave Earth, and Rocket was against it. There was always a situation that needed handling on Earth, so maybe having the Stones would help them clean up before the rest of the galaxy got involved. When Star-Lord realized his Power Stone was a fake, all hell broke loose and the Watch began fighting each other. It turned out Gamora had stolen the Stone when Peter visited her. She arrived at the Park, calling herself Requiem; she was the one who killed Thanos. She began fighting everyone, and Rocket complained that they should have been called the “janitors” of the galaxy. Proving how unhinged she was, she stabbed Peter.

Luckily, Peter's life was saved by the Time Stone. Rocket used one of his giant guns to create an explosion and draw everybody's attention — he apologized for mouthing off about that being an Earth problem; in fact it was a Guardians issue. He wanted them to work things out with a team meeting, but Gamora would not listen to reason; she wanted the Soul Stone to recover the missing piece of her soul. The Avengers got involved, but Gamora still won the war and obtained all the stones. She reunited with the piece of her soul in the Soul Stone, but there was a problem — Soulworld had been corrupted. Devondra was a mysterious being that resided in the Soul Gem's Soul World where she devoured any souls that ended getting sent there. It was alleged that if Devondra devoured enough souls, she would be able to weave a new reality from the silk she generated. Due to an imbalance, though, Devondra caused Soul World to transform from a paradise to a hellish wasteland. After retrieving the Infinity Stones, Gamora attempted to rebalance Soul World by folding the universe in half and merging the halves together to form Warp World, a pocket dimension sealed inside Soul World. Once Devondra devoured enough souls in Warp World, Gamora planned to use Devondra's power to create a new reality where there would no longer be any suffering. Groot fused with Star-Lord, but they held Rocket within, because he was hiding inside Groot's wood at the time of the fusion. Loki assembled a team of warps to steal the Stones from Gamora, while Warlock and another team fought Devondra. At the same time, Drax found the Groot-Star-Lord warp, who was living as a regular tree. They joined they fight. Devondra was stopped, and a new universe was created to host all the warps and not undo their lives, while everything was restored to normal outside of the Soul Stone. The Guardians returned to Earth, but Drax stayed behind, choosing to separate his two selves — his Arthur and Drax personas. His time had come to finally rest. Gamora was also sent away, as she had committed too many crimes and had to seek redemption. Regardless, Warlock knew people would always fight over the Stones, so he chose to give them consciousness, and the Stones flew off to choose their own destinies. The Infinity War was over.

Before they could decide if they were still a team, the remaining Guardians received a distress call from Earth — New York was being swarmed by what seemed like aliens. Rocket, Peter and Groot tried to identify them, but they came up blank. In the end, it turned out they were fake aliens created by supervillain Mysterio.

Afterwards, Rocket set off on his own with Groot, but a space bug called Space-Lubber drained their ship's engine. In the middle of that crisis, Groot's body was possessed by the consciousness of Shuri, Black Panther's sister. Black Panther was lost in space, so Shuri astral-projected into space to find him, but ended up in Groot. The Lubber drained everything in the ship except for the stereo, so they crashed on a planet. Shuri realized it was the music that attracted the bug, and Rocket cursed Star-Lord's infectious mix-tapes. Shuri tried fighting the Lubber, but it had an electric force-field. As they both had superior intellects, Shuri and Rocket realized at the same time that the monster's head was acting as a tesla coil, and they had to smash it. To counter its field, they began building an extraction electrode — Shuri could keep up with Rocket, which impressed him. The gizmo worked and the bug lost its shield, but the ship lost power completely and the music stopped, which caused the bug to rise its shield again. Shuri had to begin singing herself to distract the bug and get it to lower its shield. She then used Groot's body to beat it up. They managed to leave, but the ship lost its music, stolen by the bug. Soon after, Shuri's astral projection ended and she left Groot's body. Rocket found himself missing her.

Later, Rocket and Star-Lord were invited to Earth to join The Thing's bachelor party; the ex-Guardian was about to get married. They joined his other friends as he played wrestling. When they went to get drunk on a bar, they were attacked by the Serpent Society. This was precisely what Thing didn't want; when you get too many superheroes together you attract trouble. After dealing with them, they played poker, but it was strip poker. Everybody lost to Thundra, so all the males got naked, Rocket included. After a good humored fight broke out, everybody headed home.

Decay

After the Infinity Wars, the only remaining Guardians were Rocket, Star-Lord, and Groot. When Rocket began suffering headaches and fur loss, he realized the experiments to make him anthropomorphic were coming undone. His body was shutting down, rejecting whatever modifications they did. He didn't want anyone to take care of him, to go back to being soft like when he was a feral pet for the loonies; he didn't want to be put in some pitiful hospital and forgotten like Khevix, the man for which he used to be a service animal. For all these reasons, and because he didn't want his teammates to see him ruined, because he wanted to choose how he'd be remembered, he grabbed a space pod and left the team without telling anybody.

Avenger

Since his days were counted, Rocket decided to settle his debts and get things back to zero. He visited Earth to return all the stuff he'd stolen, to put everything back where it belonged. However, when he entered a store they refuse to serve him; people started screaming and freaking out and the police were called in. Hercules, a superhero that was passing by, got involved and captured Rocket, but Rocket explained it was all a misunderstanding. Suddenly, the Earth's sun went dark and everything was covered in darkness. A portal opened and the duo was visited by a team of Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Spectrum, The Vision, Voyager, and Hulk, who recognized Rocket. The raccoon tried to get away from all the craziness, but Hulk grabbed him and they all teleported to the source of the trouble: Mount Olympus. All the Greek Gods had been killed, and they faced their killer and the woman who cast the night throughout the universe, Nyx. All the heroes fought her, and Rocket tried shooting her, but she could teleport away. Voyager realized Nyx was acting as a distraction while her children collected the shards of her soul to grant her full power, so she teleported the Avengers to the locations of the shards. Rocket, Hulk and Hawkeye were teleported to the world of Nightmare. There, they were forced to live out their greatest fears, and Rocket relived the moment he was granted intelligence and the traumatic surgery that came with it.

The pain was an old song for him, a symphony of dejá vu with a chorus of razors. It was worse this time; this time he knew what the robot doctors wanted. They wanted something that could take their place, do the job they were bored with, they wanted to mutate a therapy animal into a warden for a cosmic asylum, into a Ranger. He'd blocked it out, but it festered inside, what was done to him, what he'd do back if he ever had the chance again. And then he had it. Rocket grabbed a surgical laser and destroyed the robots, and as he escaped he began realizing something wasn't right. He got his ranger costume magically and none of his animal friends were around; he wanted to find one face from those days, just one. Learning to be careful what you wished for, Rocket found Hulk, who was choking Hawkeye. When Rocket met the green guy, he'd never hurt a soul, but now he was different, darker. Hesitating, Rocket asked him nicely to put Hawkeye down, and Hulk complied grimly. Then reality shifted, and they met the lord of the place: Nightmare. It looked pretty bad, but Rocket figured there was still some angle, something he wasn't seeing yet, something that made it worse. Nightmare tried to act grim and imposing and told them they'd help him or he'd make them suffer a never ending nightmare, but Rocket used his super hearing to catch that he sounded more like a salesman. If he was so powerful, how come he needed their help? And how come Rocket could break out of his dream? Intimidated, Nightmare showed them his true form, skinny and weak. He explained he was hiding one of Nyx's soul shards, and her son Hypnos was attacking his realm with an army of sleeping people immune to Nightmare's power. Hawkeye agreed to help, but Rocket wanted to get paid. Hulk supported that; Nightmare was almost out of power, but Hulk had an idea about the payment. His smile, however, made Rocket uneasy.

Shortly after, the three heroes faced Hypnos' army. Hawkeye bantered with Rocket as they shot down the sleeping hordes; he said it felt like Space Invaders. When Rocket asked about the reference, Clint explained it was this game where you had to kill all the space aliens, then he realized the meaning of his words. Rocket said he felt so, so welcome in his neighborhood, and that that was why the whole galaxy thought Earthers sucked. He then shot down a sleeping Kate Bishop. Eventually Hulk killed Hypnos and grabbed his spoils: the soul shard, which he broke to use its power. He used it to locate another shard in planet Euphoria, one capable of ending the world, as this version of the Hulk wanted to destroy the human race. As a reward for helping him, Nightmare offered the team a gate to anywhere. Rocket wanted to rob a casino, but Hulk convinced them to go to Euphoria. It was a sentient world that made everyone's dreams come true. Rocket could take a break, since it had been a tough couple of days, so he agreed. When they appeared on the planet, however, Nyx was already there. Hulk said he'd take care of it, but Hawkeye started working with Rocket to make a bow – it was “Avengers Assemble”, not “Avengers Take Five”. Rocket loaded an arrow with an antimatter charge, but Nyx deflected them easily. The fight raged on, but ultimately Nyx defeated Hulk, right as the rest of the Avengers arrived, along with Conan the Barbarian. However, it was too late; Nyx obtained her second shard from Hulk and all the stars in the sky went out. Suddenly, they were interrupted by Euphoria, the personification of the planet. She was used to granting desires, so to decide who would have the final soul shard she asked everyone present what they wanted. When it came to Rocket, she referred to him as the one whose sadness dwarfed all there. Rocket whispered that he just wanted one thing he ever did to turn out right — then he found a capsule of Pym Particles he stole from Hawkeye. As everyone attacked Nyx together, Rocket used the particle to turn into a giant and join the strike. However, wanting to stop the violence, Euphoria gave Nyx the last piece of her soul, returning her godhood. With it, she could see the center of creation, the home of the One Above All, the House of Ideas. The heroes teleported there, a location in Long Island, Earth. They saw Nyx entering the house and they tried to go after her, but the forces coming from the house were so powerful that only Vision could enter. Vision used the power of creation within to destroy Nyx. Rocket, meanwhile, was whisked away to another planet, to the bathroom of a bar in orbit around Voort-3. Seeing the suns becoming alight again, he knew everything had turned out right. He drank to being an Avenger; something to cross off his bucket list.

Faithless

Eventually, Rocket's body became so ill he could barely move. He moved to Halfworld, where he withered away in a secluded home. As Halfworld is a gray asylum, but Rocket's resting place was green, it is likely he moved to Halfworld's Enviroputic Bio-Scape, an immersion environment used to pacify the animals. Gamora moved there as well and guarded the place, making sure that if Rocket wanted to die, he wouldn't be killed by any of his enemies first. She was there to bury him. Despite this, Rocket refused to show himself to her or to anyone. Gamora had to leave the place when the new Guardians of the Galaxy came looking for her, suspecting Thanos might have uploaded his consciousness into her. People were going to come to murder her, so she left as to not endanger Rocket. Later, the new Universal Church of Truth captured and brainwashed most of the new Guardians, so Groot and an alternate-universe Moondragon went to Rocket's house to ask for help. Rocket was in; what had he got to lose? His body was so frail that he had to be hooked to a million cables. Groot confronted Rocket's selfishness, marking that he wouldn't accept anyone's calls or help. Rocket argued that he just didn't want to be remembered like that, but Groot said he didn't belong to just himself; they owed it to each other to keep going, because Rocket wouldn't be there when he died, but the rest would. That was what family meant. Rocket brushed off the corniness, and suited up in a giant mecha suit. After convincing a young Magus to help them, Rocket and his ragtag group of Guardians attacked the Church's flagship, where they were confronted by a horde of Drax clones and then a large contingent of brainwashed cosmic heroes and villains. Rocket and his allies were quickly overwhelmed, and Rocket's battlesuit was destroyed by Beta Ray Bill's Stormbreaker. Thinking Rocket was dead, J'son sent the Guardians and Magus away. However, Rocket survived and was found by miniature clones of Groot.

With a weapon provided by the miniature Groots Rocket managed to knock out the guards in the engine room and used his engineering skills to reverse the engines' polarity, gaining control of the targeting systems. Rockets' efforts freed his allies from the Church's captivity while also turning their apathy weapon against them. Rocket and his allies fled the Church's temple using Lockjaw's teleportation power before it traveled back to its native timeline, taking a clone of Drax with them. In the following weeks, Rocket passed through many surgeries to save his life and the Guardians remained by his side until he was fully recovered.

Rocket finds his place in the cosmos

Dark Olympians

Still keeping Rocket company while he recovered on Halfworld, the Guardians were approached by Nova for their assistance in stopping the conquering rampage of the Olympians, who had been reborn as bloodthirsty rogue gods. Nova had come to recruit the Guardians as the Nova Corps had been destroyed by the Universal Church of Truth. Although the alternate-universe Moondragon and Phyla-Vell were eager to help, Gamora explained they weren't a suicide unit eager for every mission, but a family, and denied his request. However, that night Rocket and Star-Lord decided to help Nova anyway. Unbeknownst to Groot and the others, Rocket and Star-Lord joined up with Moondragon, Phyla, Nova and new recruit Marvel Boy. Although the mission was successful and the Dark Olympians were exiled to another dimension, Quill seemingly sacrificed himself to detonate the device that made it possible. Blaming Rocket for Peter's death, Gamora struck him and said he was dead to her. Gamora broke off the team with the Guardians that had stayed behind during the Dark Olympians mission.

Rocket's branch of the team received an emergency call from Daggett's World, where Rocket had recently pulled his Blue River score. Crooked businessman Gnawbarque was selling a supposed clean energy source which was actually modelled after Galactus, as it consumed a planet's life energy. Knowing Gnarwbarque hated him, Rocket booked himself into a local resort to draw his attention while Marvel Boy infiltrated the Converter, even though Rocket had been informed by Groot that Blackjack was aiming a gun at him from afar. To Groot, Rocket simply said he'd drink to that. Marvel Boy was intercepted by Gamora's Guardians, who had been hired by Gnawbarque to kill Rocket. Unbeknownst to Gamora, she had been psychically pushed by the original Moondragon, who wanted to punish her replacement for being everything she was not. Groot stopped Blackjack from shooting Rocket. After Rocket's team set off an explosion inside the Converter facility, all the Guardians swapped places with Gnawbarque using the Nega-Bands, leaving the beaver to die in his own facility.

After the two branches of the team were reunited, Rocket and the Guardians attended the wedding of Teddy and Billy Kaplan-Altman along with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Young Avengers, the Knights of the Infinite, Billy and Teddy's former teammates at the New Avengers, and Abigail Brand, among others. Regardless of the happy occasion, Rocket felt responsible for the loss of Peter and took up heavy drinking. With Gamora having trouble coping as well, Rocket sent her on a mission to seduce a bachelor who had kidnapped hundreds of children. Rocket coached Gamora through an earpiece through the mission, and after it finished they admitted it almost felt like old times. On his own, Rocket took a job on planet Foul Bog 4, on the Outer Galaxy. It was a long way to go for 40,000 credits, but a job was a job. When he got lost in a swamp, he was surrounded by the alien natives, who gave him unwanted attention.

When Groot tried to get Rocket to leave his room, they were suddenly teleported away by Lady Sif. They were summoned to the Fornites island of Apollo, to help stop Galactus alongside Brite Bomber, Kit, Raven, Jonesy, Lynx, Peely, Captain America, Storm, Wolverine, Doctor Doom, She-Hulk, and Mystique. Once Rocket and Groot came back, they agreed never to speak of it again. Later, Rocket was called to investigate the murder of Stote, high emperor of the Sn'rx at a galactic diplomatic conference Marvel Boy was attending. After he figured out it was caused by the Profiteer, an Elder of the Universe, everyone in the room was informed the god of Darkness Knull was destroying entire planets. While protecting Spartax, Rocket and Nova found Peter alive and well, returned from the other-dimensional world of Morinus, where he had spent a hundred of years of his life, albeit unaging. Rocket wanted to go help Earth against Knull, but Peter explained they'd endanger anywhere he's near because he stole half the Dark Olympians' power, and they'd be coming back for it.

Following the ultimate defeat of the Dark Olympians, the Guardians of the Galaxy were sanctioned by the Galactic Council as protectors of the cosmos in light of the increasing uncertainty of the galactic landscape, providing them with headquarters in the space station Proscenium.

A Super-Hero of Space

Around this time, Phil Coulson sold his soul to Mephisto and obtained the Pandemonium Cube, a demonic artifact capable of warping reality. With it, he rewrote the timeline so that the Squadron Supreme of America were the supreme superhero team of Earth instead of the Avengers as the Avengers were never formed. This had a ripple effect, and Rocket's life was modified as well, with Rocket joining the Starjammers instead of the Guardians, becoming the Star Brand and eventually dying. For more information of Rocket's modified biography, see Rocket Raccoon (Earth-21798). Eventually, Earth-616 was restored, and Rocket was never aware he died.

Among the Guardians of the Galaxy missions as sanctioned super-heroes of the galaxy, Rocket helped stop an attack from the Progenitors on Throneworld II, who were sicced on the planet by Orbis Stellaris. Afterwards, the team was attacked by Doctor Doom, but he was stopped by tricking him into swapping bodies with Rocket. Heeding Doom's words of an upcoming threat, they forced him to join the Guardians. At the same time, Ego The Living Planet turned into a black cocoon. Later, Rocket and the team had a meeting with the new King in Black, Eddie Brock. He alerted them of the upcoming threat of The Maker, who at some point in the future was going to try to replace Earth-616 with his own. Twelve days after Ego's transformation, Rocket surveyed it from the Almond spaceship when it cracked open to reveal Dormammu. He released a horde of Mindless Ones, which destroyed the Almond. Rocket floated in space without oxygen before Nova rescued him. Dormammu attacked Aerie, Skrullos, Hala, Chitauri Prime and Spartax to draw a galaxy-sized summoning circle, potentially to merge reality with his Dark Dimension, or worse. Rocket laid out a dispatchment plan he concocted with Doom, but was dismayed when Nova told him he simply did not trust Rocket with Peter and Gamora on the line. S.W.O.R.D. agreed to work with Rocket's plan, however, and he met up with Cable, who regarded the raccoon with respect as he was a galactic folk hero in the future Cable came from. Rocket sent Cable to steal a planet-sized gun from Breakworld while he engineered a giant bullet out of Mysterium. The bullet ended the threat of Dormammu, and the Guardians later celebrated at Gosnell's.

The Guardians answered another emergency call when Captain Marvel reported she was under attack by Vox Supreme, and the Guardians arrived to help along with the Avengers. Together, they defeated Vox and his army of Sludges. Later, the Guardians assisted the Fantastic Four against an attack by the Prosilicans with help of the Starjammers, the Imperial Guard, the Heralds of Galactus, the Unparalleled, the Shi'ars, and the Kree/Skrull alliance. Together, they freed Ego, The Living Planet, and took the fight to the Prosilicans. Upon victory, Rocket and all the other soldiers witnessed as The Watcher dissolved a great barrier hiding nine tenths of the universe, revealing new borderlands of infinite possibilities. Uatu restored all the damage and losses from the war and promised to never interfere away as he whisked everyone to their places of origin. As the Guardians were teleported away, Rocket remarked he'd believe that when he saw it. Rocket was later contacted by Rogue, whom he called the only person who was allowed to call him "Rocky." Rocket had been gambling on Gameworld, and the X-Men wanted information. He told them the casino gambled with planets, laundered money and they had psi-alarms as security. The X-Men later acted on it. Rocket had regular dealings with Rogue, and she texted him for relationship advice about her marriage with Gambit. On another adventure, Rocket directed Mantis and Groot to a planet that had been causing nearby ships to crash. There, Mantis found a piece of her fragmented identity and decided to assume a pink skin color. Later, Rocket and the Guardians collaborated with Loki (disguised as a cat), Captain Marvel, her cat Chewie, Thor and his dog Thori to defeat a space alien. Afterwards, they all took a shower. One one occasion, Peter hosted a screening of the movie Motorcycle Psychos for Rocket and the other Guardians. While watching it, Moondragon received a psychic attack by the Grandmaster in an attempt to destroy the Guardians from within, but she resisted him. When she woke up, the Guardians picked up the Grandmaster's ship on their radar, and took the fight to him.

Later, Rocket was spotted drinking in the club Astar X, in Shi'ar space, in the company of Howard the Duck, Yondu and the Starjammers. He was also spotted getting lunch in Damage Control's Flatiron Building, along with Howard, Wolverine, Morbius, Stephen Strange and Blade. Because of all the inactivity, the Guardians started getting in each other's nerves. To ease that, Peter invited them to Gosnell's Bar, where they were approached by Graybar, a subject of Blaastar in the Negative Zone. He gave them notice of a plan to transmit an antimatter pulse that would destroy all positive-matter life, so the Guardians headed to Blaastar's fort, although Rocket asked for a group hug and a photo in vain. During the infiltration, Graybar died, but his sacrifice motivated the Guardians to set aside their conflicts and live up to their name. After taking down Blastaar, his people rejoiced, and promised to imprison or exile him for all time in his home planet of Baluur. The Guardians returned to Gosnell's to celebrate, wherein Rocket asked once again for a group hug and a photo. One evening, the Guardians decided to sleep in Knowhere, but Rocket was awakened along with everyone else when Drax and Ronan played a dancing video game by stomping their feet too loudly. Rather than get mad, everyone joined in on the game. Later, Rocket asked Cosmo to watch a dangerous weapon called Fermion Projector while he ran some errands. Even later, Groot caught a cold which caused his mucus to sprout folliage. When Cosmo placed him near a water source, Groot's flowers spread all over Knowhere, spoiling one of Rocket's weapons. One day, Cosmo warned Rocket not to play with Knowhere's power generator, but Rocket did it anyway to install a new, top-of-the-line security system. However, he caused an outage. As Silver Surfer was nearby, he provided the station with power while Rocket fixed things, but the raccoon couldn't concentrate with Cosmo's scoldings. Taking a break, Rocket and Cosmo went for a walk and played fetch, but Silver Surfer accidentally overcharged the station, launching an escape pod with Cosmo inside. After Silver Surfer retrieved the dog, Rocket apologized and revealed his new security system.

When the Guardians learned that weapons called Prodigals, made of the asteroid-children of Ego the Living Planet, were going to be sold in the Casino Andromeda, they teamed up with the Avengers to retrieve the four different asteroids. Rocket and Groot paired up with Ant-Man, who had forgotten his time on the Guardians, and were tasked with breaking into the Casino's vault. After several mistakes, such as Rocket triggering Ant-Man's allergies, or Rocket's disguise being found out by a telepath guard because he couldn't stop thinking "Blam, murdered you," the trio triggered the alarms, releasing a swarm of Broods. Luckily, Ant-Man realised that as bugs, his helmet could control the Brood, and they escaped with the case, only to be assaulted by The Collector. The Collector activated his Prodigal, causing a beacon call and collapsing the casino on itself. Using a ship named Somerville, Rocket helped Groot, Gamora, Captain Marvel and War Machine destroy falling debris and rescue trapped people, commanding Carol to charge Groot with solar energy so that he'd grow and restore the oxygen levels. Although Ant-Man defeated the Collector, the Prodigal summoned Ego. Rocket, Carol and Drax flew to Ego's surface, where Rocket shot a mixture of chemicals and ice crystals to cause acid rain, serving as a distraction while Gamora and Ant-Man flew inside Ego. Gamora shot a bow with Ant-Man in it directly into Ego's heart, where Scott used Pym Particles to shrink Ego to human size. Ego lashed out, which allowed Carol to peek inside his mind and understand the Prodigal were his asteroid-children. After reuniting the "family," Ego left. Rocket tried to convince War Machine to sell him his suit, and both the Avengers and the Guardians gambled in the Casino until they had enough money to repair the Guardians' ship.

After Nebula joined the Guardians, Knowhere was attacked by Galactus, and Rocket faced him alongside his fellow Guardians, the Starjammers, the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, Photon, Ronan, Beta Ray Bill and Nova. Although the world eater briefly knocked Rocket out, he was driven away when Cosmo created a telepathic projection of his mother.

Guardians of Grootfall

Wanting to be a force of good within the Guardians, Nebula combined the probability engine in her head with the Guardians' threat data to create an early-warning system that pointed to Groot's homeworld as the most likely threat vector to galactic peace. When Groot and Rocket landed on it, they found the planet razed to the ground. The very first Flora Colossus and last survivor, Granopy, infected Groot with one of her branches, turning Groot into an out-of-control monster. During the transformation, a wild branch took Rocket's eye out. As Groot became planet-sized, getting designated "Grootfall", he took out most Guardians members and the Proscenium. As every surviving member blamed themselves, the Guardians disbanded. Rocket came to settle on Planet Refuge, a world in the Manifold Territories that acted as a safe haven for those whose planets had been consumed by Grootfall. During his time there, he constructed a robotic replica of Groot and took on a new identity: the Star-Sheriff. In protecting the planet's inhabitants, he used an orbital cannon to kill well over one hundred Groots for over a year, though he still believed that there would be a way to bring his old friend back. After another Grootfall led to the death of his robotic companion and the destruction of his ship, he was beamed onto the Guardians' newest ship, where Star-Lord revealed that he may have found a way to save their friend. The Guardians approached Groot and tried to communicate with him, but ended up getting swallowed up by the monster. Although they believed themselves dead, they found out they could still communicate in some sort of liminal space within Groot. There, they set their differences aside and bonded with Groot. Renaming themselves the Guardians of Grootspace, Rocket and his fellow Guardians were able to spawn in the physical world in the form of Groot branches, and for months they helped protect Groot as he spread throughout all of the Manifold Space. They understood now that Groot's fire asteroids intended to create ash for new trees to grow, respawning Groot's species while protecting all other life forms caught in the process under Groot's soil. When Emperor Hulkling and Wiccan visited planet Solitude, Rocket and the Guardians showed themselves to them and explained them the purpose of Grootfall. The royals left, promising to keep the Galactic Council from entering Grootspace until he could reach "full bloom."

In the days leading up to the bloom, Rocket and the Guardians knew peace like never before. All the while, Rocket began building a pocket sun. While taking out the last faction fighting it out in Grootspace, the Whitecaps, the Guardians learned that them, alongside the Branchworlds, Planet X and Groot, were a creation of The Gardener. The Whitecaps acted as pollen, and Grootfall was a natural mechanism to rekindle dried roots when there was nothing new to pollinate. The Guardians added the Whitecaps' territory, along with the Granopy, whom they worshipped, to Grootspace. Later, the team received a message from Emperor Dorrek warning them that Queen Victora of Spartax was going to attack Grootspace. The Spartax Empire didn't take long to arrive and open fire. Rocket deployed his pocket sun, and the plan was to trigger it remotely, but Victoria began firing at it, uncaring of the fact that the sun's explosion would decimate her armada. Rocket accepted the only remaining couse of action was to trigger it from the inside, but he admitted he didn't want to die. Drax took Rocket's place, sacrificing himself by activating the pocket sun. As Groot had promised, his bloom brought all the fallen by Grootfall back to physical space, including fellow members Kl'rt, Quasar, Moondragon, Phyla Vell, Noh-Varr, and Hercules. Rocket and the rest of the Guardians of Grootfall were taken out of Groot, too, and stopped being composed of vegetable matter. After Victoria saw the error of her ways and ceased fire, everyone celebrated together, but Rocket met with Groot privately and scolded him for what he put his friends through. In the end, though, Rocket admitted he'd missed Groot.

Future

10,000 to 15,000 years into the future of Reality-7614, Rocket met Ithacon prince Wayfinder on the planet Hailailae, aka Witchworld, where he aided the off-world Prince by instructing him about the dangers of Witchworld, and helped him battle the animal men of the sorceress Kirke. How Rocket survived the intervening millennia, or if he was somehow transported to or from there through space/time, remains unrevealed.