Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

Yes, I'll fully review the graphic novels when they come out.   Mini-reviews, including covers, brief (mostly one sentence) descriptions if I can do that and do the issue justice, and a bit about how I feel about each series will be coming on Wednesdays.   I think this is the day - the comic day, when new comics come out - that I will catch up on everything/older runs.   

First half of a wonderful story arc.   Groot often takes hits for Rocket, but what happens when Groot takes one hit too many?   

It's up to Rocket to save Groot, who lay dying back at an ice-world base.   

I can't find the image for number nine, at least not a nice, small one.   So here: 

Link to issue nine. (< -- Marvel site.)

In the future, Iron Man has to call on Rocket to save the Earth from... Groot.  

This series would, at first glance, appear to be all gloss: it's a Beatles one-off joke, Rocket Raccoon, the psychotic little bastard of a raccoon - who, y'know, isn't a raccoon and don't call him one if you know what's good for you.   I'm constantly surprised at how Young fleshes him out, and how the movie did so, giving him a pathos that makes me want to hug the little guy and make things better.   Yes, Rocket is cynical, but he has reason: in issue nine, he grumbles that he told Groot not to stay on Earth, that he knew us meatbags would fuck things up.   And, well, we did.   (Even if it was Groot's choice to stay.)

There's more to Rocket than a ball of anger and violence and a belief that everything is just bullshit, and aren't you just tired of it all?   There's a keen awareness, a brilliance that's mostly lost beneath the dirt and grime and gun powder.   Oh, it peeks through every now and then, and Young knows when to show us, and when to bluster right through.   There's a lot about alienation in these three issues, the alienation that Rocket feels, the alienation that's caused when culture's don't understand each other, and there's a lot about what causes this type of rift to keep on keeping.    There's a lot about misunderstanding and how one copes with that.   And yes, it's mostly drowned out by Rocket's swearing and trigger-happy nature, but it's there.   And it's all the more shocking and touching for those contrasts.   

Ah, yes, Young is the writer for Rocket.   He takes the original spirit, and runs with it.   I can't tell anyone how much I love this series.   Each time I think I know, I read more, and fall more and more in love with Young's take on Rocket.   

Highly recommended.