After Skottie Young's Rocket Raccoon, there was Rocket Raccoon and Groot, also written by Young, but drawn by Filipe Andrade, whose art ensured I didn't last past issue #1. Post-Secret Wars, there was a brief Rocket series when the Guardians were stuck on Earth for some reason. And in late 2017, we get this, ultimately 6-issue mini-series, about Rocket being duped into pulling a heist, then trying to pull another heist to balance all debts.
Most of it feels like Ewing using Rocket to write a noir/heist story. You've got Rocket getting fooled by a lady otter from his past into stealing land deeds for a corporation. He ends up working with another dangerous, amoral woman and her crew (Gatecrasher and Technet.) There's a prison break, one much quieter and less chaotic than Skottie Young's, although the freak out Rocket fakes to kick off his plan feels like a play off Young's feral, hyper-violent version.
The art mirrors the tone. Gorham's Rocket is similar to Young's in proportions and stance, but this isn't a book for exaggerated reactions, so there's none of that. A lot of the people involved are wearing nice suits or dresses like you'd see on Earth, rather than anything alien. The prison Rocket's stuck in is (with the exception of its version of solitary) much like an Earth prison.
Ewing's Rocket has some charm and plenty of self-confidence, but mostly accepts double-crosses and bad outcomes with muttered curses and weary resignation. He's not shooting wildly or hamming things up for the hell of it. If the book isn't necessarily drenched in shadows like a noir, Garland keeps the colors dulled. The setting being outer space may be strange to us, but it's old hat to Rocket. There's nothing bright or whiz-bang about it these days.
Even a group of oddballs like Technet is treated as something that isn't noteworthy or odd. Not that they're played as a joke, just that, with the exception of Joyboy (who's more malevolent in Ewing's hands than I remember from Alan Davis' Excalibur), their powers and their shtick are not considered strange. They aren't adversaries, even when they cook up a scheme to keep busting Rocket out of prison so they can turn him in again for the bounty. They're businesspeople, who can be negotiated and bargained with, if you speak the language. So they aren't (again, excepting Joyboy), drawn as particularly menacing.
In the last issue, Ewing's tries to make most of the past Rocket Raccoon stuff fit. The events of the Mantlo/Mignola mini-series did happen, no longer just some stuff in a book Rocket scoffs at. Rocket was the protector of the Keystone Quadrant. He fought killer clowns and lethal clouds to protect the Loonies, alongside his pal Wal, and his lady love Lylla. They left their home, and in the wider galaxy, Rocket stopped being so heroic, fell in with Otta, got arrested, met Star-Lord. "Blam! Murdered you!" gets referenced, though this Rocket is more cerebral, playing with him being an innate tactical genius. Never busting out any ludicrously large guns, and mostly trying to avoid killing.
(The series doesn't address the back-up story in Annihilators where Halfworld is still a psychiatric planet, and only Rocket actually left, and that because there's a dangerous bit of info stored in his mind, although Ewing does have Lylla and Blackjack O'Hare end up married, which was a part of that.)
Ewing doesn't really explain how Rocket ended up like this beyond "people change." Stuff keeps happening, time keeps passing, and one day, you aren't the person you used to be. At least, that's what Rocket tells himself. It's apparent at least part of the guy he used to be is still in there. Otta manipulates him by making him think they're helping the little guy, and even after all that, he still tries to reason with her. So if that guy is still in there somewhere, was it the rift with Lylla that caused Rocket to try and bury that part of himself, or did the shift cause the rift? Or are they simply unrelated outcomes of being thrown into a much wider, more dangerous universe?
I want to add the book isn't all misery and betrayal. There's a gag with Rocket's attorneys in issue 2, and there's a Deadpool team-up in issue 4. Granted, Deadpool is running from his fuck-ups during Secret Empire, but Ewing gets some mileage out of 'Pool trying to pretend to be a gangster, and Rocket getting absolutely none of his references. Well, why would he? All of Star-Lord's are from the '80s, and Deadpool's are even more dated than that!
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