The 2023 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best Male Character

After a year of triumphs and surprises in the world of pop culture, 2023 is about to come to a close. Many — including those of us at ComicBook.com — are using the holiday season as an opportunity to look back on the year that was, as well as the stories that inspired or moved us through that time. As part of our annual Golden Issue Awards, which are voted on by ComicBook.com's staff, we're celebrating the male movie character whose story especially stood out in 2023.

And the winner for the 2023 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best Male Character is…

Rocket Raccoon, from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3!

Honestly, the fact that I can even type the words "Rocket Raccoon" and know that almost everyone will recognize him is still something of a miracle. The Guardians of the Galaxy movies have remained a fascinating and frenetic turning point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe — proof that, with the right creative team on board, even the most obscure character could become a household name. Rocket, an anthropomorphic raccoon with good aim and a chip on his shoulder who had only appeared in ten issues of Marvel Comics prior to joining the Guardians in the mid-2000s, exemplified that in a special way. Sure, he wasn't as infinitely toyetic as his lovable tree cohort Groot, but his gruff personality and distinct design quickly turned him into a character audiences were invested in. Even with his specific and bizarre gimmick, his personality could work in practically every situation — as evidenced by him peeling off from the group to help Thor in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, and then being the lone survivor of the Guardians, and soon a close ally of the Avengers, during The Blip in 2019's Avengers: Endgame.

Outside of most of the original six Avengers, an argument could be made that Rocket had one of the Infinity Saga's meatiest story arcs, which added a layer of dread around where his story would go next in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Hidden amongst confirmations that Vol. 3 was writer-director James Gunn's final contribution to the MCU and the "end" of the team as we knew it was a lot of subtext suggesting that Rocket might die before the film's credits rolled. The film's marketing, which paraded around flashbacks of a frail baby Rocket and random shots of other Guardians openly weeping, certainly seemed to suggest as much. In the months leading up to Vol. 3's May 2023 release, fans made death pools and emotionally prepared themselves for massive amounts of pain.

But in the same way that Rocket couldn't easily be defined, his storyline in Vol. 3 proved to be something much more complex. Yes, the film delivered some of the most brutal sequences of the entire MCU, flashing back to Rocket's years being physically and emotionally tortured by The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Ewuji). Yes, Rocket's life frantically hung in the balance for at least half of Vol. 3, after a malfunction in The High Evolutionary's cybernetic technology sent him into a coma. And yet, the emotional turmoil surrounding Rocket never once dipped into pure nihilism, either from his teammates or from the text of the film itself. By the time Rocket got dangerously close to the white pearly gates, only to be convinced by a vision of his long-deceased friend Lylla (Linda Cardellini) that he needed to survive, it was impossible to not be overcome with emotion. Lylla's advice mattered in the immediate, as Rocket became the lynchpin needed to stop The High Evolutionary and save a planet's worth of fellow animal experiments. But her advice also mattered in the long run, as Rocket needed to stick around for all of the imperfect, downtrodden audience members who see pieces of themselves in him. 

Every facet of Rocket, from Bradley Cooper's impassioned voiceover work to Sean Gunn's continued motion-capture performance to the countless VFX artists creating his aesthetic, helped give Vol. 3 a revelatory beating heart. (Cooper transforms himself into Rocket's voice and cadence so effortlessly that, nearly a decade into playing the role, it's still easy to forget he's the one in the voiceover booth, but that's a separate conversation.) Amid the gut-wrenching and the hopeful, we even got developments that we didn't know we needed, like the etymology of his name. As it turns out, he's "Rocket" because it was one of the first things he saw exist beyond the walls of The High Evolutionary's fortress; and after suppressing his pain for years, he's finally embraced his past and personhood enough to call himself "Raccoon."

Rocket Raccoon, especially in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, is proof that the grand experiment of superhero adaptations can work. Small comic precedents or silly gimmicks don't matter as long as we're sucked into a character's adventure, watching them do extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances to better the world around them. Gunn's work in the superhero realm has (and surely will continue to) excel on that front, but with Rocket, it became something truly remarkable. The film's (and franchise's) final scene — Rocket wordlessly starting a dance party among his new found family to Florence + the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" — summed it up perfectly, reminding all of us that true hope and catharsis can often be found in the weirdest of places.

The nominees for the 2023 ComicBook.com Golden Issue Award for Best Male Character are...

• Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves)

• Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle (Xolo Maridueña, Blue Beetle)

• Ken (Ryan Gosling, Barbie)

• Miles Morales (Shameik Moore, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)

• Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) — WINNER