Why Marvels New York Is Missing Its Most Famous Landmark

Why Marvel’s New York Is Missing Its Most Famous Landmark

Rocket Raccoon’s destruction of a New York City icon speaks to the shortcomings of the city as a whole with regard to its treatment of its citizens.

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Why Marvels New York Is Missing Its Most Famous Landmark

New York is one of the most iconic locations in the Marvel Comics Universe, and few cities come close to rivaling the Big Apple’s instantly recognizable skyline. Avengers Tower, the Baxter Building, and the Sanctum Santorum are all fictional New York icons in their own regard. It is clear that New York is a larger than life city, a perfect fit for being the site of superheroic feats, both big and small. But in recent times, the Marvel Universe version of New York has lost its most iconic feature, the Statue of Liberty, to an unlikely hero: Rocket Raccoon.

In Rocket Raccoon #4 written by Matthew Rosenberg with art by Jorge Coelho, Rocket finds himself stranded on his least favorite planet after the Guardians of the Galaxy disband. Hedging his bets that working with The Avengers might not be so bad, Rocket heads to New York and discovers that Earth is way more troublesome for him, an alien that looks like a raccoon than he initially expected. Worse, Rocket learns that aliens seeking refuge in New York are being hunted and slaughtered by none other than Kraven the Hunter, and proper protection is hard to come by.

What follows is a game of cat and mouse as Kraven chases Rocket around the city, set on making the Guardian his latest conquest, while Rocket struggles to find adequate weapons to fend his foe with. Facing off with Kraven in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, Rocket escapes his clutches by firing a flare gun at the boat the hunter crudely parked into Liberty Island. As a result, the ship explodes, allowing Rocket the chance to escape as Lady Liberty herself crumbles into the waters of the New York Bay. Oops.

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It is an audacious, irreverent moment that is characteristic of a brash character like Rocket, but the destruction of the statue is symbolic of the series’s larger themes concerning refugees. New York’s treatment of the aliens seeking asylum is dismal, to say the least. Kraven’s plot to hunt them down is allowed to proceed due to the fact that the aliens themselves are not considered “people” worth protecting by traditional legal avenues. As such, the destruction of the Statue of Liberty by an alien trying to escape the murderous clutches of a villain like Kraven the Hunter reveals the hypocrisy of the statue itself. A monument declaring, “Give me your tired, your poor your huddled masses” means little if no action is taken to actually shelter those it is meant to serve.

The series ends with Rocket facilitating a safe escape for New York’s alien population in Central Park after defeating some of Kraven’s hunters. The fact that it is Rocket, and not an established New York hero, that shepherds the refugees to safety reveals the limits of New York as an idealistic city. While it certainly has its triumphant moments of greatness in Marvel Comics, Rocket’s experiences in the city reveal that its principles of uniting the very best parts of the world (and beyond) are not put into practice in an equal manner. Rather than fighting for the rights of aliens to remain in New York, Rocket finds that the only solution is to simply vacate the city and planet altogether.

While Rocket’s disdain for New York City is initially humorous to see unfold, Rosenberg’s writing reveals the unsavory parts about the city’s unfair treatment of its most vulnerable residents. While superhero fiction is often concerned with presenting the ideal, Rocket Raccoon’s series presents a relevant take on an all-too recognizable world that could really use some help. Despite its fantastical characters, the shortcomings of New York (and Earth as a whole) have never looked clearer.

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Link Source : https://screenrant.com/marvel-statue-liberty-destroyed-rocket-raccoon/

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