MadCap's Comic Reviews - "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers #0"

Say what you will about the early 2000s - thanks, I will!  They didn't have this and thus the childhoods of every single millennial who was born and raised in such a decade is has had an infinitely more terrible life experience because this wasn't on their radar.  Granted, when the original show first aired, I was all of two, but I caught on quick to the hype due to the fact I had a television set and minimal interference in what was on it, so by the time I was able to adjust my eyes to the bright colors and the preachy morality, I was entranced by the five (or six) teenagers with attitude (or not so much, as it turned out) who fought the evil forces of stock footage. I am speaking, of course, of the work of television genius that is...Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters From Beverly Hills.

...yeah, even I found that joke dated, sorry.

The show goes like this: 10,000 years ago, a sorceress by the name of Rita Repulsa got her ass handed to her by a wizard named Zordon, but not before he was sealed in a jar and only his head was left visible.  In the present that is 1993, she is released by some astronauts and Zordon decides to recruit "five overbearing and overemotional humans" (as opposed to the oft repeated "teenagers with attitude") to fight her and her evil forces instead of, say, alerting Earth's military or recruiting the five greatest martial artists alive.

Needless to say, for a show that was made from the stock footage from a Japanese show (Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger for anyone who has the remotest bit of interest), it was received astoundingly well and become a worldwide phenomenon that continues to this day.  But in looking back on the original show...well, it's just not that good.  The plots are generally boring and predictable, the characters are broad stereotypes stretched so thin that they're almost transparent, and the acting is something that makes Sliders post Season 3 look worthy of Emmys.

And yes, to be fair, it did get better later, but much of that is due to an event that is the focal point of this comic...or, rather, this comic is the aftermath of that event.

In the first season, Zordon recruited five teenagers with attitude - Jason, Trini, Zack, Billy, and Kimberly with their respective Ranger colors of red, yellow, black, blue, and pink. Throughout the first season, they faced some utterly ridiculous plots and monsters, but always managed to win by the end of the adventure because that's how it went...until one day...

They were all of them, deceived...for another Power Coin was made.

Enter the Green Ranger.  The show did a five part episode known as "Green with Evil".  It's insane to think of a five-part epic, but that is most certainly what it was, and it's one of the few things about the show that isn't held onto fondly just because of its nostalgia.  It was genuinely good and still, mostly, holds up. Rita captured and brainwashed Tommy, the new kid in the town of Angel Grove and brainwashed him to be evil.

It was genuinely intense as, for the first few parts of the story, Tommy is able to completely decimate the Rangers on his own, something that none of Rita's monsters had been able to do beforehand. And once teamed up with her generals, he was even able to wreck the Megazord and send the Rangers scrambling for cover.  While, in the end, the Rangers did actually succeed in breaking the mind control and adding Tommy to the team, it was not without its struggle, but it was probably the first genuinely hard-won victory the team had ever had.

...sadly, once Tommy joined, there was actually little in the way of aftermath.  No deep contemplation about his powers coming from a source of deep evil or suffering with the knowledge that he had hurt so many as the Green Ranger...but then it is just a kid's show, right? We can't really go into such things on a show made for a younger audience without scarring the poor darlings.

We have comic books for that!

And thus we come, after a ridiculously long time, to Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers #0 by Boom Studios.  Set right after the Green With Evil 5-parter, it seems that Tommy is suffering some PTSD that takes the form of nightmares of his time as a minion of evil, as well as an illusory form of Rita that follows him around and taunts him that he is so much less than he was before when he was evil.  It's actually very much akin to the taunting he received at the end of "Green No More"...but that's getting way too off-topic (not that I haven't been).

This gets to such a point for him that, during a fight against a monster, he locks up and can't deliver a final blow...though the team eventually wins without Tommy dying for the mistake, since dying from being crushed by a monster while Madonna's ghost haunts you is a really, really embarassing way to go. They go back and Jason snaps at Tommy before Zordon teaches them the true meaning of teamwork...or whatever. It basically follows the same structure as the plot of an episode, albeit with Tommy's admittedly rather dark PTSD episodes thrown in.  Light in tone, yes, but hinting at more as time goes on.

The art style is a bit anime for the facial structure and body types, something that I would have normally been put off by, but the expressions are not over the top and for the most part everything looks fairly proportionate save for when they're in the Ranger suits and for some reason they have to look all muscle-y, which wasn't how they looked on the show at all.

Angel Grove also apparently has slid ahead in the timeline and so things like e-mail blasts and cell phones with texting ability exist within the world of 1993...something which doesn't quite fit, but then Power Rangers series rarely, if ever, give an indication of an exact year of where they're set, so I guess we can add at least a little elastic to our suspension of disbelief.

So, if you're high on nostalgia, like I was, go for it.  If you're wanting a good comic to read to pass the time, you could do a lost worse. Especially for a comic book adaptation.  So, if you haven't picked it up (I recommend Thing From Another World, who will mail them right to you) already, do so. And may the Power protect you.

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers #0 is now available from Boom Studios wherever fine comic books are sold.

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