You can pickup your copy of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #41 now where all good comics are sold.
Synopsis
NECESSARY EVIL, the Power Rangers comic book event of 2019, continues here! You think you know everything about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – but this issue answers one of the biggest questions in franchise history with revelations that will shake the team to their core. The White Ranger may be their new leader…but who is the new enemy of the Power Rangers?
Review
In my review of issue #40 (check it out here) I talked about how Ryan Parrott had cleverly moved the story on and put some distance between the series and the excellent Shattered Grid event.
With this issue he’s diving in to the extremely tantalising conclusion to that previous issue and telling us just where Jason, Trini and Zack have gone to.
Fans of the TV series will remember that the trio left to go to some kind of youth peace summit, whilst the actors actually left the show over salary disagreements. Well here Parrott is giving the story a lot more meaning and tying everything back in to the overarching story of the series.
On the moon we see that a new foe is learning all he can about the Rangers, it’s a nice ominous start to a fell fast paced issue but still maintains the playful humour that we’ve come to expect of the franchise.
Jump back to our teenage heroes and we see the opposite angle of that final scene from issue #40. As Jason, Trini and Zack talk with their friends they’re concerned about giving away their location and can instantly sense that Billy and Kimberley are feeling abandoned by their friends.
Once again Parrott shows off the clever emotional awareness that this BOOM! Studios version of the franchise has. It treats its characters as real people and not as caricatures in a children’s TV series. Kimberley shows it most in her reaction to her friends behaviour. It’s a bit of a gut punch to see but hopefully in the future she’ll be able to understand just why her friends couldn’t tell her where they were.
Moving on we learns that the trio have been sent deep into space to aid a town known as Safehaven on an unknown planet. Eventually we learn they are part of a new force called the Omega Rangers.
There’s a few brief moments to see Jason still acting as the stone cold leader, he understands the mission and will not deviate from it. The others must not know there they are. Zack, the more emotional, is upset at having left his life behind in Angel Grove whilst Trini, ever the level headed one, find the middle ground between the two.
The story of Safehaven seems particularly interesting. A planet which has clearly been devastated by the forces of evil and requires the Rangers help to put things back together. We get to see the small team interacting with the locals as well as helping to reconstruct their town.
All the while there are small teases about a new villain known as Garrison Vox who finally makes an appearance at the end of the issue.
What seems to be setting up an ongoing story on this planet quickly becomes something much larger as we learn that the Rangers mysterious new mentor and his robot, XI, are actually the ones storing up villains in jars much like Rita was when we first saw her.
I’m intrigued to see where this story is going to go and how it will all play out in connection with what is happening back on Earth. Parrott seems to be setting up a dual narrative which will allow all of the classic Rangers to be part of the story in some respect.
Could we be building to another huge event?
Verdict
This issue cleverly sets up the story of Jason, Trini and Zack without giving too much away about their mission or their new allies. It doesn’t leave the reader hanging from last month’s cliffhanger and instead opts to lean in to the series much more mature style of storytelling.
7/10
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #41 is written by Ryan Parrott with illustrations by Daniele Di Nicuolo and colours by Walter Baiamonte. Cover art is by Jamal Campbell.
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