The Power Rangers have experienced defeat before, but they’ve never experienced death. Lord Drakkon has changed all that however with his latest actions, and now the Rangers are trying to pick up the pieces.
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This will be a spoiler-free review, so read on without care or worry of killing any big surprises.
If you expected to be kept in the dark after last week’s big issue, think again. The big lingering questions are all answered in the first half of the issue, allowing the book to move the plot forward without being bogged down in mystery just for mystery’s sake.
Grieving can often be overplayed in comics, with theatrical sequences of someone reaching up to the sky and shouting, but thankfully there’s a bit more nuance involved here. Each Ranger grieves in their own way, ways that feel genuine to their characters and relationships to Tommy, and the entire emotional spectrum is represented amongst the group. Sorrow, shock, regret, emptiness, and anger all show their faces throughout the issue, and writer Kyle Higgins also includes some sad realities of what the death of Tommy means to those outside the Ranger bubble.
Of course, there’s this whole “the universe is about to shatter” thing happening, so grief isn’t the only thing on the menu. The issue actually plants some interesting seeds for Drakkon’s mission early on, but one particular moment genuinely manages to shock, more so in regards to the personal nature of it than the event itself.
It’s hard to ignore Drakkon, and we won’t for very long, but if you were worried about Jen Scotts being underutilized, those fears should be put at ease by issue’s end. Scotts is every bit the Ranger fans remember from the show, and her voice here is pitch perfect. It’s pretty amazing to see her alongside the other Rangers, but it means even more when the character’s truly authentic.
Before we get to more Drakkon, we have to take time out to commend the art team of Daniele Di Nicuolo and Walter Baiamonte. This book is simply gorgeous, but the duo doesn’t just create eye-pleasing backdrops and characters. Their true talents lie in their ability to inspire empathy through their expressive characters. At times it is just through a look or a gesture, and at others through something more elaborate, but the characters of Power Rangers always genuinely feel like living breathing humans as opposed to superhero caricatures, and that’s not a small feat.
Plus, it doesn’t hurt that their action sequences are so dynamic and colorful. Vibrant swaths of energy cut through the sky and minion alike, and Nicuolo’s trademark half visible helmet method allows those sequences to still connect on a more fundamental level while also retaining what works about these classic designs.
Back to Drakkon, fans will definitely have a much bigger appreciation of just how great a villain he is after this issue. Sure he’s powerful and has an army at his beck and call, but it’s his dialogue and interactions with others that really cement him as a truly great antagonist.
Not much here needs to be improved, but if there was one nitpick it would be regarding the Ranger’s place in the timeline at present. Time Travel and alternate universes can get tricky quickly, and at times the terms associated with them (temporal energy, paradoxes, etc) can start to run together. The issue does a good job of making it all make sense, but it took a second glance for it to truly click.
Overall though the biggest problem with the issue is that there aren’t another 22 pages of it. It was always going to be difficult to carry the momentum from the first issue over to the second, but the team managed to pull it off and then some.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #26 hits comic stores on April 18.
Published by: BOOM! Studios
Written by: Kyle Higgins
Drawn by: Daniele Di Nicuolo
