A Real Bad Robot: Reviewing ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ #105

With the journey of Rita Repulsa to Mistress Vile told, the spotlight returns to the scattered and besieged Power Rangers. A ton is packed into this issue as the Omega Rangers return, Alpha-1 is battled, friends are rescued, deep discussions are had, Lord Zedd awakens, and a bit more of Vile’s plan is revealed. Told you, a lot happens here.

Far too often stories that feature big-time superheroes or action-style characters heavily focus on the aforementioned action, putting tons of focus on the big fights and such. That’s fine in many ways because we the audience of course like that sort of stuff, we follow these characters/worlds after all, but stories that can pause that or lessen that for the moment in order to just go full character mode are the best. Melissa Flores handles both sides of the proverbial coin so easily, shifting from issues that have more action but with steady character moments to issues where there is lighter action and far more time spent on the characters and their feelings, lives, and moments.

It helps that she has all of the character’s voices down perfectly, and has a clear deep love for them, having worked around the characters for a number of years before writing them here. I’ve said it before and it always bears repeating, but what I love about following characters like the Power Rangers in comics over the show is that there is far more space and time to really flesh these characters out to their fullest. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a forever fan of the series, but the limitation of time and space meant that we learned about them, but it often had to remain surface level or just in the moment (character revelations that were for the episode rather than for the long term). Though, to be fair that did change a little bit in the Mighty Morphin latter seasons into the couple seasons after as a cast of characters was followed for so many years.

Here in the comics characters like Zedd and Vile have been fleshed out and given deeper backstories that actually make their motivations and overall personas make so much more sense than just evil for evil’s sake. Seeing Zedd in this position of being weakened but not afraid to face whatever fate may come, having a moment with Zordon was so good. Same with Trini and Zach and Tommy and Billy’s conversation about their future as Rangers. Every character feels real and fleshed out thanks to the work that has been done in the comics and that Flores continues and leans on here.

Whether talking about the big character moments or the action pieces, and we get some awesome ones here against Alpha-1 and the Zord moments got me all giddy, it’s all brought to life superbly by Simona Di Gianfelice and Raúl Angulo. There’s just an ever-present hard-to-describe energy that is always there in what Di Gianfelice draws in any panel, allowing the character and the actions to take full control of the moment. I’m a huge fan of the types of panel choices used here and more often in so many books now, choosing to forego more standard placement or views. A perfect example is the page where Zedd awakens. There is an extreme close-up of his (very terrifying) face followed by a wider shot of him on the bed, a distance shot of him getting up, one panel of just his feet moving him forward (and really only one foot as the other is cut off mostly by the panel border) and then a distance silhouette profile shot.

Tons of panels like this can be found all over because it conveys emotions and moments so much better than just keeping the focus dead set on all the characters in any given scene or fully on a solo character. Also choices like this fit into the realm of showing us what characters are feeling or doing rather than having to fit in a bunch of dialogue or captions to tell us what they are thinking or doing right then. Basically, it allows the art to tell the story which is how it should be in this visual medium.

Beyond their costumes, of course, the Power Rangers’ world is a very fantastical and colorful one while also being a world very similar to our own in many respects. Angulo always captures this with the chosen color palette that is so vivid and smooth but also knows when to pull back for a bit more toned-down look to give things a bit of a real weighted feeling no matter how outside the norm they are from our perspective. Alongside those pops of color are plenty of shadows and darker tones that give another bit of depth and weight to everything, reminding us that there are some tough moments and topics that are before our heroes, it’s not all just galivanting adventures where they’ll easy best whatever monster or plot of the day Rita or Zedd throws their way.

Also, that palette shifts depending on the current setting with the Command Center full of purples and pinks and blues while the planet where they find the Omegas and Alpha-1 is far more brown and yellow with some spaces appearing very gray and almost plain in comparison, hitting home how the galaxy is filled with similarity and variety at the same time.

We can see and feel the emotions and big moments on the page thanks to those great visual elements, but it’s thanks to Ed Dukeshire that we can actually hear those voices and emotions as we read through any given issue. Lettering is there to fill in the dialogue and captions and other elements on the page more often than not, but it can and often does so much more. Great letterers can infuse the words upon the page with the personality and voice of a character, letting us hear the tone/volume/quality of a character moment, but also create a complimentary flow with the rest of the artwork. Placing bubbles and captions where they are can often help lead our eyes where they need to go alongside the rest of the artwork, making sure we’re following things to their inevitable conclusion.

Not to mention all the flashy SFX or the big colorful exclamations, just love it when their fight yells burst out of the bubble or we get the big colorful bursting out-of-the-bubble morphing/zord calls, that just bring the energy levels up even more.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #105 is now available from BOOM! Studios.