A Looming Sense Of Dread: Reviewing ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ #109

Mistress Vile is closer to achieving her goals, pushing the Rangers and their allies to the very brink. The event Darkest Hour is only two issues away. Here we get a jam-packed issue that seemingly wraps up much of this first act to prepare for the second.

As I said, there is a ton going on here. One of the beauties of this series has been that most issues are packed, but never too packed. There is never any moment where it is confusing or overwhelming. Well, I take that back a tiny bit. There are moments that are overwhelming, but they are purposefully that way for the characters. We’re witness to the Rangers and allies losing more and more ground as they can’t keep up with Mistress Vile’s multifaceted plans.

Every single action beat hits perfectly just the same as the character/emotional ones. That’s what we come to expect at this point with Simona Di Gianfelice and Raúl Angulo on art and colors respectively.

There is just so much life and gravity to the work that Di Gianfelice is doing. It doesn’t matter the setting or the characters involved, this is a lived-in world with depth and power. Every punch that is thrown or an angry/sad moment is heavily felt. We know these characters from decades of stories, which makes us feel things already, but we’re made to feel even more. Power Rangers is a kid’s show and is therefore somewhat cheesy at times, but that isn’t felt here.

There is some cheesy still popping up in some issues, for a good reason, but things are heavier and more serious in this modern telling. Everything that happens to and around these characters feels real and impactful. There is no ‘everything will easily work out at the end of the half-hour’ feeling here. There are stakes in what happens on the page. It’s played on every level of the story, most importantly within the artwork.

This balance is in the colors as well. They are pretty toned down in many cases, feeling grounded and relatable. This allows the more vibrant bits that appear, mostly around the supernatural elements, to stand out even more. Everything from the Rangers to the aliens should feel abnormal compared to the ‘real world’ in many senses. Sure those elements are ‘normal’ to this franchise reality but they are still things that pop next to standard cityscapes.

Exposition is a dime a dozen here, as various characters have a lot to say. It very easily could become too crowded or take over a page, but not with Ed Dukeshire on lettering. It all flows smoothly and is controlled, while also reflecting every bit of emotion or energy on the page. We can hear what characters are feeling at any moment within their words. What also helps are the little colorful or different flairs, such as changes to speech bubbles or font.

I mean, just looking at Matt’s green-on-black speech bubbles makes the skin crawl, all that evil just radiating off the poor soul.

As noted, there is a ton that has gone down in this run, and it’s clear that Melissa Flores has a tremendous handle on it all. Sometimes doing these long sorts of runs with many moving parts can be tough. Plenty of stories that have attempted it find themselves stumbling at some point or even having moments where the story stalls because they stretched it too much. That’s not the case here at all.

We were able to break away for a Zordon-on-Zordon issue last month, which didn’t break up the momentum of the story arc one bit. It fully enhanced the overall story and informed some of the beats we felt and saw in this one. Everything here is a piece of a far larger more intricate puzzle that Flores has concocted in her head. Personally, I cannot wait to see how it all comes together because there is no telling what the final image might be.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #109 is now available from BOOM! Studios.