It’s A Dark World After All: Reviewing ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ #111
by Scott Redmond
Overview
At last the year-long event ‘Darkest Hour’ has begun as ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ #111 puts the heroes, their allies, and their foes into their most dire spot as Mistress Vile achieves her dark goals. That darkness permeates through every fiber of this story, displayed beautifully and emotionally on the pages. A story that speaks to so much of what Power Rangers fans love about this franchise.
Overall
9/10For generations, individuals have been gifted power from the morphing grid in order to fight back the forces of darkness. Unfortunately for them, it seems the darkness has finally won.
For the past eleven issues, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has been steadily ramping things up, with one destination in mind. Foundations were laid, flashbacks were used to flesh things out, and greater dangers have bedeviled the heroes. Mistress Vile and company have progressively taken down everyone from the Rangers to their allies to even Lord Zedd.
Here in the 111th issue of the series Melissa Flores, Simona Di Gianfelice, Raúl Angulo, Ed Dukeshire, and Jose Enrique Fernández cover the world in darkness to kick off the yearlong event, “Darkest Hour.”
I love what they’ve been doing in this series. As a lifelong fan of the Power Rangers, I appreciate how much this series stays true to the characters but continues the comics with more grown-up feelings. By that I mean the deeper emotional stuff, the serialized nature, and the actual threat that the villains present. In the show we know that the heroes will beat a monster in 30 minutes (sometimes more episodes) leaving the big villain defeated and fuming. Rinse and repeat each week.
Nothing wrong with that, of course, since I mentioned I’m a huge fan of the series.
Having this version where things have more weight and build, giving Rita/Mistress Vile a true chance to be menacing, is just welcome. Flores shows off all the time how much of a fan and lover of the lore of this franchise she is. Finding ways to dig into the characters and their pasts, even finding ways to give more depth to those added to the mythos through this comic series.
It’s not just the villains and their actions that are darker. Various elements of the artwork have gotten progressively darker through the long arc, culminating here in an issue that is heavy on the shadows and darker tones.
That’s not to say it’s not still somewhat bright and very colorful. Plenty of vibrant colors are found here with the various sci-fi elements mixed in. All of them just are alongside much darker-toned bits and pieces that fill the reader with more dread as we watch things play out. Angulo, with assistance from Fernández, taps into the energy that makes this book work so effortlessly.
Part of what makes us feel it is how much detail and emotional weight Di Gianfelice infuses into every single panel. The action flows smoothly and feels like it’s really moving, and the different panel styles make sure to capture every moment. Putting us right down in the action and changing from wider to closer shots to evoke whatever emotion we need in the moment.
We see the same thing with how Dukeshire does the lettering work. With simple things like added colors, shifts in font, or changes to the bubble he makes the scripted words ‘bigger’ in various ways. There is an impact to every single letter on the page. We can feel and hear everything just as we’re meant to, playing out the Vile (Rita) declarations as if this was from the show itself.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #111 is now available from BOOM! Studios.
