Darker By The Hour: Reviewing ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ #115

True heroes never back down. No matter how dark things become. Especially if even the smallest glimmer of hope remains. Zordon’s Power Rangers are true heroes, and they’ll fight till the very end. Unfortunately for them, the end just got a tiny bit closer to reality.

Things hit the proverbial fan in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #115 from Melissa Flores, Simona Di Gianfelice, Raul Angulo, Jose Enrique Fernández, and Ed Dukeshire.

I’ve loved the Power Rangers since the day they popped up on the TV screen to answer the call for teenagers with attitude. From Mighty Morphin up through the Lost Galaxy and through Time itself, I was there watching. Even with gaps of seasons and all the ones watched under my belt, this current comic run has to rate near the top in Power Rangers stories.

High praise, I know, but things are just that good! Even here as the team faces overwhelming odds, betrayal, and more lost forces, it hits all the right buttons for this lifelong fan.

Flores deftly mixes the vibes of the TV show with the more mature pacing and themes the comic series has enjoyed for years. An event that takes up an entire year of issues is a tough nut to crack. Keeping attention means being able to give the audience nuggets that keep the plot going but at a pace that doesn’t create the feeling of unnecessarily padded issues. Therein lies one of the ways Flores flourishes.

Deep character moments, along with solidly built universal references (call it nostalgia or Easter eggs if you must), help to give flavor and weight to everything. Having moments where characters deal with their mental health, address anxiety, found family, and the darkness within is just so powerful. It reminds us that these are human beings pulled into a war that started long before they entered the world. With forces of evil who will rip them and the universe apart without a second thought, these heroes will have some baggage.

Blending the feelings of brighter and extreme darkness goes beyond just the writing of the story, of course.

Characters and the world around them have actual weight and presence under Di Gianfelice’s pen. No two characters look or feel alike, because they should not after all. Some elements remind us of the actors or the TV show settings but are given their own power and look so they are not just uncanny valley copies of another medium. Everything feels larger than life, balancing the line between serious and whimsical like the finest of tightrope walkers.

Whether quieter character moments or big zords battling across the panel, it all is filled with the same powerful punch. Kinetic energy that allows everything brought to the page to feel truly alive.

Angulo, with the assistance of Fernández, brings a balance of their own. Colors that are bright and flashy, befitting of the superhero, but also the nature of the source material. These are characters who run around in pure color costumes and fight a variety of alien beings with vibrant looks of their own. Pairing that with heavy shadows and more toned-down, almost neutral, colors helps with that aforementioned balance. It’s not just the same color palette just copied and pasted across each setting though, as each space — be it Command Center or Safehaven or beyond — has its unique combinations of colors.

An event this size means tons of moving parts. We see characters from the regular cast to the villains to the inclusion of 30 years of various Power Rangers teams. They all have things to say or bring to the page. Seems like a situation that could get messy, but not when Dukeshire is on lettering.

All the voices not only flow through the page smoothly, helping guide our eyes through the page, but also have their own flavor. This comes from just the simple moves of infusing the words with emotion and personality in some cases. Others are the great uses of colorful bubbles, altered font, or other little tricks that bring a visual kick to everything. All of it just making sure that we accurately hear everything the issue has to say.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #115 is now available from BOOM! Studios.