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Preface
There’s no better way to sum up this issue than this: “BACKSTORY! SPACE LORE!”
The Cover
A really creative and colorful cover depicting the wonder of a new alien world as well as showing off all of our Rangers in their civilian forms traversing it. It’s pretty amazing. Really wish it was actually in this issue here…
The Story
So, on the pod, our newest alien friend, Ellarien, tells her story to the Rangers. For thousands of years, this universe is slowly dying due to some solar heat thing. And pretty soon, this universe will be nothing but ash. The Praetor has been promising people that if they follow him, they will take them with him to another universe where they can be safe. When she was younger, Ari was forced to steal food and anything else she needed to survive.
One day, when she was trying to steal some food from some old otter guy, she sees him glitch into his Ranger form and is so taken aback by it, she breaks a ledge and is hanging off a balcony. The otter man tries to save her, but he’s thrown off of it. As he’s about to die, he gives the Solarix to Ari, telling her to keep it safe as it is the “key to everything.” Ari knew that somehow, the wise otter man was telling the truth as she’s soon attacked by the Crimson Raiders. Ari knew that the Solarix was worth fighting for…
However, the Solarix doesn’t work properly with Ari as it glitches out whenever she has any fear or guilt or basically anything that would be found in a CW drama. As she was hunted by the Praetor, she tried to find some answer on what the Solarix is and why the Praetor was so intent on obtaining it, but she couldn’t find anything.
As the Rangers’ ship arrives at Promethea, the Praetor arrives along with a gigantic fleet of his soldiers. He promises that everyone on Promethea can join him and return home as long as they hand over the Solarix to him. As Andros and the other Rangers prepare to fight, Ari tells them that as the Solarix has protected her, she knows that it can protect them and give them the power to fight…
Ending Thoughts
This issue was mainly focused on Ari and her backstory, so this issue’s quality solely depends on what her story is and how it makes readers connect to her character. And, it kinda works. You feel sympathy for this tragic character that she’s thrust into this big event that she has no knowledge of. In the end, she was just trying to survive like everyone else in the universe. It still felt like a story that felt played out in other comic books before and yet fresh for Power Rangers at the same time. Almost every Power Ranger in history was chosen by someone or something, believing that they could handle the power. Even with characters that became their own Rangers like Ryan from Lightspeed or Ziggy from RPM, they knew exactly what they were getting into. With Ari, she is from a place where no one even knows what a Power Ranger is, so it’s a totally new phenomenon to her.
However, there is one point about her backstory that I have to question: the incident in which she got her powers. First off, from how it was presented, it seemed like the otter (I’m calling him Winston until further notice) was giving out the food for free so Ari and her friends didn’t have to steal it in the first place. Secondly, it looked like Winston caught her as she was falling and then she threw him off. I gotta question how much strength that little girl has and how she managed to stay on the ledge. Then, Winston died from the fall despite the fact that he could’ve easily morphed and taken the impact of the fall. You could maybe argue that he didn’t want to morph and keep the Praetor away and all, but from his perspective, would you honestly think it was a better option to give it to the girl that basically kill him. This might be chalked up to not being conveyed well with the artwork, but this part is honestly one of the most underwhelming and strangest “power transfer” scenes I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t have commented on it, but it’s one of the main reasons this plotline exists…
Besides that, there’s not a lot else to comment on. We don’t have a lot in terms of action, there was not a lot from this alien environment (unlike GGPR’s current arc), and the art is mostly the same quality as last time. MMPR #33 is just a simple look into our newest Ranger’s history and a way to give our Rangers a fighting chance in the next issue.
Random Thoughts from the Morphin’ Grid
- Tanya being called a “lion tamer”. I get what it’s referencing, her first episode, but it still comes off pretty weird.
- Still not over Winston’s death. He has the worst “guardian” death ever. No, seriously. Those other guys had like “Death by Laser” or “Death by Assassin”. What does this guy have? “Death by tiny girl and gravity”
- I don’t know why, but the way that Heckyl said that line in the second panel above made it seem like he was making a reference to Kim and the original Rangers. I might be looking into it a bit too much, but…
- The closest thing we have gotten to Ari in the main show is Orion, the 6th Ranger from Super Megaforce. A guy who just found a morpher out of nowhere and only decided to use it when he felt like he didn’t have any other option.
- In the Blue Senturion and Ninjor story, there are some small things from other seasons in there like Robo Knight’s helmet, the Samurai Red helmet, and Jax, the Rabbit Beast Bot from Beast Morphers. Although, I have to wonder why there are just random MMPR shirts in there. What, did those Putty Rangers rob the local Target?
- By the way, on a totally unrelated note, let’s take a second to talk about the Trade Paperback collections of this series. Two of these collections have exclusive stories, solely for those collections. The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Year 1 and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Year 2. Year 1’s story, while interesting enough, wasn’t worth buying it if you already were keeping up with the series as a whole and was easily skippable. As for Year 2, the collection that released a week or two ago, I do believe that its exclusive story is worth looking at some point. As it does give an origin of a one-off character in the main series and is still pretty cool to see another Ranger team in there.