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Preface
YOU GET A NEW COLOR, YOU GET A NEW COLOR!
EVERYONE GETS A NEW COLOR!
The Cover
It’s decent, shows off all five Rangers in their new outfits, giving a hook for potential readers to look at, while also having them helmetless to be clear as to who’s who. And, unlike the two covers before this, where they all had a colorful alien atmosphere background, this one has a solid grey background to highlight the Rangers and put more emphasis on them.
The Story
Flashback Land goes back to 10,000 years ago, where a thief named Loriyan was apparently hired by Rita to steal the Dragon Coin from Ninjor. Realizing what it was, he tried to take it for himself and sell it to the highest bidder. And, obviously, as what the final page of the last issue showed us, that worked out super well for him.
Zordon finally manages to contact Jason and Trini and tells them that they can teleport them out of there. Leaving the temple, Rita tells Adriyel that she’s not returning with her back to Earth. Suddenly, Adriyel betrays Rita, revealing her plan on using Rita to get the weapon inside the temple and then to fight by her side and to learn from her before she would eventually stab her in the back. As a fight breaks out between Rita and Adriyel, Jason and Trini attack the Breel warriors, along with the other Rangers, who have also switched colors.
“This is the greatest day of my life!”
As the Rangers get used to their new powers and weapons, Adriyel manages to get the upper hand against Rita. The Rangers all form the Power Blaster and fire at Rita and Adriyel, but only Adriyel is destroyed and Rita escapes, cryptically stating that she takes no pleasure in what’s next to come.
Back at Rita’s palace, all the villains and minions hold a celebratory feast with Squatt, Baboo, Goldar, and Finster secretly poisoning Rita’s drink. However, they all back out of their revenge plan as Rita is just about to drink from her cup. And, with another twist, it turns out that the whole revenge plot was just a test created by Baboo to test all of their loyalties.
Worst way to motivate your employees ever.
Meanwhile, with everyone back on Earth, the Rangers’ lives return to normal. Bulk proudly shouts it out to the world that Skull turned down Kimberly. Jason and Trini decide to see if they actually have feelings for each other and seeing what happens. And then, the guy who covered for Jason and Trini in their absence reveals himself to Billy and Zack as…
Don’t worry. It’s just the machine that runs this site. No biggie.
Ending Thoughts
This post “Shattered Grid” arc started off strong and ended just as much the same.
The color swapping took full effect here and it was glorious. Just having the different combination of powers and characters brought a lot of fun and creativity with the action segments. And, it allowed for some of the characters to show off different aspects of their character like Billy having the time of his life with the Power Axe or Trini being awesome and taking charge.
This arc, like the last issue, focuses a lot on the relationships of both our heroes and villains. Jason and Trini starting to form their own relationship, Kim still heartbroken over Matt and using Skull as a tool, Rita’s minions’ committed trust to her master, and even some tidbits here and there about Trini and her mom and Billy and his dad. For an arc that focuses on the romance between the Rangers, it feels balanced with all of the character moments in here so that even fans who don’t care about the romance can still get into the story. In addition, this arc setting up how Rita got the Dragon Power Coin does set up a lot of the importance and impact the Green Ranger will ultimately have. It fills in an unknown but crucial part of the show’s lore while allowing our main villain to have an overarching plot against our heroes.
Although I wasn’t that thrilled by the new art style when this arc started, it still shows a lot of the dedication and time that was placed into it from the illustrations to the colors to the panel layouts. All of these artistic elements make up one of the best-looking comics out right now.
Go Go Power Rangers #16 is just fun. Starting out with a creative action-filled sequence and then having the rest of the issue focusing on moments for practically every character, both heroes and villains, and creating intrigue for this retro arc we’re heading towards.
Random Thoughts from the Morphin’ Grid
- Don’t even argue, but Zack looked good in pink.
- Ok, that moment when Billy is holding the Power Axe, he looks kawaii.
- “You got any idea where these arrows appear from?” “I stopped asking a long time ago” If you have to convince people to read this issue, this is the panel you use.
- I didn’t mind Adriyel that much, but I will say that her screaming “AWWWWW” when she died didn’t exactly put points in her favor.
- I don’t know whether it was stupid or not that Rita drank from her cup. We don’t actually know if it was poison and what exactly was the guarantee that it wasn’t.
- I would have paid to see a Zord battle with these swapped colors. I also would have paid for that whole mind reading thing to have one of the Rangers secretly humming the theme song and everyone else hearing it and just jamming out during the fight
- Also, wouldn’t it have been amazing to learn if Alpha 1, during this time, was also updating Jason and Trini’s social media accounts in the meantime?
- Judging by the different clothes the Rangers wear during this arc, this at least took place over two days (or at the very least one night with Kim and Skull’s date). Really wondering how the other Rangers or Alpha 1 covered for Jason and Trini especially when Jason probably was the one who helped his dad with his daily medication.