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Preface
This is a review for MMPR #41 AKA Power Rangers: Far From Home.
The Cover
It looks good, showing off the new Omega Rangers’ suits, bathed in glorious white light.
The Story
While Dayne is at the Moon Palace looking at how the Rangers battle and eating his weight in jelly-filled donuts, Billy and Kim are being fed with something else – bald-faced lies. After finishing the video call from the last issue, Kim starts to feel like Jason, Zack, and Trini are intentionally trying to avoid her and the others. The three teenagers with attitude hate lying to their friends but continue on their new mission.
Now, what exactly are they doing?
All three of them are living on an alien planet in the middle of nowhere, protecting a small alien safe haven named, um, Safehaven. Using the powers of the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, the three of them, plus their new and powerful alien friend named Kiya, become a new team of Rangers – the Omega Rangers.
Mighty Morphin’ Omega Rangers (MMOR) or Power Rangers Omega (PRO)?
After the events of Shattered Grid, more and more beings with a connection to the Morphin’ Grid without needing to morph have started popping up all throughout the universe. With the guidance of the Blue Emissary and a new robotic technological assistant named Xi, the four Omega Rangers travel the universe and find these beings. If they’re not a threat, then they are taken to Safehaven and are shown how to use their powers properly. If they are a threat, then the Omega Rangers fight them and contain them in objects similar to Rita’s space dumpster.
After one particular battle, Kiya notices that the being they contained, a generic strong guy calling himself Garrison Vox, is a lot more powerful than what the Omega Rangers have faced before, as powerful as she is. She asks the Blue Emissary if they can save him like how the Rangers saved her. The Blue Emissary promises they’ll try, but access to the Morphin’ Grid only made his twisted nature even worse and that, unfortunately, sometimes they have to do something evil to do the right thing. As he’s speaking, Xi puts Vox’s dumpster in storage, revealing how many more dumpsters they’re prepared to use…
Oh my god… it’s a pottery sale! Ooh, I’ll take that one and that one…!
Ending Thoughts
This is so much better than a peace conference.
It’s a solid introduction into our new Omega Ranger team. We’re given enough to understand Jason, Trini, and Zack’s current mission, their feelings about lying to their friends, their new teammates, and their new powers. And, there is still enough room for possible issues in Go Go Power Rangers to answer some of the backstories we don’t have here like where did the Omega Ranger powers come from or how Jason, Zack, and Trini met Xi and Kiya. A lot of the concepts introduced here feel both fresh and familiar and I’m excited to see how they are fleshed out.
Even though this issue is mainly focused on Jason, Zack, and Trini’s wacky adventures in space, it still manages to give enough focus to the main plot. Dayne judging the Rangers’ battle strategies while at the same time chugging down on food is a charming scene, hilariously showing more of his personality and him preparing to meet the Rangers. Then, the final panel of him staring directly at the White Ranger is. Even though most of their dialogue was just hearing Jason, Zack, and Trini’s big fat lies, we do get a sense of how Billy and Kim are dealing with the situation, how they’re trying to be supportive of their three friends but secretly feel ignored and unwanted by them.
Art-wise, we get a lot of fun and different alien designs, for its characters and everything else like the Rangers’ spaceship and the architecture. For example, Xi’s design fits in with the overall village theme of Safehaven but still has his own unique details like his own feet are just pointed designs. There are so many unique designs here it’s hard not to be interested in this world. All of the sequences with the Omega Rangers morphed were spectacular, starting with the morphing sequence and ending with a fight sequence with a beautiful raining atmosphere. (Rain in Power Rangers is also still a rare thing so this definitely adds another point for me)
MMPR #41 is a solid start not just to the Omega Ranger team, but to the entire concept of Necessary Evil.
Random Thoughts from the Morphin’ Grid
- I honestly had no idea what to write for the preface, but then I saw Far from Home a couple of nights ago and remembered that they made a Power Rangers reference (and a Voltron one, too.) Figured it’d be fitting.
- I didn’t know how to pronounce Kiya’s name, either Ke-yah or Kai-yah, but then I saw a comment that’s it basically just Tommy’s fighting grunt so that’s how I’m going to pronounce that from now on. (Maybe, I’ll just make it all caps for no reason now)
- I want a Jellyfly right now. Right. Now.
- I also don’t know how to pronounce Xi’s name either, but until proven otherwise, I’ll pronounce like the word “sigh” because he honestly doesn’t give two craps about all of this.
- I’m guaranteeing that in Go Go Power Rangers, there’s going to be a scene of the Blue Emissary eating a cupcake then hopefully doing that scene from Thor: “ANOTHER!”
- The Blue Emissary, how he acts as the team’s mentor, is genius. Having him be this guy who’s supposed to be somewhat wise but jumbled and then having these visions of the future, hinting what’s coming for possibly both series.
- The Omega Ranger Morphers are a concept I like. Just them slamming their fists to the ground is a pretty cool transformation
- You bring any comedic relief to that vault of vases, everyone’s going to be released in less than a minute.
- One last thing. That “Unlocked” variant I mentioned the last review? The one with the Emissaries on it? Yeah, that is actually part of a short story that will be on 11 variant covers that’s supposed to payoff in a big way for Necessary Evil. I am not entirely confident about whether or not this story will be collected in paperback (because like I said, this is a rare concept to see). At the very least, make sure to pay attention to the comic previews when all of these issues roll out or try and look for those variants in stores.