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Preface
We honestly should’ve seen this coming.
Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Two franchises that dominated 90s culture for children’s’ TV shows and toys and that still continue to this day, whether it’s in new adaptions on Nickelodeon or comic book series. It’s no wonder why there’s an appeal in the idea of a team-up between the two franchises, especially since they already had a crossover before in 1997. That first crossover is still known as one of the most “interesting” television crossovers to this day.
And, also, it couldn’t hurt for Power Rangers to have more crossovers. Despite the franchise having a long 25+ years, there aren’t a lot of crossovers it has done. Besides the aforementioned Turtles crossover, Power Rangers has only crossed over with the Justice League (which you probably already know how I feel about that) and the Street Fighter characters. Meanwhile, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had so many crossovers that I know for a fact you haven’t heard of some of these before. Did you know they were in the Archie comics? Or the Ghostbusters comics? Or freakin’ Garfield’s comics? I don’t even want to mention how many times they went to the DC universe, man. (I’m talking comics AND an animated movie AND a video game)
So, anyway, now the question is…is this worth checking out? Well, let’s take a look at the beginning of this crossover…
The Cover
It’s a great standard yet dynamic team-up cover. All of our heroes in action poses, rushing to the cover. The New York background is bright and colorful, matches the tone with something (hopefully) fun and energetic. Not to mention the New York background is something we don’t get to see at all in Power Rangers so it’s refreshing to see here.
The Story
In Angel Grove, the main five Power Rangers are taking care of business as usual in the form of one of Rita Repulsa’s monsters. That’s right, five Rangers. Tommy has been out of town for three weeks, doing whatever it is Tommys do. Meanwhile, in New York City, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are taking care of some of the Foot Clan’s soldiers. During the fight, Raphael takes off the mask of one particular ninja, revealing him to actually be Tommy Oliver.
After Tommy and the Foot Clan ninjas safely get away, Karai, a high ranking member of the Foot Clan, and her “master” are so impressed by Tommy’s skills that they send him on a solo mission to steal an energy cell from a major tech company. Just as he retrieves the energy cell, he’s confronted by the Turtles and morphs into the Green Ranger. His morphed energy signature alerts Alpha and the Rangers teleport to his location. Thinking that the Turtles are Finster’s creations, a fight erupts between the two teams.
Kim breaks off from the fight long enough to ask Tommy for an explanation of what’s happening. Tommy says he needs them to trust him and retreats from the fight with the energy cell. On a nearby rooftop, both Karai and Shredder observe the situation and Shredder is ok with all of this because he has his own plans brewing.
Wait, so your big plan involves controlling Tommy? Oh, how original!
Ending Thoughts
Excellent start to the crossover.
There’s enough material from both teams on their own that anyone unfamiliar with either team gets an idea of who they are and what their personalities are like. And, then, when they get to interact with each other, the dialogue is a lot of fun with some cute nudges to the “weird” parts of Power Rangers. I sincerely hope there are more lines like that for the Turtles. Also, the concept of Tommy as one of the people recruited to be part of the Foot Clan works for both series. It emphasizes Tommy’s own struggles from his comic series while at the same time, for a second, it shows the amount of reach that the Foot Clan has, that they possibly have turned one of Earth’s defenders to their side.
The artwork for this series is done by Simone di Meo, with the same angular style he did in Beyond the Grid, and Walter Baiamonte, who has done the coloring for both Shattered Grid and Beyond the Grid. And, the artwork here is just as excellent as it was there. It amazed me how much I love how the Turtles are designed here, big and bulky but with strength. It contrasts perfectly with the Rangers who are always shown as small but agile. Its only part of what made the action sequences between them so interesting. The action sequences themselves have so much energy and motion that every character’s movements feel so fluid and alive.
We don’t know what’s going to happen next in this crossover, but one thing’s for sure. MMPR / TMNT #1 is certified turtlefied!
Random Thoughts from the Morphin’ Grid
- One thing I didn’t mention in the preface was that Power Rangers also had a planned crossover with Image Comics Youngblood at one point, but it was canceled. I’ve read Youngblood and I know it probably wouldn’t have been good, but I still would’ve read it.
- I also feel I should mention that unlike the Justice League crossover, where I was keeping track of what was happening in the current Justice League comics and I had extensive knowledge of what the DC universe has, I don’t have that much knowledge on what’s happening with the TMNT series. I really only know the basic stuff of TMNT. I’ve seen a few random episodes of some of the animated series (I know for a fact, I’ve seen the first episode of the newest series), and the first live-action movie and the Michael Bay movies. Also, I do know of the new female turtle that appeared in the comic series a couple of months back, but she’s not in this team-up so it’s not worth mentioning. So, it is something for this series to see if I’m interested not just in the Power Rangers parts, but the TMNT parts as well.
- Something that I reflected on with the last team-up comic I reviewed, the Justice League crossover, is that I never mentioned who wrote the book. It was Tom Taylor, a main writer for DC Comics. Now, even though I thought the Justice League team-up wasn’t that strong, I still love some of his other works (DCeased and Injustice to name a few). For that series, I thought his interpretations of the Power Rangers were decent. It’s going to be an interesting thing for this team-up because it’s Ryan Parrott AKA the main writer for the MMPR series. We know he can handle the Power Rangers, but now the question is… how does he get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
- Tommy, really? Is this where you go to avoid the fights in MMPR Season 1?
- Tommy, you didn’t have to go this far to get a ninja suit. You only have to wait two more seasons!
- Also, something about the art, every night scene in New York looks like there’s a sunset all of the time without the sun part (or maybe they’re all somehow in space) Just personally, I think orange would be a more appropriate color, especially with the unique setting of New York lights for Power Rangers. Just saying.