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Preface
Guess who’s back!
All you have to do to figure that out is look on the cover!
In all honesty, it’s fine. It’s not like they’ll spoil any other possible characters coming back – *MMPR Vol. 13’s cover is shown* – Dang it!
The Cover
Gee! This could be anybody…!
In short, even though it’s a spoiler for the story, the image of the Ranger Slayer holding up her weapon works as a triumphant return for the character.
The Story
On Safehaven, Dayne shows Kiya and Garrison the underground network of tunnels he found earlier that leads to a gateway of sorts into the Morphin’ Grid (later referenced by Xi as the Master Arch). At the Command Center, everyone’s worried about the radio silence from Zack, Trini, Rocky, Adam, and Aisha so Billy goes to Promethea and informs Grace of the situation where she contacts a friend of hers to check the situation out.
Meanwhile, Jason and Tommy have a “friendly” sparring session with each other, where Tommy airs out his anger with Jason and Jason attempts to make him understand that he literally had no choice in the matter. Once that ends, Jason tells Zordon and the others that he’s going back to Safehaven to protect the civilians there, even if it means sacrificing his life.
In space, the Rangers attempt to play hide and seek with Cavotus using their jetting ability, but Cavotus catches on to their plan. Right before Cavotus tries to kill Adam, the Ranger Slayer arrives in the Gravezord and blasts a thankful Cavotus into dust.
Inside the Gravezord, while Zack comforts Adam on his near-death experience, Trini explains the situation to Anti-Kim. Anti-Kim briefly mentions that she knows a device that can absorb Morphin’ Grid energy, but it’s in another universe (referencing the ‘Beyond the Grid’ arc and the Solarix).
Xi gets an idea to go back to Safehaven to the Master Arch where they will be able to summon the Solarix to them. However, it may be too late as Kiya has already freed every ‘inmate’ from the cells and is planning to march them straight through the Master Arch.
Ending Thoughts
Ranger Slayer’s back, jetting ability (that was only used like twice in the TV show) is back, Beyond the Grid is actually relevant again – What is going on?!
But, in all seriousness, this is a great issue. We finally get payoff for a lot of the story elements that have been building over these past issues. The Jason vs. Tommy fight is exactly what we needed with them trying their best to keep things civil, only speaking their minds once they’ve delivered some hits to each other.
Anti-Kim being here along with confirmation that she remembers the events of Beyond the Grid does two main contributions for the series. First, it establishes that Beyond the Grid, despite being an arc with multiple problems and ‘casuals’ dropped reading it after its first issue, is important for the whole series and encourages people to return to it to fully understand how it contributes to this arc. Secondly, and most importantly, for all of the characters that know about Shattered Grid, she’s the only one now who can tell the MMPR team exactly why the Omega Ranger team had to do what they did.
And, I feel it’s worth mentioning, but the villains made more of an impact than previous issues. Although Kiya still needs more to her evil character, it’s interesting to finally see what her big plan is and how this leads to more lore for the Morphin’ Grid. And, I forgot to mention it last issue, but Dayne being the one to find the Master Arch shows off his cunning and gives him justification to be here for this huge event, even though he’s not empowered. Cavotus’s fight and dialogue with all of the Rangers are actually the most we have gotten for his character, that all he wants is to meet his end. So, his death by the Gravezord feels satisfying and shows off again that he’s not really a villain in this, but a victim.
MMPR #48 features so many different elements like the Ranger Slayer’s return and the Jason vs. Tommy fight we have been waiting for and drives them all forward to Safehaven, where the final battle and the fate of the Morphin’ Grid lies in the balance.
Random Thoughts from the Morphin’ Grid
- The Grace / Billy scene does kinda hint at what the villains are trying to find back in Go Go Power Rangers.
- It was only for a second, but in the training room, Jason was fighting an ice cream monster… why was that only for a second?
- Why does the Peace Conference logo look so much like Captain Planet’s logo?
- The explanation for Anti-Kim being in space is that she was doing recon for Promethea. Recon for what? (A possible explanation is that she’s part of the group that’s talking about traveling to another world like originally how Terra Venture was built to do)
- With Beyond the Grid, what I’m assuming happened is that when back when all of Promethea went into that bright white light, it placed all of them back in their respective places and time periods. But, this raises questions. Does everyone who was on Promethea remember the events of Beyond the Grid or is it just Anti-Kim because she doesn’t have her own place in this universe? (And, not to mention, that for Heckyl and the other Dino Charge Rangers, if they are back in their timeline, how were they placed back in their own universe when Anti-Kim wasn’t?)