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Preface
A prelude to a Ranger Slayer mini-series? *shrugs* Sure, why not?
I mean, her character has had some interesting moments, she’s got a decent number of appearances in the comics, she’s known to casual fans of Power Rangers through both Legacy Wars and Battle for the Grid, and she’s got her own Lightning Collection figure. If Drakkon can get more focus through the comics, why not her?
At the very least, it can’t be as uneventful as that Pink Ranger mini-series.
The Cover
It’s the generic movie-type poster, but at least, it gives a variety of elements for all of the characters, including Ranger Slayer. Plus, I appreciate the composition of having the bright pink color in the center with all other elements muted so it gives more attention to Ranger Slayer.
The Story
Immediately after returning to her home dimension through the Master Arch in MMPR #50, Anti-Kim discovers a nearby trailer park being guarded by a group of Sentries. Suddenly, the Sentries are attacked from out of nowhere by lifeless Tyrannosaurus Sentries. Anti-Kim steps in and drives them off, with one of the lifeless Sentries turning into a spirit and leaving to inform his master.
Once the fight is over, Anti-Kim finds the Coinless to answer for her mistakes as Drakkon’s puppet. Although Trini and Zack are wary about her leading them into a possible trap, Bulk is the one that points out that they’re going to need her help now. It’s been six months since the events of Shattered Grid in Drakkon’s universe, and somehow, ghosts are coming from the Command Center and possessing old Sentry bodies, attacking both the Coinless and Drakkon’s previous forces, now being run by Scorpina.
While Anti-Kim and Bulk pilot the Gravezord and attack the Command Center head-on, Trini and Zack sneak into the Command Center, where they discover the person commanding all of these spirits: Rita Repulsa. Now reborn. She uses her magic to make an undead giant-sized Goldar, which critically destroys the Gravezord and forces the Coinless to retreat.
At their headquarters, Zack confronts Trini about a statement that Rita said: that she was the one to bring back Rita. Trini tearfully admits that after Shattered Grid happened, every evil monster tried to go after Drakkon’s spot, and the Coinless were caught in the middle of it. Remembering Zordon’s words about how there was some good in Rita, Trini tracked down one of Rita’s ancient spells and brought her back to deal with everything.
Realizing they’re gonna need help to defeat Rita, Anti-Kim goes to confront Scorpina and says that they need to work together to defeat Rita. Scorpina tries to have the remaining Sentries kill Anti-Kim, but they decide to follow Anti-Kim instead.
Soon enough, all of the Coinless and Sentries and Putties (and even a giant cyborg Lord Zedd) fight against Rita’s undead army, with Trini defeating Rita by attacking her staff and trapping her inside. After the battle is over, both the Coinless and Scorpina argue about what’s the next course of action. However, Bulk nominates Anti-Kim to lead Drakkon’s army since most of the Sentries will follow her command. And so, in the end, the world has a new ruler in charge…
Ending Thoughts
Alright, fine, sure, whatever…
There are not that many character moments here, especially from our main title character. Anti-Kim does stuff, but not a ton of it shows any real growth or character development from her previous appearances. She mostly fades in the background. In fact, she doesn’t have one single piece of dialogue with the main villain. Besides Bulk’s full trust in Anti-Kim, the only real character moments come from Trini and her not-so-great decision to bring back Rita. I mean, I get her reasoning, but at the same time, the world was filled with evil forces constantly fighting their way to gain control, why in the world would you bring another one into the mix?
But, I will give credit for this. As a story, the premise for this is wild. Think about it. A resistance group teams up with a remnant of the evil dictatorship’s army to destroy an army of the undead and ghosts. And, while I’m still a little iffy on it, the concept of Anti-Kim becoming the new Drakkon works thematically and does create a lot of interesting storylines.
Dan Mora continues his amazing work with Power Rangers for this story with so many details and expressions. The large action set pieces have so much fluid motion, it’s easy to keep track of a lot in this gigantic fight. And, the comic does a good job of having a brighter color palette while keeping the darker tone of Drakkon’s universe.
Overall, on its own, Ranger Slayer #1 is not the Ranger Slayer-focused story you were looking for, but it’s a surprisingly decent self-contained story with tons of actions and a fun moment every now and again. We’ll see how this all plays out in Drakkon: New Dawn.
Random Thoughts From the Morphin’ Grid
- Immediate thought to the preview of this issue: “ZOMBIES?! ARE WE DOING ZOMBIES NOW?!”
- So, Scorpina has a new look here. But, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t care about Scorpina. I don’t care at all.
- Also, Skull, Zack, and Finster-5 are all alive! It seems like this was a part of the Rangers restoring reality that brought them back so if you’re confused, basically, it seems like from Go Go #8, after the Ranger Slayer left to find Anti-Tommy, both she and Anti-Tommy never came back so things went on as usual.
- Bulk piloting the Gravezord. Like I said, one fun character moment every now and again. In fact, every moment with Bulk in this was perfect.
- Rita being brought back from the dead, betraying a Ranger, unleashing her giant-sized Goldar… you can’t tell me this isn’t just the 2017 movie.
- So… was that conjuring spell just for Rita or could it have been used for anyone else? Like Zordon and Jason to get advice from or Billy and Ninjor to create new Morphers from? Or maybe it would’ve been more interesting if the ghosts Rita brought back were monstrous versions of Kim’s old allies like Jason or Matt? Just saying…
- Also, Adam was apparently one of Drakkon’s sentries this whole time… Yeah, I would love to know more about that.
- Also, since we now know about Adam and Aisha…, where the heck is Rocky?!
- So, Kim’s new outfit. (I had to look on the Spoiler variant cover to get a better understanding of the outfit since her just sitting on the throne doesn’t show much.) It looks fine in some areas. I’m glad that they redesigned the suit itself, instead of just giving her armor. I think the gold on her arms look good and I do like that the gold shield looks more like a crown than anything else. I do kind of wish that the gold on her hips connected to make a belt of some kind. Also, I understand the gold on her helmet is to make her look more like Drakkon, but I wish she got her own unique design.
