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Preface
Yale’s Diary, Chapter 17:
“I’m jellyfly-fishing. Go bother someone else.”
The Cover
Great group shot of our Omega Rangers especially with their helmets forming mid-morph. Really love the lighting of their Morphers slammed to the ground.
The Story
On Safehaven, all of our Rangers are doing housekeeping.
Jason has been searching for any signal of Drakkon since he got back. However, he’s constantly being interrupted by Yale hunting a jelly fly. Jason berates Yale on focusing on his time on one jelly fly when there are so many others out there. As a large swarm of jellyflies passes by, Jason realizes this was all a metaphor.
Trini manages to reboot Xi’s body, but it doesn’t have any of its previous memories or personality. Trini attempts to find the problem to it, but it turns out that this new Xi is blocking the transfer of its long-term memories. Xi doesn’t want to experience the memories of its destruction before and the memories of how it failed to save countless lives and planets. Xi still plans on helping the Omega Rangers but states that if Trini doesn’t respect his decision, then he should be deactivated.
Arkon tells Zack about the theft of Eternity Point’s armory with a Morphin Master spear now missing. Zack finds and captures the thief in town, Kevor Vrin, a young Hartunian that lost his parents in the Empyreals’ attack. When Kevor takes Zack and Arkon back to his place to give them the staff, he attacks them with it, telling them that as soon as the Omegas are destroyed, everyone in Safehaven will turn on each other. Arkon disarms him and tells him that he can’t give her back his world, but he can give him a home and a purpose.
Later, all 3 Rangers meet up and decide that they need to do more. They can no longer be on defense. And, so, the Rangers send a message to other planets, telling them that they are the Omega Rangers and they are here to help. One group is very excited to hear this and traces the signal back to Safehaven.
Ending Thoughts
Let’s split this up into sections.
Jason’s story was short and to the point. It delivered the lesson to Jason about focusing on the bigger picture in a simple and not over the top way. Plus, it integrated Yale naturally into the story and it did give us a cool visual of the jellyflies in the sky with the immediate juxtaposition of Jason being “I’m an idiot”.
Trini’s story wasn’t actually Trini’s story. More so, she was just playing tech support until Xi revealed his new status. And, I’m definitely interested in seeing how long will this new Xi be present. The concept of a robot wanting to not obtain all of his previous memories is super interesting in any concept of science fiction. This concept gives this new Xi some much-needed character growth and I am all for it.
Zack’s story is the weakest out of the three. While the idea of Arkon taking care of a child from the race of people that slaughtered his kind is a cool one, both Kevor and the situation around him are not that interesting. Part of it is because we don’t know what kind of economy Safehaven has in order to justify Kevor stealing all of that stuff. Oh, sure, stealing the staff because he was scared makes sense. But, attempting to display Kevor as this long-term thief leaves more questions than answers. And there’s also the issue of how Zack is presented here. A lot of his dialogue, like saying that he won’t feel sorry if a small thief gets paralyzed from jumping, feels out of character and more mean-spirited than it should have been. I know that Zack’s personality is to make jokes, but here’s the thing. Jokes are supposed to be funny.
Power Rangers #17 is a bit of a mixed bag, setting up some fascinating concepts for the future while leaving more to be desired in the present.
Random Thoughts from the Morphin’ Grid
- We’re getting rid of the connecting thunderbolts on the covers so final score is 8 to 8. I’m really surprised we got a tie.
- For now, goodbye Zedd. Maybe we’ll see you again on March 3rd… because that’s when the new season of Dino Fury premieres! Mark your calendars! Forget everything else tha
- I’m gonna be honest. I thought Kevor was a girl the whole time when I was reading the issue and then I looked back while writing this and was like “…Oh.” You seriously don’t know how many times I had to go back after I typed up “her” or “she”.
- Though, Zack did bring up a good point. Safehaven is a commune. What is the point of trying to steal fruit? Or is there a currency or bartering system we are not familiar with?
- The situation with Kevor also brings up something odd. Did the Omega Rangers not tell anyone when they got back “Hey, the beings that committed mass genocide on your planets are gone now”?
- I don’t even want to know who brought an MMPR Red helmet to Safehaven. How is that even possible?
- So, there was a guy in a hood watching the Omega Rangers’ broadcast. I thought it was Drakkon at first and thought “When did Drakkon get so hot?” And then I found out who it was and now I have mixed feelings.
