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Preface
Oh, hey, Drakkon’s here… You all like Drakkon, right?
Now, even though Drakkon hasn’t been interesting in a while, I do welcome him back. We’re celebrating the 30th anniversary and like it or not, Drakkon was a part of the beginning of this long-running comic universe. It’s fitting to bring him back as well as the Coinless who we also haven’t seen in a while since the Ranger Slayer mini-series came out.
And, hey, Kiya’s back. We haven’t seen her in over 60 issues! Now that she’s out, she’s gotta provide something interesting, right?
Which brings us to today’s comic that covers a new adventure for both of them. What could happen?
The Cover
It’s a bit of a generic shot showing the faces of all of our ‘heroes’ plus Dark Specter. However, it does become more dynamic from the folds of Drakkon’s cape serving as dividers for each of the human faces. Now, that is cool.
The Story
So, following the events of MMPR #109, Drakkon and Kiya arrive in his home dimension, but no one is rolling out the red carpet for their previous emperor. If fact, there’s no one at all. Except for a bunch of zombie lava monsters courtesy of Dark Specter. The two of them fend the minions off until they are rescued by the seemingly last survivors of the human race: Anti-Kim and Trini. (Also, Scorpina. But, that’s a weird area whether she’s human or not.)
The girls take Drakkon and Kiya captive and to an underground bunker underneath Drakkon’s old fortress that also houses Bulk and Finster-5. Before they all can rightfully kill Drakkon, he has a proposal for them: to make them all Rangers. Anti-Tommy wants Finster-5 to make a Diffuser, a device capable of splitting a Ranger’s powers between each other from a single source and giving the power to those who remain.
As Anti-Kim and the others reluctantly agree to the plan, Bulk is telling the whole story… to Skull. Or more specifically, a monster-ifed Skull. Turns out all of the lava minions were all previously humans. And, that’s why I haven’t mentioned Zack yet. He’s one of them now too. A small trace of him is still able to communicate with only words at a time.
Back at the Command Bunker, Finster-5 tries to use Drakkon’s White Tiger coin to power the Diffuser, but due to the unique properties of that energy, it doesn’t work. Finster-5 offers the idea of using Drakkon’s Green Dragon coin, but he’s a crybaby and says “Tommy Doesn’t Share!” Trini reluctantly offers up Billy’s old Triceratops coin, but even that doesn’t work.
And, with no other options, all of them head to the top of Drakkon’s old fortress where the rest of the Power Coins are located (except for Finster-5). They try to stealth their way up, but Kiya thinks this is going too easy and causes a kerfuffle. Eventually, they get to… Jason’s place.
Yep, Jason’s been staying up there the whole time. And, he’s been keeping the other Power Coins as well. And, when the others tell him their plan, he doesn’t want to be a part of it at all.
And so, Bulk, Kiya, Scorpina, Trini, Kim, and Anti-Tommy all morph into action…
The Drakkon Rangers all fight their way down to street level where they try to enter the bunker again. However, the Skull from Hell that Bulk had been keeping breaks out of his restraints and kills (?) Finster-5 to let the hordes of monsters inside. Kim manages to get everyone inside a deeper part of the bunker but gets trapped on the other side.
With Anti-Kim presumably dead, Anti-Tommy disregards everyone’s grief and declares that they’re taking the fight to Dark Specter.
Ending Thoughts
Whoever loves Drakkon with a passion, I hope you enjoyed this. Because I found it passable.
Its premise of our evil dictator returning to his home world and having to recruit the world’s last hope to help him from the small selection of people who hate his guts is a pretty unique concept. You can have a lot of fun writing those interactions. And, the writer does justify why something like this is needed seeing all of the destruction and the monsters ready to attack with our favorite lava demon able to see it all. It’s an excellent depiction of an apocalyptic scenario.
The thing is… this is not really a story about that. This is a story about establishing essentially these 6 Rangers as this new team of Rangers. And, it’s… not what I expected from each of them. Sure, they all receive an equal amount of focus which is surprising, to say the least. From the premise, I would have thought that the focus would have been really on Drakkon with everyone else being side characters. Even though the pacing is a bit slow, I was surprised to see the number of characters that had a part in this small story.
Let’s get through them all right now.
Finster-5, I thought, would have had more of a reaction to seeing his master come back, but it was just like, “Oh. He’s back. Time to praise his feet.” Kiya only wants to kill Drakkon, nothing else really. Scorpina has a slight shipping moment in the beginning, but then quickly fell into the background. Trini had a moment remembering Billy. Anti-Kim had even more trauma added to her life, trying to follow Zack’s words and make it count (and play it straight). Anti-Tommy is pettier and more egotistical than ever, all of his intimidation from his first appearances are now completely gone. Jason doesn’t get much screen time, but when he was there, it did paint a picture on just how messed up he still is. Bulk didn’t have much either, but his enthusiasm and kindness shines in every scene he was in. I’m glad that he finally got a cool Ranger form that wasn’t just a joke about his weight.
However, for a one-shot that is dependent on readers’ knowledge of the previous titles from the franchise, this story can, at times, raise questions in regard to the lore that I don’t believe will ever be addressed. Mainly in regard to the mechanics of how the powers work. I’ll list out all of the questions in the “Random Thoughts” section, but to put it simply, it doesn’t work when you really think about it. There are also questions about some of the characters like how Jason managed to return to Angel Grove after leaving (especially with lava-fied zombies running around) or how that Andros cliffhanger from Drakkon New Dawn is supposed to factor in. The story makes the answers to these questions a bit vague as it tries to advance the plot along. And, most likely, since we won’t need to come back to this world for the arc this is setting up for the main series, we might never get more about it.
Speaking of the Ranger forms, after much consideration… I do like them. They’re all variations of the Ranger Slayer’s suit, but there are differences. Their helmets and the team’s suits itself being less uniform for each user due to the shattering of the coins is telling about the designs. All of them have capes, which I’m not opposed to because capes are awesome. Drakkon’s suit being the only one where it’s a full color makes sense since he’s already a complete Ranger. This is just a different mode to him (although it does make the suit seem ‘emptier’ compared to the others.) The cracked diamond in the chest is the only weak point of the suit. Although the diamond matches with the concept of the powers being shattered, I would prefer a design that doesn’t look like I just drew over the pages with Paint on my computer.
The artwork shows off how cool the suits are with their bright colors and sharp lines. It works best with the scenes of this desolate wasteland, the ruins, the overgrowth. It actually makes this the most colorful depiction of this universe, which is ironic since the premise for this story is the bleakest this world has ever been a part of. However, as much as I can praise the artstyle, there are times when for some reason, the motion and actions between the panels aren’t conveyed well. Especially during the final fight scene. It bounces around between perspectives too much and can leave readers a bit confused about what it’s trying to convey.
Power Rangers Unlimited: The Coinless muddies down some of the details and the artwork for this return to the Coinless universe, but ultimately brings a new team of heroes together in preparation for their return to the main MMPR series.
Random Thoughts from the Morphin’ Grid
- So, as of now, this is at the bottom for me in terms of Power Rangers Unlimited one-shots. Heir to Darkness is #1, followed by Edge of Darkness, the Death Ranger, Countdown to Ruin, and now this issue.
- I’m still a little confused about what Dark Specter’s plan here is. Why he’s wasting this universe instead of already taking care of the main universe? (Oh, right. Because Drakkon was sad that someone beat him and told him it was all his.)
- Why couldn’t just one of them go up and get Jason to hand over the coins instead of the entire team going? Makes more sense for stealth.
- Can a Ranger suit really not take on a normal shotgun? You’d think there would be more protection. Sure he’s not bleeding, but it was enough to keep him disoriented…
- So, ok, again, it’s an interesting detail that Jason has a bit of claustrophobia from his time as Drakkon’s prisoner. That’s something that I wouldn’t have thought of. I guess the only reason Jason chose the top floor in that tiny room was because it had a window, unlike the bunker. Even though the bunker is much larger in size…
- The thing about Kim’s ‘sacrifice’ is that 1.) If she really is dead now and it’s not a fake-out, this is a pretty awful way for her to die. Keeping safe the man that took control of her and ruined her friends and entire life. I know he’s the best hope of saving the world, but it just feels so wrong.
- And 2.) The door that Kim had to keep sealed was just an escape trunk. One that you would just have to turn the handle to open it. Sure, in zombie movies, they wouldn’t be able to do this because they’re mindless beings that can’t think of something like that. But, it’s clear that these monsters are not that because one of them was smart enough to say the words “Come In” while pressing the button to open the door. Dark Specter’s monsters could easily open the hatch and climb down, easily overwhelming the Rangers with sheer numbers.
- Ok, here are the questions regarding how the Power Coins work here. Ready and go…
- How does Drakkon have a Green Dragon and a White Tiger coin when they should have fused together when the powers were created originally? Remember the Empyreals gave Drakkon back his powers so even if for some reason, they were made separately, why would they make the White coin unique and the Green coin the same?
- All five coins were shattered. So, how was Kim able to morph into Ranger Slayer with her coin but Trini didn’t try using hers?
- Again, the coins were shattered. How were they able to work in the diffuser since their energy was drained from the last time they were used?
- Wouldn’t it have been easier to just create the Morphers and then use the Power Coins? Since the whole point of the diffusers is to spread out the powers between an entire army of people and here, they had just enough coins to give to the same amount of people so this feels a bit redundant.
- Why do the suits look so different when we’ve seen people morph with shattered coins before in the show like in Always a Chance from PRIS?
- What was the point of Drakkon being a part of this transformation? He still has Ranger powers. Same question for Kim.
- Why was Jason in charge of keeping the other Power Coins? How did he have the Green Dragon coin when Drakkon had it in his ‘possession’?
