Preface
In this issue, Sage and her friends take a field trip to the one and only Flashback Land! WOO!
The Cover
On top, we got the students looking like they were trying to look under the bed for monsters. On the bottom, we see a morphed Sage reaching for her father’s hand. This easily shows the overall mood of the story and its plot points.
The Story
So, Sage, Lindy, and Mathis all land back on Sage’s home moon where they run into Tula who has already explained the situation to Rhianth. Sage runs home, crying into her dad’s arms, but at the same time, demanding to know what actually happened.
Here’s the story.
When Rhianth was a Ranger Academy student, he made a best friend named Zilan. And, everything was going great until Dark Specter possessed a Junior Green Ranger and as a result, killed them. The school became entirely paranoid after that, isolating itself, as its students began to doubt each other. And, it got worse. Two flight engineers were poisoned with their baby daughter was orphaned as a result. And, then, a shuttle exploded, killing an entire Ranger team in an instant. As it turns out, Dark Specter possessed the baby and used her body to sabotage the shuttle’s engine…
Zilan didn’t want to lose the baby, since it reminded him of his own siblings, so he constructed a device to draw Dark Specter out from the baby’s body. He secretly took the baby to the Green Campus and turned on the device. Dark Specter left the baby’s body and started to possess Zilan instead. Rhianth had followed him, wanting to help. However, in the end, Rhianth killed Zilan to stop him from being fully corrupted, protecting the baby.
And, that baby was Sage.
Sage naturally doesn’t take this story well, being angry with Rhianth for keeping it from her. She ends up running into the woods, blaming herself for the death of Tula’s sister. Tula doesn’t blame her at all. Instead, she gives her a shoulder to cry on.
As Mathis tells the two of them that Ranger Academy is sending out a very weird signal, Lindy argues with Rhianth, wanting the device that Zilan made, which he reluctantly agrees to. Later on, Sage and Rhianth have a private conversation where she reveals that she’s a Green Ranger now. Rhianth tells her that Green Ranger powers are not necessarily evil, just Dark Specter trying to manipulate people’s emotions into sowing conflict. But, then, she tells him about her first time morphing, how she believes the voice that was speaking to her then was Zilan’s. Seeing that Zilan is showing them the way, Rhianth supports her decision to return to Ranger Academy and help her friends.
And, now with all of that said and done, Lindy manages to fix Zilan’s device…
Ending Thoughts
So… yeah, this mystery sucks.
The core underlying concept of this whole story, of Dark Specter possessing people, in theory, could have been a good concept, but it’s so underwhelming in its execution.
“Dark Specter is a demon that possesses people. Oh, wait, just a specific type of person! The Green people! But, wait, he’s in the green walls? Oh, he can’t leave. Doors are blocking him. Wait, he escaped now? Why didn’t he when Sage was there earlier? Oh, now, he has access to holographic technology and creates things that shouldn’t be there. But, wait! As it turns out, he can possess babies too! Hang on. That baby isn’t shown actually doing anything demonic-like so there’s no reason to actually fear for it! That’s lame!”
Even for Power Rangers fans who know Dark Specter a little more, we know there’s never been a clear explanation as to how Dark Specter’s powers work. (In a single story, Darkest Hour, Dark Specter possessed an entire alternate planet and infected it with muck, but doesn’t choose to do that to the main Earth and only uses Rangers instead.) But, for this story to work, it was imperative that an explanation was laid out at the very beginning of this mystery so we can plan and think for ourselves how Dark Specter truly works. Especially for newcomers who aren’t going to have any connection to Dark Specter at all.
Then, Ranger Academy’s response is another source of contention. You see, this is important as it’s the explanation for why everything was a secret from our main characters. It’s not explicit, but the reason as shown from this flashback, why they didn’t choose to say anything was because they just didn’t want to. They were ashamed of what happened. No school wants to remind newcomers about the death of a student there, let alone multiple. And, not only that, the fact that a baby was the main perpetrator, someone that the Rangers had to arrest, brings a whole new level of tragedy that many can’t even process. Fine, I can actually accept this.
However…
It’s not as strong as it should be because of other factors.
Back in Issue #8, the Headmaster was the one to give Sage and Lindy the explanation for the shuttle crash: that Dark Specter possessed a Green Ranger and brought him into Ranger Academy, causing the crash to happen. But, it’s not how he described it. He made it sound like it was one incident, but Rhianth’s description shows us that it was multiple incidents. The school, even with Dark Specter here, didn’t learn their lesson on omitting the truth and important details. And, that puts them in a very bad light. It’s more than shame. It’s a refusal to take responsibility for your students and the tragic events that happened there, even when it’s clear that something is threatening it.
What should have happened is that the Headmaster explained all of the official details, revealing that multiple Green Rangers went ‘crazy’, maybe mentioning Zilan by name, to explain why they felt the need to close off the Green Campus to isolate Dark Specter away and have other students not enter. That would have been a clear explanation as to why the Green Ranger powers are so taboo. Then, in this issue, Rhianth could have been the one to give his own personal account as to why Zilan was doing what he was doing. Bringing someone in a villainous light into someone much more heroic. (And, if it wanted to be more complex, this could have shown how Rhianth is disillusioned by the idea of being a Power Ranger now, seeing the Academy villainize someone who was literally trying to rescue a baby’s life and misunderstanding his best friend’s intentions.)
That would have been the way to do this properly.
But, even then, that doesn’t work. Because of the whole non-explanation with Dark Specter’s possession. Ranger Academy knew that a baby was being possessed by Dark Specter. She came from parents outside of the school. They said a Green Ranger was possessed first, but since they knew that a baby was possessed as well, they should know that it’s not just the Green Spectrum and should have continued to investigate it instead of thinking the problem was done…
*sighs*
It’s such a shame that even though I’m not so intrigued by the main plot of the overall comic, I loved everything else about this issue. Tula being the one to comfort Sage is a great moment for her to recognize that they’re both hurting and sharing their sadness with one another. It shows off the development of their relationship from being absolutely one-sided to genuine friendship. Despite Rhianth and Sage not having much screentime together, his being so proud of Sage for being a Green Ranger like his friend and the following conversation is actually heartwarming. It shows the closeness the two of them have with each other, despite not being related at all.
And, the artwork is so good, highlighting the strong alien elements of this world with colorful imagery while at the same time, emphasizing emotions through the environment. For example, in the beginning, the planet is raining, calling back to the first issue of the series and showing a full circle moment with Sage returning home. The moment it clears is when Sage finds her dad and then the real rain starts to pour out with her crying her heart out and the only one to wipe them away is her dad. It’s such a subtle touch, but I absolutely love it. I especially love the Ranger flashback and the contrast with the present-day scenes. How the present’s backgrounds between panels are white, simplistic almost like a dream, and then when we reach the flashback, the backgrounds are all black, more detailed with scratches of red, with it slowly creeping its way in, with even the panels having that corruption in the scene. It shows the two contrasting tones of the past and the present, how the past was more chaotic and filled with the looming presence of a threat with the present being the calm before the storm.
Ranger Academy #10 returns our heroes to where Sage’s journey started with a heartfelt reunion but fails to return to the past with a satisfying answer to our story’s mystery.
Random Thoughts from the Morphin’ Grid
- You guys watch that Shaymalan movie ‘Devil’? Yeah, so far, this just looks like the same thing.
- I’m now imagining that Zilan’s primary weapon as a Green Ranger was a slingshot and that would have been awesome to see.
- Another thing that I didn’t mention up there? How much Tula’s sister really didn’t matter to this. We don’t even get a single line of dialogue from her and then, Bam! She’s dead. She wasn’t a character. She was a plot device.
- Why I’m so mad about the Sage being a vessel for Dark Specter is that we don’t get enough of it. She’s shown to be acting like a regular baby, but I want more. I want to see why the teachers would be so afraid. I want my demon baby! I want her to be wielding that wrench like it was a baton! I want the baby to be judo-flipping everyone, slapping them until they fall!
- Also, Dark Specter wants to take over Ranger Academy (I’m guessing. We still don’t know his actual plan.), but his big thing was detonating a plane with one Ranger team on it? That’s it? He had the whole disguise as a baby and he couldn’t do any real damage to the school itself? Pathetic!
