There’s a new Green Ranger in town, and he’s not playing by Zordon and the other rangers’ rules.
Following the ending of both flagship Power Ranger comics, Boom! relaunches with Mighty Morphin and Power Rangers. The latter series focuses on the Omega Rangers: Trini, Zack, and Jason and their adventures in space, while this volume and its predecessor focuses on the second generation of the tv show team from the 90s. Tommy has become the White Ranger and leads the team of Kimberly, Billy, Aisha, Rocky, and Adam against Lord Zedd and his foes. However, someone has joined the rangers in the field in a redesigned version of Tommy’s old green suit. Who is this ranger, and why are they not working side-by-side with our team of heroes?
Writer Ryan Parrott has been penning the rangers for almost five years now and has taken over both of the Boom! titles in the new launch. Because of this, threads planted years ago in Saban’s Go Go Power Rangers and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers pay off with a major character reveal at the end of volume one. Parrott also has justifications for character developments that happened in the show, such as Billy’s increased isolationism from the rest of the other rangers. Lastly, the voice for the Green Ranger is refreshing as they have a great insight on why the rangers need to be more open to the people of Angel Grove. Volume 2 delves into the Green Ranger’s motivations more closely, after the big identity reveal closing out the first volume.
Artist Marco Renna’s more futuristic depiction of Angel Grove and scenes in Zordon’s past give a science fiction bend to the title not seen since the rangers visited space early in the first run. It’s hard to take over a comic that has been running for four years, but Renna has taken the characters and made them his own. His Zordon, for example, emotes a lot more than previous iterations and can do so with a tilt of his head.
This new series pairs well with its sister title Power Rangers to make for a decent sized collection for libraries. As Higgins pens both titles, the series would be shelved next to each other in any library using author’s names for organization. To separate from the previous comics, BOOM! calls this the ‘Unlimited Power’ era of the rangers.
Further, while there are ties to events in past comics, I feel they do a decent enough recap that you do not have to purchase the backlog if you can’t afford it. That being said, Parrott worked well with writer Kyle Higgins on the first generation of BOOM! Rangers, so if you have the budget look into some of their other works.
Mighty Morphin, vol. 2
By Ryan Parrott
Art by Marco Renna
BOOM! Studios, 2021
ISBN: 9781684157020
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16)
Series ISBNs and Order: Volume 1 ISBN: 9781684156702
Related media: TV to Comic
