Featured Review: Power Rangers: Ranger Slayer #1

Power Rangers: Ranger Slayer #1

Writer: Ryan Parrott

Artist: Dan Mora

Colors: Raul Angulo

Letters: Ed Dukeshire

Cover: Dan Mora

Full Spoilers for the issue. You’ve been warned.

Following Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers #50, AU Kimberly (AKA Ranger Slayer) returns to her own universe to atone for—checks notes—subjugating the people and creating a dystopian reality. Seems like something you can’t really atone but she was mind controlled, so she has an excuse. And look, she’s not responsible for what she did during that, but the population at large doesn’t know about it. So, the PR is gonna be rough when they announce to the world at large that they’ve made her queen. I hope they’ve got good people on the payroll.

So we're back to where we started?

A larger question is why did she accept this roll? They’re in California. Its only been, what, a decade since the takeover. It may even be less time. Everyone remembers the old governmental systems so why aren’t they being put back into place (And hopefully improved)? Why would the people accept another queen, let alone this one that has brutalized them? Don’t get me wrong, Kim’s new outfit is sick (It’s a bit much in that regal excess kind of way) and it’s cool that she is stepping up to be a leader in an effort help fix what she helped break. This ain’t it though.

Half the people kneeling and pledging fealty to Kim are freedom fighters. What were they fighting for if not change? This isn’t change. This the continuation of the system that is already in place. As with any monarchy, what happens when the next monarch isn’t a good person? Does everything go back to how it was under Drakkon? Is it worse? It doesn’t matter because that story will likely never be told, but the end of this comic makes me uneasy about what it is saying and that colors what was a previously fun adventure.

She looks good for a dead person

And this comic is so rad. It has Ghost Rita Repulsa leading an army of Ghost Power Rangers against the (eventually) combined might of the Coinless rebellion and Scorpina’s army of Ranger Sentries. It has future soldiers Bulk and Skull, who had been fighting on opposite sides, reuniting to fight ghost Power Rangers. Bulk gets to pilot a Megazord. Dystopian Freedom Fighters Aisha, Trini, and Zack are here. Adam gets to be a fascist cop with a heart of gold. Ok, maybe that last one isn’t cool. They did my boy dirty and I don’t appreciate it. The point is there’s a lot of cool things that happen here.

Dan Mora returns to the Power Rangers comics to “finish” the story of the Ranger Slayer he began with Parrott some time ago. And this comic looks good. It falls directly in line with what these comics have looked like since the beginning. Of course, it helps that Mora and Raul Angulo helped establish that look. Ghost Rita has one of the coolest redesigns I’ve seen in some time and everything is portrayed with the appropriate amount of weight. Except the ending, that is. It is meant to feel triumphant, like the world is finally on the right path. It does not, as noted above. Also, all the women are wearing a noticeable amount of makeup in this apocalypse world.

Appreciate you to trying to look good while fighting a war, I guess?

Overall, this is a good comic as long as you ignore what it’s actually about. Kimberly repeated grabs power until they relent and make her queen. First the rebellion, then Drakkon’s army, then the world. It’s incredible that this is framed as her returning to be a hero and atone for her mistakes. In actuality, this is her committing to repeat the mistakes of the past instead of making change. Of course, that’s political power is most often used for in our world so why would it be any different in this one?

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