Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Volume 1 Review (Kyle Higgins, Hendry Prasetya)

I loved Mighty Morphin Power Rangers when I was a kid in the early ‘90s. I loved dinosaurs, robots, monsters, martial arts, weapons, magic, and somehow the Power Rangers had all of that smooshed together into each 20 minute episode! So while I don’t think much of Kyle Higgins (New 52 Nightwing, COWL) as a writer, I can’t really blame him for failing to come up with a coherent story for the new Power Rangers comic given so many bizarre elements to work with! 

The only Power Rangers storyline I remember was of Tommy, the Green Ranger, who was the Rangers’ enemy at first - a puppet of the evil moon witch Rita Repulsa - and had a cool outfit with golden shoulder pads, an even cooler dagger/flute(!) and the best zord of them all, Dragonzord (a shameless Mecha-Godzilla rip-off). The Rangers eventually break Tommy from Rita’s mind-control and turn him good. 

This book picks up shortly after that storyline with Tommy still suffering from nightmares of being under Rita’s control while she plots to somehow turn him evil again in an extremely convoluted and rambling plotline! 

The story is all over the shop and makes about as much sense as the original show, which might be what some fans are looking for, though it really bored me. The only parts that were interesting was when the kids became the Power Rangers and fought Putty Patrollers or got into the Megazords and battled Rita’s giant monsters. I know that sounds shallow but the characters themselves and their high school lives are so goddamn boring (which is a shame as this stuff takes up most of the book)! 

Also included is a Bulk & Skull backup (the slapstick comic relief who are not funny) by Steve Orlando which isn’t worth going into, it’s that bad and pointless - just like every other Steve Orlando comic out there! Hendry Prasetya’s art is very polished and looks good even though he draws the oldest-looking teenagers in the world (which, again, might be a reference to the original show)! 

There’s some campy, silly nostalgic fun to be had with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Volume 1 when they don the outfits and start fighting (and the theme song inevitably starts playing in your head!), but not enough to recommend picking this one up, especially given the nebulous plot and the dull non-personalities that make up the main cast.