[dreamcastegirl]

A long time ago, the thought crossed my mind that maybe there might be something for me in the "new" Power Rangers comics from Boom. I thought about this a lot for a while, I even went so far as to solicit opinions, and universally, the answer I got was that yes, these comics were absolutely worth my time. Being the kind of person who cannot take advice to save her life, however, I sort of let the idea drop.

As I've mentioned before, I have no real emotional attachment to Power Rangers. I was aware of it, but it didn't matter to me in the way then it obviously has to others for quite a long time now. I think it was this distance that made it easy for me to connect with the story being told in the 2017 movie?although there is also something to be said for me perhaps being akin to a dead albatross for movie franchises, as I watched that New Mutants film last week and really liked it. This curse I labour under, however, doesn't seem to spell the death keel for comic books, as there are more Power Rangers titles at present than you can shake a stick at, and whilst not all of them are good, I am kind of overwhelmed by how right that initial advice I received was, how there really was a lot for me in the pages of these books.

I went in with low expectations, and there were points where I felt incredibly frustrated?Shattered Grid, the crossover between the two initial titles, long outstayed its welcome, the arc, Beyond the Grid, featuring multiple Rangers from TV shows I know next to nothing about finding themselves cast adrift in a world cut off from the Morphin Grid, relied far too heavily on prior knowledge to play out as an independent story, and the beginning of Necessary Evil just really peed me off with how disjointed events were between the books, and how, again, the narrative relied on events outside of the comics?and yet, taking into consideration all that... I absolutely fell in love with these characters, with this setting.

I had been enjoying it up until Beyond the Grid without thinking about it too much; lately, I've been dealing with a lot of, I don't know, post-plague anxiety to say the least, and these comics served as a welcome distraction, yet I can pinpoint the moment when my interest in this changed, the moment when I began to really engage with this stuff: the Omega Rangers.

Dimly, I recalled hearing about three of the characters being written out of the show?in fact, I may even have seen these episodes through merit of growing up in a family owning a television in the late 20th century. Power Rangers always got a lot of stick back then for doing things that we are actively asking our media to do more nowadays?include a greater diversity of peoples in both your cast, crew, and in the characters you depict in your story?at the time though, it made no difference to me that three of the characters left "for Switzerland" indefinitely to attend a "peace conference" as if that was a totally normal thing that happens to normal teenagers, and were thus replaced by three other teenagers taking up their roles and colours. The conceit of the comics is that the peace conference excuse was a rouse, and the three of them were recruited by an emissary of the Morphin Grid, a sort of ancient, primal expression of one specific facet of the dynamic of each Power Rangers team.

What follows is a story in which, Zack, Jason, Trini?have I spoken yet about how much I love the dynamic between Jason and Trini? The honest depiction of almost-romance, of dealing with crushes and feelings in adolescence? Have I spoken about how great the characterisation of Zack is? How he comes across as playful and caring, as deceptively gentle despite his occasional brusqueness? No? Well, please take note of this interjection here in that case! What follows is a story in which Zack, Jason, and Trini are bequeathed the powers of an ancient team of cosmic Rangers, and charged with policing the after-effects of Shattered Grid's impact on continuity, searching out individuals touched by the power of the Morphin Grid, gifted a connexion with the pure source of that which powers Power Rangers, and offering them a home where they can learn of their new powers... or a prison in which they can reflect on how they used those powers to harm others.

Through the exploration of what it means to find yourself a cosmic police officer (boo!), through musings on power and responsibility, on discussions of what gives you the right to make discussions regarding others, on the nature of authority (boo!), we are introduced not only to Kiya, the fourth member of the Omega Rangers, but later to Yale, the superpowered, alien space cat of this post's title, and... you guys, in different ways, I love these characters. Do not be surprised when I tell you that there were moments during the unfolding of this story in which I cried. Kiya is just the perfect portrayal of anger and shame, of someone working through change, of someone not always making the best choices, but committing wholeheartedly to those choices once they have been made; Yale is just... they are beautiful, they are a beautiful animal bringing with them a charm, a nobility, a hurt that we see so much in the real world around us, in how people treat animals in the real world, and using those feelings and that hurt to inform a piece of speculative fiction that, for me, transcends its source material.

I think... if you've spoken to me at any point in the last year, you will know my little cat is getting older. When I read these comics, when I followed the story of Yale's character arc, often with the presence of my little cat on my lap, I felt that their story came to life in a way that really, really moved me, in a way I did expect a licensed comic book based on a children's television show from the '90s to do.

There are things in these comics that feel very much like someone somewhere is paying attention to my personal proclivities-the awkwardness of sharing feelings with others, check; large swords and/or hammers, check; monstrous Evangelion mech fighting in lush forests, check-but in the end... in the end, it was a giant, superpowered alien space cat that won my heart, and they are why I am passing on the advice that I first received a long time ago, advice that I really deserved to have paid more attention to: you should probably check out those Power Rangers comics, you know.