[Sunred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

This needs to be the album cover for a future Iron Maiden album.

[DreamSword]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunred

This needs to be the album cover for a future Iron Maiden album.

If there's one thing that these comics have never disappointed on, it's the artwork.

[DreamSword]

Power Rangers Volume 3

I've noticed another quirk when it comes to Ryan Parrott's' writing.

It's that characters will inexplicably know things that they likely shouldn't as long as it keeps the plot moving forward.

For example, if Drakkon knew that Rangers became connected to the universe at the moment that they Morph, why did he never use that knowledge to his advantage like, ever?

He also can't seem to write dialogue for kids very well, because the kids featured in this volume all talk as if they're 30 years olds. And all of this isn't even getting into the opposite side of things either, with characters not knowing things they likely should.

But even if you wanted to put all of that aside, there really is no excuse for the various out of character moments that this entire arc has had. XI is the latest victim of it, as they're the very last person who should ever be giving Drakkon any leeway, but yet they do, and Drakkon rips them apart for it. And all under the very confused guise of "Drakkon isn't bad anymore!"

Despite all of that, there is one thing that's pulled off relatively well, and that's everything having to do with Yale the alien tiger. His backstory is simple, but effective, and the issue focusing almost entirely on him reveals alot about his inner thoughts and feelings while not feeling forced or pretentious. Plus, and animal Ranger is just cool to see regardless. And I am by no means a cat person either(dogs for life).

When it comes to the "Unlimited Power" arc of these comics as a whole, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was overall disappointed. It's such a step down from everything that came before it, and I wouldn't blame anyone who decided to just check out of the comics entirely around this point in time. The characterization is what really hurts here, especially since Ryan Parrott has shown that he can do better on multiple occasions. Perhaps Saban had a point when keeping the writers on a leash, maybe Hasbro just didn't care to do any sort of checking in terms of quality control. Either way, while there were some neat bits here and there, this is by far the weakest arc of the comics thus far.

[DreamSword]

Power Rangers: Drakkon New Dawn

Written by Anthony Burch and drawn by Simone Ragazzoni, Drakkon New Dawn details how the Ranger Slayer manages the World of the Coinless now that she's been elected Queen, and the legacy that Drakkon left behind when he died. It's a direct follow up to the Ranger Slayer oneshot.

And I won't lie, the entire thing felt like a waste of time to read.

I just couldn't get into this one. The pacing was sluggish, Scorpina is out of character, and don't even get me started on the retcon this story throws in.

The retcon being that Drakkon did not infact kill Jason in order to steal the White Light from him, but rather tortured and sealed him away in a maximum security prison that no one knew about.

Not only does this totally undermine alot of the dramatic weight that the original Coinless arc had, but it also raises the question of exactly how in the heck Drakkon even managed to take the powers from Jason to begin with and, if he had the ability to do so non-lethally, why didn't he also in turn just steal the Red Powers while he was at it?

The comic is full of really eyeroll inducing and forced drama too, which doesn't help the pacing in the slightest. This whole thing could've easily been two issues long, especially given how much stuff I didn't like ultimately stemmed from the third and final issue. Case in point:

These are probably the worst Ranger Suit designs I've seen since the 2017 movie. They don't even qualify as Ranger costumes! They're basically Marvel/DC Wannabe suits that look really ugly ontop of that.

The plot's nothing to speak of, the character interactions are middling, and the action beats are nothing to write home about either. I just couldn't get into this one at all and it made everything feel like such a drag. It feels like a Power Rangers story presented by someone who doesn't get what exactly makes PR, or the genre it comes from, work well to begin with. Like Simon Bennett.

Yeah, this story was not for me.

[DreamSword]

Mighty Morphin' Volume 4

This is the first time I've ever seriously considered dropping one of these projects.

All of the annoyances of Ryan Parrott's' modern writing style are here and on full display, ontop of the split between the two comics being handled even worse.

Because see, here's the thing. Before, atleast the two comics were still mostly their own stories even if they did still interconnect oddly. Now, with the Eltarian War arc, you literally have to go back and forth to not get whiplash from the story.

Add onto that the tendency from Rogue Sun, wherein the story actively tries to gaslight the reader about the events that transpired within the comic itself and this just made for a miserable reading experience. I really must know what changed to make the writing quality take such a drastic nosedive.

Now, I know there are readers out there who don't care about plot, or characterization, and are only in these sorts of things to see cool stuff happen. And that's fine. But I do pose one question for you: The only cool thing to even see in this entire volume was the combination of the Dragon and Tiger Zords. Is that worth months of wait?

I sure don't think so, especially when we get an ending as infuriating as this one. If the Emissaries could just rip the Empyreals apart this entire time, why did these entire last two arcs even need to happen? And don't try telling me that the Empyreals needed to be weakened first, because they so didn't, especially given how we're never shown them getting any weaker by some sort of substantial margin. They still fight every bit as fiercly even when the crystal is shattered.

The entire thing just felt like a waste of time ontop of the typical unfulfilling edginess that came along with all aspects of the characters and story. I already compared Ryan Parrott's' run here to his work on Rogue Sun, but really, alot of this falls into Blassreiter territory too, and the less I need to think about either of those works, the better. I will atleast finish out the Power Rangers half of this arc, but after that, I honestly don't know if I'll have the will to keep going. That's how dissatisfied I was with this entire affair.

[DreamSword]

Power Rangers Volume 4

Zed's Dead? I like their music!

Stupid joke aside, I'm honestly not too sure what more I can say about the nature of this arc that I haven't already said in the last update.

Because all of the issues that Ryan Parrott's' current writing style bring to the table are still ever prevalent here. And none of the provided context that was missing from the previous volume make anything any better. Worse, infact!

Like, it's been a jab up until now, but now I honestly am convinced that Grace is Parrott's' waifu. And the overall constant muddling of characterization and details made me really start to question if the supposed editor of these stories actually even exists, let alone doing their job.

Grace up there is the worst of it, but there are so many moments where characters speak out of character, or where a plot point is just completely pulled out of thin air in order to get the desired ending. The story can't even keep alot of its own themes straight to the point that I got really frustrated. Heck, wanna know how the Blue Emissary is somehow still alive?

No real reason, honestly. Made even worse with a later panel inwhich Parrott might as well have slapped on an editor's' note directly telling the reader that he just pulled the Emissary's' survival completely out of his ass. And don't even get me started on how mishandled I felt Zordon has been all throughout the arc; with his battle body being the ultimate symbol of not actually understanding him as a character or why he was important.

And of course there's the retconning. Parrott can add in a cute reference all he wants. That doesn't change the fact that with all of the retcons that these comics have introduced, a good chunk of the In Space finale now literally cannot happen. Once again I must ask if anyone at Hasbro knew anything about the franchise and how to keep details on characters and continuity straight, because the more time goes on the more that I seriously start to doubt it. And if there was, where the heck were they when it came to overseeing this project?

Honestly? Truly? I think I'm done with these comics. I might return one day, I might not. I honestly don't know. But with how frustrating they've become to read, I just can't stand them right now. And frankly, unlike many other Toku fans, I refuse to continually ingest poison via content and stories that I'm really not into. It's a waste of everyone's' time. Mine especially.

So if this is the end, then I'm sorry things had to go out like this. If you've been reading along this entire time, then I thank you for your time and patience, and hopefully my other works will be just as, if not more, to your liking.

[DreamSword]

This is a cross post from another project I did for archival purposes. I might return to the comics one day, but my drive to do so very low.

Power Rangers: Soul of the Dragon

Now I know what some of you might be thinking.

'What the heck? That's clearly Tommy Oliver! What does he have to do with Power Rangers SPD?"

And the short answer to that is, well, "practically everything."

Written by Kyle Higgins while consulting Jason David Frank himself, "Soul of the Dragon" takes place roughly a decade after the events of SPD, and involves not just Tommy, but his son, JJ, who is currently enlisted in Space Patrol Delta.

And boy does this story go places. Involving things such as a deconstructing of Tommy's' life long mission of being a Paladin of sorts to the Power Rangers, a view into how the world has changed since SPD took over, and both good and bad that comes with legacies.

The biggest source of drama throughout the story though is Tommy's' strained relationship with his son, JJ. The two were close, but ever since JJ joined SPD, he seems to be growing more distant. And things only get worse when one day, a friend of JJ's' named Anara comes to Tommy bearing the unfortunate news that not only has JJ quit SPD, but he's gone missing as well.

Thus, Tommy begins his own investigation into the matter, only further motivated in how SPD seems to be totally useless on the matter. Sky himself seems to be keeping quiet about the whole ordeal, though it's easy to tell that he doesn't want to. I love how the passage of time has clearly hit every character involved here; with Sky now sporting some scars. It's clear that he's seen his fair share of battles over the years.

When it's revealed that JJ has seemingly gotten himself involved with an ever growing gang war in the city, Tommy is at a loss at how his son could even go down such a path. And this is probably my favorite scene in the entire comic. Being the son of the most legendary Power Ranger of all time makes for some serious shoes to fill. It's the sort of thing that a child can't easily escape growing up; having a parent so famous and respected. It applies a ton of pressure(and resentment) that could easily break alot of people.

But this story has just as much to do with the past as it does the future. Tommy enlists the aid of Finster, who's long since been purified(and not incinerated) by the Z Wave. I love Finster's' speech here, about how despite the machinations of good an evil, even in the Power Rangers universe, anyone is capable of repeating old mistakes and doing the wrong thing. This comes up because the boss of the gang war is known as "The Witch" and thus people think it might be Rita Repulsa. Fans will know that she eventually became the Mystic Mother, but really, the public at large wouldn't be privy to such information, right?

No, the culprit instead turns out to be Scorpina, who became displaced in space and time due to a trap set by Rita herself(and thus why Scorpina disappeared without a trace in MMPR proper). She ends up in the realm of Talos, ruled by Lokar, a very infamous figure from the Mighty Morphin' days. Scorpina plans to be Lokar's' avatar of sorts, and help him to take over her home dimension. In order to make the pact official though, she offers to feed Lokar the soul of JJ, given how Lokar was foiled by the original Ranger team in the past. Thankfully though, JJ isn't willing to just go with that idea, especially since it turns out that he'd been undercover investigating the entire thing this whole time.

And so the fight for JJ's' soul(in more ways than one) is on. But it's not just Tommy alone. He's got the Blue Senturion and all of SPD backing him up on this one. And keen readers might notice that the Blue Ranger of SPD is a woman. How curious. That aside, the final battle, like all the skirmishes in this comic, is pretty intense. Tommy's' powers are on their last legs(the Master Morpher barely even functioning at this point), and Kat and JJ are for all intents and purposes just normal people now, fighting against a new monstrous form that Scorpina takes on to try and kill everyone in one fell swoop. It's a hard fought battle, but in the end, the day is saved not by Tommy shouldering all of the burden himself like usual, but by him entrusting everything into his son.

Sadly, the defeat of Scorpina also means the end of all of Tommy's' powers. But in the end, he's content.

It's another thing that I really love about this comic. It serves as a wonderful send off to Tommy, while also being a great tribute to not just the character, but Jason David Frank himself and just how much good he did for friends and fans. He's fondly remembered for a reason, and this comic does just as great a job at showcasing why as "Once & Always" did for many of the other MMPR alumni.

By the way, if you're wondering who's responsible for all of this wonderful artwork, that'd be Giuseppe Cafaro, who did a great job here. The mood is captured in his artwork perfectly; Whether is be the more downtrodden and dramatic stuff or the big action pieces. Heck, especially those action bits, because I feel Cafaro did a fantastic job at displaying every power at play here for all of their worth. Case in point:

The elemental mastery of Dino Thunder Black.

The incredible speed of Turbo Red.

The raw power of Zed Red.

The duality of Mighty Morphin' Green and White.

And last, but most certainly not least...

Yeah, I really couldn't think of a better image to end the story on.

And that, for all intents and purposes is where the story and setting of SPD stop. Hasbro certainly had a few things to say about the characters in it though. That female Blue Ranger? That's Lina Song from Power Rangers Hyper Force. And given how Hasbro themselves have posted about the cast before on their socials, yes, both "Soul of the Dragon" and Hyper Force are infact canon to the main Power Rangers timeline. Along with the casual reveal that, after being promoted to Commander, Sky takes on a new Ranger form known as the Deca Ranger. As such, it is my headcanon that Sophie goes on to become SPD Gold. But there's been no official word on that suit as of yet.

Overall, while I'd love to explore more aspects of SPD as a whole, just as I would any other PR season, I am still very happy with what we do have. And this comic is no exception to that.