Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from BOOM! Studios is what the TV show would've been if it had been made for teenagers, and made any time between 1997 when The WB started to now when it's successor, The CW, is prominent. This volume, and the subsequent volumes, reads like a WB/CW superhero show. All of the drama is there, and Rita's plan, while as incomprehensible as any of her plans from the TV show, is more complex and way more undetectable than anything she came up with on the show, aside from the Evil Green Ranger plot from "Green with Evil".
The comic book series starts right after "Green with Evil" and the Rangers just broke Rita's spell on Tommy. He's joined the team, but unlike on the show, the Rangers are having doubts about him. Not all the Rangers mind you, just Zack for some unknown reason. I guess Jason to a limited extent, but I think that's just because Jason is the team leader and Tommy is largely an unknown quantity, with Rita giving them almost no time to get Tommy used to being part of a team or used to using his powers and the Dragonzord. Kimberly, Billy and Trini don't seem to have a problem with Tommy joining the team though.
Which actually leads me into the worst part of this volume. Zack and his attitude. Normally Zack is one of the coolest characters to ever be created in any medium. He's kind, funny, charming and an all around good guy. Here though, he's a jerk. Like, okay, I understand being cautious since they don't really know anything about Tommy aside from that he was new to Angel Grove and Rita picked him specifically to be her Evil Green Ranger. But Zack is outright hostile towards Tommy for absolutely no reason. Even what we learn about Zack in Volume 2, Chapter 1 doesn't explain or justify Zack's attitude towards Tommy. There was also potential for some really good drama with Zack because at the beginning of the volume, he says he's been having problems sleeping and whenever Jason tries to talk to him about it he evades and just says that there's just stuff going on at home. Which is cool, but then they never do anything with it, even in volume 2.
My favourite scene from issue #2 is where Jason and Kimberly are having a conversation at the Youth Center, after Jason's martial arts class is over and at one point Jason asks Kim if she and Tommy are dating now, and when Kim replies that, no, they aren't, there's a panel where Jason has a look of relief on his face. As Power Rangers fans know, there's been this fan theory, that was sort of supported by the 2017 movie, that Jason and Kimberly were either together before Tommy showed up, or they at least had romantic feelings towards each other that were never acted upon, even before Tommy arrived in Angel Grove. So it appears that it's kind of like that here too, though later on in the series, as with the TV show, we do see Kimberly and Tommy out on dates.
Probably my absolute favourite thing about this book, and the series in general, is that Bulk and Skull got updated for 2016. Instead of being your stereotypical '90s bullies, Bulk and Skull are YouTubers who run Ranger Station, which is a Power Rangers centric channel. They get people's opinions on the Rangers and whether or not they're actually doing some good or if their presence just makes things worse. You know, the kind of stuff we'd get in the DC and Marvel universes about those superheroes. They also give viewers the latest news about Ranger sightings and activity as well as speculate about things like the Green Ranger suddenly joining the team despite having been fighting the Rangers only a short while ago. Things we never got to see on the TV show.
I'm glad they made it Bulk and Skull because it shows that those characters have more to them than meets the eye. Even on the TV show they were only actual bullies for maybe the first half of season 1. By the end of the first season they were just goofballs who didn't actually hurt anyone. Then by season 2 they were just fans of the Power Rangers who wanted to get famous by discovering the Rangers's identities, and by season 3 they became cops for the rest of the original series and through Power Rangers Zeo into Power Rangers Turbo. So they went a long way from being the bullies that were first introduced in the pilot episode, "Day of the Dumpster".
While the art style is more inspired by Manga and Anime than anything else, the thing I like about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers being an ongoing comic book series is that we get more dynamic Megazord battles. Even with the CGI technology used in modern day Megazord battles, I find that the ones we see on TV are so limiting. Not only because they don't film their own, and rely heavily on the Sentai footage, but also because TV shows only have a certain amount of money that can go into Mech battles, and doing one every episode can be taxing on that budget. With comic books though the only limitation you have is what the artist can draw, so the Megazord battles, and just the Zord battles in general, feel so much bigger than they ever did on TV or even in the movies and much bigger than they ever could on TV and in the movies. I mean during the first Megazord battle of the series, Kimberly teleports out of the Megazord's cockpit, into the Pterodactyl's cockpit and then detaches the Pterodactyl Dinozord from the Megazord and uses it to rescue a group of people from a destroyed bridge. They could never have done that on the TV show, even in the Sentai footage.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Volume 1 is a cool comic, but it very quickly falls into the drama tropes that I'm so used to seeing on shows like Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl. Not to mention any other show that airs on The CW or other shows that are aimed at teens on other networks. Part of that is that it's just weird seeing the Rangers not getting along without being under the influence of an evil spell. Plus in real life people generally aren't at each other's throats for no reason. At least not in person. And the level of drama in these types of books, comics, shows and movies is ridiculous. Which is funny coming from me since I had to deal with a ridiculous level of drama when I was a teenager in high school. But that's a story for another time. The Rangers are a bit out of character. Especially Zack and Jason. Zack is a jerk to Tommy for no reason and even Jason's turn from being completely chill about Tommy joining the team to him basically telling Tommy he's out makes absolutely no sense at all. I'm giving Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Volume 1 7/10 stars.
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