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With great art direction, upbeat characters, and a quick story, Combo Rangers has a bit of something for everyone in their tokusatsu journey. We review Combo Rangers issue 1 and talk about all of the awesome displays of henshin heroism.

Henshin heroism is the norm here on the threads and posts here on Henshin Justice. We admire all of the exploits of the grown ups in spandex who’ve made a 38 year tradition of kicking all sorts of kaijin butt in Japan. All of that inspiration, the tropes of the heroes, and how they’ve found their ways subtly into the world’s culture with adaptations, nation specific releases, and awesome comic books like this one: Combo Rangers.

Funny enough I find this first issue the way I first found myself aged 3 on my first watch of “Day of the Dumpster”. There is a flourish in the rich, Wonderful 101 generic city called “New City” with vibrant colors, the evil organization “Evol” is conspiring their planet mercantilism expansion on Earth, and very sparse, quick dialog exchanges between characters. Although this description sounds like it thins the story, it actually engages you on a visual level with awesome action beats and fun physical schtick. This comic is aware of all it’s henshin hero references with the first pages after the “Evol” introduction being dedicated to an imaginary title sequence, all of the way to the Viewtiful Joe like “Big Blue” character, The Mighty Combo. Every second of this first installment was part of fun thrill ride that seems like the gateway to understanding the Super Sentai lexicon. The story so far looks like it will respect and probably break down many of the tropes we know and love like henshin sequences, bad guy fight sequences and how fights in the issue escalate. This issue also doesn’t weigh you down with exposition, in favor of getting you immersed in the carefree, fun atmosphere. As a father, I would (and currently am) reading this to my daughter and this story telling has a universal kind of appeal.

It has piqued my interests for the next installment, hopefully this time we’ll see rangers.



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