Myron gets upset and runs off because he wasn’t able to defend himself. Tommy is confused. Why would someone not want him to protect them? Maybe he secretly doesn’t like others to be empowered, because then they too might have the flowing hair of a ninja god. And we can’t have that, now can we?

(I think we just figured out the real reason why Aisha was replaced…)

Oh, what’s this? A giant Tenga? Why?! That would never…Well, the Rangers are sent to stop them by a very scary looking Zordon. Oh hey. It’s Kat. We’re getting deep into Season 3 now, aren’t we?

Squatt and Baboo kidnap Myron and Zedd and Rita turn him into a giant disgusting ball of pimples that spits corrosive acid instead of pus everywhere.

What’s sad is, Tommy thinks there’s something familiar about the huge glob. So he summons the Ninjazords (no Shogunzords?!) and has Aisha’s Bear Zord give the huge zit a big ol’ ninja bear hug. It pops. Myron Zitzner flies out. Tommy catches him on the tip of the Falconzord’s wing, because ew. He goes on to win a science fair and have a threeway with two random classmates so they can copy his Physics homework.

The end.

Ninja Rangers #1-2: “Cheaters Never Prosper & Winners Never Cheat” / “Let the Buyer Beware”

Right out the gate, the Ninja Rangers comics tell more interesting stories than the parent MMPR line did, mostly since they focused on the adventures of individual Rangers rather than the team as a whole as the show always did.

The debut story “Cheaters Never Prosper & Winners Never Cheat” sees Tommy follow one of the members of his basketball team across town to discover that he accepts bribes from thugs to rig the game. Because high school basketball games are hot to bet on in Angel Grove. Lord Zedd wants in on the fun, so he turns two sharks that the gangsters own into The Loan Sharks. Tommy goes up against the gangsters like a boss and takes down the sharks with his ninja skills and ninja ponytail.

The second issue’s “Let the Buyer Beware” is all about Kim and Aisha, who look like 38-year-old real housewives shopping at Wet Seal.

Kimberly is reduced to a shell of a parody of her character, driven by nothing but trying on clothes and lookin’ purty. Aisha is bored and ready to do something productive like laugh at the offensive coffee mugs at Spencer’s. But no. This is 1995. Kimberly is a girl, an airhead, and she’s wearing booty shorts. Thanks Marvel.

Zedd is bored too, so he turns all to the shoppers into huge, exaggerated pig people with giant mouths that consume everything in sight. The girls call upon their Ninja Ranger power to help, but they don’t want to hurt the innocent shoppers because they’re nice neon colored ninjas of justice. So Aisha picks up all the price tags, rings them up at the register with super ninja speed, and shows the mob of grotesque gluttons the bill. When they see it, they throw-up and turn back to normal.

The lesson of the day is this: Binge and purge, kids.

Ninja Rangers #3: “Dark Thunder”

If any one of these comic tie-ins were to have any lasting impact on the Power Rangers overall legacy, it’s “Dark Thunder.”

It starts off with the Ninja Rangers in Japan, rescuing people from the damages an earthquake caused that Zordon sent them to handle. One of the citizens runs off with a car stereo after Tommy saves him. Zordon says that saving a thief’s life was “regrettable” (because he is a cosmic jerk deep down). He’s more worried about what’s causing the earthquake, though, which just happened to awaken a dormant volcano. He reminds Alpha 5 that the Rangers’ old powers were destroyed by “Rito Revulto and Vampirus“, even though Vampirus technically hatched after the Rangers were given their new powers by ”Ninjoi“ who is supposed to be Ninjor… but whatever. Zordon warns that energy can only be transferred, not destroyed.

Meanwhile, Zedd and Rita are deep below the earth, salvaging the remains of the Thunderzords and searching for the Tigerzord, which was supposed to emerge during the big earthquake in Japan. But it’s missing! So Zedd takes action and rounds up a new group of teenagers with bad, dastardly attitudes from across the world (including the thief Tommy rescued) to be his new set of Dark Rangers. And they don’t look like goobers this time. They actually look like Power Rangers! (i.e. They don’t have cheesecloth covering their faces this time.)

Zedd transports them to somewhere in Mongolia and gives them the ability to speak English. (Uh…) When the Thunder Megazord rises up from the ground, the Dark Rangers jump inside. The Ninja teens freak out and summon their Ninja Megazord to stop it from destroying the nearby Mongolian city (?). The Megazords wrassle around for a bit, and both sets of Rangers hail communication like they’re on the friggin’ Enterprise.

As the fight goes on, the Tigerzord leaps out of the volcano after all, surprising everyone. It merges with the Thunder Megazord to form the Mega Tigerzord and then it flies off into space, leaving the Ninja Rangers – and the audience – scratching their heads.

Even if “Dark Thunder” isn’t a complete PR story, it’s still the finest of Marvel’s bunch, and it told more of engaging story that played with the show’s lore than any of the other ones from their line felt comfortable with.

The possibilities of “Dark Rangers” inspired Amit Bhaumik when he wrote the infamous Wild Force episode “Forever Red”, citing it as a source of justification for the return of Jason’s power coin. I’ll buy it.

But seriously, what was up with the Tiger Zord?

Masked Rider Issue #1

We’re only focusing on the Power Rangers related comics here, but the first (and only) issue of Masked Rider comic is Power Rangers related. It’s a crossover event just like “A Friend in Need”, and it ties into the end of the very last issue of Marvel’s MMPR run.

If you don’t know much about Masked Rider or have never seen the show, I won’t go into much detail here (although Den of Geek wrote about the show somewhat extensively here). But I will say that the show is frowned upon for being more of a poor man’s sitcom than an action show, even though it was technically both. The comic felt more comfortable exploring his world and his mythology than it ever did with the Power Rangers. That’s because Masked Rider’s premise fit in pefectly with traditional comic book storytelling. Power Rangers did not.

Even so, there they are: the Ninja Rangers, jumping in at the end to help Dex save the day from Count Dregon’s large rhino beast. They distract the monster with – guess what – the Ninja Megazord while Dex goes off on a quick spirit pilgrimage back to his home planet Edenoi to save it from blowing up. And he does! And he sees his grandfather again. And he stops in to visit Zordon and Alpha for a bit.

The Rangers finally blow up the giant rhino, after waiting for Masked Rider to get back, because that’s the best part for them. Then everyone has dinner at Dex’s house with his very progressive for 1996 multi-racial family. And we’re done.

THE PAPERCUTZ REVIVAL EXPERIMENT (2013-2015)

As the many different incarnations of Power Rangers continued to roll out through the following years, so did new comics. (Including an excellent Zeo one-shot at Image that was intended to be ongoing, a bizarre team-up between Turbo and Beetleborgs Metallix, and those fun little comic strips you’d find in various Power Rangers magazines). But it wasn’t until 2013 when the original Mighty Morphin’ brand were prominently featured on the pages again. Papercutz (the comic studio who now holds the rights to the Tales from the Crypt brand, ironically enough) began publishing new MMPR adventures 20 years after the series began.

The Papercutz team got the tone of Mighty Morphin’ right, but updated it just a little. Not as much as BOOM! mind you – it was still a period piece set in the ‘90s – but their approach had a similar degree of self-awareness and humor. The art, too, had just the right balance between East and West that made it look truly in the vein of MMPR’s Japanese/American fusion style.

Sadly enough, the Papercutz era was incredibly brief. Only three issues were released, one of them being a free comic book day giveaway. In some ways, the creative team got the short end of the stick. But they still produced a couple of solidly fascinating comic books that slightly altered the way we view MMPR.

Vol. 4 Issue #1: “Rita Repulsa’s Attitude Adjustment”

If you want a good example of how Papercutz would handle the Power Rangers from issue to issue if they kept the property, look here. This plot juggles just enough elements to keep all demographics happy while playing it safe for Saban’s benefit and not deviating too much from the status quo. This story works beyond its main plot points because it makes you laugh with a few meta-nods and it also gives Bulk and Skull (and Alpha 5) something to do that’s related to the main action storyline.

After archaeologists accidentally resurrect an enormous stone idol (that looks like a faux-anime mecha) in the desert outside of Angel Grove, the Rangers are quick to knock its head off with their Megazord. But when they do, something unexpected happens – it blows apart their Zords and mixed up their helmets, throwing off everyone’s color scheme. Not okay. Meanwhile, Rita steals the idol’s head and takes it back to her moon base where Finster attaches it to a new gargantuan mechanical body, which creates a new problem in itself. Can our heroes defeat Rita’s new hybrid zord when all of their powers are mixed up?

Issue #2: “Going Green”

The strongest entry from the Papercutz lot is its second and last. After defeating another one of her monsters without calling upon their Zords in a funny sequence, Rita Repulsa starts waxing nostalgic about the good ol’ days when it was easier to conquer worlds. She tells her minions the story of how she obtained the Green Power Coin. It was during one of her many battles with the good wizard Rooten-Toomen, ruler of the Rutabaga galaxy (who looks a lot like Zyuranger’s Barza aka Zordon’s Super Sentai analogue).

Because she knew it was in located somewhere in the Desert of Despair (where Ninjor lives!), she gets Rooten-Toomen to agree to meet her there for a fake “peace conference” (ha-ha) and disguises herself as one of Ninjor’s mysterious apostles. She eventually realizes that it’s underneath the statue of the ninja master the they’re busy worshipping. When Rooten-Toomen catches her, she tricks the vegetable head into blowing up Ninjor’s effigy with his magic staff so she can get the Green Coin…and she does.

Even though they were there for most of it, Rita’s crew enjoyed hearing the story. But they have to ask ask her why she hasn’t used the coin’s powers yet. She complains that she hasn’t found anyone worthy yet. Cut to – a young man in a green tank ‘top and a ponytail arriving in town, preparing for big the Martial Arts Expo at the Youth Center. Rita sends down a new amphibious monster named Korruptor to take down the Rangers, but this new strange teenager spots it first and takes it on himself without any powers. Rita is impressed with the size of this young man’s balls, not to mention a little embarrassed, so she makes Korruptor grow.

While the Rangers take on the goblin with their Megazord, Rita comes down to earth and tries to convince Tommy to be the bearer of the Green Power Coin’s powers – and her surrogate son! Tommy humors her for a while but winds up kicking over a water tank that spills all over her, ruining her hair. Back on the moon, Rita announces that she’s made her decision: she has found her champion, and she won’t take no for an answer.

The comic – and Papercutz’s criminally brief Mighty Morphin’ tenure – end with Tommy walking into the Youth Center for the martial arts competition, right behind the five teens. This winds up being unintentionally symbolic, seeing as how Boom! Studios’ MMPR series picks up right after Tommy and the Green Ranger are accepted into the team. Coincidence? Affirmative. But it’s a morphin’ one.