Hamilton Comics’ final Power Rangers foray before losing the license to Marvel Comics was a three-issue retelling of the Power Rangers story in a somewhat abridged format. And in a pleasant change of direction, this is the only series in the Hamilton Comics period that sticks with the same art team. And it’s probably the best artwork that this run has seen; managing some approximations of the main characters while also re-interpreting the classic monsters to stuff that… don’t anything like the source material. Hell, Rita is still in purple rather than her usual brown rags, but whatever. They saved their best artists for this final hurrah and I couldn’t be happier… even if it meant the other book had to suffer as a result.
It’s funny that out of all the Hamilton stuff that I’ve read thus far, their best story is an abridged retelling of what happened on the TV show, right up to the White Ranger being introduced. While it’s not a point-for-point adaptation – the story as well as the artists take liberties with the material – it does boil down the major plot threads; the forming of the team, the introduction of Green, the introduction of Zedd, Green’s final battle and transition to White. This is basically an elongated version of the two-page quickie origin story that they’d use to have back in the old days where they just show the major points and move on. That’s what this was and it works for the time allotted.
Saga ended after three issues, but was intended to be a full six-issue miniseries. According to Don Markstein, the idea was to introduce his own plot to the framing story involving Jim, the business owner whose warehouse is constantly under attack. This would lead to him starting a campaign to defame the Rangers; a campaign that would’ve gained traction as time went on. It’s actually a very intriguing plot point for a story. It’s too bad it never got that far.
Who knows how the story would’ve played out if the series had been allowed to continue its run unabated? Regardless, what you have here in Saga is a solid abridged recapping of the first two and a half seasons of MMPR that’s pretty accurate to the source.
A fine note to end the Hamilton era on.
dtm666 