Zord Quest is a story that treads on fairly familiar territory; after an incident separates the Rangers, each one goes through their own personal trial to prove their worth as heroes in order to overcome the latest monster of the day from Lord Zedd. Chances are you’ve seen some variation of this story when it was called Alien Rangers and the little kid Rangers each went on their own personal journey to recover a piece of Zeo Crystal that would set up the next incarnation of Power Rangers.
Zord Quest almost follows that same template, but doesn’t quite hit the mark. It’s a one-shot story that gets resolved quickly. The trials that the individual Rangers go through serve only to reinforce their teamwork and apply their newly learned lessons to use in order to defeat the latest monster of the week. The trials themselves are resolved fairly quickly with no real substance behind it. There’s a sense that Zord Quest wants to say something, but fails to actually say anything.
On top of that, the continuity snafus are hard to ignore. The story supposedly takes place during the second season (or Year Two, as the book calls it), but they’re still using the Dinozords, which were mostly inactive and replaced with the Thunderzords. (Funny how all these MMPR Boom comics that wasn’t their main series always default to using the old Megazords and not the later ones despite timeline placement.) Lord Zedd is at least the main baddy. but his characterization is inconsistent with what was established during that time. It’s a story that neither fits with TV or comic continuity and as someone who followed this franchise since the very beginning, things like this do grate a bit.
Still, I’d be hard-pressed to call this bad. At worst, it’s a fairly ho-hum story with some questionable continuity snafus that almost harken back to the Hamilton Comics days, but on the other hand, it’s also straightforward in its storytelling that leads to the very obvious resolution and on that count alone, it’s more than fine. I do appreciate the much grittier artwork that’s at least a fair departure from the usual bland artwork that I’ve seen in some of these Mighty Morphin comics during that series run. It’s not quite perfect.
Zord Quest doesn’t offer much in terms of substance or anything that hasn’t been done before, but it makes for a quick read if you’ve got nothing better to do and can forgive the continuity gaffes. I’d call this “merely okay” and move right along.
dtm666 