Category: Musings

So not long after the conclusion of their first miniseries, Hamilton Comics begins their second miniseries of MMPR comic books – although this one lasts about four issues before being abruptly cancelled due to an expiring license, as Marvel would pick up the slack by the time the movie rolls around… for better or worse, but we’ll get to that.

Right off the bat, the miniseries does a far better job of matching the paradigm established in the middle portion of the second season. One of the issues with the first mini is that the stories were written with the first season in mind and newer elements like Lord Zedd and the new Rangers were swapped in with the old stuff without so much a change in their actual mannerisms. Here, Lord Zedd is very much his own character, the new Rangers are very much their own personas, and Tommy is established as the leader after not being much of one in the back end of the previous mini. Baby steps, kids.

As before, we have two stories in this issue. The first story, “While The Cat’s Away,” sees Lord Zedd heading off to some other galaxy to take care of business, leaving Squatt and Baboo to concoct their own plan to defeat the Rangers. Said plan involves a droopy monster that is eventually defeated by an oven that shoots awful food. Said oven cooks awful food because Bulk & Skull fixed it… or ruined it… or whatever you think. This is standard fare with a smart ending and I like the attempt at giving Squatt and Baboo more than the bumbling roles they usually adopt on TV.

Unstoppable Force is the second story, which involves inertia. A monster with stretch limbs is attacking, nigh invincible, and is eventually defeated when it falls off a cliff after the Megazord steps aside… it’s a unique ending to an otherwise average story.

Both stories feature are by returning artists; John Heenik for the first and Sparky Moore for the second. Both have stepped their game and continue to produce some of the best art in this Hamilton run.

The final issue of the first miniseries is another two-story issue.

The first story, “Attack Of The Gargantutron!”, poses an interesting premise; a monster is attacking and the teens are summoned to take it on, but they can’t answer because they’re in the middle of class! There’s a couple little bits that I liked here; Alpha recording a log entry (recording in MORPHIN MODE no less), the P.E. teacher calling for a new, unseen character called Kimberly Smith (either that or nobody knew who these characters’ full names were), and the Rocky dream (not THAT Rocky or THAT kind of dream, either). Story is nothing special; your usual Ranger fare. Al Bigley returns for art duties here and somehow the line art is just all over the place. The most you can say that characters look like what they’re supposed to, but they’re drawn in the most exaggerated manner possible that it comes across as goofy. I want to say that this gets better, but it really doesn’t.

Shop Till You Drop… Dead! is the second story in which Finster concocts a shopping mall as a trap for anyone involved, since all the shop merchants and staff are really monsters in disguised. Rocky and Kim eventually get caught, but then escape and help save the day. You know, maybe this should’ve been in the last issue and the “Grounded” story should’ve been placed here; then there’d be continuity. In any event, this is another story concept that would’ve benefitted from a full issue, but otherwise is fine. Gray Morrow returns to handle art duties for the first time since the very first issue and it’s pretty rough goings. The costumes are drawn more like  something out of a bootleg production, not proper MMPR. There is one particular frame that would probably appease some horny teens back in the day, but other than that, the art is pretty poor here.

So that’s the conclusion of the first miniseries. Next up, we’ve got the second Hamilton mini that comprises four issues. Will the writing be a little more consistent? Maybe…

From this point on in Hamilton’s run, each Power Rangers comic comes with TWO stories. And as such, we have two creative teams telling different stories. Both are returning artists and probably the two best artists on the book in my opinion, which is good because both stories have good art.

The first story is “Grounded”, which sees the Rangers facing off against a goofy three-handed cowboy looking fellow who can only be defeated with an arrow from the Pink Ranger’s Power Bow… because you know, cowboys and indians and all that jazz… Alas, Kimberly is grounded by her parents for overspending… which is something that I’m surprised hasn’t happened on the show because you’d think someone who likes to shop as much as she does would eventually get to that point. The story isn’t much and the smaller page count as a result of the new format doesn’t do it much favors, but again, this is a fairly basic idea that would have fit in nicely as a possible episode idea for the show. John Heebink’s art compliments the piece quite nicely.

On the other end of the proverbial Power Coin, we’ve got “Stranger In A Strange Land,” which depicts the teens practicing their skydiving moves for the upcoming movie (er, not really, but work with me here), only for Aisha to be whooshed off to what looks like Angel Grove, but somehow really isn’t. And when she encounters someone who looks like her, things get a bit weird. There’s actually an intriguing element behind this one, but the short page count hurts this one more than anything and the end result is something that is rushed through and not given enough time to breathe. As such, it’s just a thing that happened, complimented with Sparky Moore’s solid illustrations.