Category: Power Rangers

All posts relating to the ever-present Power Rangers franchise and all incarnations within.

Soul Of The Dragon: Kyle Higgins' Tommy Wankfest Continues

So Boom Studios recently announced another Power Rangers comic book and wouldn’t you know it; it’s yet another Tommy-centric comic book written by Kyle Higgins. Oh boy, because clearly we haven’t had enough of the Tommy Wankfest from Mr. Higgins, what with the alt-universe “Evil Tommy” bad guy that reeks of unoriginal fanficcy tripe (we’ve all done that bit, even me).

I was fine with the focus when the book started because the transitional period of the Green Ranger and the addition of a new member of the team was something that was never really touched on. And then you toss in an alternate universe ruled by an evil Ranger that everyone knew was an evil Tommy because of course it was. And then we had to find a way to keep that worthless character around and make him the central villain of a major comic event.

Look, I’m going to reserve judgment on the whole Shattered Grid thing until it reaches its eventual conclusion and I’d imagine I’m probably going back to the beginning of the series and giving some quick thoughts on each chapter. And this older Tommy comic might give me a couple chuckles here or there (though to be honest; I’ve been that road as well, so that’s not quite original territory, either.)

But I’m warning you folks; if the end of Shattered Grid isn’t Kyle Higgins inserting himself into the story and giving Jason Frank a blowjob, then all the hype would’ve have been for nothing.

A Glimpse Into Past Fanwankery

A piece of troubled teenhood, when my days in high school were spent doodling quick little comics with such silly concepts and ideas as a crossover between Street Fighter characters and Power Rangers characters. The artwork, as seen above depicting Ryu freeing a Ranger from Bison’s energy tube thing, is crude and the story is perhaps more so, but it’s not a far-fetched idea from what’s being done with the phone game now.

And then I went ahead and turned it into an absurd fanfic that was eventually posted to the world and stuff. The funny thing was that at some point, I actually did try to piece together a more “serious” story that crossed over the universes of the Street Fighter II animated movie with the first MMPR feature film in a situation that allowed for a little more leeway than trying to work within the constrains of the bloated universes the source material became, but it never really went beyond the first couple chapters and even then… not much there to go on.

Maybe someday, I might post those up here if I still have them. I doubt that I do, but hey, something extra for the blog, I suppose.

No More Saban Brands

Source article here.

TLDR (am I doing that right?): Saban Brands closes its doors July 2nd.

Well, you knew the Hasbro deal had to come to this. And given that Saban Brands existed solely for the sake of getting Power Rangers off Disney and try to make it viable in the interim years before the recent acquisition, I don’t think it was any surprise that this company would not last long beyond that. Sucks for the guys and gals getting laid off as a result and I do wish them all the best in whatever future endeavors they pursue.

That having been said, this DOES put a lot into question what happens to a lot of the older stuff they do own, such as the Beetleborgs, VR Troopers, and that Next Mutation series. Is Shell-Shocked once again going to be the only semblance of Saban’s Ninja Turtles the world is going to see come July?

I shudder to think.

There Are Them Street Fighters In Power Rangers: Legacy Wars… WTF

So, first off… I already did the Street Fighter/Power Rangers crossover ages ago. Actually, I did it TWICE. Once in a comic form and another in a prose fanfic form that mocked the whole idea.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way… um, yeah, why is this even a thing?

Look, I dig the Legacy Wars game. I didn’t think I would because of the lack of single-player experience and the chances of having to be online all the time means I won’t be playing this thing on long road trips, but it’s a fun little diversion regardless. That having been said, I don’t know why this game needed Street Fighter characters to “spice up” the roster when you still have a whole bunch of pre-existing Rangers, grunts, villains, and whatnots that still haven’t got a chance to shine.

I’m sure somewhere down the line, I might make a grab at one or two of them if they’re not that out of reach, but really, why is this even a thing?

About The Hasbro Deal…

So I suppose I should offer my five-cents on the news regarding Hasbro’s acquisition of the entire Power Rangers brand from Saban and what my thoughts are on the matter. I could offer my thoughts on the matter, but the only thought that comes to mind is… meh.

I suppose there are concerns going forward. After all, the brand has changed hands twice before and the change in leadership has somehow degraded the overall product even further down. The Disney-era stuff started off well enough despite early misgivings before falling somewhat off the rails and while I haven’t seen enough of the current “Neo-Saban” line of products to form a solid opinion, what little I have seen hasn’t given me much hope.

I guess there is something of a cautious optimism and perhaps even hope for the best in that Hasbro will bring the brand to bigger heights. I’d like to think that, given the numerous properties under their belt, they’ll treat the brand as well as they did those, for whatever that’s worth, of course. I mean, they got a new logo that looks current yet slick. They’ve got a new season based on a somewhat ancient Super Sentai series that has something of a unique look. It’s a promising start, if nothing else.

In any event, I shall wait and see where this leads. And then I either praise them to the heavens or damn them to hell.

Or, you know, I’ll just shrug my shoulders and move on with my life.

About That Shock Ending…

Don’t expect it to stick… despite claims to the contrary.

Comic books never do anything permanent; it’s just something they do to try and shock people.

The problem is that the only thing this would shock is people who don’t normally read comics.

For the rest of us, we’re just waiting on the return that’ll happen in a few months.

So this is a pretty lame grid thus far.

A REALLY OLD Comment On A Forgotten MMPR "Fan" Film

Digging up the now-defunct MMPR Fan Film project, I came across a comment that was posted on my commentary video for one of their trailer from around 2014-ish. I seem to have recalled touching on this one of the prior DTM-Cast audio programs (Episode 24, for those curious), but I decided to turn the comment into a post for the sake of content and historical context from a voice not my own.

I don’t recall the name or handle of the person who posted this, as the comments on Dailymotion videos have been excised for some reason, so the transcript is from one of the old DTM-Cast posts. Somewhere along the way, I want to do one final write-up on this thing, but that’s a long way to go.
In any event, the MMPR Fan Film comment on an old video, with some minor notes on my end.

“From what I know/have heard, [the producers of this thing] apparently thought [Power Rangers] wasn’t still running and in the beginning had only seen Season 3 of MMPR and Time Force, thought they could make something off this from old fans [or at least those riding the nostalgia train] and when realizing the show is still going strong, decided that the fandom needed a ‘Dark & Gritty’ reboot.
[Because that’s all mature and stuff… the problem with that line of thinking is that when one usually tries to make some light-hearted into something mature, it’s done in the most immature way that when you see the final product, you’re wondering if the whole thing was done by three year olds wanting to be all grown-up and completely missed the point of maturity. Case in point; DC and Marvel comics. But I digress.]
Main reason discussing this will get you banned from forums [mainly Rangerboard – Rangercrew did have a thread up, but I don’t think there’s an out-and-out rule banning all discussion of the thing] is because they refused to answer questions straight, were pretty damn rude to more then a few ‘critiques’, and were just unpleasant. [I followed the threads on Rangerboard and Rangercrew and you’re spot on about all that. To my own recollection, it got REAL UGLY, REAL FAST.] That, and apparently some of the people working of this didn’t know what ‘Sentai’ was. [I honestly would be surprised if they did knew anything about Sentai.] 
One of the actors [the guy who’s playing the Red Ranger in that thing, I think] joined at a later date and tried to explain some things, but just caused even more confusion. Combine this with information changing every so often on their kickstarter and changing their minds on what this is gonna be several times…yeah. Not gonna make anyone happy.
[Yeah, if I remember, they did a Kickstarter with the intent of making it a movie with some mini-trailers or something, then it became a webseries, then it’s a movie, then it became a pitch for a SyFy Original Series, and it’s a webseries again, and they were gonna get Jason Frank to reprise the role of Tommy cause the guy’s a big ol’ publicity whore riding the nostalgia train along with the rest of them, but then he said he wasn’t gonna do it, they got Robert Axelrod to do the voice of Zedd again, but doesn’t quite have the same umph as before unless they were to enhance the voice somehow… by the way, it’s a webseries and we’re gonna have trailers for the trailers of the upcoming episodes because that’s hip and cool and… I might have missed the announcement where they were turning it into a high school musical based on a script by the same genius who brought infamous fanfic Agony In Pink or something, but I digress.]
by the way, if you don’t know what Agony in Pink is, you’re very fortunate and I’ll leave it at that.
I can agree with the comments you made here though. At no point when watching that trailer did I think this felt like any kind of PR. [For those wondering about said comments, look up the video and you’ll see my rambling thoughts there. But to sum up my thoughts on the trailer, it looked like a generic military trailer that is about as much of a Power Rangers thing as pro wrestling is a real sport. It’s just something that could’ve been its own original thing that would probably blend in with the rest of the souless, dark, dreary, unimaginative crap that’s floating around these days, but because they word drop some familiar names and terminology, it’s supposedly a more adult Power Rangers thing or something… whatever.]
Thankfully, there are some other fan films in the works which actually look to be quite interesting. You heard of anything for a fanfilm called ‘Zordon of Eltar’?” [As a matter of fact, I’ve seen their trailer and their pitch video for the kickstarter campaign and it looks like a worthwhile project. Wouldn’t mind checking that out if they can get it going. There was also that other short film that I saw called Red Rising, which I thought was a fun little thing and I even liked the leather jacket idea for the morphed Ranger. I don’t know if that was before or after GoBuster, which were Rangers in leather jackets.]

And then in 2019, we’re getting Go-Busters in the form of Beast Morphers.