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It has been a long year, Ranger Nation. This article will be a little bit of everything for me. I’ll give you my call on the book, but I really want to review the past arc as a whole, too.
The Story
The Purple Solar Ranger Ari is moved by Ranger Slayer Kim to open up her dimension to the rest of THE GRID and, with that, the universe as well. Their planet, a giant ZEO crystal, will be the place for the last stand with Dark Spector.
Billy is ready to intact his plan of luring Dark Spector to The Splintered Star. The Angel Grove Rangers are still finishing their battle, and Zedd is taking on Mistress/Master Vile’s ship in his sleek Serpentera Megazord.
The rest of the available rangers are at the Bermuda Triangle, ready to use the Master Arch to teleport to Ari’s world. Even Zordon is coming for the ride in his own special vessel. Did I mention that Zedd and even THE DEATH RANGER are coming, too?!? Yep, Zordon has made an uneasy alliance with not one but two “evil rangers” as a necessary means to an end.
Unfortunately, Dark Spector and his legion make it to The Splintered Star first. The Rangers finally show up, but here’s the twist: they must unmorph to deliver the final blow! All in all, the good guys win, and the bad guys lose because it’s Power Rangers.
Thoughts from THE GRID
This has been a long time coming. Literally, it has taken an entire year to finish this arc. Everything from the past several years has culminated in a fight literally in another universe with an untapped portion of the grid. It seems very full circle, considering that the comics, in my opinion, didn’t hit their stride till The Shattered Grid arc.
Melissa Flores has worked her magic, but I feel this was a good way to go out on a high note at this point because all the stories in this continuity have been told. I didn’t say everything was wrapped up in a bow, but that’s comic books for you.
Giving Billy this redemption story so quickly after shattering the grid again was a great send-off, considering we start getting random narration leading to the epilogue.
Speaking of send-off, I like that Trini and Jason came to terms with the new dynamic in their lives. I really think the big surprise out of all of them was Skull’s girlfriend coming back for the final fight. A bit random, but I’m glad Eugene got his happy ending. But there are still other loose ends, and I think only Gosei has “A simple explanation for that.”
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Darkest Hour #1 gets 8 out of 10 Power Coins
As much as I love Power Rangers, I have to stay objective about the story, and it just like my review started strong and then just finished. With a double-sized issue and knowing the fact that eight years of story had to get tied up, I can say with certainty that many pages were left on the editorial floor.
Knowing Melissa likes to have a well-rounded story, they should have just sucked it up and let the story be I feel as if the epilogue shouldn’t have centered around Billy and His memoirs. But the aftermath and how everyone got back to where they should be.
The only other thing that came out of this storyline was new ranger designs. The Drakkon Rangers were perfect and well thought out. Design-wise, the Dark Rangers was a cop-out because it felt like no one wanted to design dark versions or multipole ranger suits, so they went with a lazy design , Which I know I’ve mentioned before.
The same goes for the White Light enhanced Rangers; it is just an armor and palette swap. Speaking of Dark Rangers! How about the nod to the Zedd Rangers!!
At the end of the day, not every story in comics is going to have the perfect ending, but this is the best we got, and I’m still thankful for the last eight years of books and am looking for to the next journey.
After you teleport and pick up the book, tell us what you think. Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and please consider following me personally at OFF THE CUFF TOM on social media. Don’t forget to support your LCS and morph back to the Nerd Initiative for all your Ranger Reviews!
