Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Volume 4 Review

Hi, I'm writer Kyle Higgins and you're listening

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So without any further ado, it's time to talk

about the comics we are reading right now here

inside the pull bag. Hey, I'm Kyle Higgins, writer

of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and you're listening

to Mighty Morphin March here inside the pull

bag. Thank you once again to Mr. Kyle Higgins

for the introduction. Welcome to Mighty Morphin'

March here inside the pull bag on the GeekCast

Radio Network. I am of course... Wow. I am of

course TFG1Mike. No, I'm not Steve Megatron.

What the hell was I gonna say? Wow. What kind

of bizarro world are we living in? This really

is an alternate dimension if I'm Steve Megatron.

And I'm TFG1Mike. Yeah, I don't think so. That's

not happening. Uh... So yes, we are here, Mighty

Morphin March, episode 344 of The Pull Bag, volume

4 of Boom Studios, Power Rangers, main ongoing,

and oh boy, does, I mean I know this story ramps

up and ramps up as we go further here, but wow,

volume 4 just kinda kicked all kinds of ass.

You've got Kyle Higgins on writing, as per usual.

illustrated by Henry Presettia on chapters 13

14 and 16 Daniel Bailes did the did chapter 15

so basically issue 15 colors done by Matt Herms

edited but letters done by Ed Dukeshire the editor

was Stefina Pliven okay then so we have Gold

are and Finster and Rita and all of that starting

out and They're gonna make a bunch of gold our

clones because the putties just aren't cutting

it Those didn't either well true gold are didn't

I mean he lasted a lot longer than the putties

did but But yeah, we also have them part of the

story where they're in the alternate time line

and it's aisha and s both balkan and trini which

it's so weird seeing trini and i aisha in the

same place considering trini went off and did

her thing in in the show you know that they went

off to do the humanitarian thing it's not weird

in a bad way is just a little strange more so

it's not i have nothing against it i think it's

really cool um and they're you know taking them

to their leader and their leader turns out to

be zack funny enough funny enough um i love uh

the art and colors on sabah throughout this entire

thing Saba is one of the coolest pieces of this

trade. I Was always a fan of Saba. Mm -hmm when

he was introduced into Power Rangers. Mm -hmm

And I also liked the tiger Zord and the Falcon

Zord so it was kind of a And the white tiger

suit so the same time like I loved the entire

Everything that surrounded the white Ranger.

Yep. And so to see that getting more fleshed

out is incredible yep it really really is so

we get yeah we get all kinds of character stuff

in the beginning here between Billy and Tommy

because the the coinless as their term don't

think that You know, they think there's something

wrong, they think it's Lord Draken, they think

it's this, they think it's that. And they're

like, no, really. And apparently, the Lord Draken's

world's Billy is dead. So you have this whole

thing with that world's Trini and our world's

Billy. You have Lord Draken punishing one of

his Yellow Ranger sentries. all of that and lo

and behold look who it is it's scorpina from

our world so that explains where the hell she's

been for a time for a time anyway yes you know

so that's one cool thing amongst many cool things

that kyle higgins in the writing when we first

saw gold are he was being punished in in his

dark dimension and now he's getting second chance

kind of thing and come to find out scorpina is

with or Hanging around Lord dragon kind of a

thing as well and it is bulk and skull with With

the coinless which that's interesting. I kind

of like that actually Give them a purpose other

than being bumbling more hunts. Yeah which he's

kind of given them a little bit of a retcon anyway

in this just because they're not, they're more

of like video bloggers and less of that, you

know, moronic version that they were previously.

Yep. Yeah, we're the first ever Power Ranger

video bloggers or we're the ones that do it better

or I heart Power Rangers or whatever. That's

a dig that no one's going to get except you.

You know a company saying they're the first at

something. Yeah, we done it first. Uh, no No,

you didn't you might have made a lot of money

off of it. No They made a lot of hoopla over

it true doesn't make it true. No So we have Jason

and Zach training we have Kimberly and Jason

talking about the stress of everything else and

I understand they're still going with the whole

split of Tommy's powers through Billy's power

coin and whatever else and I remember that one

time in the show when Jason did get the dragon

shield and it was you know the Red Ranger with

the dragon shield it's really it's not off -putting

it's not strange but it it's It's a little well,

maybe it is a little strange seeing Jason in

the green uniform with the dragon shield because

I'm used to seeing him obviously in his red uniform

with that, but again I understand it's part of

the story. It's part of you know Everybody doesn't

have their powers, so they're you know hemorrhaging

off Tommy or siphoning off Tommy's kind of thing

You have our Billy looking at you know The memory

wall in the in the he's doing his Billy thing

He's exploring and he sees you know in loving

memory and it's it's their world's Billy and

he asks Trini what happened and what I love about

the way Kyle wrote this is He didn't say how

did this how did your Billy die or whatever?

How did I die? That I thought was a very cool

way to Express instead of Basically saying, hey,

there's two different ones here. I thought that

was really cool. Yeah. And apparently that world's

Billy died a hero because he saved Trini's life.

And we get, you know, part of this great battle

with Draken, which again, I think is super cool

because we really get to see Lord Draken in action.

So that's very cool. We get to see Saba and Saba

basically tells Zach that you know I'll be back

and you know I'll come back with people who are

gonna save our world Which is funny because like

they they go through this whole diatribe of explaining

how that comes to be Yeah, and I didn't feel

like it was that bad of a diatribe I felt like

we don't know enough of Lord Drakens world or

what happened especially in reading through the

eyes of our Rangers So they kind of need that

it isn't just Exposition to be exposition Yeah,

it was very well put together and I really enjoyed

how they kind of explained it and um the whole

uh you know finding worthy rangers via like zordon

we end uh chapter 13 with the goldar army and

with the fact that finster has the the alpha

robot and he's basically reprogramming it and

controlling it himself What's that thing that

he says? Affirmative? Affirmative, Jason. Yes,

yeah. And, you know, obviously ensuing battle

between the coinless Tommy and Billy and Lord

Draken's forces. Very, very cool. I love the

technology that they show off. I love the look

of the tanks. I love the way that, you know,

Zack asks Tommy, he basically says, this dragon

will probably seek you out the second you leave

here, are you ready? And Tommy's like, very ready.

We have all the green rangers and all the green

men fighting all the goldars. Together again.

Do like it though. I think it's kind of cool

to see the various Other Rangers helmets in the

green color like Kim's you know pterodactyl helmets

and and Zach's mastodon helmet. I think it's

cool seeing it in the green color We did get

a little bit confusing though kind of trying

to keep track a Little bit I can understand that

yeah I mean, I can see the difference clearly.

There's one panel. It's right after the battle

starts. It's where they say, ah, they just keep

coming. You get Jason, Kimberly, and Zach right

there on three panels. I think the other difference

is their powers or their power weapons are kind

of their original colors so you can kind of like

Kim's arrows shoot pink so You can kind of tell

yeah, I mean I guess I guess that's true, too

You have the coin list fighting back as I said

big battle scenes here Very very cool Scorpina

shows up with red ranger sentries, which is interesting.

So we've seen black ranger sentries, yellow ranger

sentry, which was one, and then these two red

ranger sentries. The red ranger sentries behind

Scorpina kind of remind me of the... Star Wars

fans are gonna kill me. The Praetorian guards,

the red guards that are always with Palpatine.

Crimson Guard. Yeah, something like that. No,

it's the Crimson Guard. Okay. I know these things.

I like the Emperor. Mm -hmm. He likes the Emperor,

folks. Huge air quotes around that. Ah, shit.

So, Saba shows up, and part of the earlier part

of the story was that they escaped in the Falcon

Zord. and they've somehow buried the falcon zord

or whatever and it gets to the point in the battle

where you know Aisha I believe says now would

be a great time for that plant of yours Saba

yes yes it's here And all of a sudden the Falcon

Zord comes out and does its wing thing with the

missiles and all That was one of the coolest

things about the original Falcon Zord toy That

you could basically mimic the scene from the

movie when it does it in the original 95 film.

I Love that they threw that in here Yeah, I I

do love that as well and and I like how we also

get the Well, just basically that whole freaking

battle you know the whole battle is amazing uh...

it's super cool to see the falcon zord fight

out fights with the should say against lord dragon's

black jets there that's very cool uh... you know

we we even get to see pink ranger sentries Vulcan

skull do their thing Lord Drakkon arrives and

Stuff kind of goes to hell pretty much Falcon

Zord crashes Everybody's taken to to Rita or

to wait what wait a minute taken to Rita uh...

that's right it's two different since it's the

gold are you are you are you are you are you

are you are you are you are you are you are you

are you are you are you are you are you are you

are you are you are you are you are you are you

are you are So that's the end of issue 15 there.

I love this. Even though most of it is just battles,

Power Ranger battles have always been really

cool. And in comic form, I find them even cooler

because you can do so much with the art. I mean,

television budgets aren't what they used to be.

I have been watching or I have watched at least

the first two episodes of the New Beast Morpher

series. It's probably in the modern -day Power

Rangers series. It's the one that I've actually

wanted to stick with. Like I've seen all of Samurai

and Super Samurai. I forget what was after that.

And then Ninja Steel and whatever. I didn't watch

a lot of that stuff, but... this new beastmorphers

series that they're doing is really cool and

my point in bringing that up is even today there's

still only so much you can do with a television

budget but comics you can do almost anything

you can have the artist do almost any kind of

battle and this battle in in uh... in chapter

fourteen was just amazing yeah I also like how

they they actually bested the the counter universe

as it were mm -hmm just because it's cool like

I don't know oh yeah we have issue 15 here I

love the cover the Rangers with with Zordon The

Rangers with Zordon on the cover. I love that.

That's cool. That's kind of like an ominous thing

and This issue is basically Zordon's part of

the story. Like where did he go? What happened?

What's going on with him? And he actually meets

up in this astral plane with the other Zordon

like he's Stuck in between time Which was actually

really awesome. It was I'm glad Kyle did this

as far as the story goes and the art that's done

on this is just simply amazing and and how the

the one zordon essentially died and the other

one was like Conversing with You know conversing

with Saba and promising, you know, look, I'm

going to send them your way. Yes. There's a couple

of times in this issue where I feel like Zordon

has a, I almost said Zaba. What the hell is Zaba?

Where Zordon has almost, it's different angles.

It's mainly like when we see him in his tube,

in the chamber. He almost looks like he has an

Optimus Prime hat on. He could in various. Yeah,

I know but I'm just saying like the way that

the art is done The way that the colors and the

way that the shadows project off of it and whatever

it looks like he has In certain angles, it looks

like he has like, you know little optimus ears

So we get the story of you know Lord Drakkon,

you know Tommy of his world and how he basically

chose Rita over everybody else And I, even though

we really only see it once, I believe, yes, it's

only once, I wish there was a bigger panel of

this. It's the panel where it's Ninjor and Alpha,

where Zordon says, however, the more I witness

of this world, the more it seems my other self

was wrong about many things, including, you see

the Falcon Zord and the Tiger Zord next to each

other. I don't think I've ever seen the Falcon

Zord and the Tiger Zord next to each other. Nope.

I mean, I'd love to have a Falcon Zord, Tiger

Zord, you know, all in one kind of battle. With

them obviously fighting a monster or whomever.

So you see that this world's Tommy is like, no,

I'm gonna be evil and yadda yadda yadda and you

know, Zordon's like, you don't have to do this

and he basically destroys Zordon. And, you know,

our Zordon speaks kind of the obvious thing,

hello? You, I, you are dying. Yes, Draken has

assured that, has assured of that. I mean, how

often do we get to talk, like, quite literally

talk to a different version of ourselves? Yes,

we can all talk to ourselves till we're blue

in the face. I talk to myself all the time. So

do I. Well, you have a, you know, what is that

thing you always say? A penchant for intelligent

conversation. Yeah, exactly. So, um, but, you

know, just witnessing any version of Zordon dying,

even though this world's Zordon kind of was a

little misguided or, you know, his beliefs didn't

really work and things like that, I think we're

left with, you know... The thing of hey, this

is kind of hopeful. This is kind of our Zordon

seeing a different version of himself and not

making the same mistakes that that Zordon did

of course in our universe Tommy didn't choose

evil. He chose good Which is great Yeah, I just

love the way this issue it focused again as I

said as I've said over the last three weeks Each

issue finds a way each part of the story finds

a way to Not only have character depth growth

and a Further line in the story It focuses on

each personality at different parts of the story

in almost every single issue like this issue

mainly has been Zordon and telling of the story

and like you said Saba you know wasn't fast enough

and you know he'll come back and he'll and he'll

send people and he'll do this and he'll do that

we then obviously go back to to the battle with

Draken and Zach and all of that but the fact

that a majority of this issue is of this part

of the story is Zordon and the history of all

of that that is very cool You know I loved that

whole play through time yeah You know we often

say you know There isn't enough time to give

all the answers or all the all the things we

want in a two and a half hour three hour movie

or whatever Or there isn't enough time like say

a TV show only gets 13 episodes or hell in some

cases it only gets 5 or 10 or 13 or whatever

um... you know it doesn't have that much amount

of time even comics sometimes that happens i

mean sometimes comics will go away but you know

or whatever this this series kyle higgins writing

hendry on the art and the other artists on the

art as well kyle's story that he's telling so

far is so in -depth It covers so much more ground

than we've ever had in Power Rangers. And this

is why I said, and I'll continue to say, this

is the Power Rangers comic we have always wanted.

It's the one we've always deserved. Like, the

original show is what the original show is. That

was done 20 -something years ago. There's nothing

we can do about that now. It lives in a time

capsule. Whatever they're doing on television

now, that's what they're doing on television

now. However, Kyle Higgins came in, took all

of the characters that he and the rest of the

world loves, like us, and gives them story, depth,

and everything else that is completely different

but still has the same feel of, hey, this is

my Power Rangers. Yeah, it definitely felt that

way, and I... Being a fan of the original Power

Rangers anyway, it kind of was Basically like,

you know going back to the the origins of my

Fandom with the series Yep Absolutely mine too.

We have one more chapter here. We have chat issue

16 chapter 16 They're about to surrender, but

before they surrender, you know, there's something

you should know, Lord Drakkon. And the fact is,

they're never gonna surrender. Never give up,

never surrender. Galaxy Quest. Yep. So they fight

on and Trini and Billy figure out the power coin

and eventually everybody gets their powers back.

Somebody ends up in the Black Dragon using that.

What she does is she uses the Black Dragon with

Billy's Triceratops power coin to basically give

everybody back their original colors, original

powers, brings back the Megazord. and the battle

continues and you basically have Trini running

the black dragon which is really really cool

and funny I might add and again we get back to

this whole battle battle thing and You know,

we get to the point of them figuring out their

Billy, our Billy. We get Tommy and Dracken, or

Tommy and Tommy, having a battle with each other.

And, you know, the Tommy on Tommy battle, as

much as we enjoyed Dimensions in Danger from,

I think Ninja Steel it was, The episode with

Tommy fighting himself. Mm -hmm. I really dug

this because you basically have Lord dragon with

the dragon dagger and you've got our Tommy with

Saba and the You know the other Dragon yeah So

they have a fight and knockdown drag out and

what's really cool about all of this is as we're

going along you know tommy is kinda talking to

dracon and talking to us the audience about uh...

he says because when i feel that darkness is

that fear i remember that they trust me you know

that they believe in me and i believe in i hope

you don't mind but this party just looked way

too good to miss Speak of the devil, you know

that it's this whole and Kyle does this amazed

like I Dare anyone to read his Nightwing run

and when they get to issue 29 of that run I Dare

them not to cry They won't be able to because

the way Kyle writes these characters the way

Kyle writes Dick Grayson Nightwing he puts a

message of hope and a message of friendship and

a message of togetherness to get to the point

of where it is so emotionally resonant that you

can't help but shed a tear. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

So, he thinks Draken is defeated, but then Draken

jumps off the cliff or something or other. He

kind of falls backwards, you know, like, not

today! Yeah. And kind of escapes and... Yeah,

so the two Zach's meet up with each other the

coinless Zach and our Zach and We have our training

and and our Billy meeting back up This one kind

of ends on a Almost a good note and everybody

gets their color back on their uniforms. Yeah,

everybody gets their own color back Zordon is

kind of back. They're trying to work on getting

him back and Yay, we see red Jason with the dragon

shield Yeah And they all kind of go back to their

lives their parents are you know you know all

happy that they're that they're back home safe

and What I love that Kyle did the framework for

this from earlier when bulk had asked him about

you know what, you know, the Power Rangers mean

to Tommy or whatever. I love that he framed it

around this whole part of the story around that,

and then the end part of it is Tommy giving them

his answer. And Bulk and Skull are like, you

know, Bulk's like, you take four weeks to film

this for us and that's the best you can come

up with. There's always hope. Sorry, guys. Best

I've got. We go back to Draken, and he's somewhere.

We don't know where, but he's... It looks like

our Earth. Yeah, it does look like our Earth,

and it probably is the new people we're going

to be seeing in the next trade for next week.

So, we weren't that big of a fan of the further

adventures of Bulk and Skull. Did you have any

interest in the ongoing misadventures of squat

and baboo? No Just not a fan of the follow -ups

It reminds me of some of those old things that

they used to do in the 80s and 90s in the comics

too And like it just was like nope skip boom

done Like just give me the regular issue, please.

I mean No offense to any of the creators on this.

This specific one is written by Ryan Ferrier,

who Ryan Ferrier is someone I've actually interviewed

the guy. He's a really super cool guy, and it's

not anything to do with the creators. It's not

anything to do with the people that worked on

this. It's just, like you said... want the main

story. Like if they're gonna do a backup like

what Snyder and Capolo did where it ties in somewhere

or some sort of epilogue part of the story, great.

I mean I understand they're trying to also appeal

to kids, but I'm sorry this is not a kids comic

book. This is for us. We have the cover gallery

in this. I absolutely love the three covers that

are in here. I love the dragon dagger one where

he's pulling at the putty one and then the sort

of darkness kind of cover as well. So cool. Read

this comic series, folks. If you have not done

so already, please do so. What are your final

thoughts or anything on this specific... part

of the story, this trade here. I enjoyed it.

I liked how, although it was a little confusing

between the two battles going on at the same

time, between pages, it was kind of difficult

to kind of keep that straight in my head. But

I don't know if it's just because of life, but

it could be that. But no, I mean, I enjoyed the

storyline. I enjoyed You know, how everything

kind of resolved itself. I really loved the Zordon

and Zordon conversation. And then the Tommy vs.

Tommy battle that should have resulted in a death

that did not. Which will come back to haunt later,

I'm sure. Yes, yes it will, I think. Volume 4,

absolutely love it. I still cannot say anything

bad about this. Even bulk and skull. I mean alternate

dimension bulk and skull were kind of cool because

they were part of the rebellion. They were fighting

with the Rangers. They had a point. Exactly.

Again, all the character stuff like you said

was Zordon with Billy and Trini and, you know,

not having certain Rangers on Dragon's Earth.

Hell, Rita not even being there. on Dragon's

Earth. Absolutely love it. Think it's great.

GCR and Universal Rating System, zero to five

stars. What would you give this one? I'd probably

give it a four and a half. I'm right there with

you. Four and a half. Absolutely love it. Thought

it was great. All right, folks. This is our penultimate

episode next week is the grand finale for now

as we talk about volume five of boom Studios

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers We're gonna be able

to find you online sir on the Twitter sphere

at SCP 21 or at altered geek I'm at TFU and Mike,

you can follow out The Pullback at GeekCast Radio

for all the other network updates. Make your

great escape into comics and we will catch you

next week for the Mighty Morphin March finale.

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