Justice League/Power Rangers #1 Review

When it comes to crossovers I never imagined would ever happen Justice League and Power Rangers is high on that list. But here we are with 2017 just kicking off and we have that exact crossover is kicking off. To make this dream crossover even better is that it is being written by Tom Taylor, the man behind the excellent Injustice: Gods Among Us and All-New Wolverine comic books. I have no doubt that Taylor will be able to deliver the appropriate story that is worthy of such a massive crossover between DC Comics and Boom Studios biggest franchises. Let’s find out now with Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1.

Writer: Tom Taylor

Artist: Stephen Byrne

Story Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: The citizens of Angel Grove are enjoying another day in their beautiful city.

Sometime in the future the Power Rangers are left stunned looking over a massive crater in the middle of a destroyed Angel Grove.

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Zack Taylor blames himself for Angel Grove’s destruction. Superman appears and tells Zack that it was not his fault. Superman reaches his hand out and tells Zack to stand-up.

36 hours earlier, Zack is late to meet his teammates at the Power Rangers Command Center. Jason, Trini and Kimberly joke around about give Zack being late.

Zordon quickly gets the Rangers attention and informs them that Alpha Five is missing. Billy mentions that Alpha recently went to check the Command Center’s perimeter but Zordon lost his signal. Zordon tells the Rangers to check the surrounding area for Alpha’s whereabouts.

Each of the Rangers head to a different location in the surround area looking for any sign of Alpha.

Inside a cave Zack is able to find a barely functioning Alpha. Zack contacts Zordon and takes Alpha back to the Command Center.

Zordon asks Zack if he saw anyone in the location he found Alpha. Zack says he did not.

Zordon senses that something is wrong with Alpha and tells Zack to teleport away. Zordon’s warning is too late as Alpha suddenly self-destructs.

The explosion sends Zack flying and opens a hole in the wall of the Command Center.

Lord Zedd and his Putty Patrol enter the Command Center through the hole that was created by the explosion. Zedd tells Zordon his time has come.

Zack gets back up and morphs into his Black Ranger suit right away. While putting up a valiant fight the Black Ranger is quickly overwhelmed by the numbers of Putties that Zedd brought with him. Seeing no other way out the Black Ranger grabs Zedd and teleports himself, Zedd and the Putties holding him out of the Command Center.

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Zordon tries to stop the Black Ranger because the teleporters are damaged but is too late.

While in the middle of teleporting Zedd is able to break the Black Rangers grasp on him. They both teleport to different locations.

The Black Ranger and some of the Putties end up landing in the middle of an unknown city.

Back at the Command Center the other Rangers arrive to find the Putty Patrol inside. They quickly morph and take on the remaining Putties.

During the fight the Yellow Ranger notices Alpha’s head on the ground. Zordon informs the Rangers that Zedd used a replica of Alpha as a bomb. He goes on to mention that the Black Ranger teleported himself and Zedd out of the Command Center even though the teleporters are damaged.

In the middle of a city the Black Ranger continues to fight the Putties that came with him. Suddenly Batman pulls up in his Batmobile and tells the Black Ranger to put his battle axe down.

The Black Ranger is confused by Batman’s presence since he does not look like someone from his home. After smacking away the last Putty, the Black Ranger thinks Batman is one of Zedd’s monsters and attacks him.

Batman is able to block the Black Rangers attack and pin him to the ground in one quick motion.

Before Batman can get any answers the other Rangers arrive and tell him to get away from the Black Ranger.

The Rangers begin fighting Batman. Though Batman is able to dodge their initial attacks, the Rangers are able to used their enhanced powers to get the upper hand on Batman. The Green Ranger is soon able to kick Batman into his Batmobile.

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While the Rangers go to check on the Black Ranger, Batman calls the Flash to help him out.

The Black Ranger tells his teammates that he thinks Batman is one of Zedd’s monsters. The Blue Ranger thinks he is some person from the world they are on.

Before the Rangers can question Batman all of their weapons are taken out of their hands by the Flash.

The Rangers are stunned that the Flash took their weapons away so quickly. Batman uses this distraction to get into his Batmobile and fire a missile at the Rangers. The blast from the missile’s explosion sends the Rangers flying onto the ground with the Black Ranger getting injured by the blast.

The Pink Ranger is the first to get back up and tells her teammates to teleport back to the Command Center while she stays behind. She then calls in the Pterodactyl Dinozord and gets inside to pilot it.

Flash calls the Watchtower and let’s Cyborg know that he and Batman needs the Justice League’s help as they as they are battling a flying pink dinosaur robot.

Back in Gotham the Pink Ranger uses the Pterodactyl Dinozord to grab the Batmobile with Batman inside and fly him away. End of issue.

The Good: While the Power Rangers are certainly a well-known franchise they are not in the same class, at least power-wise, as the members of the Justice League. So in order to make sure this crossover is not dominated by the Justice League, it was imperative that Tom Taylor established the skills and powers of the Power Rangers. In focusing on the majority of the first issue of the Justice League and Power Rangers crossover on the latter Taylor is able to accomplish just that.

Kicking things off by putting the spotlight on Zack Taylor was an interesting choice. Out of all the members of the Power Rangers team Zack has not had to many stories where he is the one we focus on. This fact is something that Taylor takes full advantage of as we see more of Zack’s personality fleshed out during Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1. It was particularly interesting to see how much blame he put on himself in the flash-forward scene that opened up the issue. Because for Zack to put all of the blame for Angel Grove’s destructions something bad must have occurred that he was responsible for.

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Taylor was also smart to choose the Lord Zedd-era of the Power Rangers to focus on. With the current Mighty Morphin Power Rangers comic book focusing on the Rita Repulsa-era after Tommy Oliver joined the team this choice give us enough a distant to not worry about what is going on in the current ongoing series. And while Rita is a cool villain, Lord Zedd is really the only Power Rangers villain that should be headlining this series. Zedd is by far the best villain in the Power Rangers history and the only one we can see actually being able to match up with the members of the Justice League.

Going off that, Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1 does a very good job at establishing that this version of Zedd is not afraid to use deadly force to take out the Power Rangers. Though it was implied, Zedd rarely used deadly force against the Power Rangers after his early appearances. Seeing how he used a replica of Alpha Five as a bomb to try to destroy the Command Center is a good way to establish the lengths Zedd is willing to go against the Power Rangers. With this established I can only imagine what Taylor will have Zedd do when he goes up against characters like Superman and Flash.

Though the other Power Rangers didn’t get as much attention as Zack they still were able to show off their greatest strength is their teamwork. The fight with Batman does a good job in establishing this as they were easily able to overwhelm him when they were fighting as unit. This is very different from how the Justice League operates, as they are more of a team of powerful individuals that occasionally team-up to fight big threats.

Having the Power Rangers first confrontation with the Justice League with just Batman also helps to establish their set of powers beyond being good martial artists. Batman is the strategist of the Justice League that is constantly analyzing people and his setting. With that Taylor is able to use Batman’s mind to establish that the Power Rangers do actually have enhanced powers when morphed that match certain metas.

It was also good to see that even when overwhelmed Batman was still approaching his fight with the Power Rangers in a strategic manner. Unlike the Rangers he knew he needed his questions answers and calling in the entire Justice League was not the answer. Instead he quickly decided on the best approach to disable the Rangers was to call the Flash. This choice gave Flash his own moment to shine with how quickly he took away the Rangers weapons.

Stephen Byrne did an effective job conveying Taylor’s story with his artwork. Byrne’s art is at its best when he is drawing the Power Rangers and their cast of characters, which is a good thing since they are the main focus of Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1. With their being no shortage of action sequences Byrne was able to show off the teamwork that the Rangers have. It was also fun to see how Batman was able to use all of his tricks during the fight with the Rangers.

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The Bad: The one problem I did have with the story of Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1 is with how quick the Rangers were to act against Batman. This seemed to be an uncharactistic move for the Rangers to instantly jump to Batman being a bad guy. This decision makes them, especially Zack, look bad given that Batman’s costume does not look like one of Zedd’s monster.

It was also odd to see the Rangers be the one to escalate things to the level that the Pink Ranger called her Megazord. The Megazords have never been called into battle until a fight escalates until one of their villains increases in size or something big like a meteor is about to strike Earth. So for them to call one of their Zords so quickly did not fall in line with what we normally know them to do.

Overall: Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1 kicked off this dream crossover with a fun and effective debut. The focus on the Power Rangers was the right one to make as Tom Taylor is able to establish the team as being able to stand side-by-side with the Justice League. This choice also properly builds Lord Zedd as a real threat to both the DC and Power Rangers Universes. It’s just unfortunate that some questionable character choices during the second half of the issue keep Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1 from being a home run. That said, this is still a comic book every DC Comics and Power Rangers fan should buy right away.

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