Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 Review

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 Review

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 Review

So far “Shattered Grid” has delivered on what comic book fans expect from a big event. We’ve had some major moments that have shaken the Power Rangers Universe to its core, the death of Tommy Oliver, and plenty of great character development. As we continue to explore the different Power Ranger teams across time the rise in power of Drakkon should get more interesting. The cover of this new issue seems to indicate that things will be getting worse before they get better. Let’s see if that is the case with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27.

Writer: Kyle Higgins (Shattered Grid); Ryan Ferrier (The New Adventures of Blue Senturion & Ninjor)

Artist: Daniele Di Nicuolo (Shattered Grid); Ryan Ferrier (The New Adventures of Blue Senturion & Ninjor)

Colorist: Walter Baiamonte (Shattered Grid); Jeremy Lawson (The New Adventures of Blue Senturion & Ninjor)

Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 7.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: In Drakkon’s castle the Sentry Rangers talk about how its been impossible to get the Coinless leader to talk. The leader of the Red Ranger Sentries says he’ll make the Coinless leader talk and dismisses the others.

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The Red Ranger Sentry approaches Zack, who has been tied to chair, and reveals himself to be an older Skull.

In the present Lauren Shiba (the Red Samurai Ranger) catches the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers up on what Drakkon did to the Samurai Rangers home before they arrived. Lauren asks if they know what Drakkon did with her friends. Billy and Trini say that they have been probably imprisoned and Drakkon is going to use their Samuraizer morphers to power his Sentry Rangers.

Jen reappears and shows all the Rangers that Drakkon is attacking all of the worlds where there are Power Rangers. Jason says they need to warn everyone. Billy and Alpha Five integrate Jen’s Time Force technology to give Zordon the ability to communicate to all of the Power Ranger teams across the Morphin Grid.

Zordon does just that. As Zordon tells all of the Rangers about what is going on the Space, Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, SPD, Dino Thunder, Jungle Fury, Dino Charge and Ninja Steel Power Rangers are already struggling to defend themselves against all of Drakkon’s forces.

As Kimberly questions if all the other Power Rangers heard Zordon’s warning Dr. K from the RPM Power Ranger Universe contacts the Command Center through the viewing globe. Dr. K tells Zordon and everyone in the Command Center on how Drakkon’s forces have been attacking Corinth for the last eight hours with the RPM Rangers being able to hold them off.

Dr. K goes on to reveal that one of the RPM Rangers recovered a Dragon Cannon and she was able to reverse engineer its effects and created a way to counteract the weapons effects on her Rangers powers. Jason asks if Dr. K can help all the Power Rangers counteract the Dragon Cannon effect on their powers. Dr. K says she can though each Power Ranger teams’ connection to the Morphin Grid is different so she’ll need time to make it work.

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The transmission with Dr. K is suddenly lost. Before the Rangers in the Command Center can figure out what to do next the older Zack from the Coinless Universe contacts them. The Coinless Zack’s broken transmission gives the Rangers coordinates to his location as he is need of their help.

Zack and Billy each say they should help their allies in the Coinless Universe and get to Dr. K. Kimberly reminds everyone that the other Power Ranger teams are also under attack and they should help them too.

Jason speaks up and tells Billy, Trini and Zack to head over to the Coinless Universe to help their allies their. Jason then assigns Jen and Kimberly with rounding up as many of the Power Rangers from other Universe up as they can to fight together. He wraps things up by saying he and Lauren will head over to the RPM Universe to figure out how they can all counteract the Dragon Cannons with Dr. K. All the Rangers accept their assignments and teleport away.

At his castle in the Coinless Universe, Drakkon watches his forces take down the different Power Ranger teams while also holding the Red Zeonizer Crystal. Finster-5 shows up and says he can add the Red Zeonizer Crystal to their collection of morphers unless it means something significant to Drakkon. Drakkon is quiet for a second and then says it doesn’t while handing the Red Zeonizer Crystal to Finster-5.

Finster-5 wonders if Drakkon’s extended time with the Zeo Rangers affected him. Drakkon says he just used the time to see how their enemies lived, though he still doesn’t understand why in that world everyone help Tommy in a high pedestal. Finster-5 says it may have been love but Drakkon dismiss that statement.

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One of the Ranger Sentries shows up to inform Drakkon that Dr. K has figured out how to counteract the Dragon Cannon. Drakkon says he will head to Corinth himself to deal with Dr. K and tells Finster-5 to get the next power transfer ready.

At the RPM Universe Jason and Lauren arrive in the desert outside Corinth. Jason summons his Tyrannosaurus Zord so they can travel to Corinth quicker.

While on their way to Corinth Jason asks Lauren about her background. Lauren goes over how she was hidden away and trained to defeat Master Xandred and the Nighloks. Jason wonders if it worked. Lauren says things didn’t go as planned but the Samurai Rangers were successful in defeating Master Xandred. Lauren then reveals that her brother Jayden and Mentor Ji have gone undercover to figure out what the remaining Nighloks are up to, which is when Drakkon attacked them and destroyed their home.

Jason gets angry as that is what Drakkon does. Lauren apologizes for bringing up bad memories of Tommy’s death. Jason says it is okay and they will figure out how to defeat Drakkon and save the other Samurai Rangers. Lauren and Jason then bond over how they both need to focus on the mission at hand rather than living in what happened in the past.

At an abandoned building in the Coinless Universe Zack, Trini and Billy arrive and find the location is actually what remains of the Juice Bar. Coinless Trini hugs Billy, thankful he is alive. Zack wonders where the rest of the Coinless army is. Coinless Zack reveals that Scorpina continued to wage war against them and nearly wiped them all out.

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Coinless Trini and Skull reveal that thanks to the latter working undercover in Drakkon’s army they were able to survive. Coinless Skull goes on to say that he found out Drakkon is using Ninjor, who the current Mighty Morphin Power Rangers haven’t met yet, to gain more power. Coinless Zack says they plan on saving Ninjor and having him help them defeat Drakkon.

Outside of Corinth the RPM Rangers are fighting all of Drakkon’s Ranger Sentries, that now include Sentries powered by the Samurai Ranger powers. Jason and Lauren show up and use the Tyrannosaurus Zord to force Ranger Sentries to retreat.

Jason finds Dr. K, who says she needs to take their readings before getting the countermeasure prepared. The Black RPM Ranger sees something coming.

In the distance a powered up Drakkon leads his forces, that include the Psycho Rangers, SPD A-Squad Rangers and Koragg, on a strike against everyone in Corinth. End of issue.

The Good: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 is a well-paced issue that continues the overall narrative of “Shattered Grid” as Drakkon continues to get more powerful. While much of this chapter of “Shattered Grid” is a set-up for bigger events to take place in future issues they important building blocks. Those building blocks are made even more important as we get inside the heads of what Drakkon, Jason and other key characters.

The most interesting thing that Kyle Higgins introduces in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 is the confusion Drakkon showed to his counterparts, Tommy Oliver’s, legendary status. This is something that Higgins is bringing over from the recent Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Annual where Drakkon spent time with the Zeo Rangers. Finster-5 mentioning that Drakkon actually spent more time than usual in the Zeo Rangers world was something that was uncharacteristic to how Drakkon acted with the Mighty Morphin version of Tommy. It’s clear that being in a time period where Tommy is already seen highly by his fellow Rangers affected Drakkon.

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This goes back to speaking to how different Drakkon and Tommy’s origins are post-Evil Green Ranger Saga. In Drakkon’s story we saw that he never allowed himself to gain the friendship of Jason, Kimberly and the others. Instead he just continued that path. Now seeing more of a world where Tommy has fully put his past behind him and became the leader of the Power Rangers was unexpected for Drakkon. Higgins did a good job writing Drakkon shaken from this experience while still pushing ahead with his plan.

This sets up an intriguing possible future interaction with Drakkon and the older Tommy from the Dino Thunder time period where Tommy is a full on legend. If the Dino Thunder Tommy is still around it could give all the remaining Power Rangers an opening to defeat Drakkon. It would also give Higgins a shot at making Tommy the hero while still keeping the Mighty Morphin version still dead.

With Drakkon focused on powering himself up Higgins did a good job at using this time for the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to come up with a plan of what to do next. Since Drakkon is leaving their world alone it was the perfect chance for everyone their to figure out what to do. This scene was a time where you expect a leader to shine and that is exactly what Jason did. While everyone else had different ideas of what to do Higgins made sure Jason stayed focused and figured out a plan of what to do next. Splitting everyone up in three teams that had different missions gave each Ranger an important role to play.

Jason’s confidence in directing everyone on what their mission is was nicely balanced out by the inner turmoil he is still dealing with after Tommy died. Having Jason and Lauren connect in this way, as the latter is worried about her friends status, was a good way to show the burden of being the Red Ranger leader. Both characters showed that they had a lot of weight on their shoulders that with everything in “Shattered Grid” they can’t show that to others.

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The connection Jason and Lauren grow to have also gave Higgins a good shot at providing fans background into the Samurai Rangers if they didn’t know that history. This gives older fans like myself who haven’t kept up with the Power Rangers TV Shows for a while a chance to understand the character motivations of Lauren. It made her a character that, even if this is her only arc where she is involved in, you care about and want to see get a moment to shine.

To that point, having the Dr. K from the RPM world figure out how to over Drakkon’s Dragon Cannon’s was a great to further establish the connection to the recent Annual issue. This was a development that finally shifted the tide of the battle to give hope for the Rangers after we’ve seen them fight with their backs against the wall. It also made for a good way to divert Drakkon’s attention from the Coinless Universe as he personally is going to take down Dr. K. Now with the battlefield created the race for the Jason and Dr. K to figure out how to make it so all the Rangers gain some sort of immunity to the Dragon Cannons an even more intense portion of the “Shattered Grid” story.

On Drakkon’s side, it was interesting to see that the villain added to his forces by recruiting some of the evil Rangers we’ve seen in the past. Seeing the Psycho Rangers, A-Squad and Koragg showed that Drakkon isn’t just powering his forces through the different Ranger morphers. Gaining these type of allies makes things even more personal since these other villains also share a hatred of the Power Rangers. How this transfers over to make more of the battles different than just Drakkon vs Power Rangers will be fun to see.

This main battle provides a good reason why the Coinless will actually have a chance at storm Drakkon’s castle. Higgins added to their chances by giving us more information into this universe as we learned that Skull was working undercover in Drakkon’s forces. This is a good example of elevating a side character and giving him an important role. Skull’s information along with Drakkon not being there gives the Coinless an important mission to turn the tables on the war with Drakkon.

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What’ll be an interesting thing to come out of this is the fact that the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers will be meeting Ninjor. As Coinless Zack mentioned, Ninjor is not a character that the MMPR met until much later when Jason, Zack and Trini weren’t on the team. Now that they will meet Ninjor you have to wonder even more as to how things will diverge post-Shattered Grid. There is a lot potential in this change as Ninjor can be a bigger character in this series after this story.

While Kimberly and Jen’s mission to recruit the remain Power Ranger teams did not get any attention it is something that was given a good set-up. Zordon’s communicating with all of the Ranger teams showed us which ones that we’ll probably see get recruited. The most interesting of the ones we saw fighting was the Dino Thunder team. As I mentioned earlier, given that Dino Thunder had Tommy on the team that could make for an interesting addition to throw Drakkon off his game. Also possibly seeing the Dino Thunder Tommy meeting Kimberly could give us another emotional scene that follows up on the MMPR Tommy’s death on Kim’s side.

Daniele Di Nicuolo continues to provide solid artwork for “Shattered Grid.” Nicuolo does a good job capturing the different designs to the Power Ranger suits for each team. The big double page spread was impressive with how Nicuolo captured the struggle each Ranger team was going through against Drakkon’s forces. The update to Drakkon’s costume also looked great as Nicuolo makes the villain look more powerful with each power transfer.

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The Bad: The main story in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 was as strong as ever. The same can’t be said for the back-up. With how big of a story that “Shattered Grid” is, it would be better if the back-up tied into the event. Even if it was seeing an expansion of one of the other Ranger teams fight against Drakkon’s forces would added to what is going on in the main story. But in giving us a completely inconsequential story of the evil Puddy Rangers creation it felt like a throwaway story.

Overall: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 was another strong chapter in the “Shattered Grid” event. Kyle Higgins did an excellent job expanding on the power that Drakkon is gaining while also giving the Power Rangers a sense of hope with what they discover about what they’re up against. The smaller character moments for Drakkon, Jason, Lauren and the Coinless added to how big of a story “Shattered Grid” is. If you have ever been a Power Rangers fan it is not too late to jump into the biggest story in the franchise’s history.