Justice League/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #2 Review
Welcome back to the crossover no one knew they desperately wanted until it was announced, Justice League/Power Rangers. Last time, the evil Lord Zedd had succeeded in invading the Rangers’ command center, but his plans were thwarted by Zack, the Black Ranger, before he could do any permanent damage. Unfortunately, due to a faulty teleporter, Zack and Zedd were teleported to another reality, specifically, the DC Universe. Landing in Gotham, a disoriented Zack got into an altercation with Batman, mistaking the Dark Knight for one of Zedd’s monsters. The other Rangers arrived to save Zack and bring him home, but Zack refused to leave until Zedd was dealt with. Together, the Rangers’ fought off Batman, but Bats brought in reinforcements in the form of The Flash. Kimberly summoned the Pterodactyl Zord which subsequently made off with the Batmobile, with Batman in it, ending the comic.
We open with Kimberly flying the Pterodactyl through Gotham, but she’s blocked by Superman who politely asks her to land her flying pink dinosaur robot. Meanwhile on the ground, the other Rangers are dealing with Flash, Cyborg and Green Lantern (John Stewart in case you were wondering). Flash and GL deduce that the Rangers’ aren’t their enemies but are just confused and not from around here. GL uses his ring to contain the Rangers, but the Rangers counter by summoning the rest of their Zords, including the Dragonzord. However, even with the aide of Giant Robots, the Justice League still puts up a good fight against the Rangers, with Flash even managing to phase inside the Tyranno-Zord and attack Jason. However, Flash’s hand is stayed by Superman as Kimberly contacts Jason to tell him that the Justice League are not their enemies, having been convinced after an intense conversation with Wonder Woman involving the Lasso of Truth.
With everyone having calmed down, the Rangers explain their backstory and their situation to the Justice League, including the part about how they’ve accidently brought an intergalactic tyrant sorcerer into their world. Speaking of said intergalactic tyrant sorcerer, Zedd has found himself in a strange alien city and demands one of the locals tell him where he is. However, the locals seem more afraid of someone else than they do of Zedd. Zedd turns around to find a giant pair of eyes staring at him. While ordinarily, such an occurrence would be justifiable cause for bowel evacuation, Zedd isn’t scared and uses one of the devices he typically uses to make his monsters grow on himself to confront this giant face to face. To Zedd’s surprise, he learns that he was in a bottle city, a section of a planet that’s been shrunken down and placed under glass for study, and the giant who was staring at him was none other than the villainous Braniac. Some time later, Zedd and Braniac have gotten a chance to get to know one another. While it’s clear Zedd and Braniac have different goals, (Zedd seeks conquest while Braniac seeks knowledge) Zedd believes that working together may prove mutually beneficial for both. Brainiac seeks a city from Earth to place in a bottle for research, but the Justice League thwarts him every time he tries. Zedd proposes that the city Braniac acquires need not be from this earth, but rather from the earth of Zedd’s dimension. Initially, Braniac is apprehensive, but he’s intrigued by Zedd’s offer and the prospect of studying another dimension so he agrees. In return, Zedd asks to borrow some of the creatures that Braniac has acquired in his bottle cities.
Back with the good guys, both sides are glad that cooler heads have prevailed, but Zack is still unsure how they were supposed to know that Batman was the good guy. Frankly, after reading the latest issue of Green Lanterns, I honestly don’t know either. What makes this especially funny is that Superman has to apologize for Batman as if he were a dog who’s normally well behaved but gets really hostile around strangers. However, Cyborg soon inerupts as he’s detected multiple reports of monster attacks in major cities all over the world. And so our comic ends with the Justice League and the Power Rangers leaping into action to save the day.
What Works: I actually really like the dynamic between Braniac and Lord Zedd. When this crossover was first announced, the fact that Rita and/or Lord Zedd would be one of the major villains was a given, but I wasn’t sure who the villain from the DC side of the fence would be. Initially, I thought they might go with Darksied, as he and Zedd are similar in many regards, but now that I’ve read this comic, I’m glad they didn’t go in that direction. The thing is, Darksied doesn’t need Zedd to be a major threat. If the two were to team up, we’d likely see Zedd relegated to the role of reluctant lackey while the more powerful and serious Darksied took center stage. Here though, we get two very different villains on equal footing working towards different yet mutually beneficial goals. I like it.
The Fight with the Justice League and the Zords was fun, albeit brief, and I like that it was Wonder Woman who ultimately allowed diplomacy to prevail.
What Doesn’t: Okay, I have a few more nitpicks. First and foremost, how are the Rangers able to summon the Zords? Admittedly, the means by which the Rangers call the Zords was always vague in the show, but I’m fairly certain that they don’t just pull them out of the ether like a Final Fantasy summon. While it’s implied that they have magical components to them as well as a degree of autonomy, the Zords aren’t made of fairy dust, they’re actual functioning physical machines and one can safely assume that they don’t just vanish when the Rangers aren’t using them, hence why it’s confusing that the Rangers are able to summon them from a completely different dimension. The Dragonzord in particular is head-scratching as it’s made very clear in the show that it doesn’t function the same way as the rest of the Zords. The Dragonzord remains dormant underwater off the coast of Angel Grove until Tommy summons it with his dragon dagger with doubles as a flute. The comic never shows Tommy using the flute to summon the Dragonzord, and even if we accept that he did it off panel, are we to believe that the dragon flutes tune can carry across dimensions? Mind you, it’s entirely possible that if Zordon was able to send the Rangers to this dimension without issue, there’s no reason to believe he can’t do the same with the Zords, but it would have been nice to establish that so as to avoid confusion.
Nitpick number two: I fully understand that they wanted the two teams to have even members, so someone from the Justice League, which traditionally consists of seven members, had to be cut from the crossover. That’s all well and good, but why, oh why, did it have to be Aquaman who drew the short straw? Seriously, this whole “Aquaman talks to fish and therefore is lame” mentality needs to stop right now. Aquaman is strong enough to lift a semi-truck as well as drop Superman in one punch, can breath underwater, is a master swordsman, can swim faster than Superman can fly, rules over the kingdom Atlantis which effectively means he owns the entire ocean making him the single most powerful monarch on the planet, can summon sharks, sea monsters, whales and all manner of deadly sea life and wields a trident capable of wounding gods. What part of that sounds “ lame” to you? Oh, and by the way, those monsters that Zedd unleashed on the world looked pretty aquatic in nature. You know who might be able to help with that? Oh, I don’t know, HOW ABOUT A GUY WHO CAN TALK TO FISH!!
Finally, this issue shows us once again that the flash-forward at the beginning of the first issue was a misstep. Now that Braniac has entered the picture, we can reasonably assume that Angel Grove was not destroyed as we were lead to believe in the last issue, but rather shrunken down by Braniac to make one of his bottle cities, meaning that it can, and in all likelihood will, be restored. Now that we know this, not only does that scene loses a great deal of the tension it was meant to have, but the reader now knows what’s going to happen in the comic ahead of time. I feel as though the crossover could have benefitted greatly if that scene were removed altogether.
Overall: 4/5 This issue was mostly setup, but it was competently presented setup. I know that if you go by this and my review of the first issue, it can seem like I’m doing a great deal of nitpicking, but that’s just me being a hard to please fan boy. I’ve loved both of these franchises since pre-school, so my expectations are understandably high. In all seriousness, this crossover has been really good so far and I’m excited to see what happens once the action gets going.