Power Rangers/Ninja Turtles II #1 Review

From one TMNT crossover to another. What can I say, crossovers are my jam and the Turtles have a lot of them. And fortunately for me, this next one we’ll be tackling gives me the chance to talk about a subject I’ve been wanting to discuss on the blog for some time now, Power Rangers. I was actually planning a whole month worth of content dedicated to Power Rangers in the wake of the 30th Anniversary of the franchise and the untimely passing of Jason David Frank, but due to a combination of my work schedule getting more and more hectic and my laptop meeting an untimely demise of its own at the hands of a rogue bottle of Dr. Pepper, those plans never materialized. However, since I’ve finally been able to get my hands on the sequel Power Rangers/TMNT, something that’s been on my to read list for some time now, I figure now is as good a time as any. I’m going to assume that if you’re following my blog, you have some working knowledge of both TMNT and Power Rangers, so I’ll be skipping their respective origin stories. However, the same can’t be said about the crossover that preceded the one we’re about to dig into so let’s bring you all up to speed.

Tommy Oliver,  The Green Ranger, had taken some time off from his Ranger duties to infiltrate the Foot Clan, having heard that an old friend of his had been indoctrinated into their ranks. Unfortunately, Shredder has figured out Tommy’s true identity and managed to steal the Green Ranger powers for his own use, teaming up with Rita Repulsa soon after. To make a long story short, The Turtles and the Rangers joined forces, the Turtles, along with April, briefly assumed the Ranger Powers, the villains were defeated, and Rita stabbed Shredder in the back and whisked him off to god knows where.

We open our first issue properly with Casey Jones, who is essentially The Punisher if he couldn’t afford firearms, having a rooftop brawl against Karai, The Shredder’s second in command. See, while everyone else is celebrating Rita and Shredder staying quiet for the past six months, Casey knows it’s only a matter of time before one or both of them resurface stronger than ever somehow and he’s trying to track Shredder down before the other shoe drops, hence why he’s mixing it up with Karai right now. Before Casey can get any info out of Shredder’s number two, a strange black portal appears behind Casey, something unseen knocking him out.

Over in Angel Grove, April, Kim, Trini, Zack, Donnie and Mikey (the two turtles wearing holographic generators to appear human in public) are hanging out at Ernie’s Juice Bar. Donnie tries to place an order but his hologram projector starts malfunctioning forcing him to return to the command center. Whilst as the command center, we learn that Billy and Donnie are working on special Morphers for the turtles, something I have no doubt will come into play later. We also get a brief scene of Jason and Leo sparring, each honing their skills by learning the other’s techniques.

Back in New York, Raph and Tommy, along with Tyler, the friend Tommy saved from the Foot Clan, learn that Casey has gone missing. Not only that, but several members of the TMNT Rogues Gallery also seem to be mysteriously AWOL. Something’s up, and it’s definitely not good. Raph thinks he may know someone who knows what’s going on and leads Tommy to the lair of The Rat King. Ah The Rat King, easily the strangest TMNT villain of the lot, and that’s saying something. While the turtles have had multiple incarnations over the past forty years and Rat King has been radically different in all of them. He’s been a really buff homeless guy, a super soldier, a mutated psychic and even a god. This version Raph and Tommy are meeting now seems somewhere between creepy homeless dude and mutant psychic. Rat King doesn’t know exactly what’s going on, but does reveal that the recent abductions were perpetrated by a Ranger.

Well after those ominous words from the spooky rodent guy we cut to a scene of Rocksteady and Goldar (I guess Bebop had Swine Flu?) breaking our old pal Stockman out of prison. The villains make their way to the roof where the Turtles and The Rangers are waiting for them. What follows is a pretty chaotic but also pretty fun fight scene on the roof. Amidst the chaos, Casey arrives out of nowhere and turns on our heroes. That in and of itself is shocking, but it’s about to get crazier as Casey morphs into a Ranger, a Ranger that very much resembles Red X from Teen Titans. From this, we can safely assume that Casey is the one behind the abductions. And so our comic ends with Casey and the villains escaping through a black portal, Casey cryptically telling our heroes that this the way it has to be.

We are off to a very promising start here. Not only was it fun seeing the Turtles and the Rangers hanging out like friends from the get go, really selling the idea of the two teams having a shared universe. What’s more the idea of Casey as an evil Ranger is an excellent hook for the next issue. Are Rita and Shredder truly back, or is something far more sinister at play here? We’ll find out as we continue our look at this crossover.