“Guys, we ruined the movie poster!”
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie comic adaptation
Marvel (September, 1995)
SCREENPLAY: Arne Olsen STORY: John Kamps & Arne Olsen ADAPTATION: Nel Yomtov…wait, Nel Yomtov? He graduated from colorist? PENCILER: Ron Lim INKERS: Mark McKenna, Harry Candelario, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Mick Gray COLORISTS: Mike Worley, Paul Becton, & George Roussos LETTERERS: Pat Brosseau & Lorina Mapa ASSISTANT EDTIRO: Nancy Poletti EDITOR: Mariano Nicieza EDITOR IN CHIEF: Carl Potts
Centuries ago, Zordon’s order captured and buried a “morphological” being named Ivan Ooze under what would become Angel Grove. In the present (of the story) a construction crew unearths the egg-like prison and Zedd releases him, hoping to use him against Zordon. Ivan is able to destroy the Command Center and rip Zordon from his time warp, where he begins to slowly age, also destroying the source of the Rangers’ connection to the Morphing Grid. However, there is a new source of power known as the Great Power that the Rangers could use to regain their abilities.
They travel to the planet Phaedos in search of the Power, but Ivan (who has taken over Zedd and Rita’s moon castle and trapped them in a snowglobe) sends his bird-like Tengu Warriors to stop them. The Rangers are rescued by Dulcea, once rescued by Zordon, which leads to agree to help the Rangers. She grants them the power of the Ninjetti, with new animal totems. Back on Earth, Ivan has taken control of the adults to dig up his “endomorphicons” and then sends them to kill themselves, but a friend of the Rangers’ civilian identities, Fred, gets the kids of Angel Grove (and Bulk & Skull) to see what Ivan really is and they free their parents from Ivan’s control. Meanwhile, the Rangers make it to the Great Power, and use their new Ninjazords to defeat one of Ivan’s ooze-powered machines. Ivan merges with the other one and the Rangers are in trouble until Billy gets the idea to use the comet (mentioned in passing at the start of the story–they called it Ryan’s Comet when they should have called it Checkov’s Comet) to destroy Ivan and the secon endomorphicon. They then use the Great Power to restore Zordon to his time warp and everyone celebrates the victory.
What they got right: Someday I’m going to do a Video Review of the movie so I’ll try to stick to the adaptation. This does a good job of getting the important events of the movie in. While some compression is done for the sake of space, you get the important highlights. The artists used the show version of the Ninjazords rather than that terrible CG version they used in the movie.
What they got wrong: There were a couple of times when the word balloons went to the wrong character (at least in the movie). Otherwise, Alpha knew about Dulcea and what she told them about the Great Power even though he didn’t have time to catch up with them. Then again, the Rangers knew the names of the endomorphicons even though they never heard them before.
Recomm…wait. I’m not going to do this here. Marvel unleashed two adaptations of the movie. Next week we’ll be looking at the photo adaptation (using what we would call screencaps today). I’ll compare the two versions and THEN give my final recommendation as to which you should pick up if you really need an adaptation. (The movie is easy to find cheap nowadays on DVD.)
BW Media Spotlight 
Got this comic two days ago, and it was an excellent adaptation of the movie, and did a great job capturing its tone. The fight scenes were a bit shorter than I would have liked, but I can understand considering it’s a comic and there are some pacing constraints.
There were some mistakes though.
1) I dunno if this counts, but is Zordon’s home planet called “Eltar” or “Elatre”? I think it’s spelled the former.
2) Kimberly’s hair was black instead of brown in a few panels.
3) When we see all the Ninja Rangers looking at the great power, Billy is accidentally drawn with glasses when at this point in the series/movie he’s stopped wearing them.
4) When the Bear Zord attacks one of those Ecto-Morphicons (I think Hornitron), it’s colored blue instead of yellow.
Other than that though, the art is good.
One thing I do also wish though is that we saw more of Mordant after the movie. According to what I read on the Power Rangers Wikia, Mordant in an early draft of the script was Goldar’s second cousin, three times removed, on his mother’s side, visiting for the summer. I dunno why they dropped him.
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I’m only guessing mind you, but it is possible the spelling of Eltar wasn’t finalized in the early version of material they received to get the comic out at the same time as the movie.
I also wish they kept the movie suits for the “Metallic Armor”, but I guess there were reasons why they couldn’t. I do wonder why this movie was knocked out of continuity while Turbo led right into the Power Rangers Turbo series. Although as I joked in my comic strip would Adam have rather been kissed by Dulcia or Ninjor. 😀
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I’m glad you liked the comic though. It was a rarity for Marvel’s run to be any good, but someone else wrote the story and they didn’t try to shove two stories into one comic so a good idea was never allowed to grow. I think that was Marvel’s biggest sin, like they didn’t trust the kids to read a full comic despite watching half-hour episodes every weekday.
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I see, and can understand.
Yeah, I wish they kept the movie suits also, and yeah, I”m guessing Marvel didn’t trust kids but kids know better I say.
Also interestingly, this comic came out the month I was born!
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A belated happy birthday to you.
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