“Yesterday’s” Comic> Power Rangers Zeo

“Rocky, did you overload the microwave again?”

Power Rangers Zeo #1

Image (August, 1996)

After protecting the military’s new anti-Machine Empire weapon from disguised Cogs, the Rangers are given a special medal celebration where Bulk and Skull tease Billy for not being a Power Ranger (not realizing that he used to be). As the gang goes about their lives they get a surprise call from help…from Zedd and Rita! The Machine Empire has learned that the Rangers’ former enemies are working on something new to get back at King Mondo and Queen Machina for kicking them off of the moon…and it turns out to be the stolen Mighty Morphin powers. Billy joins the Zeo Rangers, with the Zeo MegaZord outfitted with a spacefaring gear, on a mission to Master Vile’s homeplanet, but while the Rangers are able to destroy the giant robot, Klank makes a deal with Master Vile and takes the stolen Ranger powers.

What they got right: After suffering Marvel’s poor adaptation this is an improvement. The characters sound like the characters most of the time, the morphing sequence follows the pattern of the show, and while the 90s still rears its ugly head it’s better than Marvel’s rushed artwork.

What they got wrong: There’s a quickly rushed subplot where Tommy is pulled into auditioning for Camelot (and some girl is trying to put the moves on Tommy) just as Kat tries to ask him to go to her ballet practice. (This is obviously before the creators decided to hook up Tommy and Kat, although I still think they originally planned for Adam and Tanya. Tommy and Kat never worked for me. Being Pink Ranger meant inheriting Kimberly’s powers, not her ex-boyfriend.) It was unnecessary and added nothing to the story. And just because the art is better than the Marvel run doesn’t make it good. The male Rangers have a lot more muscles than you should see through the Ranger costumes and even the females have muscular arms.

Other Notes: Think back to the Ninja Rangers story where Zedd steals the original non-Ninja powers. In theory these could be the powers they’re talking about, which would be a nice nod to the Marvel stories. However, the dialog seems to indicate Zedd stole them after the Power Coins were destroyed, which happened after they had the Ninja powers, during the Alien Rangers miniseries that paved the way for Power Rangers Zeo. Still, fun thought.

Recommendation: I’m surprisingly sorry that they didn’t get to issue #2, although if they ever did the Youngblood crossover I wouldn’t go crazy trying to get this. At the very least it’s worth a curiosity look. But don’t just take my word for it. Linkara looked at this one as well. Certainly you trust his opinion. People actually watch his stuff.