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The future of the Power Rangers franchise seems to be in trouble at the moment, and it wasn’t (insert your favorite villain here for an overused gag) that’s responsible, but the current rights holders. Hasbro is already putting outfits and other items from the show on auction, and there has been no announcement of a new show despite Super Sentai, the Japanese superhero franchise Power Rangers is based on, continuing to make more shows.
Sentai, Japanese for “task force”, can trace its roots to the 1970s, but only really gained that name in the third series, a project that intellectually spun off of Spider-Man that was originally intended to be Captain America. There’s a lot of weird in that sentence we won’t get into. The point is, Haim Saban tried a few times to bring an American version of the show to Western kids, eventually succeeding with Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. From there every year had a new incarnation for a new generation, but while the show thrives in Japan, the road in the US has been a more bumpy one.
So what hurt the franchise, and does it have a future? Let’s discuss, and be glad I’m not lame enough to call this article “Stop, Stop, Power Rangers” or some other cringy nonsense.
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All the characters thrown in here and Tails is talking to someone who isn’t part of the cast. Or even in the comic.
Sonic The Hedgehog #69
Archie Comics Publications (April, 1989)
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
EDITOR: J. F. Gabrie
“A Day In The Life”
WRITER: Karl Bollers
PENCILER: Steven Butler
INKER: Pam Eklund
COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo
Lupe & The Wolfpack: “Weathering The Storm”
WRITER/INKER/COLORIST: Ken Penders
INKER: Sam Maxwell
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It’s strange how we keep hearing “oh, comics and superheroes are for kids” when I have to search high and low for any comics or superheroes that even qualify as “kid-friendly” outside of preschool shows. I grew up with superheroes for kids, for adults, for families to watch and read together, and that was fine. Now it apparently isn’t.
Meanwhile, DC Entertainment has been having a hard time getting animation past cartoon-hating Hollywood. You’d think already having a family network with a ton of cartoons would make David Zaslav unafraid of cartoons, but Boomerang hasn’t live up to its original mission statement in years, Cartoon Network is still a shadow of its former self to the point that MeTV decided they could do it better, and two shows that should be a boost for Max got picked up by other networks. My Adventures With Superman, for all the issues i have with it, was intended to be a superhero show for older kids but not quite teens. Instead it’s on Adult Swim because Williams Street recognized having Superman is usually a benefit.
Meanwhile, Batman: Caped Crusader had to leave the Warner Brothers Discovery group altogether, ending up on Amazon Prime. I don’t have Amazon Prime, but they do release older and first episodes at times on Freevee. Thus was I able to check out the first episode of “Batman for adults” by Bruce Timm, who used to be considered the architect of the DCAU in general and the Batman cartoons of Fox Kids WB specifically. Now people are wondering given some of his works in DC animation since haven’t lived up, including an adaptation of The Killing Joke that missed some of the nuance of the original book but did give us his Batman/Batgirl shipping fetish in a story that really didn’t need it. “In Troubled Waters” introduces us to this new take on Batman and how this world will operate. Therein lies the big problem.
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I feel like that Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck bit where they think there are no more bullets. Apparently last week’s comic wasn’t the last one from my list. Pretty sure this is.
“This is not where I wanted to lose my contact lens.”
Arcana presents Ultraduck FCBD
Arcana Comics (2024)
WRITER/COLORIST/CREATOR: Edgar Delgado
ARTISTS: Omar Lozano & Bere Muñiz
The website I had to use to read this is a royal pain, by the way. Everytime I click to go to the next page some other tab opens up and I have to close it. This is why I don’t like using scan sites. Hopefully nothing’s going on my computer I don’t want, but it’s sad that this comic is so obscure this is the only site I could find it on. I rather enjoyed the last Ultraduck comic I read. Still, here we go.
BW Media Spotlight 