Cover Story - Top 12 Power Rangers Covers

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

It’s probably most accurate to say I have a strange relationship with Power Rangers.  I wasn’t in the right age bracket to get into the show as a kid and even as an adult I’ve never really enjoyed any of the various branded media.  However, I am familiar with the franchise history and origin and even though I don’t like it I definitely respect it.  Power Rangers has run, consecutively in one form or another, for 25 years straight, that’s a level of success you can’t ignore.  What’s more, the unique blend of aesthetics between Japanese superheroes and American TV standards has always been a fascinating one.  

The franchise basically re-invented the way we imagine live-action superhero adventures on a level that only a handful of others can actually reach.  Sure, the structure of disposable bad guys, shouting villains with an entourage of lieutenants, giant doomsday weapons, and a heroic bunker might feel generic now but without Power Rangers pioneering it we might not have had stuff like Avengers or The Flash TV show.  As such, I’ve chosen to honor the blockbuster film adaptation with a dive into the recent run of BOOM! Studios Power Rangers comics, let’s dig in. 

Power Rangers Trailer Analysis

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

Edited by Robert Beach 

Something that’s been nagging me as we inch ever close to the release of Power Rangers 2017 is the question: who is this film for? We’ve had a ton of ill-advised ‘90s revival flicks lately. While they were all garbage, I at least understood why most of them were made. Independence Day: Resurgence and Jurassic World were bad movies, but, from a marketing standpoint, I get that their progenitors made a ton of cash and are still regarded by many as unassailable classics. 

If you’re an older fan who grew up with the Power Rangers show, I don’t really see what’s meant to be enticing about the new film. The steps it has taken to betray the series's core identity of sincerity and fun, the two things that made the original show worth watching.  

If you’re a younger fan, there’s already a version of this on TV right now that’s far more imaginative and consumable for free.  It’s the same situation that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Amazing Spider-Man were in, so I guess it’s fitting that this first trailer for Power Rangers draws so heavily from those sources. 

Power Rangers Logo & Character Pics

Edited by Robert Beach

Every year is defined by a handful of blockbusters that force a question about this moment in pop cultural history. Avengers was about whether or not people would accept shared continuity in a film; Batman v. Superman was about whether or not there could be two shared universes; next year, Power Rangers is set to definitively answer whether or not nostalgia for the ‘90s is enough to sustain a blockbuster.  

We’ve been asking that particular question for a while now with fairly mixed results.  Based on flops like Goosebumps or the X-Files revival, the answer would seem to be no, but the monster success of Jurassic World means we have to keep asking. We’ll be getting another chance to ask the question in a few weeks with Independence Day: Resurgence, though there’s one key difference between that movie and 2017’s Power Rangers reboot: Independence Day: Resurgence actually looks good.