Cover Story - Top 12 Power Rangers Covers

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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. 

Static Thoughts - Samurai Pizza Cats

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This Friday marks the premiere of a new Power Rangers movie.  The upcoming blockbuster represents the first attempt by franchise creator Haim Saban cash in on the new superhero craze, which was pretty much inevitable.  See, Saban is an incredibly successful business mogul, and part of that success has sprung from finding profit in the cheapest corners and most exploitable markets.  After all, the Power Rangers’ creation myth has long been that Saban was on a business trip to Japan in the late ‘80s and just happened to see an episode Super Sentai, a kid’s action show, and got the idea to buy up extra footage from that to splice together into an America equivalent.  

That thriftiness and willingness to exploit fertile markets has been a hallmark of Saban’s media corporation since its inception and dominated much of their output during the ‘90s.  However, while there were plenty of Saban produced Power Rangers knock-offs, he also got into another lucrative side of Japanese entertainment imports that led to one of the strangest artifacts of this era- Samurai Pizza Cats. 

Power Rangers Trailer Analysis

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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. 

Power Rangers 2017 Character Breakdown

Edited by Robert Beach

One of the things I like to yammer on about the most in these articles is the growing cultural force of ‘90s nostalgia. I love ‘90s nostalgia because it’s an actually emerging force that we’re witnessing take shape and dominance over the entertainment medium in real time. Additionally, I grew up in the ‘90s, so a revival of classic ‘90s fair is a lot more appealing to me than all the ‘80s reboots we got during the ‘00s. 

"‘90-stalgia" as I call it has been a cultural force for awhile now but 2015 was really the year it came to dominate our lives in a genuinely meaningful way through the smash hit of Jurassic World. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Goosebumps film will be another major moneymaker to cement the ‘90s hold on the box office. However, the real crest of this particular wave will most likely be coming in 2017 with a rebooted Power Rangers film. Even though we’re still 2 years out, details are already filtering through with the first major announcement being a character breakdown sheet of the 5 main rangers.