by Matt Sernaker, Managing Editor

It’s Morphin Time! We are back to action and ready to kick off our SDCC 2019 coverage. First up is our exclusive interview with writer Ryan Parrott (Go Go Power Rangers). Parrott has taken over the reigns on the ongoing saga in Boom! Studios’ Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and continues to shape the world of our favorite teenagers with attitude in Go Go Power Rangers. We had a lengthy chat during San Diego Comic-Con about the future of both series, the emergence of a new Ranger team and their respective allies, and the introduction of new threats. 

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Beware, this interview includes spoilers for Shattered Grid, Mighty Morphin #40 and #41, as well as Go Go Power Rangers #21. Please make sure that you are caught up before continuing.

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CO: The Omega Rangers. That was a huge twist! The “Peace Conference” wasn’t quite what we thought it was.

RP: Well, we’ll learn about that. (Laughs). When I was a little kid, I knew there was something up when they left the show originally. I always thought that it was kind of weird. They’re just gone. When I got older and found out the behind the scenes story, it made sense, but it always bothered me. There’s got to be a way that we can put this into the story that allows them to leave with a little bit more grace. As we were working on Shattered Grid, we wanted to have there be consequences coming out of that event. Tying in Shattered Grid with this new trio and setting up a new Ranger team seemed like an interesting pairing. We loved the idea that there would be specific consequences when they tried to put the world back together, and it didn’t quite go back together the way it was supposed to. We were able to create a new threat out of that, requiring a more covert team that would have to work outside of Zordon and the Power Rangers and setting them on a path that would extend beyond Earth and try and expand into the existing Power Rangers Universe.

CO: So the role of the Omega Rangers is bigger than taking on the threats during the Mighty Morphin Era?

RP: Something that I always thought was interesting was that the Power Rangers on Earth were very defensive. They had to defend Earth and couldn’t escalate a fight. They knew there was a “big bad” on the moon but couldn’t do anything about it. I loved the idea that maybe there was a reason behind that. If you had another Ranger team and things going on, maybe they could be more on the offense and focus on prevention instead of strictly defending the world.

CO: Does it stay a three-person team?

RP: There is a fourth Ranger, and her name is Kiya. You’ll learn a lot more about her as we move forward. She’s not human. She’s the fourth member of the team, and she is the Blue Omega Ranger.

CO: As far as the powers and story behind them, is it a long process before we start learning more about them and how they were created?

RP: We knew that we wanted to restart in Mighty Morphin #40 with the White Ranger. With the timing of the original three leaving, it all sort of lined up and we needed to move forward in time. Luckily, with having something like Go Go Power Rangers that takes place a year or so before in continuity, we were able to go back and forth between the books to let the readers know more about the Omega Rangers. You’ll learn about history and their powers and how it all came together.

CO: Was the secret team your pitch to take over the main book (Mighty Morphin) as well as continuing with Go Go Power Rangers?

RP: No, that all came out of conversations when Kyle was originally ending Shattered Grid. You have to plan so far ahead in the future, and we couldn’t just end it and leave all of the pieces on the ground. We had a lot of ideas and a lot of the stuff happening in Mighty Morphin right now came out of conversations with Kyle and everyone else behind the scenes. It was just a matter of crystalizing it (laughs). That’s a weird pun considering everything, but it was just about finalizing the plot moving forward. It was about figuring out how you wanted to tell it. Since we were dealing with continuity from the second season and two different books with two different time periods, it’s a lot of backwards flips and somersault storytelling.

CO: So as far as new characters go, Dane is a very interesting addition. How did this character come about?

RP: I love Dane. He was one of my favorite characters to create and I had a feeling that people would really enjoy that. This is what I love about comicbooks. When you can use the comicbook medium and take stuff from the existing TV shows and find this weird synergy, or pay homage to stuff that we already know about and connect the universe in weird and different ways. This is a new and unique character who is not restricted by continuity or restricted by expectations. The Sirians are a race of people, and it makes sense that there would be more than one. With bringing Zedd into the game, I didn’t want him to just repeat the same playbook as Rita. I was thinking that he’s gotta know people from the outside and have his own Scorpina. We went through a bunch of permutations and thought it would be great to create a strategist / badass mercenary character, and then we connected him to the Doggy Cruger character. It just seemed like a great combination. He’s my favorite character to write, just because he’s fun and doesn’t look up to Zedd in the way that others seem to do.

CO: Speaking of Zedd, your introduction of the character was handled beautifully. It wasn’t just turning the page and going, “he’s here…”, but it was an impactful “HE’S HERE”. Truly impressive. What was it like getting to write this character for the first time?

RP: I remember watching his introduction as a kid. His introduction was so epic. The moonbase palace was shaking, then he turned this giant python into his staff, and then he wiped out the Megazord. He was such a huge escalation. I wasn’t sure that we would be able to out-do that at the comic book level without completely re-writing history. I was a little disappointed that we needed to start when he had already been there since I would have loved to have done his entrance, but it just didn’t work continuity wise. We decided that if we couldn’t do that, we needed to change the way that he acts. If you’ve been reading Go Go Power Rangers, I really loved working on Rita and fleshing her out as a character and making her a real person. With Zedd, I wanted to do the same thing and start to figure out why he was so different than Rita. How did he see things? That is slowly weaved in throughout the series. 

CO: Just to tie back for a moment, you had mentioned Zedd’s introduction, which was also handled in such a unique way for the TV series. I remember watching the second season premiere as a kid back in 1994, and “The Arrival” being the prime time introduction taking place over three nights was such a big deal and that made an impact on me as a viewer. The other part that was so impactful was that he was an original character with a very different aesthetic.

RP: Man, you do know your Power Rangers. I’m glad that I haven’t let you down! Zedd was always big and terrifying. He’s such a great design and whenever you start with a great design, everything else falls into place.

TO BE CONTINUED!

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Make sure you check out the latest issue of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (#41) for the full story on the introduction of the Omega Rangers and more! Part 2 of our interview with Ryan Parrott will be revealed in the coming weeks, which includes a conversation regarding the upcoming Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover series, the creation of the Omega Rangers and more!

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