Warning: spoilers for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #105!As a franchise, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has gone from strength to strength, capturing fans with its combination of ninja action, kaiju villains, and its gigantic mecha 'Zords.' The Zords come in many different forms, often evoking animal or dinosaur forms, and famously combine into new constructs like the iconic Megazord. But how do these giant robots actually work? The latest issue of the official comic pokes fun at this hanging question.
In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #105, by Melissa Flores and Simona Di Gianfelice, the franchise admits its Zord controls don't make much sense. In a moment of metacontextuality, the Yellow Ranger rightly points out that Yale - the new Blue Ranger, and a quadruped alien - has no opposable thumbs, and questions then how they even control their Zord. In a series that asks fans to suspend their disbelief about aliens, giant robots, and the validity of Zordon using child soldiers, this is a pretty funny moment of the franchise poking fun at itself.
How Do Power Rangers Control Their Zords?
Yale is a cat-like alien from the planet Saard. A peace-loving creature, Yale has a connection to the Morphin Grid which drew the attention of the Rangers. They traveled to Saard to apprehend Yale, but the alien proved to be too powerful to capture. Eventually, he was captured by the Rangers and depowered. After that, Yale was allowed to stay aboard the ranger ship as a companion, and it was during his time among the rangers that Yale was gifted the Blue Omega Morpher by the Emissaries Three, transforming him into the Blue Omega Ranger.
Yale Shows Anyone Can Be a Ranger
With the wider franchise emerging from a kids cartoon, there are many aspects of Power Rangers that have only been explained or expanded upon in retrospect, but - as the Yellow Ranger's question is shot down - it's clear that the comics are happy to leave the Zords' controls a mystery, and that Yale is as able to pilot his mech like any other Ranger. One of the benefits of comics is the lack of constraint on budget, meaning that non-biped heroes can join the team without posing practical problems to TV production. Yale has proved that the attributes that make for a great Ranger are wide-ranging, and heroism isn't inherently tied to a human appearance.
Power Rangers is still pushing the limits of the franchise, redefining who can be a Ranger and delivering moments of drama without taking itself too seriously. This fun in-joke shows why fans still love Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which - while valuing its characters as people - still knows that fun action storytelling is the highest priority, and the new Blue Ranger lacking fingers shouldn't stand in the way of an awesome Zord battle.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #105 is on sale now from Boom! Studios.