Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Pink #4

Written by: Brenden Fletcher & Kelly Thompson

Art by: Daniele Di Nicuolo

Coloured by: Sarah Stern

Lettered by: Ed Dukeshire

In the previous issue, having been captured by Goldar, the Rangers formulate a plan for escape. As Goldar and his monster minion argue, the minion beginning to realize that Goldar is working on his own agenda without Rita's approval, Kimberly gets Trini to tinker with her communicator, activating a holographic program that allows them to project an image of the Rangers outside their cage. Seeing the Power Rangers there and ready for battle, the monsters lunge at them, falling through and breaking the cage, releasing the teens. Kimberly orders the others to take the civilians to safety and returns to retrieve the sword of light from Goldar, returning her powers in the process. Realizing that Kimberly will need help, the other Rangers return, retrieving their powers as well and moving on to confront the monsters. Kimberly and Goldar continue to fight, eventually ending up atop the Frankenstein Megazord when, seeing his opportunity to dispose of both Goldar and a ranger, Goldar's minion commands the Zord to descend into the water, trapping them inside.

This issue starts off directly after the last, with Kimberly and Goldar fighting briefly before realizing that the only way to make it out of this situation is if they work together. Using Goldar's strength and his knowledge of the Zord's construction, Kimberly decides that their best plan is to make for her old Firebird, both of them making their escape. As they fly back towards the confrontation, however, Goldar attempts to overpower Kimberly, attempting to kill his previous minion despite the civilian casualties. Kimberly fights him off once again, inadvertently allowing the monster to escape and they once again form a temporary truce while the Rangers help the non-changed citizens of the town rebuild and Goldar searches once again for the monster. Goldar quickly finds him, and the Rangers spring back into action, this time fighting both the monster as well as his composite Zord. As an issue on its own, this one felt felt a bit weaker than the previous issues. Goldar flip flops positions several times, we end up in a very similar place to where we left off in the previous issue, and there is just a weird break in the story where suddenly the Rangers are fixing the town rather than looking for the monster. I understand why this scene was there, the writer intends to show the Rangers as more than simply soldiers and fighters, but this scene is such a tonal shift from everything around it that it just seems ludicrous that they would be focusing on something like rebuilding while there is essentially still a fight raging on around them, but with what seems like a few minutes of intermission between bouts.

The artwork remains consistent from previous issues, the only really new thing worth mentioning is a couple of scenes with two new Rangers powered by Kimberly's pink energy. Completing the team, we are given a new red and blue Ranger, chosen from some of the unchanged locals of the town. They follow the same design type as Trini, simply being a generic suit with pink highlights, the only real changes from the original suits being a more muscular Blue Ranger and a female Red Ranger, neither of whom gt any real screen time in this issue, so we will see how they work out in the next.

Ultimately this issue was probably my least favourite of both Power Rangers series. The story seems a bit sporadic while also not really going anywhere, things just seem to happen with no real reason, and overall I just don't think that it was written with the same quality as the rest of the series has been. I look forward to seeing how the series ends, and I'm pretty sure the quality will shoot back up for the ending, but this issue really wasn't what I was looking for.