Power Rangers Unlimited #5: Raiders of the Lost Zord

When the Black Turbo Ranger attacks an important piece of ranger history, Trini immediately mobilizes a team to intercept him. A familiar face arrives to help the team when they are overwhelmed, but their identity rocks Trini to her core and potentially endangers the entire mission.

This issue connects to the last one in a couple of interesting ways. Trini continues chasing the Black Turbo Ranger, but the reveal that he is responsible for destroying her timeline doesn’t have the gravitas that is needed mostly because this revelation happened between issues. So what’s left is a tension between Trini and the Operator that feels a bit random. As for the mission there is a narrative connection between TJ (now the Blue Space Ranger) and Taylor Eisenhardt (Yellow Wild Force Ranger) as they are chosen to do reconnaissance on the Black Turbo Ranger. There is a shared angst between the two that forms the emotional core of the issue as they were both replaced as leader by new Red Rangers (Andros for TJ and Cole for Taylor). As for the Black Turbo Ranger, we get more of a glimpse of his lair and plans, but still no real hint to his identity.

Porter and Esposito do some of their best character work in this issue with how they handle TJ and Taylor’s arcs. The tension between Billy and Trini remains, but its slowly starting to get stale this far in because there seems to be little forward momentum. The inclusion of the Red Omega Ranger gives some interesting avenues for Trini’s character to go down, so we’ll have to see how that goes. As for Black Turbo he’s still somewhat flat as a villain, but the expansion on his abilities lead to some fun visuals.

Alessio Zonno and Raul Angulo continue to bring lots of energy to the book, with dynamic pencils and exciting colors. Taylor and TJ’s mission through the jungle leads to a lot of fun visuals and adrenaline-filled action scenes. The showcase of Black Turbo’s powers are also very cool to behold.