Power Rangers: Drakkon – New Dawn: She Has Her Work Cut Out for Her

This may be the first story I have read that did not include the main continuity team of Might Morphin Power Rangers and I liked it.  I enjoy exploring new worlds and this world is not overly polluted with what we already know.

In previous stories, we see the familiar Ranger characters interact with the survivors of this dimension.  In this story the only character from the main universe we see is Scorpina, and in a sense, she becomes a main character and possibly our eyes in this story.  She actually has some of the most development and change in this story.  When we first meet her, she is acting as a leader of Drakkon’s crumbling regime in his absence.  She has to be convinced to form an alliance with the Coinless against the ghost of Rita.  After the fight, when it is clear a new leader needs to be chosen, she scoffs at the ideas that the Ranger Slayer should step onto the throne and at forming an alliance with the Coinless.  She eventually agrees but openly says to Finster 5 that it will give her time to plan and strategize.  As we continue in the story her character softens, she learns the truth that Rita was not killed by the Rangers but rather by Lord Drakkon himself.  This revelation is shocking to her and we see tears in this hardened villain’s eyes.  We also see a change in her as she begins to fall for the sentry named Adam, ironically a counterpart to the second Black Ranger in the main universe after Zack goes on the “Peace Conference” but in reality becomes a member of the Omega Rangers.  She starts out hard on Adam, even forgetting his name on numerous occasions.  Her attitude begins to change as she attempts to keep appearances as she orders Adam not to die, unfortunately Adam does fail to not follow that order.  A real relationship does start to blossom as we see Adam comforting the warrior when she is faced with the shattering of  her world  as she learns the true fait of her former mentor and possible mother figure in Rita.

She is also our knowledge base of Dark Specter and Eclipta, his advance scout lieutenant . She does not even want to engage Eclipta for her part, in the beginning.  Again she has to be convinced to join the fight with the coinless against this new threat.  Again after she agrees, she does help full heartedly even gaining some of the Morphing Grid’s power to fight her back at great peril of her own life and also grief at the loss of Rita and now Adam.

The second main character in this story is the New Drakkon herself, the Ranger Slayer.  We see her after she is freed from Drakkon’s influence and she is struggling with what she is and what she has done.  She stumbles upon the Coinless and the Sentries in the beginning and she is just as reluctant in assuming the throne as Scorpina is in allowing her.  Just as Scorpina, she grows into being a leader.  In the beginning she says she is not a leader.  When she frees Jason from the metal suit, she hears Jason tell her that she is not the Kim he knew in the past.  In my opinion she is both.  She grows into leadership, caring more for those that are under her than the power that she possesses.  She gives up her coin to allow its power to be diffused into all of her forces and that decision helps the army repel Eclipta in the end.  She stands against Jason as he goes out of character and starts acting as if hoarding the power is the only way to win and possibly return the world to the original status quo.  Kim realizes that ten years have passed since the Rangers fought Rita and that time can never return for anybody.

The color choices in the art help to give the feeling of an apocalyptic time.  The colors are slightly muted, not as vibrant as when one thinks of Power Rangers.  There is an impression of mists and there is no appearance of a sun or brightness, just gray overcast skies.  That choice helps create the mood for the story.  Jason’s metal suit that he is locked in to has no color except for a muted red visor, it is just a muted gray that is designed like a Power Ranger suit but does not have any brightness at all.

I like the use of the muted reds when we see Jason’s flashback story about how Drakkon used and tortured him.  It is appropriate in that it separates the sequence from the rest of the story as a flashback and it is about the Red Ranger himself, a ranger that we all thought was actually killed by Drakkon in the beginning of his takeover of this dimension.

This story gives a little more of an adult feel to the Power Rangers myths without going over the top in darkness but definitely abandoning some of the lightness of the series.