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Power Shattered By A Ranger Off The Grid

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by Vince Brusio

When a once-friendly face goes rogue, the solution to the problem becomes much more complicated. To right a wrong, it is no longer about “doing the right thing.” It’s about sacrificing your love for someone because the greater good is on the chopping block. The Rangers now have to come to terms with the loss of a loved one, as his life is now corrupted. What should be a celebration of 25 years of friendship for the Power Rangers will instead be a moment when dominoes fall…and writers Kyle Higgins and Ryan Parrott will be left behind to pick up the pieces. See what both had to say about this big BOOM! event in our exclusive interview for "Shattered Grid" which kicks off in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #25 (JAN181312) and Saban's Go Go Power Rangers #8 (JAN181317).

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #25 (JAN181312) is in comic shops March 28.

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Vince Brusio: Gentlemen, the title of “Shattered Grid.” It sounds like a Hollywood action movie, where terrorists have infiltrated the U.S. to take out its energy or economic infrastructure. Or both. An impressive title, to say the least. So could the two of you give us an unabridged account of what’s in store for Power Rangers fans with this explosive story arc that sounds like it belongs in movie theaters? What’s the premise of Shattered Grid?

Kyle Higgins: For those who don’t know, 2018 is the 25th anniversary of Power Rangers. The show has been on the air—in different configurations—for all these years, and as such, has a pretty rich legacy. “Shattered Grid” is both a celebration of that legacy as well as an opportunity to push all these characters in new directions, taking full advantage of the medium of monthly comics… where we have no limits!

Lord Drakkon is an older, evil, alternate timeline version of Tommy Oliver — the original Green and White Ranger — who chose to stay evil, conquering his reality. Now, he’s going to take his armies to our reality — as well as several others — as he makes a big power move. Why he’s doing this and what he hopes to gain are both things you’ll have to read the event to find out about, but based on the above premise… it puts every Ranger at risk. In order to defeat Drakkon and his forces, it’ll take more than just the Mighty Morphin team to beat him.

Vince Brusio: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #24 and Saban's Go Power Rangers #8 are both preludes to this storyline, correct? So what are the early warning signs that indicate the tornado is approaching? Does an ongoing plot get sidelined suddenly without explanation? How do you ease readers into the deep end of the pool for this thing?

Ryan Parrott: Luckily, Kyle and I have had a long time to prep for Shattered Grid, so it was fairly easy to tie up any lose threads so that everything broke smoothly for the event. However, that doesn’t mean that the team in “Go” will have any warning that something massive is coming. It will blindside them in the best possible way. Readers, on the other hand, will get a small preview as to the identity of one of our main antagonists.

Kyle Higgins: Well, the Rangers literally find Drakkon again. They know he’s in our world, being held captive, and worry about what could happen if he gets loose. Spoiler alert… he gets loose.

Like Ryan said, I had a ton of time to prepare for this event — almost two years. So, I’ve been slowly weaving threads in the monthly series, which will all come together in this event.

Vince Brusio: Give us an idea about how the two of you work together so as to not step on each other’s toes. As the story stretches over two different titles, it’s important not to muck up the continuity, right? So how goes the back-and-forth when you’re ironing out details? How do you share events and/or cause-and-effect anomalies? 

Ryan Parrott: Kyle and I have been working together for almost ten years, so we have a nice short hand — which really came in handy on something as big as “Shattered Grid.” Since our two books take place in two different time periods, we got a chance to play with causality. Things that happen in one, spark the other and visa versa. One way to maybe describe them is — if this was “Lord of the Rings” — “Mighty Morphin” is Eragon’s story and “Go Go” is Froto’s. But that might be giving too much away.

Kyle Higgins: That’s a great analogy, yeah. Ryan and I literally met up this morning and made maps out of pens and coffee cups and headphones. There’s no egos involved —we’re both best friends and frequent collaborators, and have been for a long, long time. So, the process has been a blast… and I think will yield to some really cool back and forth between two titles that you haven’t really seen before in an event series.

Vince Brusio: Does the “Shattered Grid” storyline cross over into this year’s Free Comic Book Day one-shot? How so? Is the story in the FCBD title self-contained, or does it have ramifications for events in the ongoing BOOM! books?

Ryan Parrott: Kyle and I actually wrote the FCBD one-shot together specifically to give both old and new fans a nice jumping on spot for “Shattered Grid.” Yes, it’s a self-contained story that provides a little bit of history, shows off some new Power Ranger lore and has long lasting ramifications for a major character.

Vince Brusio: What has been the hardest part of your job building “Shattered Grid” from the ground up? What’s been the most rewarding? And who deserves more credit?

Ryan Parrott: Kyle, by far, had the lion’s share of the hard work. I got off easy because my book has, how should we say — temporal restrictions? I didn’t have to have a spreadsheet to keep track of all of the different story threads — I just got to introduce a whole new Ranger. And to leave you with a tease — the Ranger isn’t from the television show, but they do have a fan-favorite familiar face. And that’s all you’re getting out of me.

Kyle Higgins: The hardest part is just keeping tabs on the narrative threads, giving as many characters as I can strong moments… fun pairings with other Rangers… etc. The plot and action all work towards these moments, so I’m excited to see what people think when issue 25 finally drops. I anticipate a LOT of conversation about it.


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Vince Brusio writes about comics, and writes comics. He is the long-serving Editor of PREVIEWSworld.com, the creator of PUSSYCATS, and encourages everyone to keep the faith...and keep reading comics.

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