#...sort of.

Ranger Academy's kind of in a weird place, at least from my experience. As far as I'm aware, there's really not much discussion or hype for it in the fandom? Which, in some way, makes sense - the series is completely disconnected from the main series and from the beginning was stated to be skewed more towards younger readers; almost as an introduction to Power Rangers as a whole. And it does that job well......for the most part.

Before I get to the writing though, I just want to take a minute to highlight the art, since I don't talk about it enough in my recaps/other discussions. It's great! Drawn by Jo Mi-Gyeong and colored by Fabiana Mascolo, the art for the PR comics in general continues to be a high point. Every character, even the background teachers, have a distinct memorable design with a lot of personality in their poses and gestures, and the numerous settings we've already gotten - Sage's moon home, Ranger Academy's different campuses, the planet Chromia - all look fantastic. My only nitpicks would be I wish we got more non-humanoid cadets, and sometimes the way faces are drawn in profile look a little odd - especially when they have their mouths open - but those are nitpicks.

When it comes to the writing, things get a little trickier. For the most part, I think the story is good. The basic premise to all this in case you're new: a young girl named Sage lives on a remote moon with only her adopted father Rhianth and a herd of weird goat-like creatures. One day two cadets from the titular Ranger Academy, Mathis and Tula, crash-land on the moon and tell her about the Academy. Sick of living alone under her father's rules and wanting adventure, Sage stows along with them on their return journey and becomes an official student. So now instead of herding goats, she's making new friends, discovering secrets of the Academy, how her father connects to all this, and becoming a Power Ranger.

As I said, I think this is a solid premise for Boom's first ever completely original Power Rangers book (I count Power Rangers Universe as a sort of test-run for original stories, but that was still pretty connected to the main series and using established canon concepts.) The mysteries they've introduced, such as the lost Green campus, the implication that certain Ranger colors were purposefully erased from history, Rhianth's past, and Tula's interest in these secrets, all help build on the somewhat basic premise and are slowly giving the book its own identity. Sage herself is a very likable and relatable protagonist; a kid wanting more out of her lonely, isolated life so she takes the first opportunity she can to escape, but is now realizing that it's not going to be some fun adventure. The supporting cast is a little underdeveloped, but everyone's perfectly likable and I'm interested in seeing how they grow. I think for me there are two main problems that drag the book down: the setting itself being underdeveloped and the Ranger alumni cameos.

Ranger Academy itself? Meh

A criticism that immediately came out following the book's release, that I agree with for the most part, is the book pretty much follows the structure of a "magic school" story to a T. A "normal" kid who wants more out of life gets thrust into this new world by some kind of outside force. The school has a category system where kids get put into select campuses based on personality or skills. The main character doesn't fit in with everyone else until they find some friends to take care of them. There are secrets about the school that are being kept from the students, and secrets of the main character's family being hidden from them. Also, there's a bully.

During my first read of the issues, I agreed that this was a detriment to the book, but now rereading it again, I think the problem is less that the book follows these tropes and more that it speeds through these tropes REALLY QUICKLY. You can tell they want to move things along to the good stuff where Sage morphs, and I understand why - this is a Power Rangers book, and people want to see Power Rangers. But at the same time, you really don't get much of a chance to get to know the school outside of its basic layout of its campuses and that the headmaster is literally a giant floating head. You don't learn any of the non-cameo teachers' names, outside of the librarian, and that's mostly because he was part of Rhianth's old friend group. You see some of the classes Sage has to take, but there's no discussion on if each color campus focuses on a particular subject. We establish that first years are on a rotation schedule of attending classes in a different color campus each day, but what's the difference between classes in the Blue Campus and classes in the Pink?

Now this might seem trivial, and it kind of is. It does help the reader feel Sage's overwhelming new situation by not giving her, and therefore the reader, the full picture. And there's nothing saying that these concepts won't get developed down the road. Sage has three and a half years left of school, after all, assuming the book continues long enough to cover that length of time. But when it comes to these kinds of stories, the school's operation is a huge part of the charm - what makes THIS magic school stand out against all the others on the YA shelf? You basically have to turn the school itself into a character. Hogwarts is so iconic because that series does this perfectly. Ranger Academy simply doesn't have that yet - it still just feels like a generic school, really an army training camp more than anything due to the hostage negotiation and survival classes she takes, with nothing to make it stand out except for the promise that we'll get to actual Power Rangers stuff soon.

Oh, and.....the cameos.

The Cameos

So.....yeah. This is a big one for me. I think there's time for the series to fix my issue of the school itself feeling underdeveloped, but it's already too late for the cameos

Back when Ranger Academy was first being advertised, they were quick to show off that the book could cameo any ranger at any point in the franchise - the book itself accomplishes this through the Rangers using tubes as a sort of interplanetary, interdimensional Zoom........or just kind of.....showing up, as is the case with Cruger, Yale, and Katie. (I don't really know what constitutes a cameo physically being there as opposed to a tube hologram. It's another thing the book hasn't explained the rules for yet.) And for the most part, this is a fine idea. It makes sense, and fun for the simple novelty of "look!! it's my blorbo!!!" that no one is immune to.

But they get more and more out of place as the story of Ranger Academy starts to pick up.

Like I said before, the book is starting to hint that the school only having five colors isn't COMPLETELY MMPR pandering - the school is, indeed, intentionally erasing certain Ranger colors from their students' awareness. As someone who would love for the big twist to be this school and its system is inherently corrupt, this is a good start.

HOWEVER. In order to make this work, you have to assume that a) the Ranger histories that the students learn about just don't mention ANY rangers that aren't red, blue, black, pink, or yellow and b) the Ranger alumni who teach there don't mention them either. And that's just too much for me to believe, I'm sorry. For some colors like orange and white, maybe, but gold? Silver? GREEN???????? There are too many of those guys to believe they can get covered up. And I really don't see the ranger alumni being okay with erasing their teammates from history. Green is the third-highest ranking at SPD. Hello? SPD? I think these guys would have heard of SPD? Since Cruger teaches there? (And if not at school then certainly once they're out and traveling the galaxy.)

I've mentioned before that the cameos are starting to feel more like a higher-up mandate than something the author chose to do, and that'll only be supported by a lack of explanation as to how this works with the narrative they're weaving AND if none of the cameo rangers actually.......play a real part in all this. Not that I want the canon characters to overshadow the new characters, but it would feel like kind of a letdown to have access to ALL of these characters and not give them anything to do besides generic exposition (there's really nothing specific to their characters in.....ANY of the cameos' dialogue, besides the five hundredth "uh, is that a CAT???????" joke with Yale.) or not take the chance to develop some of them by, say, assigning them a mentorship role to a specific student. I LOVE seeing Katie, after BOOM kind of ignores her in favor of Jen, but is all she going to amount to is being their bus driver? I didn't even realize it was her until people pointed out that they called her Professor Walker. Nothing about her suggested that she was Katie. So I worry about the aforementioned "it's my blorbo" novelty to wear out pretty fast if the cameos start to feel more and more like just fanservice for people to post about online.

But overall.....it's fine. I'm going to keep reading, and we'll see where this goes. I don't think everyone will like this - as seen by how I barely see anyone talking about it lol. But I'm cautiously optimistic now that we're getting into the meat of things with Sage's new, FORBIDDEN!!!!!!!!! color.

(Just don't bring in Dark Specter oh god please)

Misc Thoughts:

= For all the build-up that the First Trial would be this HORRIBLE LIFE-THREATENING OH GOD HELP ME event, it was actually pretty...lowkey. They literally had no trouble until someone broke their ankle, which....could happen anywhere, at any time. Fern did that, you ain't special. We didn't even see any of those cool monsters they kept bringing up

= So after all my confusion about when and where this series is set, going back in my reread helped me notice that there IS a clue towards setting in a scene where Sage is going through yearbooks: a shelf labeled "Class of [X]498" (the first number is obscured by one of Sage's narration boxes.) So it's.....tentatively set in the far future of the PR universe?

= I've said it before that I don't blame the author for apparently not knowing that previously the books established Xybrians like Kartyr follow a name pattern of a one-syllable word (Trip, Star, Ace, Trek, etc) but it is a little funny to imagine the possibilities. Jerk, Dick, Twerp

= I think a joke could have been done with Cruger, a dog, and Yale, a cat, being in the same room together

= I hate that the Academy was founded by Zordon. It's too low-hanging fruit for me. I'll say it again that I wish it could have just been founded by some OC team