VR Troopers/Power Rangers Flipbook #3 Facsimile Edition (2025) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Today I've got a comic book review for you today. Last week I was at the comic book store with Brad, and I got the VR Troopers/Power Rangers Flipbook #3 Facsimile Edition issue, which is a reprint of a 30 year old comic, originally published by Marvel in 1995. So, let's get into it.

So I remember watching VR Troopers when I was a kid, but I don't remember much about it, nor do I remember what channel I watched it on, as it aired, in the U.S., in first run syndication much like Star Trek: The Next Generation and many of the cartoons I watched back then. It wasn't as popular as Power Rangers was, so I don't remember seeing any toys at the store or anything like that. Though I do remember getting the Happy Meal toys from McDonald's at the time too. I think that's why I picked up this comic because it was a way for me to experience VR Troopers again since I don't have the show on DVD, and I'm not able to keep up with BOOM!'s new comic based on the show.

The story is pretty straightforward. The Troopers, Ryan, Kaitlin, and J.B., have to protect an ancient space titan, who looks like something out of Kamen Rider or the early seasons of Super Sentai, from Grimlord, the big bad of the series. Being that I'm not as familiar with this show as I am with Power Rangers, I didn't really notice any major continuity issues with the comic, though for some reason, Kaitlin's last name is Scott in this issue, though it's Star in the show. I don't know if Scott was an early choice for the character's last name when Saban was developing the series, following the failed pilot, Cybertron, which starred Jason David Frank as Adam Steele, who became Ryan Steele in the series proper, during one of his early hiatuses from playing Tommy in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

I like the story. There's nothing really grandiose about it. The artwork is your standard '90s Marvel house style, but it's still pretty cool. VR Troopers was a bit more involved in the way Saban produced it because the shows they adapted didn't have giant robots fighting giant monsters, so they had to use more footage of the heroes fighting the bad guys, which meant more editing because Ryan's Trooper suit comes from a different show than Kaitlin and J.B.'s Trooper suits did, so you never saw all three of them in the same footage unless it was original American footage. Similar to how you never saw the White Ranger with the other Rangers in Sentai footage as the White Ranger came from Gosei Sentai Dairanger while the five main Rangers came from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger.

Which just means that the fight scenes in VR Troopers are shorter. And because this is a flipbook, half the comic is the VR Troopers story and the other half is the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers story. Though because this was reprinted by BOOM! Studios rather than Marvel Comics, the original ads from the 1995 Marvel version aren't recreated here. There's just ads for the new VR Troopers comic, the new comic based on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind video game, and Playmates Toys's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Reignition toyline. In other words, modern ads. Which is fine because the Marvel True Believers series reprinted classic comics with newer ads in them. At least this comic recreates the small letters column that the original comic had.

The Power Rangers story is a bit...weird. In a way it perfectly fits with both Rita and Zedd's tendency to create evil Rangers or evil duplicates of the Rangers, especially because Lord Zedd did create his own Dark Rangers in the season 2 episode, "Green No More". However, I'm not sure how to take the story. For two reasons. The first is, if these Dark Rangers wore the Rangers's original suits with their powers coming from the original Dino powers, why did the Dark Rangers from the show wear those bad suits that look like they were stolen from the Putties? I mean those TV show Dark Rangers were created with the Green Crystal, which had taken Tommy's Green Ranger powers from him, so the Dark Rangers shouldn't've looked like they were going Trick or Treating on Halloween.

The second reason I'm not sure how to take this story is that in the show the Thunderzords were completely destroyed by Rito Revolto, which is what damaged the Rangers's original Power Coins, separating them from their powers in the first place. So why do Rita and Zedd say in the comic that the Zords were abandoned? Two possibilities. Either the writer of the comic had no idea what he was doing because he didn't know the lore of the show, or the comic isn't based on the show.

We didn't see the Zords before the Rangers lost their powers in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. We just saw the Ninjazords for the final battle against Ivan Ooze at the end of the movie. Marvel's other Power Rangers comic, titled Saban's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (similar to how the two series by Hamilton Comics were titled), seemed to be set in the continuity of the movie, with the Rangers's suits looking more like the armored suits from the movie. So the other possibility is that this comic, despite the Rangers wearing their Ninjetti/Ninja suits, was meant to be set in the movie's continuity, which would account for the Thunderzords and the Tigerzord being abandoned rather than destroyed.

However, Zordon and Alpha recount how the Rangers got their Ninja powers from Ninjor in the Temple of Power. So, like so many comics based on TV shows, writers are hired to write the issues, but they have no idea what they're doing because they don't know the show they're adapting. Sometimes you'll get stories that are generally consistent with the show's continuity, even though they take some liberties to make the story work, like with DC Comics's Star Trek comics from the '80s and '90s, but up until BOOM! took over publication in 2016, Power Rangers comics have always gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to storytelling in the comic book medium. Here, I think the writer just didn't care enough to watch the four part episode where the Rangers get their Ninja powers. Though it is cool to see the Thunder Megazord fighting the Ninja Megazord and the Tigerzord fighting the Falconzord. We were never gonna get that in the show.

Overall, this was a fun issue. All five issues have been reprinted as facsimile editions, so if you're a fan of '90s North American Tokusatsu and wanted to experience a comic book based on VR Troopers, I think this is the best way to do it. For the Power Rangers story, I think you're better off picking up the first volume of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Archive trade paperback collected edition, because all of the Hamilton Comics and Marvel Comics runs are collected there, except for the comic book adaptation of the movie. The collected edition is only missing the final page of the story, but nothing really spectacular happens on that page.

Alright my friends, I think that's going to be it for me for today. I'm going to have movie reviews out on December 15th and December 22nd, and then I am going to be taking a break from the blog in January to deal with life stuff. But I'll be back in February for sure. Until then, have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.