 This article is about a/an comic book issue in the Power Rangers comic sub-franchise by Boom! Studios.
|
Ranger Academy 2023 FCBD Special is a special preview of the upcoming Boom! Studios comic book series, Ranger Academy. It is a sneak preview of Issue 1’s story, with half of it detailed in its pages.
Synopsis[]
It's time to enroll in a bold new take on the Power Rangers mythology in this Free Comic Day Special! Class is in session for the start of an epic saga that is sure to delight longtime Rangers fans, and provide an excellent jumping on point for brand new readers.[1][2]
Plot[]
On the remote lunar colony of Vaela, a young shepherd girl named Sage plays in the field, pretending to being a hero of “The Knights of Stardust” protecting a queen from monsters. Her playing is interrupted when she hears thunder and then gathers her herd of goat-like animals to get to safety as the moon has “Hyperstorm” torrential rains all but two hours every day. She finds that one of her goats, Nugget, isn’t among the ones she herded and goes looking for her. She finds her stuck in the mud below the cliffs and then hears a loud noise nearby, seeing a small shuttle has crashed onto an area that is rapidly flooding.
While Sage’s father had told her never to get involved with “Offworlders” and hide until they leave, she decides that dumb rule is irrelevant because the people inside need help. She thinks that what he doesn’t know will not get her in trouble and ties a vine from a tree to her waist to wade through the current of the water to reach the shuttle. The cockpit has been breached and water is rapidly flowing in, with both occupants trapped in their seats, one being unconscious. Sage unfastens the safety harness of the girl to pull her out and the second occupant, Mathis, has already sent out an emergency distress beacon to their location. But they are going to drown before help arrives, so the girl, Tula, wakes up and suggests Sage makes a pulley to get Mathis out. Sage ties a vine to a tree branch and both pull out Mathis to safety.
Cadet Tula tries to use a communicator to contact “Ranger Academy”, but the comms and the beacon are waterlogged and unable to function. Feeling a rush from the excitement, Sage wonders if she can use the pulley idea to get Nugget out next time she gets stranded, Mathis wonders what a Nugget is and Sage says she doesn’t know what species her animals are but they make delicious milk for cheese.
The three make introductions to each other and Sage insists that they come home with her as Vaela gets freezing cold at night. Mathis explains as they walk that they are Cadets of Ranger Academy and were enroute to the planet Gaspar and made a miscalculation in inputting their coordinates when making a hyperspace jump. Sage finds Nugget tripping in the mud and asks Tula to carry her and Tula gets licked by the animal.
Sage notices that Mathis is hurt and struggling to keep up and decides to take their minds off the pain through distraction from conversation. She asks Mathis if they are in charge of the school that they keep mentioning and they say that a cadet has no authority and Tula is the youngest third year cadet in the school’s history. Sage asks what a Ranger even is, which surprises the two cadets as they have never heard of anyone not knowing what a Power Ranger is. They arrive near Sage’s home and Mathis thinks that the young shepherd would be a natural for the “Morphin Trials”, a test at the academy where a student survives a hostile environment to find the Bandorian Monks, then peer into the Grid to find one’s “true spectrum of light” and learn how to morph into the hero they aspire to be. Mathis then stumbles and coughs, being hurt far worse than they seemed and having inhaled a “suboptimal” amount of water into their lungs.
Mathis passes out right into the arms of Sage’s father Rhianth, who is explained by Tula as being a gender neutral alien when he erroneously addresses the unconscious cadet as a “he”. Rhianth is not very trusting of the strangers he just met upon bringing them inside his home, asking Tula why they are on his moon, to which she says that they originally were on their way to Gaspar to pick up recruits. Rhianth rudely mocks her and says they are off by about 9 light years and doesn’t care where they are from. Sage tries to stand up for her new friends, even saying she’s interested in the school that they go to as it is better than being stranded on a moon in outburst. Her father claims to know exactly what they are, people who only pretend to be heroes. Sage refuses to believe that, her friends are good people, reminding him of the stories he told her about the Stardust Knights whenever she would have bad dreams, thinking that he once believed in heroes.
Rhianth reluctantly decides to help the two cadets by going to examine and try to fix their ship, insisting that they leave immediately afterwards. Tula is curious about him and the stories he told his daughter. The next morning, Rhianth chastises the kids on their school’s lack of proper education on starship repair, opening a panel to jumpstart the ship’s Morphin Battery to initiate its self repair function. Sage asks if she can go with them to the school, but her father said she wasn’t invited. Tula mumbles that she is technically authorized by her teachers to select whichever recruits she chooses. They run a test flight to see if the ship is working and after a full flight, Rhianth gives instructions on how to handle the ship as weather conditions will change soon, modulating the shields to a specific frequency and to not go so hard on the throttle as they reach their jump. He insists that Tula takes Mathis and get off his moon now, but Sage wants them to stay until their injuries heal, he refuses and believes that the Power Rangers will take care of them.
Tula on the other hand sees potential in Sage and wants to select her as a recruit for Ranger Academy. Sage is excited, but her father angrily yells at her she will not leave his side as he will keep her safe as he swore to himself to do so. Sage gets upset and runs away, going into a forest and sobbing in her treehouse about being stuck on Vaela and missing out on all the things Mathis and Tula talked about. She hears Nugget bleating outside and climbs down, petting her and then decides to come up with a plan…
Later, Rhianth has packed food rations into the ship and by his calculations, the cadets should be able to return to their school before roll call starts if they depart now. Both show gratitude for his hospitality and Tula asks for his name, thinking something is familiar about it when he gives it but Mathis quickly drags her into the ship to not agitate Rhianth further by wearing out their welcome. As they prepare for takeoff, Mathis wonders if the teachers will give them extra credit for discovering a “storm moon”, but Tula says they should just never mention what happened and lie saying they didn’t find any recruits on Gaspar to avoid possible punishment from their teachers.
As they eat a bag of rations, Mathis worries about Sage and wonders what the deal is with her father and his mistrust of the Academy, as it is one of the finest education institutions in the universe and everyone else loves the Power Rangers.
Rhianth goes inside his house and tries to apologize to his daughter in her bedroom for yelling at her, saying he loves her and whispering that “he loved her too”, implying something about himself. However, Nugget is in her bed instead and this angers him, screaming her name out as he realizes Sage has run away from home.
On the ship, Mathis contacts one of the school faculty, Merrick, the Wild Force Lunar Wolf Ranger, to give a status report about their trip, who decided to be honest and tell the whole story and teases Tula about being kissed by a goat. They are returning to the Academy with their first recruit, but don’t want to put them in danger by going to Gaspar unsupervised, hence why they are returning to the school. Tula reveals that she snuck Sage on board the ship in a supply crate, with her coming out and asking for some snacks for the trip…
To be continued….
Appearing[]
Students:
| Red Junior Ranger | Tula |
| Yellow Junior Ranger | Mathis |
Faculty:
- Merrick Baliton (voice only)
Supporting Characters:
- Rhianth
- Bandorian Monks (mentioned)
Locations:
Covers[]
Reprints[]
Errors[]
- To be added
Notes[]
- The ship that the Cadets were traveling in had a “Morphin Battery” as part of its power and operational systems. This means much like the Beast Morphers TV series, the timeline has progressed to some point where Grid Energy is utilized as a power source for various purposes including for spacecraft.
- Merrick from Wild Force is revealed to be one of the faculty at Ranger Academy as he communicates with Mathis while the cadets are enroute back to the school.
References[]
Footnotes[]
