This was another light week of comics for me, and I’m fine by that! Sometimes a fella is busy. But we’ve got some really neat comics, including Saga, Robins and a crossover between the Power Rangers and Godzilla!

Comic Book of the Week goes to that very comic, as these titans clash and clash some more!

Meanwhile, I’m still enjoying Horizon Forbidden West, and will be playing that for the foreseeable future. I love a big, busy open world game. I watched and enjoyed The Boys: Diabolical, and now I’m watching Our Flag Means Death HBO Max. That’s a fun one too!

Comic Reviews: Godzilla vs. The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1, Robins #6 and Saga #57.

Godzilla vs. The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #1
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Freddie Williams II
Colorist: Andrew Dalhouse
Letterer: Johanna Nattalie

I decided to check this one out on a whim. I love the Power Rangers comics, I love Godzilla and I’ve always been a fan of Cullen Bunn!

Rita Repulsa scours a secret temple and grabs a multiversal gem, transporting her and her minions to a new Earth — with the Green Ranger along for the ride. They arrive in the Angel Grove of Godzilla’s world, and find the giant titan battling a monster. Rita immediately beams her team aboard a spaceship piloted by aliens from Planet X! They’ve been fighting Godzilla for some time, and Rita proposes they work together. Meanwhile, Tommy sees Godzilla and assumes he’s one of Rita’s monsters. He summons the Dragonzord for an epic battle, but Godzilla mops the floor with it. Fortunately, Zordon has traced Tommy’s energy signature through the universes, and the other Rangers show up just in time!

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

This issue is just plain silly fun. Somebody had the great idea of watching Godzilla fight the Dragonzord, and that’s exactly what we get. No need to bother with deep character drama or interesting explorations of the lore. Let’s just find a way to have Godzilla fight Zords, and Bunn and Williams make it happen with glee. This issue does prevent a lot of hoops for everybody to jump through, from Rita scouring some ancient temple to everybody having to jump between dimensions. But then the issue delivers the big budget action. And Williams’ artwork is some truly gorgeous stuff, with rich, full-bodied characters that just look damn cool.

Power Rangers crossovers are weird. Sometimes they need to cross dimensions and sometimes they don’t. They didn’t have to when they met the Ninja Turtles, they just took a trip from Angel Grove to New York City. But they did have to cross dimensions when they met the Justice League, and now Godzilla. I wonder what’s the criteria? Not that it matters. These crossovers are fun, and this one is off to a good start. As I mentioned before, it’s really surface level so far, but for this sort of project that does not matter in the least. Give us the big kaiju spectacle and lets just sit back and enjoy it!

TL;DR: It’s big, it’s fun, it’s a little silly and all of it looks gorgeous! Oh to live in a world where these sorts of crossovers just happen and we get to reap the rewards.

Robins #6
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Baldemar Rivas
Colorist: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letterer: Steve Wands

This series finally comes to an end with answers revealed and meaningful Robining done.

The truth of Jenny Wren is finally revealed! She was Cormac Dodge’s sidekick, and Batman used her to take him down, only for Jenny Wren to shoot Dodge dead. That broke Batman’s rule and he was mad, so she appeared to kill herself. Now she’s back and has Batman mind-controlled, so he thinks he’s fighting Dodge and his goons when he’s really fighting a bound Tim Drake and the other Robins. Dick Grayson is eventually able to get through to Bruce and snap him out of it, then everybody tries to convince Jenny to turn herself in. Batman admits to failing her, and then Jason saves her from getting struck by lightning.

In the end, Jenny’s arrested and Bruce joins the Robins for their next social get together.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

I love Robin. I’m not such a big fan of having so many Robins. But I love the concept as a whole, and this issue does a lot to really explore what Robin means. This issue contains the real meat of this whole mini-series, and so I enjoyed it a lot more than previous issues. But it might just be me. I have very specific interest in Robin and stories about Robin. Beyond that, this issue was good as a whole. I liked finally getting Jenny Wren’s story, and it fits into the mythos without disrupting everything. I especially enjoyed Dick Grayson using his early memories of Robin to help break Batman out of his funk. That’s exactly what I would want to see in a story like this one.

Ultimately, I feel like this series accomplished exactly what it set out to accomplish. Part of me thinks it’s not as elegant as I would have liked. I wasn’t too big a fan of the artwork, if I’m being completely honest, and the lettering was a little too off for my tastes. But I have enjoyed it as a whole, and I think it’s a fun addition to the lives of Batman and his Robins. All of the characters feel like themselves, Jenny Wren is an interesting new addition to the Rogues Gallery and everything wraps up nicely with the characters in a good spot.

Now let’s see some of the wilder series ideas from that Round Robin tournament!

TL;DR: Very strong conclusion to this fun little mini-series. It explores all the angles it wants to explore, wraps up a fun new villain and serves each of its characters very well.

Saga #57
Writer: Brian K. Vaughn
Artist: Fiona Staples
Letterer: Fonografiks

Saga continues its saga, as good as ever.

We open with a flashback to shortly after Marko’s death, when Alana took her little family to visit Endwife the wolf doctor, where she got her wings surgically removed. In the present day, she’s able to present her bare back to her new, suspicious pirate chum, though now Alana doesn’t trust him at all. She agrees to do the job, leaving her kids with the pirates and Bombazine. Speaking of whim, we get an extended scene where Bombazine and Guitar shoot the breeze and share some backstory. We learn how he lost his arm (at least if he’s telling the truth), and how he might be a total psychopath that Guitar once knew. But he hides that well.

Meanwhile, The Will arrives at the Robot Kingdom and turns over the skull of Marko, feeding King Robot a story about how Marko killed Prince Robot IV.

Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.

Basically, Saga maintains a constant level of quality no matter what happens. The characters are always interesting, the story is full of twists and fun stuff, and the dialogue is always snappy and entertaining. This issue is no different. A lot of little things happen, but they’re all interesting and worthwhile, making for a very good story. This issue, in particular, carries a really fun theme of backstories. Hazel’s narration mentions how important backstories can be, while also pointing out that it doesn’t matter if those backstories are the truth or lies. The focus is on the “story” that The Will tells King Robot, but then the issue ends with some pretty epic hints about Bombazine’s backstory. Is he a psychopath? Yeah, maybe. Honestly, he has two fates: he betrays them all and kills Alana, or he himself is tragically killed. Vaughn loves killing characters.

TL;DR: Another excellent issue of Saga continues even more multitudes than normal, making for an exceptional issue.

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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