For the 25th anniversary of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Kyle Higgins and Ryan Parrott are going all in. The writers of BOOM! Studios’ Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Go Go Power Rangers series aren’t just crafting a Power Rangers story, they’re crafting the Power Ranger epic.

“Shattered Grid” sees the world of the Power Rangers coming apart at the seams, and the life of every Power Ranger ever is at risk, as popular villain Lord Drakkon returns to power. Kicking off in March’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #25 by Higgins and artist Daniele Di Nicuolo, the event promises action, surprises, and a brand-new Ranger -- with a familiar face.

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CBR spoke with Higgins and Parrott, along with series editor Dafna Pleban and Power Rangers executive producer Brian Casentini, about all things “Shattered Grid,” from new characters to surprise returns, and what longtime fans can expect with appearances from their favorite Power Rangers characters. With so many Rangers making their first-ever appearances in comics and crossing over with other fan-favorites in ways never seen before, the event scribes and longtime friends definitely seem to have the best interests of the characters in mind. While the two remain tight-lipped around any truly juicy spoilers, they definitely let slip a few tantalizing details about what’s to come for the Power Rangers in “Shattered Grid," and beyond.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 cover by Jamal Campbell

CBR: “Shattered Grid” is looking like a huge event, and pulling this off only 25 issues in is pretty exciting. Are you worried at all about going so big just three years into the series?

Kyle Higgins: I’m not, because we’ve been planning this for so long. So this actually is the natural escalation and development of the series from our very early plans. It also coincides with the 25th anniversary of the franchise, so we felt like since we launched the books and discussed the publishing plans for year 2 and then year 3, it really made sense to build it with that kind of runway, so that it doesn’t feel like a huge out of nowhere escalation

Ryan Parrott: Well, it’s a little different for me, because my series is only like 8 issues in. So it’s a little early for me, but that was one of the things about getting involved in “Shattered Grid." I wanted to make sure that if we were going to be a part of it that it would still allow me to tell smaller, grounded stories. What ended up being great was when we sat down and started working through how Go Go Power Rangers would fit into this story and how it could be a tribute. The stuff that we came up with ended up tying together a lot of the thread and story elements that I’d already been planting in a way that I really hadn’t expected, and it actually ended up being really great for the series. So I’m not worried about it being too big for me, because it actually ended up tying things together, which is nice.

Higgins: That’s one of the things that Ryan and I really pride ourselves on and also really enjoy about big comic stories: when they’re done right they’re emotionally resonant in a way that feels consistent with what’s come before. So if you build the story right with enough advance notice of an event, you can build towards it so that the event is actually the culmination of certain character arcs. I was involved in a lot of Batman events with DC, and that was always the approach that I tried to take when I was writing Nightwing, because he needed to be involved in a lot of events that Scott Snyder was running. The trick to me was to use the event to my benefit and basically arc towards it.

“Shattered Grid” is bringing back a lot of Rangers that fans haven’t seen in a long time. What’s the thought process going into who to bring back and how best to respect those fans' memory of those Rangers?

Higgins: The first challenge for me was to figure out where in these character’s timelines we’re coming in at. So for example, are we picking up with them while they’re mid-season from their respective Power Rangers series? Or are we picking up with them where they are now, or at least after their season ended? And it’s a mixture of both. So my way into a particular set of Rangers is indicative of the emotional and thematic material that I found the most interesting about them, or that I wanted to mine for the “Shattered Grid” event, so that I was staying respectful and true to the characters but introducing them in certain cases in new ways. So it is a combination of what you know and love about these characters as well as potentially new developments that feel like a further continuation from what’s come before.

When this event was announced a lot of people immediately kind of read into it as, “Well this is going to be every Power Ranger ever teaming up,” and that’s not really what the series is. There are a lot of Power Rangers in this book, and every Ranger ever is at risk, but neither Ryan nor I were interested in just throwing every Ranger together just to get them illustrated. The Rangers that I chose on my side of the event were chosen because the pairings between them were really interesting and I had stories to tell for them. So there are a lot of different points of view in the “Shattered Grid” event. To me, this is an opportunity where I’m able to use Rangers from throughout the 25 year history of the franchise in a way that is outside of the limits of time and space, meaning that Jason Lee Scott as a teenager can meet and team up with Lauren Shiba around the same age range, whereas in real life if you try to do that, Austin St. John is in his 40s and Kimberly Crossman is in her 20s. You’re very limited by what era of their Ranger career you can portray them as. So that’s one of like the really fun opportunities that I wanted to take advantage of.

And that’s not to say that there aren’t a ton of Rangers in this. I literally have an excel spreadsheet going of all the Ranger teams from throughout the last 25 years and where each Ranger is in the event within the multiple storylines that I’m running concurrently, because keep in mind not only are the Rangers teaming up but the Rangers are also targets of Lord Drakkon, so there are different perspectives on these Rangers depending on whether we’re following the good guys or the bad guys.

Parrott: I’ve sort of been lucky in this situation where I don’t actually have to deal with all that. The thing about Go Go Power Rangers is that we are bringing a new Ranger into the story, and it's a Ranger that wasn’t in any of the television series. So I wasn’t handcuffed by any pre-existing character stuff. I had to create a brand-new character, which, hopefully, people will embrace that character the same way that they embrace Lord Drakkon. But that’s pretty much all I can say about that.

Go Go Power Rangers takes place like a year or so before the events in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and we’re playing with time and space and the causality of it all. This has been one of the fun things about writing with Kyle and reading his book as I write my book. We’re able to find things both on a thematic level and little Easter eggs that we can play off one another, and never more so than what we’re doing with this particular event because things that happen in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers directly affect the things that happen in Go Go Power Rangers

Higgins: And flip it…

Parrott: And flip it backwards and forwards, yes. That’s the fun thing. It’s sort of like being able to do the elements of time travel but in sort of a direct way and as far as I know, I don’t know if there’s any other series that has ever done that.

Higgins: Yeah, we’re playing with causality in a really cool way, especially when you see the events of issue #25 and what leads to the Grid beginning to fracture. That event is what allows us to not only play in these different eras of Rangers and bring them together, but also explore things in Go Go Power Rangers that occur before the grid fractured. And how that causality can inform things that are going to be happening in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in real time during the event.

Go Go Power Rangers #9 cover by Dan Mora

Ryan, creating a new Power Ranger, that’s pretty rare. How does that feel to you? What does that mean to you?

Parrott: Terrifying! It was super fun because it is a new Power Ranger. But much like Lord Drakkon, while the name and look of the character is new, and the Ranger itself is new, the face under the mask is one familiar to fans. What’s great is this particular Ranger has a really direct, emotional relationship with all of the Power Rangers and in different ways, and it was really fun to use that Ranger to push the story forward. And it’s just fun, you know, bringing in a new Ranger. Hopefully, someday I’ll be at Comic-Con and somebody will be dressed up as that and I’ll be like, “that was what it’s for.”

Higgins: Yeah, I’ve got to admit, seeing Lord Drakkon show up somewhere like the "Legacy Wars" game is really cool. And I think they’re making an exclusive figure of him for Power Morphicon this August. That’s really neat. It’s cool to see an original creation like that be so embraced by the fandom.

What excites me the most about this event on a character level is that this is where we get into really who Drakkon is. We introduced him in issue #9. We saw his world in issues #11-#16. But as far as who he is and why he’s really doing what he’s doing, we haven’t gotten into that material. He’s an alternate timeline version of Tommy Oliver who chose to stay evil. That’s all we know. So what’s so exciting to me is to see the character, to see so many people as excited about the Lord Drakkon character as they have been and to know what I’m going to be doing with him going forward. It brings a mischievous smile to my face.

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There’s already a precedence for alternate timelines and realities in the series. Any chance “Shattered Grid” is opening the door for an appearance from the 2017 film’s Rangers?

Higgins: You know, I guess it could be? From the standpoint of alternate universes and whatnot, I don’t know that it would even be possible from a rights standpoint, but I also never asked. To be totally honest, it’s not something that interested me. I’ve been trying to put my finger on why it just doesn’t click for me, and I think it’s because while RPM and Dino Charge and even Drakkon’s world are alternate universes, there’s precedent for interacting via the show. I don’t think the movie was ever really intended to be part of a multiverse of Power Rangers. It’s kind of its own special reinterpretation. It just felt a little weird to start mixing mediums in that way, even though the book is interpreting the television medium, to then be adding in the film medium and interpret that all in one comic, it kind of takes me out of the story a little bit, if that makes sense.

Parrott: I kind of agree. It feels like the movies were designed to streamline and reintroduce the Rangers to a brand new generation a little bit. If you want to use the DC Comics model, there’s the TV world of DC and there’s the movie world of DC, and they don’t feel like the same thing. They feel like they’re just sort of designed to tell stories at different scales.

Higgins: Bringing the movie Rangers into “Shattered Grid” feels like I’d undercut the very reason why they made the movie in the first place, which was a fresh start, a reinterpretation, and a new beginning.

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There’s a lot of Rangers from a lot of beloved shows turning up. Can we expect to see these teams more in the future? Or can we expect maybe a few to stick around after the event, similar to how Saba has been around since the Drakkon arc?

Higgins: Yes.

Parrott: That’s as definitive an answer as you’re going to get.

Higgins: I’m not going to dance, but I’m also not going to tease.

Blue Samurai Sentry art by Jamal Campbell

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Go Go Power Rangers both have different tones, with Go Go Power Rangers tonally playing closer to the original series. How are you using those two different tones and audiences to tell the story without clashing against each other?

Higgins: You know, actually, I don’t think the tones between Go Go Power Rangers and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers are that polar opposite. The funny thing about me and Ryan doing these books together is that we’re actually best friends. We’ve known each other for 10 years and have worked together before. Every writer has like a handful of really close friends that they bounce story ideas off of and will help each other kind of break narratives with. Ryan and I have done that together for like 10 years…

Parrott: Longer.

Higgins: Yeah. We wouldn’t be able to do that if we didn’t have a similar sensibility. The focus in Go Go Power Rangers is narrower than it is in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. We laugh all the time because Ryan is a big idea guy. He has more big, incredible ideas in an elevator ride than I do in a month. So to see him get into the trenches like this with these characters month in and month out where the moves are smaller is really cool to see. And when he one day goes big with Power Rangers, probably not in Go Go Power Rangers because of the scope, but I think it’s going to be massive.

We wrote the Free Comic Book Day issue together, and we broke it together and we split up scenes, we both wrote our own scenes. We traded, we slapped them back in the same document together, read over it once, tweaked some lines for some transitions and whatnot. Turned it into the editors and they didn’t know what to expect. They told us after the fact they were like, “We’re not sure if this is gonna work or if it’s gonna feel like two very different voices” and they were very pleasantly surprised by not only how smooth of a process it was but how strong the finished piece turned out.

Parrott: I think tonally they’re actually not that different. I think the only difference is that with the larger canvas that Kyle’s playing on, it just doesn’t have the time in the pages to break down to do the smaller scenes that I focus on.

Higgins: I have to pick my moments very, very carefully.

Parrott: Exactly. Because you’re dealing with larger story threads, you’re dealing with bigger moves and larger concepts and that’s where I think it’s going to be alright. Also, Kyle has been telling me about Power Rangers since when he got the gig. So we’ve been bouncing things off each other and I’ve been hearing different versions of some of these stories for like three years now. So we just work pretty easily together. He’s given me some of the best moments in my books and I like to think I’ve helped with some of his ideas in his book. So I think because of the ping-pong nature of our working relationship, the tone should hopefully take care of itself.

There’s a lot of Rangers showing up, and the different series don’t just have their own unique teams -- they have their own tones and styles. With a visual medium like comics, did the idea of how the Rangers are portrayed artistically factor into who you’re choosing to feature?

Higgins: It didn’t consciously, but I can tell you that if I listed off my favorite series...SPD, RPM, Time Force, In Space...you can start to see the tone that I respond to on a subconscious level. Those are a lot of my point of view Rangers in the series. That said, in a similar way to how the Mighty Morphin book up to this point has been my take on the Rangers and the characters and it’s a slight kind of remix, tonally it’s a little bit more grounded. I’m doing kind of the same thing with these other teams. They are absolutely the characters that you know and love, but it’s through the filter that is me, the writer. So for better or for worse, it’s my interpretation of these Rangers and these teams, which is a) an incredibly scary, daunting undertaking because you don’t want to disappoint fans who have been waiting to see these characters appear in the comic but b) it’s also really, really exciting. And I vacillate between those two extremes on a daily basis.

Finster-5 art by Daniele Di Nicuolo

There are now 25 seasons of Power Rangers to choose from. Do you have a personal favorite era that you’re most excited about featuring for “Shattered Grid?”

Higgins: I’ve changed my answer between three or four interviews. I kind of like the idea that like you have to read all the interviews...

Parrott: You just keep changing your answer until you’re like they’re all the right answer, but are they all the wrong answer?

Higgins: Today I’m gonna go with Lightspeed Rescue.

Parrott: To be fair, I know this is kind of a bad answer, I’ve only sort of seen some of the original Power Rangers. Mighty Morphin and a little Zeo and stuff. I’m a fan of the original. That’s why I write Go Go Power Rangers and that’s why I’m working on that series. Those are my favorite characters, so just finding ways to reinterpret them and find ways to ground them is sort of the whole point of why I do it.

Higgins: The one caveat that I will give is that the Ranger Sentry Army that Drakkon is putting together is definitely vying for the top spot in my list of favorite Ranger teams. In the series, to this point, we’ve established that in Drakkon’s world he has taken the Power Coins that he obtained from the fallen Mighty Morphin Rangers of his world and he has been siphoning those powers off to create Ranger Sentries. And those are what make up his army. And to this point we’ve seen Mastodon Sentries, we’ve seen Pterodactyl Sentries, we’ve seen Sabertooth Tiger Sentries and also Tyrannosaurus Sentries that are like the real elite ones because there’s fewer of them so they’re like his Royal Guard.

Well as Drakkon takes his forces and moves through eras, targeting different Rangers, he’s going to have access to more Coins, more Morphers, depending on what terminology that you use here because it changes from season to season. And he’s going to be adding more types of Sentries to his roster. So we see a Green Zeo Sentry and a Blue Samurai Sentry, I think in issue #27.

And then, as we dive further and further into Drakkon’s operation, we’re going to introduce a character who is quickly become one of my favorites to write. His name is Finster 5, and he’s the Finster that we all know and love but he’s been augmented by parts from Alpha 5, so he’s basically a cyborg at this point. It’s just a fun inversion on the iconography and suggests a complicated history for Finster in Drakkon’s world.

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Dafna, you put out a great story set outside the timeline of the on-goings with MMPR: Pink, focusing on Kimberly after her time as a Ranger. Now that we’re seeing all these other Rangers from other times, could we see similar series with all-new adventures of these characters?

Dafna Pleban: We have a lot of stories planned coming out of the event, but if I say anything else, it'll be spoiler territory for sure!

Going into “Shattered Grid,” things certainly look like they’re getting darker than ever. The ongoings as they are have already toed the line of a darker comic aimed at the now adult fanbase and something reminiscent of the technicolor show of our childhood. Is it difficult to find that balance between paying respect to the original while still telling a darker story, especially one like "Shattered Grid" where lives are on the line?

Pleban: We've really tried to explore mature themes about responsibility and leadership, and the emotional toll that these adventures might have on our heroes, but we aren't necessarily looking to tell darker stories, so much as more emotionally complex ones. Because we love the characters so much, I think we naturally treat what happens to them with the emotional weight that gets associated with more mature themes, but that doesn't necessarily have to come at the expense of the inherent fun and brightness of the world that drew us to Power Rangers in the first place.

Green Zeo Sentry art by Jamal Campbell

Brian, Saban did something similar to this event with 2014’s Super Megaforce and “Legendary Battle,” which brought back Rangers from the past to team up for the 20th anniversary. How does “Shattered Grid” stack up to that in terms of scale? Do you think we could see something like this in live action again?

Brian Casentini: "Shattered Grid" is an epic crossover event and the first of its kind for Power Rangers’ comics so that is very exciting for us and is a great way to celebrate Power Rangers’ 25th anniversary in partnership with BOOM! Studios. "Shattered Grid" fully takes advantage of the comic book medium in all its glory; it showcases the incredible scale you can bring to the stories and action. In terms of live action content, we have an amazing 25th anniversary special that we believe the fandom is going to truly love. Fans can also catch Power Rangers HyperForce which regularly features legacy cast members as guest stars reprising their Ranger roles, like the iconic Tommy Olvier himself -- Jason David Frank! -- with more to come!

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BOOM!’s series has done a great job balancing the kid-friendly Power Rangers lore with a comic aimed at older audiences. Are we opening the door for more Power Rangers properties aimed at the viewers who are now adults?

Casentini: Yes, the Power Ranger’s television series has served as every kid’s entry point to the superhero genre for 25 years now and so we have massive and passionate fanbase that has grown up on the show. We have worked closely with BOOM Studios to explore and expand upon the franchise’s deep mythology to stay true to what fans love but also take it in new, exciting directions. We want to provide fans of all ages the opportunity to fully engage with the brand and so we have developed and are developing more mature, new content such as the BOOM! comics among many other exciting initiatives to satiate this great demand from our fandom for more content. Power Rangers HyperForce, our weekly RPG show streaming on Twitch, is another one of those examples.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #23 and Go Go Power Rangers #6 are available now. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #25, the first chapter of "Shattered Grid," is scheduled for release on March 21.