WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Mighty Morphin #12, available now from Boom! Studios.
The Power Rangers have seen some truly dark times as of late, from the planetary genocides and several shocking revelations about Zordon's people. None of this is helped by the infighting between heroes that has become endemic of the Power Rangers themselves, but for the latest Sixth Ranger, the alien Zelya, things are somehow even worse. She just learned the true nature of the Guardians she has sworn her allegiance to and discovered that they used her as Eltar's world-ending herald of death
When the Bronze Guardian Zelya first fell into Lord Zedd's clutches, rescuing her became the one and only priority for the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. As it turns out, that effort would ultimately be unnecessary. Not only were Zedd's intentions far less violent than she expected, he even let her go free after telling her the secret history of the Guardians of Eltar.
Fans have already seen the battle between Zelya and Zartus play out when she confronted the Supreme Guardian in the previous issue, but Mighty Morphin #12 by Ryan Parrott, Marco Renna, Walter Baiamonte, Sara Antonellini, Katia Ranalli, and Ed Dukeshire sees the Bronze Guardian confront what all of this means for her personally.
Zelya meets with Zordon and the Power Rangers in secret after having left Bandora Palace, explaining to them the reality of their situation. The Rangers are understandably in disbelief at first, but Zelya confirms what has happened by looking back at her own recent history. Much like when Zordon was the Bronze Guardian, a large part of Zelya's duties lie in supervising other worlds' societies and cultures to determine whether or not they are ready to be welcomed into the Galactic Alliance. Gorvinos III, Valos Prime, and Hartunia were all among the planets Zelya visited which were not deemed fit to become part of the Alliance. They all also happened to be victims of the Empyreals' wrath.
With that in mind, it quickly became clear that Zartus was using Zelya as a scout and a harbinger of global doom, and she can't bear that burden without doing something about it. Despite his efforts to convince her otherwise, Zordon can't stop Zelya from making the trek to Zartus' ship to determine the absolute truth of the matter.
Fans already know that encounter didn't go well for her, but her loss to Zartus doesn't take away from how far Zelya was willing to go in championing actual justice. In fact, standing against the Supreme Guardian for as long as she did is even further testament to the depth of Zelya's heroism. She may have been made a brutal pawn in someone else's war, but there is no doubt that Zelya will make a serious impact when she finally gets a shot at vengeance.
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