WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Mighty Morphin #6 by Ryan Parrott, Marco Renna, Walter Baiamonte, Katia Ranalli, Sara Antonellini and Ed Dukeshire, on sale now.
The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers are in the midst of the worst crisis their hometown of Angel Grove has ever seen. The city has been captured by Lord Zedd's forces and completely cut off from the rest of the world, and neither the Rangers nor the military have been able to make any dent in Zedd's defenses for weeks. As bad as things are now, another glimpse into the past might provide some critical information that could explain how things got to be this way. Readers have watched Zordon's time as a Guardian of Eltar unfold in snapshots from thousands of years ago, and the latest of these highlights the very first time that the Rangers' mentor stumbled into the home of their oldest enemy, the Bandora Palace.
The latest issue of Mighty Morphin' opens with another scene from the distant past, on a distant moon in a faraway galaxy. There, Zordon and Zartus battle the forces of the Hartunian Empire, though there is little hope for the invading forces in the face of both the Bronze and Silver Guardians of Eltar. The battle doesn't last long, but tensions are still running high between the victorious heroes. Zordon, having been chosen as the successor to the Chief Guardian, Zophram, has rubbed his partner the wrong way and wounded his ego.
Nevertheless, Zartus dutifully pledges his allegiance to Zordon when the time comes. Before the two can get much further in their conversation, they break the tree line of the forest they had been fighting through and happen across something neither of them ever expected. In the middle of the dense wilderness, overgrown and untended, is something that resembles a grand palace.
The building that Zordon and Zartus have come across is the Bandora Palace, an iconic location from both the original Power Rangers television series and the Japanese series Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. This palace was the home and headquarters of Rita Repulsa as well as the Witch Bandora on the Japanese series. From this palace on the moon, Rita's Putty foot soldiers were crafted and given life in mass quantity, as were the far more intricate monstrous creations that would themselves become the iconic Kaiju that the franchise is known for. The Bandora Palace was also home to Rita, and later Lord Zedd's throne room, from where they could both spy on and plot against Earth and its heroes.
The fact that Zordon had prior encounters with the primary antagonists of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers universe isn't surprising. That the Guardians of Eltar were completely unaware of them prior to their first encounter, even after having already gone to war against the forces of Dark Specter, makes things far more intriguing. This could also very easily spin the exact location of the flashbacks of Zordon's past as having actually taken place on our own moon, even further calling into question the influence that the Guardians may have had in the days before Power Rangers. Whatever the case, there is no doubt that answers will be coming soon enough.
Power Rangers Puts a New Hero Under Lord Zedd's Control