Writer: Maria Ingrande Mora
Artist: Jo Mi-Gyeong
Colorist: Joana Lafuente
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Cover Artists: Miguel Mercado, Jo Mi-Gyeong, G.B. Borea
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 1, 2024
When Tula pulls Sage away from her fellow First Year Cadets at the Parent Weekend Dance, Sage worries people will wonder why they snuck off. The Third Year Cadet callously dismisses her concerns. After the girls sneak into the closed Green Campus through an air vent, Tula, a Red Ranger Cadet, uses Sage's handprint to open the Green Campus dormitory. Sage grows uneasy, somehow sensing the spirits of the departed cadets. She fears this place and her connection with it. Why won't Tula let her return to her friends and the dance? Let's grab our Power Coins, leap into Ranger Academy #7, and see!
Story
Tula’s shuttle crashed on Sage’s moon, Vaela, nine light years from her supposed destination. Tula lied to get Sage into Ranger Academy. Then Tula wouldn’t let Sage come clean with the Headmaster about her Spectracite crystal turning green during her Morphin Trial. Now Tula searches a former cadet’s belongings on the closed Green Campus. She holds up a Power Coin. It glows green. “This belonged to my sister, Tashi,” she tells Sage.
Tashi was Tula’s idol. After Tashi died in a shuttle explosion, no one talked about the accident. Then, Ranger Academy closed the Green Campus. During Sage’s Morphin Trial on Chromia, her friend Theo suggested that Green was a cursed color. Her friend Lindy dismissed Green Power Rangers as an urban myth. But if there were Green Power Rangers, and they were evil, does that mean Sage is evil?
In Maria Ingrande Mora’s story, Sage snuck aboard Tula and Mathis' shuttle because she wanted to do something noble and exciting. After arriving midyear, she's worked hard to get up to speed with her fellow First Year Cadets. Yet Sage has suffered from nightmares since she arrived. Some nightmares concerned her father and a shuttle accident. She told her friends her spectracite crystal didn't glow in Prism Peak, the Bandorian Monks' Temple, because she believed she was cursed.
In Ranger Academy #7, Sage learns that Tula programmed her shuttle for Vaela to question her father. What made her father leave Ranger Academy? Why did the Headmaster hush up Tashi’s death? And why aren't there any more Green Rangers?
Art
Jo Mi-Gyeong’s organic design gives the Ranger Academy a futuristic appeal. As in 2001: A Space Odyssey, rounded corridors lead to circular rooms and grand domes. Round skylights allow the forgotten plants to survive in the Green Campus dormitory filled with scattered clothes and disorganized shelves. Vines climb over arches and historic architectural styles. A carved symbol rises above grand entrance doors, making Tula and Sage look tiny by comparison. But unlike the Doors Of Durin, these require a friend's handprint to open.
Jo Mi-Gyeong enlivens Tula’s tale by showing her and Tashi talking in the foreground. When Tula speaks of her sister's death, Sage remembers standing before the memorial and reading the names of Cadets who died. Yet Mi-Gyeong also shows Sage's progress in Ranger Academy #7. Her friends gather around her when Sage returns to the dance. Kartyr, who once belittled her, rests his hand on her shoulder. Yet when Sage freaks out the next day, Lindy walks away, head bowed, while Theo rests a hand on her shoulder, and Maev offers Lindy a gesture of support.
Sage dislikes dresses, so she wears a green suit to the dance. A green tinge fills the air in the abandoned dormitory. A brown wooden box sends out green energy waves. They surround Sage, much like those that enveloped the shuttle in Sage’s nightmare. Joana Lafuente fills Ranger Academy #7 with bright and appealing colors, enhancing the luminous appeal of a school where little is green, apart from the plants and Kartyr and Sage’s hair.
Ed Dukeshire expresses the characters' dialogue with black uppercase letters in white balloons and shares Sage's thoughts in green narrative boxes. Amid this tale of friendship and destiny, few sounds intrude until the final pages of Ranger Academy #7. Then, immense letters arise as objects break and crash. And a red cry bursts from a white dialogue balloon like a newborn xenomorph.
Thanks to Boom! Studios for providing a copy for review.
Final Thoughts
Plagued by worries and angered by Tula's betrayal, Sage realizes she can no longer hide from the truth in Ranger Academy #7. Her lies may cost her the respect of her friends. Her forbidden color may cost her a place at the school. But Sage leaps to protect her friends when danger threatens, regardless of the consequences.
Rating 9.2/10
For more cover art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
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