VR Troopers!
So, back when Power Rangers Prime was first revealed, arguably the biggest talking point was that the series would feature the VR Troopers as major characters, and BOOM was quick to boast that it was the VR Troopers' return to comics after thirty years. So it wasn't really a surprise when their own spinoff miniseries was announced shortly after, alongside reprints of the VR Troopers comics from the 90s.
Now truth be told - a lot of this is unknown territory for me. As I never watched Power Rangers on TV as it aired until much later in my life, I certainly didn't catch the other adapted toku shows, and I never watched them after getting back into Power Rangers. My only exposure to the side shows would be their cameos in PR episodes, such as the Beetleborgs being the main villains of Forever Red. So because of that, while people were very excited for the VR Troopers to come back in these comics, my response was more ".......yeah okay."
So speaking from a non-fan's perspective, like any material based on an existing IP, this whole experience was probably more exciting to fans of the VR Troopers than it was for me. But as these guys were going to be an integral part of what was supposed to be BOOM's new main ongoing, I couldn't just ignore it. So here we are!
To start off, a brief summary of the VR Troopers miniseries.
This story is set in the universe of Power Rangers Prime, where Eltarians colonized the Earth back in the 50s and turned it into part of their intergalactic empire. The VR Troopers - Ryan Steele, Kaitlin Star, and JB Reese - serve them as their armored taskforce, implied to be specifically assigned to deal with "special" criminals such as evil mutants (though it varies between the miniseries to main series - we'll get to that.) In this case, a mysterious figure from an alternate dimension has been terrorizing Angel Grove, and upon her capture, the Troopers learn she's Ryan's long-lost mother Amy Steele. She has been working undercover to take down Grimlord, an overlord from another dimension bonded to the CEO of Ziktor Industries to bring his forces to Earth from his home dimension. After a lot of explaining and filling in the gaps of Ryan's very important family drama, such as the disappearance of Ryan's father, Tyler, and the Eltarians' involvement in that, everyone storms the Ziktor Building to confront Grimlord and the brainwashed Tyler Steele, now known as Dark Heart. Ultimately it ends on a pyrrhic victory for the Troopers as they're able to destroy the portal meant to bring in Grimlord's forces, but the villains themselves - including Dark Heart - escape through it before it collapses fully and Amy has to go underground to avoid Eltarian capture.
Overall a very straightforward story. And in its defense, it wasn't really presenting itself as anything more than a modern retelling of VR Troopers, just being set on Power Rangers Prime's Earth rather than its own seperate universe or even the 2016 series universe. The truth of the matter is if this was just a standalone miniseries, telling the story of a rebooted VR Troopers in modern day in hopes of maybe getting a full ongoing, I wouldn't have much to say about it except "it's fine." Because...it IS fine. It's mostly well-paced. The characters are all likable and the main trio of Troopers play off well with each other despite Ryan getting most of the actual narrative focus. The art is great, and how it portrays action and plays around with the format, like turning the comic panel gutters into bars of Kaitlin's cage, were more creative uses of the medium than I've seen in previous PR comics. Ryan's mother Amy is by far the best character in the book, being a hardened, war-torn warrior whose exploits in Grimlord's dimension would honestly have been a more interesting read than this miniseries in the first place.
I can honestly say my biggest critiques of the book as a standalone series have to do with its structure. I really don't think the book needed to be six issues long with the material we got. I think we could have cut it down to five, maybe even four issues - the events of #3, #4 and #5 in particular are certainly important, but because Amy, Ryan, and JB spend the entirety of these issues in the same damn room, it can feel like padding so the series can fill six issues, as well as just an over-reliance on exposition via narrated flashbacks. JB and Kaitlin are also very underdeveloped compared to Ryan, with them being more supporting characters to the whole Steele family drama that makes up this entire miniseries (AMY, an original character, feels more fleshed out than Ryan's teammates), but from my understanding this was also the case in the original show. The ending also can also feel unsatisfying with how little was actually resolved, due to the bad guys all escaping and Amy needing to leave, but that at least has the excuse that it was clearly meant to be continued down the line if not for Prime's cancellation. (The books set in Prime's universe taking it for granted that they'd be the years-long new main series for BOOM is a big factor in a lot of their faults....but we'll talk about that in the big Prime review in the spring.)
But no, what makes VR Troopers the series.....interesting and more interesting to talk about, is its relationship with its parent series, Power Rangers Prime. Because ultimately I have to say that while VR Troopers is a fine series, it's a bad spinoff.
To start, as of this writing, we still have no idea where exactly this series is meant to fit in the overall story of Prime. The only hints we get are the FCBD issue revealing that the news report Orion watches in Prime #1 is a prologue to this series, and in the series itself, Ryan hesitantly refers to Valentina as his ex in his internal monologue, alongside an accompanying text box telling the reader to check out "recent" issues of Power Rangers Prime rather than a specific issue. (At the time, Power Rangers Prime was up to #7 when VR Troopers #1 was released, which implies that the series probably takes place some time after #5 at the earliest.)
Ryan's offhand mentions of his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend??) are also the only references to Prime as a whole, not counting the general shared setting of a Angel Grove on an Eltarian-occupied Earth. There are no mentions of Rangers or a rogue space witch or having recently done an interrogation of an Aquitian-human hybrid. And as of this writing (after the release of Issue #14) Prime has had no reference to the events of this series either, like "hey, weird that Ziktor Industries suddenly shut down out of nowhere." The most accepted headcanon from readers that I've seen is that this series is set in the six-month timeskip between Prime #12 and #13, but who knows if Prime will give up precious page space in its final two issues just to confirm that.
Now normally, this wouldn't really be a big deal. After all, this was clearly done for ease of accessibility for readers who might be picking up this book but hadn't read Prime. The 2016 series had plenty of spin-off books set in that universe that weren't dependent on knowing every detail of the main story.
But here's the difference: the VR Troopers' role in Prime makes it virtually impossible for there not to be more connection, unless their miniseries was a prequel, which it clearly isn't (and even that's not a perfect solution). And without that connection, it makes for a far weaker execution of what they may have wanted when coming up with this revival of the property.
Throughout Prime's intro arc, the VR Troopers are the Prime Rangers' most recurring antagonists, even moreso than the Eltarians, as they meet the most frequently both on and off the battlefield. Ryan obviously isn't the main protagonist on the Ranger side, but he still has emotional and narrative ties to the Prime Rangers by entering the story as Valentina's boyfriend and Jun's best friend. He leads the interrogation of Mark after kidnapping him. He arranges the trade of Mark for Lauren. They ALL agree to let a captured Lauren free to help fight Jun's evil dad. Frankly, the idea of the VR Troopers having this whole separate adventure with Amy and Grimlord at roughly the same time without ANY mention of ANY of it is ridiculous, because they aren't Astronema in the 2016 series, who pops in to have a couple-issue adventure with the Omegas and then leaves forever - they drive the storyline that is supposed to shake up their entire world. Even an offhand "have you heard from Valentina since...?" in their miniseries would have been SOMETHING to make it feel like these stories matter to each other; instead the books are kept SO separate to the point where it feels like they don't belong in the same universe. This extends not just to the characters' roles, but their specific personalities and arcs.
As I said earlier, VR Troopers' main protagonist is unambiguously Ryan, with question of "what happened to the Steeles" being the driving question for the entire plot. Because of this, JB and Kaitlin can feel extremely one-note by comparison, simply because the book doesn't have time or space to dive into them as much beyond their basic character traits and some crumbs of backstory. However, I can still at least say the book gave them things to do and personalities to bounce off of Ryan and the greater plot - JB has his tech smarts and more logical approach to things, while Kaitlin is more outspoken and reckless, a bit of a conspiracy nut, with a journalism degree as a nod to her being a reporter in the original show. (As you can probably tell just from that description, Kaitlin has slightly more to do here than JB, due to her getting a small solo sideplot infiltrating Ziktor Industries while JB stays by Ryan's side as a sounding board and research help.) It might not sound like much, but it's enough to establish them as people and a team dynamic. And most importantly, it's leagues above their portrayal in Prime.
If VR Troopers has them as more side characters, in Prime they've barely anything more than suitfiller. What foundations of a personality they may have had in VR Troopers is nonexistent in Prime; going in blind like I did you'd never think Kaitlin was a conspiracy theorist or JB a tech guy. Their biggest contribution is to exist as more muscle in fights and show off references to their moves from the original show while Ryan gets all of the important scenes and relationships that drive the plot. Because of this, their supposed "heel turn" to wanting to help the Rangers feels hollow. Oh, suddenly Kaitlin and JB care about the harm they're causing? Why? What changed? Why were they so dedicated to the cause in the first place? (since of course, Ryan's reasons for being a Trooper are implied in Prime and plainly spelled out in VR Troopers but not Kaitlin or JB's outside of "save the world!") I think the intention is the Troopers slowly realize the depths of cruelty the Eltarians are making them sink to, but that doesn’t successfully land when we don't SEE this development.....develop. You'll have Kaitlin point out that Ryan's working so hard to bust his girlfriend and best friend....but then she'll jump into a fight with said girlfriend and best friend, ready to bring them in. And they'll keep up this violence throughout the book, whether it's kidnapping and painfully interrogating Mark, or forcing mutants underground, or having the third fight in as many issues with the Rangers, with no sense of doubt or self-reflection of what they're doing at that moment. And then VR Troopers doesn't help, thanks to both the aforementioned lack of acknowledgment of Prime's story AND how the Troopers becoming disillusioned with the Eltarians...is the point of VR Troopers as a series. Assuming VR Troopers takes place after Prime, if they've become uncomfortable with the Eltarians thanks to their adventures with the Rangers...why are they still going along with them in VR Troopers? It feels less like character development or a discussion of those willing to serve a fascist state and more just wanting to have their cake and eat it too, of strong foes for the Prime Rangers to fight but ALSO heroes we want to read about and root for in their own series.
Literally what changed, Kaitlin, that would make you go from following orders to questioning them!!!!!! It's the same mission!!!!!! What made you woke!!!!!!!!! And constantly bringing up the fact that Lauren is a human but not a mutant doesn't make them sound better - it's actually quite disgusting in context of Prime's worldbuilding, where it's flat-out stated even innocent mutants go under fire by the Troopers or Eltarian patrols simply for being considered acceptable targets. This is Power Rangers, where homophobia and racism between humans is nearly nonexistent and prejudices only exist in the form of looking down on other species like aliens or mutants, something this series doesn't try to dispute, and also doesn't acknowledge in VR Troopers.
And I’m more harsh on this than I would be with other instances of copaganda in Power Rangers because in this day and age in particular it’s deeply disturbing to see the book tiptoe around the evils of what is undoubtedly a specialized team of armed enforcers for a fascist state targeting those deemed "threats" simply because they don’t want to commit to the VR Troopers as bad guys; at worst foils to the Rangers who are simply misguided and are good enough to switch loyalties once they get too uncomfortable with their orders they clearly had no trouble following before. And this discrepancy is even more pronounced when their miniseries ignores their roles as cops serving the system entirely in favor of them being unambiguously the good guys, horrified at the concept of Amy taking hostages when RYAN, YOU DID THE SAME THING IN PRIME.
This is why I think the only way to really save the armed cop VR Troopers concept is to make their miniseries a prequel - this whole thing with Amy was their first mission, maybe how they first meet each other, how they meet Valentina and Jun. As I said, it's not the PERFECT solution - again, why wouldn't they turn against the Eltarians after learning what they did to Ryan's family? - but that's really just an inevitable outcome to making the Troopers so contradictory in their morals in the first place. (It's also kind of hinted throughout Prime that Ryan knows the Eltarians are dangerous and doesn't want to poke the bear by standing up to them, so maybe that could have worked with why he would stay with them - but this isn't really discussed further.) Maybe this is leaning into "it's bad because it's not what I want" territory but imagine if instead of the VR Troopers it was the A-Squad. Or the Sentry Force Four. Would the book hold back so much in framing them as villains? Would they have gotten their own miniseries where they get to be heroes with no discussion of the harm they've caused? Would Charlie get a moment where she gets sad over how no one is on her side?? I sort of doubt it, because they were already bad guys. Not the VR Troopers, where we want to sell reprints of their 90s books alongside their grand return to modern comics. Just ignore that the "grand return" involves them being violent cops targeting minorities.
But do the Troopers find that out, or question their missions to take down mutants, and that aids their decision to turn on the Eltarians? lol no. The closest we get to any acknowledgment of the VR Troopers being enablers of the Eltarians' crimes is Amy initially not presenting herself to Ryan because she feared he would be too blindly loyal to the Eltarians to want to help her. The mutants can still go on oppressed, though, we'll just ignore that elephant in the room
I feel this ended up being more of a review of Prime's story than VR Troopers', but as I said, it's difficult to separate them, not only because they share the same universe, but because how closely their storylines tie together and how their portrayal in one weakens their portrayal in the other. I don't think it was impossible to do this whole "the Troopers are heroes in one book and villains in the other" in a sort of flipped perspective situation, but that requires more intent than I think was executed here. If there was, VR Troopers wouldn't feel like such a missed opportunity for a more grounded and topical narrative, and maybe justified Prime spending so much of its opening arc as a backdoor pilot for their series. A decision that was all for naught, now with their shared universe cancelled. So thanks for that, I guess