Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a crossover comic between Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles consisting of a five-issue miniseries.
The story entails Tommy Oliver getting involved with the Foot Clan and the rest of the Power Rangers working with the Turtles to take down the alliance of Shredder and Rita Repulsa's minions.
On July 21, 2022, it was revealed that a sequel series, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, would be released in December 2022.
Tropes:
- Abled in the Adaptation: This miniseries' version of Irma doesn't wear glasses.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Irma is much more attractive than her homely, bespectacled depiction in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987).
- Adaptational Badass:
- April gets to use the Pink Ranger's powers and fight alongside the Turtles as Rangers.
- Shredder, like all the Ninja Turtles characters in this crossover, is clearly modelled after his incarnation from the 1987 cartoon, but he is a far more competent fighter and threatening villain than he was in said cartoon, even before getting Ranger Powers.
- While there was no doubt about Rita being a powerful witch in the TV series, she hardly ever got to show off her powers due to Orcus on His Throne being in full effect. Here, she personally fights Shredder after he takes the Green Power coin, and manages to fight him to a standstill despite Shredder now having Ranger Powers on top of his already great ninja skills.
- Casey Jones is a good fighter but he isn't usually shown to be on the same level as more elite Foot members like Karai. In the sequel miniseries, Casey takes on Karai on a rooftop battle and defeats her. And that's before he turns into Ranger X, becoming an "evil Green Ranger" equivalent to the Turtles that Tommy once was for the Power Rangers.
- Adaptational Villainy: This series' version of Leatherhead is a villain, just like in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW).
- Adapted Out: Partial example with Scorpina and Casey Jones, who don't have roles in the first installment, but show up in the second.
- All Your Powers Combined: In the sequel, to bypass Rita and Kraang managing to somehow shut down the Power Coins, Donatello and Billy find a way to basically infuse the coins with mutation energy so that the Rangers, instead of morphing as usual, mutate into hybrids of themselves and their summoned animal (prompting some question from Leonardo about how Tommy can become something that didn't exist).
- Alternative Continuity: For both properties. The Power Rangers side chronologically occurs after Green with Evil, sharing only the Setting Update for the Boom Studios comic, while the Ninja Turtles' version of the Foot Clan has Karai in her 2003 design and its origin is based on the IDW comic, but is mostly based on the 1987 cartoon otherwise.
- Ambiguous Situation: Played for laughs; Splinter deliberately gives Billy a non-answer as to whether he's a mutated Hamato Yoshi or a former ordinary rat in this continuity.
- Ascended Fanboy: Donatello is a big fan of the Power Rangers, so he's practically ecstatic about using the Black Ranger's powers and is particularly thrilled when he has a chance to pilot the Megazord.
- Boxing Lessons for Superman: See Brought Down to Badass below.
- Brought Down to Badass: Shredder disables the Rangers' connection to their Power Coins, thus rendering them unable to morph, but with Splinters's guidance, they arm themselves with ninja weapons and costumes and continue to be formidable heroes.
- Canon Foreigner: The sequel introduces Sir Swale, a zealous servant of the Rat King who hasn't appeared in any TMNT-related work prior to this crossover.
- Cardboard Prison: By the time of the sequel, Baxter Stockman has been imprisoned for his crimes at Rikers Island, so Goldar and Rocksteady break in to retrieve him. Despite a great effort on the heroes' part to stop them and some interference from Ranger X, the duo of villains successfully take Baxter in their custody.
- Chekhov's Gun: In issue #2, Donnie shows of his shrinking ray and his android Metalhead to Billy. These inventions come in handy in the final issue when Billy modifies the ray to make Metalhead into a Humongous Mecha to aid in the fight against a giant-sized Rocksteady and Bebop, and the Dragonzord which is under Shredder's control.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Shredder's Dimension X benefactors are only obliquely referred to throughout the first miniseries. They play a central role when the sequel rolls around.
- Combat Pragmatist: When Leo and Jason are having trouble fighting Karai head-on, Trini merely knocks out Karai from behind by throwing a heavy object at her head.
- Crossover: Between the Power Rangers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Wouldn't be the first time either.
- Easily Forgiven: Averted. Tommy repeatedly tries to apologize for lying to his friends but it is always brushed off as something they will deal with later. Tommy clearly understands that he is back to being on shaky ground with his friends.
- Kimberly, in a reverse of expectations, is the one angriest with Tommy, even goes as far saying that she tried to convince the other Rangers to leave him to his death when they finally rescue him in issue #4. While it's obvious she was being glib, it is clear that Tommy has a lot of making up to do.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Shredder manages to get the green Power Coin and become the Green Ranger, which augments his already extensive ninjutsu skills with enhanced strength, speed and reflexes, and he's able to quickly beat the Ranger team singlehandedly all while talking about how intoxicating his new power is.
- Enemy Mine: During the sequel, Rita's forces attack the Command Centre, only for Goldar and Rocksteady to be driven back when Shredder arrives to defend Splinter, Zordon and Alpha. Later on, the Turtles rescue Karai from a cell in Dimension X so that she can join them and Shredder in mounting an attack. The final battle sees Kraang steal the Megazord, forcing the Rangers and Turtles to allow Shredder to use the Dragonzord against him while fighting alongside Alpha and Zordon using the upgraded Metalhead.
- Face–Heel Turn: The sequel opens with Casey Jones fighting alongside Rita and Krang using a power morpher from Dimension X. The Turtles and Rangers initially assume he has been brainwashed, but Raphael is able to quickly confirm there is no spell. Issue 3, however, confirms that Casey is actually a Fake Defector, working from within Krang's forces to take him down.
- Fake Defector: Tommy has seemingly joined the Foot Clan, but this was solely done to track down and convince his childhood friend Tyler to leave its evil influence.
- Fiery Lion: Wyldfyre is a lion monster who uses fire attacks.
- Godzilla Threshold: In the sequel, after Rita and Kraang shut down the Power Coins, the Rangers have to attempt an alternative morphing system devised by Donatello that basically mutates the Rangers when they morph, which Donatello observes he's only 86% sure will work without mutating the Rangers permanently.
- Grass is Greener: Trini openly ponders if the Turtles might have it better than her. While they have to live in the sewers to avoid humankind's hatred and fear of them, they also don't have to worry about school and lying to their friends and family. Raph sardonically tells her that his life is not as rosy as she thinks it is.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Shredder's Dimension X allies are occasionally brought up, with Rita Repulsa being rather interested in meeting them. In the end, this turns out to be her true objective.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: Trini is surprised to learn that the Turtles have saved the world just as often as the Rangers have, all while receiving no credit or even acknowledgement of their existence.
- Half-Human Hybrid: During the raid on the Technodrome, the Rangers (as ninjas) come up against Baxter Stockman's latest experiment: Foot elite merged with the Putties' magic clay to create the Foot Putties.
- Hologram Projection Imperfection: In issue #1 of the sequel, Donnie and Mikey use holographic human disguises to hang out with the Rangers and get shakes from Ernie at the Angel Grove Youth Center. This works out until Donnie's hands start glitching out to show his actual turtle hands, which Zack points out and they're prompted to leave before Ernie can notice.
- How Do I Shot Web?: In the sequel, when the Rangers turn themselves into mutants, Zack and Kimberly in particular have trouble using their new forms, Zack openly questioning how he can control his trunk and Kimberly frustrated at her inability to fly.
- Insignificant Little Blue Planet: In the sequel series, Casey Jones asks Rita and Krang why they are so obsessed with taking over the Earth when, considering the size of their armies, they could conquer any planet or dimension they want. Rita promptly claims that she has no reason to want Earth in particular, and Krang claims that it's mostly a matter of pride at this point, but he admits that Earth is indeed a backwater planet compared to the rest of the universe.
- Instant Expert: April observes that she is able to use a bow with ease despite never having done so before in her life.
- Ironic Echo: In issue #2, Shredder tauntingly states that he expected more resilience from a Power Ranger when he knocks out Tommy. Tommy throws this taunt back in his face in issue #5 when he takes his morpher back from Shredder.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Donnie is absolutely giddy to meet the Power Rangers, even if their first encounter is a fight due to a misunderstanding. Later, he shows off some his inventions to Billy, his fellow smart guy.
- Law of Chromatic Superiority: Averted when the Turtles become Rangers. Leo remains the leader but gets the Blue Power Coin while Raph sticks with Red. Later, Raph finds himself as the main pilot of the Megazord, which he has trouble with.Raph: Donnie, why aren't you the one driving this thing?Donnie: Don't look at me Raph! You wanted red so badly... that makes you the driver!
- Legion of Doom: The sequel involves Rita and Krang having joined forces, as they seized several of the Turtles' enemies to bolster their combined armies.
- Let's You and Him Fight: As is to be expected for this kind of crossover, the first time the Rangers and Turtles meet, they end up fighting each other. Rita and Shredder also fight first before forming an alliance.
- Loophole Abuse: When the Rangers are locked out of the Morphing Grid, their Power Coins are still active. The solution? Have the Turtles and April use them!
- Make My Monster Grow: The final battle has Rita Repulsa use her magic per usual on Bebop and Rocksteady.
- Mathematician's Answer: Billy asks Splinter whether he is a rat who became a person or a person who became a rat. Splinter only answers "exactly".
- Mythology Gag:
- The Turtles in this crossover are based primarily on their depiction in the 1987 cartoon, including such elements as the Technodrome and April O'Neil working for Channel 6 News.
- The Turtles' weapons are colored-coded like their headbands, similar to how they are in the the 2003 cartoon.
- When the Shredder has disabled the Rangers' connection to their Power Coins, they take up Splinter's teachings of ninjutsu and refer to themselves as Ninja Rangers, alluding to the Ninja abilities they obtained in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and the third season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers when their original dino powers were lost.
- When the turtles and April use the Power Coins to become Power Rangers themselves, Michelangelo is given the powers of the Yellow Ranger, making him a male Yellow Ranger. In Power Rangers' parent show, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, the yellow ranger was a male, but he got Gender Flipped for the American adaptation.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Stockman unleashes the Foot Putties without testing them... resulting in them attacking the normal Foot and causing many of Shredder's forces to defect, leaving his army utterly depleted.
- "No More Holding Back" Speech: Raphael gives this when he's fighting as a Ranger against the Putties, noting that they're not human and he can go all-out in destroying them in a manner that he might restrain himself from doing when fighting human Foot warriors.
- Non-Action Guy: Most of Rita's minions when they are confronted by Bebop and Rocksteady, with only Goldar putting up a decent fight against the two while Finster, Squatt and Baboo all hide. Finster even complains that his job is to create monsters, and he shouldn't even be here.
- Orcus on His Throne:
- While Shredder continually hounds both heroic factions, Rita Repulsa is mostly hands-off in regards to offensive tactics and doesn't fight them until they reach her moon base.
- Averted however when she senses Shredder took the green Power Coin, and decides to personally investigate the matter, leading to a fight between her and Shredder.
- Pineapple Ruins Pizza: Mikey, of all people, draws the line at having pineapple on a pizza when Zack states it as a favorite topping. Despite this, Mikey gives his blessing to Zack's new pineapple-topped pizza recipe in the ending.
- Power Creep, Power Seep:
- While there are a few outliers, the Ninja Turtles are mostly known as being Badass Normal characters (ie: as normal as can be for mutated biped turtles trained in the martial arts with peak-human/low-superhuman strength) while the Power Rangers in uniform are more explicitly superpowered. In this crossover, the Turtles are portrayed as being on par with the Rangers in a Let's You and Him Fight scenario and that's before they take on Ranger powers to battle Rita's forces.
- Likewise in the sequel, Shredder is the beneficiary of this. Normally, one would need to have the powers of a Ranger to take on Scorpina, who's on the same level as Goldar, and even then, victory isn't guaranteed against her. Here, Shredder knocks her out in a single powerful blow without any enhancements like the Green Ranger powers he had in the previous story.
- Purple Is the New Black: Donnie, the turtle with the purple eye mask, becomes the Black Ranger.
- Race Lift: Baxter Stockman is depicted as a Caucasian man as he was in the 1987 TMNT cartoon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures rather than African-American like his incarnations in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
- The Remnant: The sequel miniseries starts sometime after Casey Jones obsessively tracked down the remaining Foot Clan members, so that he can interrogate them about Shredder's whereabouts. Naturally subverted, as Shredder returns to Earth with Rita Repulsa and Krang's forces in short order.
- Sacrificial Planet: In the sequel miniseries, it's revealed that the world that Dimension X represents was once like Earth and thriving with civilization, until Krang activated the Technodrome to wipe out all life on it. When Shredder and the Turtles eventually arrive in Dimension X, he explains this to them, emphasizing that they may very well be looking at Earth's future.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Krang and Rita are both imprisoned by Zordon at the end of the second miniseries.
- Sequel Hook:
- The first miniseries ends with Shredder and Rita Repulsa escaping to Dimension X and the strong implication that they will be back to continue being a threat to the Ninja Turtles and the Power Rangers.
- The sequel ends with Rita and Krang imprisoned, but Shredder looking to join forces with Lord Zedd, using the Green Shadow Morpher as bargaining chip.
- Sequel Non-Entity:
- Inverted. Casey Jones has no involvement with the first miniseries' events, but plays a central role in the second one.
- Similarly, Scorpina appears in the sequel when she was oddly nowhere to be seen in the first miniseries.
- Shout-Out: In MMPR/TMNT II Issue #2, Billy is armed with a new blaster
◊ that's clearly just a redesigned verison of the Geartlinger from Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger just replacing the bird-like head with a tricera one instead. - Smart People Play Chess: Issue #2 of the sequel series sees Splinter and Zordon discuss their respective teams of heroes over a game of chess.
- Socialization Bonus: By the time of the sequel, the Rangers have been able to devise a means of allowing the Turtles to morph and become the Turtle Rangers alongside the Power Rangers rather than morphing instead of the Rangers, although this process requires the Turtles to stay close to their respective Ranger and can only be maintained for around twenty minutes at a time. Shredder later gets in on the action with the Green Ranger in order to use the Dragonzord to fight off the Megazord-equipped Krang.
- Stumbling in the New Form: In the sequel, after the Rangers deliberately turn into mutants, Billy initially keeps falling over in his newfound triceratops form.
- Swapped Roles:
- During the second act, the Turtles and April get the power coins and become Power Rangers to fight one of Rita's monsters, while the original Rangers become ninjas under Splinter's guidance.
- Taken further in the sequel; the Turtles and April are still able to become Power Rangers with a new method, and the Rangers end up becoming (temporary) mutants themselves.
- Take Up My Sword: With the Rangers unable to morph, the Turtles and April are granted the original five Power Coins for the current crisis; Leonardo=Blue, Donatello=Black, Michaelangelo=Yellow, Raphael=Red and April=Pink.
- Team Switzerland: The Rat King. Unlike the Turtles' other archenemies, he takes no part in the conflict, only informing Leo and Tommy that he was attacked by Ranger X (in an attempt to abduct him) and plays no further role than that. Likewise, Leo leaves his sewer kingdom out of respect.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Downplayed. While Rita Ripulsa takes her alliance with Shredder in stride, Shredder's annoyance towards her steadily rises as the heroes make progress, and it reaches its peak after the Foot Clan gets near-completely decimated.
- The sequel takes it to a new level when Shredder assists the Turtles and Rangers against Rita and Kraang, but makes it clear that he's only helping them now so that he can conquer Earth himself later.
- Uncertain Doom: The combined Turtle Megazord destroys the Technodrome near the end, after Baxter Stockman is ordered by Shredder to use its cannon, so it can be assumed that he didn't survive. Similarly, Bebop and Rocksteady aren't seen on panel again after their defeats in giant form, so they might be dead as well. The sequel resolves this, as Baxter was incarcerated at Rikers Island in the interim, and Bebop and Rocksteady are back in their regular sizes.
- Unknown Rematch Conclusion: In the first issue, Tommy, while undercover as a Foot ninja, knocks out Raphael. In the Turtles' second encounter with Tommy, Raphael sends Tommy through a wall. In the final issue, Raph challenges Tommy to a fight to settle their score and the final page shows the match about to begin as the story ends.
- Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: When the Rangers infiltrate the Technodrome, Baxter Stockman decides to sic his new breed of Foot soldier, the Foot Putties, without having tested them. They proceed to indiscriminately attack their human allies as well as the Rangers.
- Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: In the second series, #4 ends with Krang using the Megazord against the Mutant Rangers.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Rita Repulsa and the Shredder escape to Dimension X in the end.
- Villain Team-Up: Between Shredder and Rita. However, Rita only agreed because she hopes to get in touch with Shredder's allies in Dimension X. After Shredder loses the Green Ranger powers, Rita reveals her true plan and forces him to teleport her and her henchmen to Dimension X.
- The sequel has a more balanced one between Rita and Krang, who bond over their mutual desire to conquer Earth and assemble the Turtles' worst enemies to help accomplish this.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Discussed by Leo and Jason in the sequel, after they finish their training session. They basically agree on how much of a pain in the ass Raph and Tommy are to work with, yet are the strongest members of both respective teams (not that Leo and Jason would readily admit it to them, of course).
- Wham Shot: Part of issue two of the sequel shows a shot of four other Dimension X Morphers... each colored to match the Turtles.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Karai is not taken into account among the Foot who fled from the Technodrome before its destruction, so her fate is unknown. The sequel addresses this, when Casey Jones tracks her down after interrogating two Foot Clan recruits.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: In the sequel, when the Turtles and Rangers learn that Casey is now Ranger X and working for Rita, they immediately assume Rita placed him under a spell like she did with Tommy, and the key to breaking the spell is to destroy Casey's hockey stick just like how breaking the Sword of Darkness was the key to freeing Tommy. So in the next fight, Raph takes on Casey and shatters his hockey stick...only for Casey to reveal that, no, he was not brainwashed; he really is working for Rita on his own free will (although it's ultimately revealed he was faking it to infiltrate Rita's plan, only for him to really be brainwashed later).
