Dumpster Hags and Space Divas - The femme fatales of Power Rangers

Two overzealous space explorers cracked open a container we would later know as "the dumpster." Like some twisted version of Aladdin's lamp, a flock of apparitions appeared and become solid, right there on the moon's surface. The wicked witch of the stars, Rita Repulsa, had been released from her imprisonment and sicced upon the Earth, or more specifically, Angel Grove, U.S.A.

Rita and her troupe of sideshow freak space criminals, in their dark and cluttered fortress on the moon, were a nice counter to the stark, colorful shining sentinels of justice known as the Power Rangers. Rita herself was a shrill banshee who would bark orders send tremors across the lunar surface with her whining upon defeat. It was the opposite of how the Rangers mentor, Zordon, comported himself. He was a booming, authoritative presence. Rita came across as a spoiled brat.



Her arc entered it's next phase when Lord Zedd arrived. Ultimately turning out to be little more than a snarling ball of impotent rage, he was eventually browbeaten into domestic mediocrity by Rita and together they fled from the Machine Empire in an R.V., of all things.

The women who have played the role of villain in the never-ending Power Rangers saga may honestly have been some of the first female characters I was exposed to on a regular basis, at least the only women who had any agency in their own lives. The opposite sex was always well-represented in the X-Men comics I also cherished at the time (at least on the writing side of things), but there were never any good female villains. Power Rangers showed me what was possible and that there was, in fact, no wrath like a woman scorned.

The Turbo Rangers had a new bad girl to deal with to match their new costumes and car-themed Zords. Divatox was the Intergalactic Pirate Queen of Evil, and adopted daughter of the sea hag and sorceress, Mama D. Heir to a nautical empire complete with monster enhancing torpedoes and legions of heavily armed undersea titans. Her character on the screen was fragmented, thanks in part to the Turbo series beginning with a feature film where her character was handled a bit differently, and the fact that two actresses portrayed her over the course of the series. Hilary Shepard Turner gave Divatox a little more edge during the first half of Turbo's T.V. run, while Carol Hoyt's performance was campier, emphasizing the "diva" part of the character.

When Andros and the next wave of Rangers blasted off into space in 1998, their femme fury came in the form of Astronema, Andros's long lost sister who'd been brainwashed into a life of evil. I remember having the biggest crush on her at the time and she may have been responsible for my sexual awakening as a youth. Since I just typed that, I might as well go on to admit my crushing disappointment when she was "cured" of her evil ways and reverted back to Karone, the lame little sister character on the show. And I missed her colorful hair. As a villain though, she commanded her troops like a Spartan while having to constantly settle disputes between her loyal right hand, Ecliptor and the scheming suckup Darkonda.

When I think back on this era of Power Rangers, "the late Zordon Era" if you will, I feel as though the show reached heights of drama and creativity it hadn't before and somewhere around 2003 would slip into a kind of stagnation that still clings to the series. The period from Power Rangers in Space to Time Force is kind of "golden era" to me, I suppose. But now the whole franchise is on Netflix so I'll have to give some of the more recent seasons a dedicated watch and see if I'm just looking through rose-colored lenses . . .

In '99, Earth was far in the rear view as the series shifted focus to the inhabitants of the space colony Terra Venture in Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy. Trakeena, daughter of the intergalactic crime lord Scorpius, did battle with the rangers across the spaceways. Her father attempted to keep her from a life of crime, cherishing her too much to see her in battle, but she defied him, eventually shedding her voluptuous female human form for a more insectoid appearance before the series' end. Trakeena was a more ruthless foe than we'd seen before, and whereas the previous humanoid villains were all "purified" of their evil ways at some point in their respective storylines, Trakenna was flat-out destroyed, but not before her horrifying transformation. The onscreen character of Trakeena faced the same problems as Divatox, but for different reasons: a salary dispute led to actress Amy Miller being replaced by Jennifer Burns when Trakeena appeared in Lightspeed Rescue. (Which explains the armor plating she wore over her face when she returned.)

Speaking of Lightspeed Rescue, the villainous Vypra seemed to have a more minimal role than the previous vixens. I have a soft spot for her, since she always seemed to be the most cutthroat and efficient of the lot. There's a scene in one episode where she's driving her death buggy wagon thing at the Red Ranger and there's this little flicker of madness in her eye. She was more of an enforcer than a boss type, never afraid to get her hands dirty. Queen Bansheera was the queen bitch of this series, although I never felt as strongly about her character. Bansheera was a force of nature at best and a plot point at worst.

At the time of me writing this, I've been getting back into Power Rangers, refreshing my memory of the franchise and gearing up for what might be a pretty cool movie later this year. (I know the internet is already tearing it a new one, but I'm still hopeful. I haven't seen anything in the trailer that was too offensive. I mean, is it corny? Yeah. But is it also fucking Power Rangers? Yeah.) I've jumped into Time Force and am only a few episodes in, watching one every couple of days or so. Anyhoo, I;d completely forgotten about Nadira, daughter of time-traveling terrorist Ransik. So far, I see her as a return to the Rita/Divatox mold. She adores costumes and theatrics, putting on a show for her victims as much as tormenting them.

I look back over these femme fatales, I see some recurring things. No mothers. Bad daddies. Attention starved, and usually quite fragile underneath. Headstrong and physically powerful, but hamstrung from being surrounded by doddering, drooling men. But they are also in charge of shit. Running shit. Maybe it's the beta cuck in me, but those meaty villain roles just don't go to women that often.

Or I'm not watching enough T.V.

Thanks for reading, as always, and you can follow me on Twitter at @ChrisBComics.