Warning: Spoilers for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Return #3!In the latest Power Rangers miniseries, Rita Repulsa finally pays for what she did to the team’s mentor. Zordon is a floating head in a tube is because Rita trapped him in a time warp thousands of years before the start of the series. He later locked her inside a dumpster on the moon in return, though his true, ultimate payback had to wait for years beyond that.
Power Rangers: The Return #3 – written by Amy Jo Johnson & Matt Hotson, with art by Nico Leon – makes it clear that while Rita managed to kill Zordon in the story’s alternate continuity, that was hardly the final strike in back-and-forth rivalry.
Even from beyond the grave, Zordon managed to get the upper-hand on Rita one last time, using the essence of the Rangers’ power to lock her away in yet another trap – in a thrilling escalation of their dynamic, one of the many things that makes The Return such an engaging read for Rangers fans.
In The Return’s alternate reality, the original core team never separated ,and each found ways to balance out their personal lives with their hero careers. Unfortunately, the time they put into their personal lives gave Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd ample time to plot against Zordon and the Command Center, destroying both in a single catastrophic attack. To retaliate, the Rangers infiltrated the Moon Palace for one final mission to cleanse evil, resulting in a botched Z-Wave bomb that exploded the Palace and everyone in it.
In the aftermath, Rita Repulsa was presumed dead for twenty-two years, until the emergence of her hidden daughter, Selena. Selena Repulsa tells the retired Rangers that not only is her mother alive, she used her last ounce of dark magic to transfer her essence into the Morphin Grid, through the bomb that was connected to the Grid. For more than two decades, that’s where Rita has remained and as her daughter struggles to bring her back from the Grid – especially with the interjection of the new Green Ranger – she may remain in the Grid even longer, if not forever.
As The Return emphasized, Rita Repulsa finally got a taste of her own medicine, years after leaving Zordon forever trapped between time and space. As if that wasn’t enough, the Morphin Grid is the very pocket dimension that powers the Power Rangers. In other words, not only have the Rangers been a constant thorn in Rita’s side, but they are the reason she’s trapped in the Morphin Grid to begin with. She’s trapped in the dimension that strengthens her enemies. It took him dying for it to happen, but Zordon got sweet revenge – albeit indirectly – on the classic Power Rangers villain.