What follows is a sort of Fake Questions and answers session. I've wanted to clarify a few things about my EPIC Power Rangers Fan fiction for a while now and this seems to be the best way to do it.
If you're interested in reading it Here's a link:- http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-22175/MountainKing+Power+Rangers+Demon+Wars+-+The+Dragon+s+Green+Fire.htm
Now on with the Questions
Q:- Right, so Mountain King is it? What possessed you to write a Power Rangers Crossover
A:- I'm always on the look out for original crossovers, trying my best to produce them. After all there's only so many times you can read the same halloween story. The biggest influence on this one came from Lewis Lovhog and his web based TV show, History of Power Rangers.
I was a big fan as a kid and watching made me track down a few seasons. First online then a couple of boxed sets I found on the cheap. It all sort of spiralled out from there.
Q:- And again you used Dawn?
A:- A lot of Buffy fans had Dawn pegged from the first season she showed up. She was a whiny brat who's character trait seemed to be screaming for her big sister to help. Put frankly she was so one note she never felt like se belonged.
They did try to develop her though and there are a few episodes that really show that. A good one to look at is Potential in season seven. She proves that she has what it takes to fight and even when she's over her head the "Brat" keeps a calm head. At the End of Season Six she picks up a Sword and handles it professionally.
Dawn was an underwritten character and deserved a lot more to do than scream pointlessly and get captured or kidnapped when the script needed it.
Q:- and it has noting to do with the Actress?
A:- Are you blind man? Of course it does!
Q:- Moving on, if Dawn is an under written character, what about the others you've used in PR:-DW?
A:- They are all characters that needed a lot more doing with them. Cassie Fraiser just disappeared, not even a mention in cannon when her adopted mother died. It was like she vanished off the face of the planet, and for all the potential she had that's a shame. She's probably the most evolved person on the planet. She needed to be explored.
Same for Sari, she was nothing more than a plot macguffin. She had potential as a character that never matured. And the less said about Faith's wasted opportunities the better.
Q:- Faith's wasted opportunities? What about the Season 8 comics?
A:- You mean the dedicated character assassination? Not just of Faith but everyone involved. Those comics seem taylor-made to piss long term fans off. I'm serious, every choice the cast makes in this one goes so far against what we know it's not true. Buffy funds the Slayer army with a series of bank robberies and sleeps with an underage girl. Willow is either spending her days with the biggest mistake ever, Kennedy or going back to being and evil witch. Xander starts off dating a Slayer in Training and ends up with the jailbait Dawn (which is not the way things should be, for any number of reasons) Faith just wanders around with Giles, and nothing to do but clean up a mess that's been tacked on to the over all plotline.
Don't even get me started on that mess. It seems without a practical effects budget to worry about the writers went mad, including laser cannons, apocalyptic death scenes and ridiculous monsters for the hell of it. The biggest draw about Buffy was the Gothic monsters in a modern-day setting. Not a comic book universe where you can whip out death rays and giant teenage girls because "it looked cool".
Q:- So, not a fan I take it?
A:- No. Not at all. I'd be the first to admit Buffy, as a series, had it's ups and downs. While seasons Four and Six were not up to the standard set by the others (especially the first three years) the comic is such a massive failure it harms the mythology rather than helps and I'm including the Angel and Spike spin off books in that.
Q:- A lot of people seem to like the comics…
A:- Good for them, they can have their opinion, mine on the other hand is that Early Smallville is better.
Q:- Ouch. So how does Season 8 fit into your story.
A:- It doesn't. In fact the main point of Power Rangers Demon Wars and most of my Buffy stories is to replace Season 8. Undoing the mistakes that annoy me as best I can. I'm not as good a writer as Joss Whedon, but as the season 8 comic was coming out he was working on far too many projects and they ALL suffered because of it.
Q:- All
A:- Well Dollhouse was still-born, resuscitated, bedridden on life-support and then killed just as it was getting heathy. The other comics he was / is working on were / are also seriously flawed. In my opinion.
Q:- Nice cover
A:- Thanks
Q:- So this is all about sticking it to the Season 8 comics and giving the underdogs a chance to shine. I get that, but what's with the episode format thing?
A:- It's sort of a challenge I've set myself. This is supposed to be a sort of "Missing series" for Power Rangers. Like all PR series it's going to have arc plots and over all storylines. The only difference it I'm the only one at the helm instead of a team of script writers and studio executives getting in the way.
Q:- Isn't one of your problems with the comic the fact that they went silly without a visual effects budget.
A:- Yes it is, but don't forget this is Power Rangers, not Buffy. It's supposed to be this hyper active over blown extravaganza. In Power Rangers your supposed to have giants stomping cities.
Q:- Is that why your doing Fan Art for it?
A:- Sort of I want some sort of visual reference, to help me as much as anyone.
Q:- Who's Marcus and will we get to see him in your art?
A:- Marcus is a stab in the dark. An Original Character based on mashing a few others together and seeing what I get out of it. Most notably a younger version of Marcus Cole, from Babylon 5, went into him. I created him because writing a Dawn based story that overwrites season 8 means giving her a romance. She's the right age and it something she needs if she's going to develop as a person.
Dawn needs a relationship, she's too powerful otherwise, almost inhumanly so. It adds a dimension and I couldn't pull another Ranger into it without the whole thing becoming fan service. Besides I've been able to flesh out the mythos with him. Giving him a connection to A'Zores has driven a point home that's going to be important later.
Also yes, I will be doing something with him, art wise, but not yet. I want the Rangers finished first.
Q:- Before we go any spoilers you want to get off your chest?
A:- Ohh lots, Well I've already told everyone there's not going to be a Pink Ranger. Mostly because its an all girl Ranger team, but there's also the problem with putting too many crossovers into the mix. Speaking of the upcoming Red Ranger will be a boy, the token male as it were. The others are going to have to get used to him and his own interesting back story. Shall we say he has a history with Faith and Dawn knows more about it than even she does.
Also there's the White Power Coin to remember, that's going to play an important part much later on.
On the other side there's the Warlord. He's not going to take these constant defeats lightly and his arrival is going to really shake things up!
What else…, Buffy will be making and appearance before the end, bringing her own ideas. So will a few others from the Buffy-verse, muddying the waters for all they are worth.
But before all that we have to deal with Faith and a little thing that's been hanging over her head since the beginning.
Best of all those spoilers don't give ANYTHING away.
Q:- Don't give anything away, are you sure?
A:- Not a thing. After what I've got planned those aren't even blips on the radar.
Q:- So you're just teasing us. Just how many more episodes are there going to be to fit that all in.
A:- It's fluid I think theres about thirty in total at the moment. I've just added two more to give a bit more depth to a few things but I might be able to cut back elsewhere, but you never know.
When I say strap in for a ride, I mean it!
