In Magic From The Margins, Latonya “Penn” Pennington explores sci-fi fantasy webtoons and Tapas comics by marginalized creators. For the sixth entry, they’re checking out Chroma Key.
Chroma Key
Creator: Brandon Dumas
Writer: Dumas
Artist: Laura Reyes
Genre: Drama, Superhero Fantasy
Platform: WEBTOON
Rating: Unrated
Back in 1993, American television audiences were introduced to Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, a superhero show that used stock footage from the Japanese tokusatsu show Kyoryu Sentai Zyruranger. The latter was part of the long-running Japanese tokusatsu superhero franchise Super Sentai, from which future iterations of Power Rangers would borrow footage from. In fact, Mighty Morphin’ would not only inspire an entire franchise, but also a generation of comics creators. One example of this is Dumas’ and Reyes’ webcomic Chroma Key.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of this webcomic is how it pays homage to the Power Rangers while also being its own thing. It tells the story of five kids: Kim, Emily, Parker, April, and Fuschia. When they were eight years old, they all enjoyed the show Super Fighting Mighty Fighters, but Kim loved it the most. Ten years later, everyone except Kim have grown out of the show. When five mysterious jeweled wristbands appear before them one night, they find themselves reluctantly thrust into the superhero adventure of their childhood.
In fact, the characters are just as intriguing as the comic’s premise. Emily is a deaf lesbian character who communicates via sign language, Parker is nonbinary, Fuschia is a Black trans girl, Alice is Black and queer, and Kim is complicated. Out of all the characters, Kim has the most growing to do as she tends not to respect personal boundaries when over excited about something, especially Super Mighty Fighters.
Yet Kim is also sympathetic as her backstory reveals she used Super Mighty Fighters as a way to escape from a tumultuous childhood with her parents. Perhaps it is because of that that Kim wants to use the new superhero adventure as a way to bring her friend group back together even though the rest of them grew out of the show. As the comic progresses, we see that Kim is not on good terms with Parker and is on somewhat thin ice with Alice. Nonetheless, it is Alice’s loyalty to Kim (despite her issues with her) that ended up being one of the most heartwarming things to read in the comic.
Enhancing the characters and the premise is Reyes’ vibrant artwork. She incorporates Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers habit of color-coding each character based on their Ranger color by applying that to not only their clothing, but also the background for some of their panels and some of their speech bubbles. It’s not overdone either, just used sparingly to add some flair for things such as a character appearing on the page or fighting monsters.
Finally, the most enjoyable thing about the comic is that it is showing how difficult it can be to hold on to childhood ideals and passions as you grow older. The former is especially important in regards to characters like Kim. Her friendship with the rest of the characters is impacted by them getting older and changing while Kim is stuck in the past, and this causes everyone to react to the superhero shenanigans differently and not work as a team yet. This is notable when you consider that Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers shows the team getting along well from the start of the show.
All in all, Chroma Key is the messy queer Power Rangers team you need in your life. If you love Power Rangers or want to see a flawed friend group engage become superheroes, then check this comic out.
Chroma Key is currently available to read on WEBTOON.
Keep up with every entry in K-Comics Beat’s Magic From The Margins column by clicking here.
