Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Usagi Yojimbo: The Story Behind the Crossover
In 2024, Usagi Yojimbo turned forty. To celebrate, the rabbit ronin crossed paths with one of the biggest franchises in pop culture history.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Usagi Yojimbo brought together two publishers that rarely share a page, BOOM! Studios and Dark Horse Comics, alongside Hasbro, home of the Power Rangers. A routine fight with Rita Repulsa goes wrong when the Rangers' morphers hurl them back to Edo-era Japan. There, a mysterious figure named Ogasawara begs for their help, and the enemy they face isn't what they expect. Getting home means facing a painful truth.
The team was built for it. Ryan Parrott, the architect of BOOM!'s modern Power Rangers era and the writer behind the Rangers' crossover with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, wrote it. Shawn Daley of Ogre drew it, James Fenner colored it, and Ed Dukeshire lettered it. Stan summed up the occasion his own way: it was the first time Usagi had teamed up with real superheroes "that do not have shells."
The covers told their own story. Taurin Clarke drew the main cover. Stan drew a variant colored by Emi Fujii, putting the Usagi family's own hands on a Power Rangers book. Jared Cullum, the artist behind Usagi Yojimbo: Ice and Snow, contributed another, alongside Goñi Montes and Takeshi Miyazawa. Between foil editions, 1:10 and 1:15 incentive covers, and exclusives, collectors had plenty to chase.
The oversized one-shot hit stores on September 25, 2024, and critics responded. AIPT called it more profound than expected: a crossover with real things to say about trust, unity, and honor that new readers could pick up without knowing either series. It was later collected in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Across the Morphin Grid, putting Usagi on bookstore shelves in front of a whole new audience.
That's the book. What happened around it is the part we're proudest of.
At a Glance
Oversized one-shot · September 25, 2024 · Usagi Yojimbo 40th Anniversary
BOOM! Studios × Dark Horse Comics × Hasbro
Written by Ryan Parrott · Art by Shawn Daley
Covers: Clarke, Sakai & Fujii, Cullum, Montes, Miyazawa
How it came together
The idea came to us from BOOM! Studios, and the timing couldn't have been better. Usagi's 40th anniversary was coming, and the Rangers are one of the few franchises with the same pull across generations.
Our first move was to bring in Dark Horse. We had just built the Dogu imprint with them, and a crossover between two publishers and Hasbro needed partners who knew that kind of deal inside and out. Bringing the right people to the table early is part of how we work.
Stan stayed close to his character the whole way, reviewing the inked pages, the lettered pages, and the final covers. Lending Usagi to another publisher's book means trusting someone else with a character Stan has written, drawn, and lettered for forty years, and approvals are how you honor that trust.
A first for us
This crossover was a book of firsts. It was the first time the Power Rangers and Usagi ever met, and in Stan's own words, it was Usagi's first team-up with real superheroes.
For forty years, Usagi's story has come from Stan. He writes it, draws it, and letters it himself, and that's a big part of what makes the books special. This was one of the first times we trusted Usagi's story to a creative team outside of Stan, and it wasn't a decision we made lightly.
The artist who got it right
When the book came out, one thing stood out to us more than anything: Shawn Daley's art.
Drawing Usagi is harder than it looks. Stan's style is deceptively simple, and the character lives in the small things: the stillness before a draw, the restraint in his face, the way honor shows up in posture rather than speeches. Shawn understood that. His Usagi felt like Usagi, even standing next to five heroes in color-coded spandex, and his Rangers carried the energy fans grew up with. As he put it when the book was announced, getting to draw both worlds hit hard as a lifelong fan of each. You can see it on every page.
So we reached out to say thank you.
That moment showed us something. Usagi's world is strong enough to hold other voices, as long as the right people are telling the stories. That comfort became a precedent. Stan continues to tell Usagi's main saga, and since this book we've opened the door to carefully chosen creators to explore new corners of his universe. You'll be hearing more about that very soon.
What it became
That thank-you turned into a real conversation, and the conversation turned into a working relationship. Shawn has been part of the Usagi family ever since (hint).
What we took with us
Every collaboration teaches you something, and this one taught us plenty. Some lessons were creative. Others were in the details: the small things that seem obvious until they aren't, like making sure every partner on a project is represented the way they should be, from the first conversation to the final printed page.
Today we sweat those details from day one. It makes for better books, and it makes for better partnerships.
And it isn't over
We're not done working with Shawn, not by a long shot. Some of what we've been building together is closer than you'd think, and some of it is further out on the horizon.
Stay tuned.
We'll update this article as the story continues.