Harlan of Ash and Foam writes...

I wondered this a while ago but only remembered to ask just now.

Being what seems like one of the few fans who enjoys both Gargoyles and Power Rangers (it's never seemed too contradictory to me to enjoy both a fun, Shakespearean adventure romp and a serialized MST3K movie), it's always felt rather bittersweet that one of my childhood loves contributed to the downfall of another. I can't blame your, heavily implied if not often directly stated, reservations about the show.

But I don't really want to confront you about that as much as I wanted to ask: given the history, it really stuck out to me that Aicaya was directly described in Spirits of Ash and Foam as a "Mighty Morphin' manatee." It's not jarring in the book's isolated context, but does seem odd coming from you. Not bad, exactly, quite the opposite: I thought it was amusing that Opie would adopt something like Power Rangers into his shorthand and was a really fun instance of characterization.

But because I feel like asking questions only I could reasonably care about,

1. Does Opie like Power Rangers, or was his word choice based more on the influence that might come from reading the thoughts of Rain, Charlie, et al.?

2. If he does, what about it do you think appealed to Opie?

3. Was Maq's Batman joke an intentional correlation to Opie's reference, them sharing some shared affection for superheroes as some characterization point, or were they both just coincidental larks?