by Matt Sernaker, Editor-in-Chief

ComicsOnline is back at one of our favorite Midwest conventions: FAN EXPO CHICAGO! This year, we were invited to do our regular press coverage and also support the event by moderating panels with their incredible talent.

To kick off our 2026 coverage, we are pleased to share a new exclusive interview with our old friend, writer Ryan Parrott (Rogue Sun, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers). We discussed the big finale of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, the latest plans for Rogue Sun (including the upcoming Medieval Spawn/Rogue Sun crossover series), and more. Check out the full interview below:

ComicsOnline: Ryan, we were sad that we didn’t get to see you at San Diego Comic-Con this year, but thrilled to catch up now.

Ryan Parrott: I know… I was a little busy. (Note: Ryan wasn’t able to join at SDCC and sent a great video with Kyle Higgins).

CO: Well, your video went over well, and congratulations on the updates for Medieval Spawn/Rogue Sun. Where are you at in the creative process? I know you’re planning ahead to give yourself a little bit more bandwidth for this next year, but what’s happening in the background?

RP: I’m in the middle of writing it right now. Ironically enough, it’s on my iPad right now. We could have done it like 4 months ago, but it would have been rushed. I kept imagining my 13-year-old self being like, really? Are you just gonna rush the thing you’ve been waiting to do your whole life? We held it off a little bit, and we’re gonna try to get it out at the beginning of next year. I don’t know exactly what month, but we’re trying to. I’m in the middle of writing it right now, and I’m waiting on Kyle for some notes, but we’re getting there. It’s gonna be 4 issues. I just want it to be more than just a trope. I’ve done a lot of crossovers, and I just want it to be more than that. I want it to matter. There’s a big lore thing in Rogue Sun that I was trying to figure out what place to put it, and I realized I could use this to do that. So it’s actually going to be additive in the way that when you read the book, you don’t have to have known it, but if people read the books, they can see that’s the answer to this thing. I’m gonna try to use the crossover to, you know, kill some real people and raise the stakes, and hopefully make it something that, if you haven’t read it, you can read, but also it’ll be additive.

CO: When we last spoke, you were telling me about Todd giving you the go-ahead to use Medieval Spawn for Rogue Sun #30. Can you talk about the collaborative process? Has he been involved with scripting or crafting this story?

RP: They read everything. So right now we’re sort of waiting on approvals. They’ll chime back in with, yes, you can do that, or no, you can’t. So it turns into a bit of a back-and-forth, but right now it’s mostly me. I’m just bringing him everything, and then he’ll hopefully be like, “Yes, go with God.” It was with Rogue Sun #30. We gave it to them, and they had no notes. Cool, that’s great. They have, like, two little things I wanted us to tweak, just so that we’re more in line with the actual character stuff. They’re pretty hands-off with it all, and they were just happy about it. It was cool. I couldn’t believe it when I first pitched it to him; he was like, “Well, if we’re gonna do this, we should do it right.” God bless you, Todd.

CO: I know that not a ton of people have written for Spawn, so I’m excited that you get to dip your toe in that water as well.

RP: I would write Spawn, like, a full-time job right now. This is not me pitching that, Todd. If you read this, I will do it. I love that book. It’s so much fun. I loved it as a kid. My mom’s pretty religious, and I ran to her and said, “Mom, you should read this book, ’cause it’s about God and the devil.” She read it and said I couldn’t buy this book anymore…and then I had to hide it for two years.

CO: As far as another crossover, you just got to wrap up Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. I know that was a lot of work to craft the final installment. How does it feel now that it’s out in the world?

RP: It’s great. That was probably the hardest of the three. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes machinations since BOOM! Studios was sold in the middle of it. We had four editors on four issues, which is a lot. It was really hard to figure out the whole thing. There were a lot of changes in the license and stuff like that. So, of the three, it was by far the most difficult. I’m really happy that we were able to put some of the stuff in the book that I always wanted to do. The final fight, which was between Shredder/ Krang and Zordon/ Splinter, was exactly what I always wanted to do. I’ve been imagining that since I did the first one. So it’s kind of fun how there’s stuff that you imagine you want to put in, and then it just kind of pushed. The Mutant Rangers got pushed from one to two, and then White Ranger Splinter got pushed from two to three, and it all kind of worked. I was pretty happy that we were able to get it all done. I think that’s finally it. I don’t think there’s anything left for me to morph or mutate…

CO: You say that now.

RP: Maybe in five minutes, we’ll come up with something.

CO: I love that you got to do the Dimension X Zords. How long had that been brewing?

RP: That’d been something for a while. It was funny because we were like, what should they be? They should probably be creatures from that world. I remember sending, like, that was such a fun thing, like, trying to figure out just what they could be and what colors they could be. I didn’t want to show their final Zord form, like when they become the, when they all merge together, because I wanted to leave that if I got to do another one. So I liked the idea that they became sort of extensions of the regular Zord. So we still have more pieces… Whoever does the next one, you owe them a Dimension X Megazord.

CO: I feel like we’re pitching number four right now. We can send to BOOM! after the interview. Let’s bring it back to Rogue Sun for a minute. Kyle got to announce something special at SDCC on your behalf: the Massive Edition of Rogue Sun is coming out in 2027!

RP: That’s gonna be coming out sometime next year. I’ve been begging for that for years, so it’s about time.

CO: I’ve genuinely loved the hardcover releases your whole team has done. I know Michael Bussutil definitely had a heavy hand in that, but those hard-bound editions are just gorgeous. What do you have in mind for your version of these releases?

RP: Kyle’s always like the test subject. He does it, learns all the problems, and then I get to come in and do it easier. God bless him. The first one through the wall, so he gets bloody. I love the Radiant Black hardcover, and I was reading through that, and it was so much fun, ’cause I was reading it, I was like, Man, there’s a bunch of stuff in here. I never thought you would tell anybody, uh, that I thought only I would know. We already started working on the Back Matter stuff. We’re gonna get into where it came from. I’ve said different versions of how it is, but we’re going to get into a little bit more of the design process, working with Abel. And then there are some other things; there was a thing I can’t tell you about yet, because it was the thing on the panel that I said I wanted to surprise Kyle with. I’ve never seen anybody do it, and it’s something you can only do in comics. I think it was such a fun little way to build out the world. We’re gonna do something where we use preexisting art with different balloons that will give you context about the world and ways that you can do it in comics; you can’t do it in other forms.

CO: And you just announced another choose-your-adventure-style release for Rogue Sun #36, correct?

RP: Yeah. In Rogue Sun #35, something big happens, and that will prompt you to understand why we’re doing the choose-your-adventure. We did it the 1st time because it was the moment that Marcus left and Dylan was on his own. I thought, “Oh, he doesn’t have a mentor anymore. Why don’t we make the reader at home the mentor?” Dylan’s going to experience a significant loss, and he wants to fix that loss. It’s gonna be up to the reader to decide if they want him to succeed in that, ’cause there’s gonna be consequences to fixing that loss. So it’s up to you. And that’s the part that I really like. I like using the choose-your-own-adventure in ways that make them feel different and emotional. That’s the best way. Yeah, that’s the fun part. We planned to do this starting with issue 14. It’s kind of fun having such a small little group of people working on things like this. We get to make decisions that we would have to go through a whole bunch of different approvals and processes, stuff like that, and get, you know, to the top people at DC or Marvel, who would have to tell us what to do. I think because of that, you owe it to the readers to do that.

CO: Lastly, you know, you got some television action happening. How have you enjoyed your time jumping back into the TV world for Twisted Metal Season 3? I know that is a big part of your background, but now you’ve got a foot in both worlds again.

RP: I love it. It was the most fun I’ve ever had in a writer’s room. My friend, David Reid, is the showrunner. He worked on The Boys. He wrote the finale of The Boys. He came on this show, and we wanted to sort of inject some of that same energy into the show- the sort of irreverence and the metanness. He asked me to come on since we had worked together on shows in the past, and so I’ve been working on that. Mark Hamill is in the cast, which was freaking amazing. We got to meet him and work with him. He’s really, really good. I did not pelt him with Star Wars stories. God bless me. I managed to hold my stuff together. I really love the season so far. We’re done writing it, and I think we’re almost done shooting. Anthony Mackie is awesome. That guy is such a pro. I was so impressed. I think people who like the first few seasons will love this one. It’s so much fun to get back and play in that sandbox, get to play with such big toys, and blow up. I went to set last week in Toronto. That’s why I wasn’t in San Diego. And we were blowing up cars. Like, literally, I was standing there blowing up cars. Who doesn’t love that? So, yeah, hopefully I’ll get to play in both worlds for a little while.

Special thanks to Ryan Parrott and FAN EXPO Chicago for this interview.

Thank you for your ongoing support of our independent media outlet over the past 25 years. We hope you will explore our other exclusive interviews from San Diego Comic-Con 2026 and stick around for more pop culture adventures!

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