Marvel's flagship webslinger might not immediately jump out as a property that would've shaped the Power Rangers, but in 1978, Japanese studio Toei licensed and created a Spider-Man series. The first of two shows made in collaboration with Marvel, Toei's Spider-Man would introduce one of the key elements of all future Tokusatsu shows: giant piloted mechs. (For the uninitiated, Tokusatsu is a genre of live-action Japanese storytelling that utilizes special effects.)Part of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers' undoubtable charm was the teen team's prehistoric themed robots known as Zords, which, when joined together, made a giant Megazord. In the '90s when Power Rangers debuted, this seemed incredibly fresh and exciting to western audiences, but by that point giant mecha like the Power Rangers' Zords were a long held tradition in Japanese Tokusatsu entertainment.
Established in the early '50s with Toho's iconic Godzilla franchise, Tokusatsu quickly became a sprawling genre and cultural phenomenon encompassing monster movies and superhero shows like Ultraman and Kamen Rider, before eventually becoming defined by the giant robot properties first introduced in the late '60s. In the years leading up to the creation of Spider-Man, Toei had already found huge success with their series Giant Robo (known in the United States as Johnny Sokko and His Giant Robot), focusing on a young boy who -- with the help of a giant robot only he could control -- fought an evil terrorist organization harnessing the power of giant monsters. The series ran for 26 episodes and was created by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, loosely inspired by his manga series Tetsujin 28-gō which he launched in 1956. (American audiences may better know Tetsujin 28-gō as the source material for the cult classic TV show, Gigantor.)But it wasn't until Toei started plotting how to secure the young audience they needed in Japan for their Spider-Man show that the tradition of the piloted giant mecha truly began. The production company had introduced the superhero show Super Sentai (which would eventually become the basis for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) in 1975 and it was a huge success, even though the teams lacked the gigantic, piloted robots that would later become a hallmark of the series. Toei then paused production on the show in1978 when they gained the rights to Marvel's beloved street-level hero, and it was during this period when Toei created Leopardon, a giant mech which helped their version of Spider-Man defeat his many monstrous enemies.
The hero who took on the mantle of Spider-Man in the Toei series was a far cry from Peter Parker. Takuya Yamashiro was a talented and super cool professional motorcyclist who witnessed a mysterious spaceship fall from the sky. His father died -- just like uncle Ben -- while investigating the crash, and soon Yamashiro wound up in a cave with some kind of weird arachnid-esque, Green Lantern-ish alien injecting him with its blood as it died, thus turning Yamashiro into Spider-Man. This fantastical amalgamation of an American pop culture icon with a Japanese narrative and style would be inverted in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, with Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger's spectacular fight sequences repurposed to fit into a western high school sitcom.
The alien spaceship that Takuya came across was called the Marveller and it had the ability to transform into a massive robot known as Leopardon. Together the pair would battle the apparently never ending stream of foot soldiers that the nefarious Professor Monster and the Iron Cross Army would send to destroy Spider-Man. To any of us who, mouths filled with sugary cereal, watched through hazy eyes early on Saturday mornings as Trini, Kim, Zack, Jason, Billy, and Tommy beat Rita's minions over and over again, this should sound instantly familiar. That's because as Spider-Man took shape, so did the future of Super Sentai, with the popularity of Leopardon (and the merchandise it inspired) encouraging Toei to embrace the concept of transforming mechs for its other shows.It wasn't only the structure and super rad vehicular robots that Power Rangers would take from Spider-Man, but also the iconic still poses before an epic battle. Even though Takuya usually recruited Leopardon before his final battles, he would always pause in a dynamic freeze. Toei would also bring this trope into Super Sentai when it went back into production, and this stance quickly became one of the most memorable and meme-able moments of both Super Sentai and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
After Spider-Man, Toei embarked on another Marvel co-production, creating a Japanese counterpart to Captain America with Miss America in Battle Fever J. Team Battle Fever also had a giant robot -- the fantastically monikered Battle Fever Robo -- which fought alongside them, cementing the trope in Toei's canon before they restarted production on Super Sentai and added giant vehicular fighting mech to the Tokusatsu canon forever, beginning with Denshi Sentai Denziman in 1980.
Leopardon may have largely been forgotten in the annals of Spider-Man history -- though he was referenced in the new trailer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse -- but his influence has not been discarded. For many of us, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was the first time we saw the towering technicolor Tokusatsu robots whose influence is still felt 25 years later, from the Autobots and Decepticons of Michael Bay's Transformers to Guillermo del Toro's very own Tokusatsu love letter in Pacific Rim. The legacy of Power Rangers and Super Sentai undoubtedly lives on, but it's one that would look incredibly different without Toei's outlandish and original take on our friendly neighborhood mech-loving, alien-infused Spider-Man.
The anniversary episode of Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel airs Tuesday, August 28 at 8 p.m. on Nickelodeon in the US.