Fan fic writer passes

Andrea Janssen

Heist-op-den-Berg, Belgium

Andrea Janssen, a fan-fic writer steeped in Power Rangers history, who was best known as the author of the Power Rangers saga "Alpha’s Glory" and the western themed "High Noon at Angel Grove," died unexpectedly of heart failure April 3 at her Heist-op-den-Berg estate, said her aunt, Mathilde Janssen. She was 26.

Andrea was the sole heir to her father’s steel industry fortune and had been a self-described "Power Rangers freak" since childhood, when she received toy rangers for Christmas in 1997.

Her interest in the pink ranger was piqued when a friend observed that a photograph of Andrea on horseback closely resembled Amy Jo Johnson, the actress who played the pink ranger in the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers television series.

Amy Jo Johnson

Her obsession with the pink ranger led Andrea to undergo at least 64 surgeries so she could more closely resemble the American born actress. The most controversial and grueling of these procedures was a limb reduction surgery in 2006. The objective of this procedure was to remove almost four centimeters of bone to achieve the exact same height as Johnson, the original pink ranger. The surgery left Andrea unable to walk for almost an entire year.

"I sometimes thought I'd never complete my transformation," Janssen told The Heist-op-den-Berg Times in 2007. “But I'd gotten really attached to the idea of actually becoming the Pink Power Ranger.... I'd end up in tears when I’d recover from another surgery and still not look exactly like Kimberly."

“Andrea would demand that I call her Kimberly at all times. She had built a 100% scale replica of Ernie’s Juice Bar on her estate and she hired me and a few dozen other local actors to pretend we were hanging out there,” said Angéline Smets. Andrea used to call me ‘girl working out in background’ and that basically was my job eight to ten hours a day as Andrea trained for some fictional gymnastics competition. If nothing else, my time spent at the juice bar really got me into shape physically,” added Smets.

"She was a bit eccentric but she was also a fabulous storyteller," her aunt said, "and knew the history of just about everything Power Rangers. I think everyone in Heist-op-den-Berg will fondly remember her as a real Power Ranger."

Besides her aunt, Janssen is survived by four cousins.