Tag Archives: green ranger

April 13, 2023

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Green Ranger

By Joe
There’s a new Green Ranger in town.

We continue to finally offload some long standing preorders this year and up next is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Super7. It was June 2021 when these figures were announced to the surprise of many. Why? Because Power Rangers are now owned by Hasbro, probably the biggest toy producer in the world who has its own line of action figures to sell. This has become somewhat the norm though as Hasbro has licensed out both Transformers and G.I. Joe for action figure lines, both to Super7. Is Super7 just paying a tidy sum that Hasbro is happy to take? Or is it that Hasbro just doesn’t view anything that Super7 could produce as actual competition to what they’re doing? That’s probably likely as Super7 deals in a different MSRP from what Hasbro does and is going for a different aesthetic. Well, sort of. With Transformers, Super7 is doing figures based on the cartoon that don’t transform. Hasbro probably knows that Transformers fans aren’t going to stop buying Transformers that actually transform, so have at it, Super7! With G.I. Joe, Hasbro has the Classified line which is somewhat of a reimaging for the franchise. It’s also in the 20-25 dollar range and sold everywhere. Super7’s G.I. Joe figures are based on the cartoon, in a different scale, and cost roughly twice what Hasbro is putting out so it seems easy to see where the confidence is coming from. With Power Rangers though, that’s a bit more confusing. Super7 is, so far, just doing the Mighty Morphin era of the show, by far the most popular. The figures are 7″ scale and, like the comparison with G.I. Joe, basically double the price of Hasbro’s figures. Conceptually though, they’re not much different since both companies want to mimic the show. The larger scale, more paint, and more accessories also have a chance to make Super7’s offering look a lot better than what Hasbro is doing. About the only restriction it would seem placed on the Super7 version is there’s no combing zords. Or Super7 doesn’t have interest in doing those. Either way, out of all of the Hasbro properties Super7 has started making action figures for, this is the one that seems most likely to negatively impact Hasbro’s sales of its own line. As long as it’s good.

The Super7 packaging we all know…and love?

It took awhile, but Super7’s first wave of MMPR figures is here. When the line was first unveiled, I wasn’t sure where my money would go. During the great lockdown that was 2020, I started buying a lot more action figures. One line I dabbled in was the Lightning Collection. At first, I just wanted the Green Ranger as that was the character I liked the most. Toys for MMPR were insanely hard to track down in 93-94 and that toyline from Bandai is one of the black holes of my youth. Also not helping matters was the odd space the show occupied. As a 4th grader when it premiered, I wasn’t sure if I was too old for it. It debuted at the tail end of summer vacation where I lived, so kids like me got to decide if we liked it largely free of peer pressure before school started back up. At that point, it became clear the consensus was that MMPR was a baby show, you would be ridiculed for admitting you liked it, even though it was the highest rated children’s show on Fox so likely everyone was watching it and just lying about it. At any rate, the only figure I would ever own of a Power Ranger as a kid was the auto-morphing Green Ranger and I only got it because we happened upon a fresh case at the store. I was with my grandmother, who was usually good for a toy or something on an outing, but even she was excited by this as she had tried in vain to score Power Ranger toys for my sister and I with little success so she eagerly shoveled out the cash for a pair of figures for the two of us. Had one of my friends been there though when that happened, I may have had to pass out of peer pressure. It was such a conundrum and I hated the pressure to outgrow toys.

It is time for morphing.

I’m only sharing those details to enforce that I have a special attraction to the Green Ranger as a toy because of the scarcity and pressure to not even like the show as a kid. During 2020, I also finally acquired a vintage Bandai Green Ranger and Dragonzord and that was the gateway to get into Lightning Collection. I eventually added the entire MMPR team, but since then, I’ve been able to avoid adding more (not counting the TMNT crossover figures). The first wave from Super7 would contain the Green Ranger, Yellow Ranger, Goldar, Putty, and Tyranosaurus Zord. Goldar had some appeal as I didn’t care for the Hasbro offering, and the T-Rex looked cool, but did I need another set of Rangers? No, but I obviously gave in for my boy Tommy. There was some temptation to just wait it out as Super7 figures have mostly hit clearance at some point, but my will wasn’t strong enough to wait.

Nice knife.

The Green Ranger comes in the standard Ultimates! packaging. There’s a green slipcover, which is consistent across the line and not a Green Ranger thing, and once removed you get a nice window box and a bio on the back. The Green Ranger stands at 6.5″ and it’s likely all of the male Rangers to follow will be featured on this same mold. The body is of a lean man which is consistent with the in-suit performer of the show. The shade of green in use for the costume is a more olive green than the brighter color Hasbro used for its figure. There’s really no sculpted folds in the green and the presentation comes across as very clean, and maybe a touch minimalist. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I suppose Super7 could have attempted to add that sheen the spandex suits seemed to possess, or even dirty up the boots and gloves, but simple was apparently the approach. The dragon shield is the Japanese version that the character was most often shown in as opposed to the frumpy, shiny, one used for the scenes shot in the US. The gold is a somewhat matte, yet metallic, finish and it’s a good approximation for how it looked on TV. There’s some black paint around the diamond and it’s cleanly applied. The helmet has a glossy appearance which also matches up with the show. The paint of the red diamond in the center and the teeth around the visor looks good.

Cool sword, but what is with that massive handle?

Other areas where the paint looks nice is the black trim of the belt and the morpher in the center. The words “Power Rangers” are even legible on the morpher which is impressive. Areas where the paint isn’t so great is the gold trim on the gloves and some of the green triangles on the gloves and boots as well. The right forearm on mine has one triangle that stopped short so there’s a gap of white between it and the gold band. On the left forearm, some of them just weren’t applied with enough opacity, or a residue of some kind got onto it after the fact. I left it in place for the images here, but after completing them I actually swapped the forearm on my left arm with the alternate left arm that comes in the box (we’ll get to that in the accessories). I’m tempted to do the same for the right arm, but my alternate right forearm doesn’t have great paint either. Aside from those issues, I do think he looks rather sharp. This shade of green just does something for me and it was the main driver of why I decided to get this figure. He does have his show accurate, black, holster for the Dragon Dagger on his left hip and all of the details of the gloves and boots are in place. There is one line missing from the helmet that should come out from the diamond and I’m torn on if I wish there was some black linework added there. Would it be too much, or would it add more pop to the presentation? It also looks like the red diamond should be outlined in gold and not the silver Super7 went with. One thing this figure does have over the Hasbro one though is that the white diamonds on the costume are painted on as opposed to ignored. Overall, I think I like the presentation of this figure vs the Lightning Collection offering, but concede it may fall short for those who want a more “stepped out of the TV” version of the character.

This sword is less impressive.

Because this is a Super7 Ultmates! release, we get a whole bunch of accessories. Tommy has a set of fist hands, gripping hands with a vertical hinge, gripping hands with a horizontal hinge, open/clenchy hands, a flute playing right hand, and a two-finger gesture left hand that I think is also intended for the flute. The Green Ranger’s signature weapon is his Dragon Dagger and Super7 included a damn fine representation of that weapon. The sculpt looks great and the paint is super impressive. I like that the center button on the handle is depressed so it slots into his special right hand very well. You could also have him wield it with his standard gripping hands too, but that’s not as fun. If you think the Green Ranger needs something more impressive to wield, he does come with the Sword of Darkness. It’s well-sculpted though the paint isn’t as crisp as it is on the dagger. I don’t like the very chunky handle which I’m assuming is show accurate, but maybe a little creative license could have helped here. It does have a real tassel tied to the end which is a nice touch and at least it isn’t warped and bent like the Hasbro version. If you don’t like it though, there’s also the Sword of Power. I don’t remember this thing, but it’s a big, black and gold sword that honestly I think looks stupid, but maybe I’m in the minority. He also has a gun which the internet tells me is the Mega Heater. I don’t remember it at all. It looks rather goofy, a very DIY type of thing made-up for the show, but if you like it you have it.

The figure comes with 3 different heads, but when two of them are this bad do they even count?

If you prefer your Rangers un-morphed and therefore unmighty, there’s a pair of unmasked heads. These are supposed to resemble the late Jason David Frank, but the likeness is terrible. Not helping things is that the paint is also poor. It’s not that it’s sloppy, it’s just unimaginative. The face is a solid color with no shading and the sculpt is too soft to create natural shading so it looks like a blob of nothing. One head features Tommy with a ponytail and the other he has the headband and a more tortured expression as it’s supposed to be Tommy from when he was under the control of Rite Repulsa. If you do happen to like these heads though, swapping them is pretty painless. You also get an activated morpher he can hold which is just as well-painted as the one on the belt. Sure, it makes no sense for him to be already in costume while in the process of morphing, but Super7 apparently felt like it had to include a morpher with each figure. The handle on it can slot onto either the gripping hands or even the clenching hands. It is pretty tiny though, so good luck in not losing it.

Shiny shields and one-color accessories, if that’s how you want to roll.

Lastly, we get some vintage toy inspired accessories. The Green Ranger comes with a shiny, vac-metal, dragon shield that can replace the show-accurate one he comes wearing. This shinier shield is a callback to the 8″ Bandai figure as well as the auto-morphing one and it snaps together in pretty much the same manner. To complete the look we also get a set of spare arms that lack the gold bands around the bicep. The old toys didn’t bother with that detail. They also didn’t have the gold trim on the boots and gloves or the green triangles instead of diamonds, but Super7 can only give you so much. Plus, the extra arms allow you to display your Green Ranger “naked” without the shield as he did pass it off to the Red Ranger on at least one occasion in the show (though I think the gold bands stayed on his arms when he did, but I could be wrong). I doubt many will want to display their figure in that way, but at least Super7 gives you the option. More likely is that some fans will want to buy doubles of the Red and Black Rangers to display with and without the shield. If Super7 had wanted to juice sales of this guy, they would have made the shield specific to him, but it looks like that’s not the case. Lastly, this figure also comes with two vintage style weapons in the form of a gray dragon dagger and a white blade blaster in gun mode. The dragon dagger is a replica of the one that came with the auto-morphing figure while the blade blaster came with the larger scale figure. It’s possible it came with the auto-morphing one too and I’m forgetting it. I don’t have that figure anymore though so I can’t comment on how well they nailed that weapon’s likeness, but the blade blaster is pretty spot-on to the one I have. I don’t know why anyone would ever use it, but it’s here.

I guess the gun is okay, but do we really need it?

The last thing we need to talk about with this figure is articulation. Being that this is a character from a martial arts-based show, he needs to move pretty well. Unfortunately, that has never been Super7’s strong suit. They openly dislike things like double-joints and seem loathe to break-up their sculpts in other ways. They did try something new with this figure, but in general, articulation is the one area where Hasbro’s Lightning Collection is always going to win out. One joint that it does have in common with that line though is the ball-hinged neck. I don’t know why Super7 went in this direction and away from double-ball pegs, but it is what it is. This figure looks up and down pretty well and you get full rotation, but there’s no nuance posing afforded by this design. The helmeted head doesn’t want to slide around on that ball at all. The shoulders are the usual ball-hinge design and they get full rotation while also being able to raise out to the side. The hinge feels tight, maybe due to how the arms had to be designed to be removable easily, while the rotation is pretty loose, but not so loose that he can’t hold a pose. Both style of arms feature a biceps swivel which looks better on the arms without the gold bands, but there’s not much Super7 could do there. The elbows are single-hinged and they do rotate at the joint as well while the wrists swivel and hinge and get plenty of range.

Maybe Super7 includes stuff like this to remind us of how far things have come?

In the torso, we get a joint I absolutely hate. Super7 felt the need to add an ab crunch to these figures and I think that’s fine. With the women Rangers, it’s a diaphragm joint that’s on a ball or double ball peg, but the males get this hinged ab crunch that looks awful. It’s basically an inverted design compared to what most companies will do where the hinge in the middle of the abdomen is the thin portion. Most companies will thicken that part to make it less noticeable and they also often have some chiseled abs to work around that this design wasn’t going to benefit from. Still, what Hasbro did looks much nicer while this looks awful. I continue to be shocked that a company that thinks a double-jointed elbow is too ugly to feature on one of their toys would okay this thing. Just do ball-pegs like the women! To add insult to injury, the joint doesn’t even work that well. The figure bends back a decent amount, but going forward is just so-so. Plus, this figure has the shield to contend with most of the time (though that also helps to hide the joint too) so the joint is largely just an eyesore and they would have been better off skipping it entirely. Below that is a waist twist, which is just a basic waist twist, so it’s fine.

“Oh man, I feel so naked!”

For the hips, Super7 is using a hinged-ball peg that goes into the crotch. Going out to the side, the figure can basically hit a split, or at least it would if the scabbard wasn’t in the way of the left leg. There is a thigh twist there, but it doesn’t have much range and might only get you about 45 degrees rotation going out away from the center of the figure. Kicking forward, the figure can basically do 90 degrees and it can kick back maybe half that, more if you want to really flex the diaper piece that is over the crotch. The knees are single-hinged and can bend back about 90 degrees. There’s a little shimmy to them, but I don’t think it’s truly intentional as the knees are cut in such a way as to prevent rotation. It’s not needed anyway as there’s a boot cut below that and the ankles are the traditional hinged and ankle rocker setup. They work fine as they go back pretty far and the rocker has generous range to help keep the figure’s feet flat on whatever surface you place it on.

You can sort of fake a playing pose with the dagger, but it’s a lie and you’ll always know it’s a lie.

In terms of posing, the figure is okay. He’s best suited to stand in a ready position with a weapon in-hand. He’s not going to be very good at kicking poses or sword-swinging ones either. The lack of butterfly joints also means he can’t do a proper morphing pose with the Power Morpher, but considering he’s not un-costumed I don’t think that’s a terrible loss. What is borderline unforgivable is that this guy can’t play the Dragon Dagger. With some forced perspective type shots, you could fake it for a photo, but that won’t do you much good for the shelf. Id you don’t need him actually squeezing the buttons then you can get the mouthpiece to the mask, but in order to do so I had to make the figure grip the very end of the dagger and it looks pretty silly. Limitations aside, the joints at least feel solid. The only loose ones are the shoulders, but they’re not giving me problems. The hinge in the head is also very loose, but again, it’s keeping the head where I want it so it’s not an issue at the moment. The figure does possess somewhat of a cheap feel to it, though it’s not awful. It’s mostly with the arms which again I think is a symptom of the removable design. The floppy hinge joint in the neck looks awful, but that’s only apparent when the figure has no head.

“Ha ha! Foolish Ranger! I am so much more ‘premium’ than you!”

The big question with this release, and it’s often the case with Super7, is the figure worth the $55 asking price? It’s a bit of a hard sell at that price and some of the other figures in the line aren’t really helping the cause. It’s a 6.5″ figure with okay paint for the most part, a decent sculpt, mediocre articulation, and a bunch of accessories. This is one of those Super7 figures that feels like it started with a price of $55 and then someone had to get the final product up from a much smaller cost to justify the price. And that’s apparent in the abundance of accessories that no one is really asking for. The vintage inspired stuff is cute, but how many people are actually going to use that stuff? The heat gun, the Sword of Power – these are all things I can do without and would actually prefer to not have around if it meant the price could come down. Super7 seems to have this thing where every figure in the line has to be $55, but other figures can certainly top that, but that $55 is a hard floor and in some cases it does the product no favors. More people would buy this if it were $40 and it wouldn’t look silly beside the likes of Goldar and the T-Rex zord. From Super7’s perspective, it makes people who buy the more impressive looking items feel better about that price, but I don’t know if it works that way. And it could be, and quite likely is, that Super7 would argue those other figures should be priced higher than what they are and maybe that’s true. All I know is, I’d like this figure a lot more at a cheaper price. I still willingly paid $55 for it and I don’t hate myself for it, but the pragmatist in me would advise others to wait for a sale. It’s the Green Ranger, he’s popular and not going out of stock anytime soon so there’s no harm in waiting. Where the price really hurts is that I’m only willing to get my favorite Power Ranger at $55 and he’s likely to be lonely on my shelf as a result. He’s just going to have to make due with being placed beside his Bandai and Hasbro counterparts.

Is Tommy Oliver your favorite Power Ranger too? Maybe you would like to check these out too:

Hasbro Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin Green Ranger

In the early days of the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic I found myself filling the social hole in my heart with toys. That has continued, but in the earliest days I went backwards. I grabbed some toys that I had wanted as a kid, but never got, and I talked about them here. One such toy…

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Bandai Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Dragonzord

So a week ago I did a post that I titled The Toys that Got Away. It was about toys that I had pined for as a child, but for one reason or another, was unable to ever acquire. It wasn’t intended to be a sympathy piece or anything, because I had an awesome childhood…

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Hasbro Power Rangers x TMNT – Tommy and Raphael

When Mighty Morphin Power Rangers arrived on Fox Kids in 1993 it quickly became a ratings juggernaut. It was the hottest property around aimed at kids and seemingly everything got knocked down a peg as a result. By contrast, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was embarking on its downturn. The third film wasn’t nearly as successful…

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November 30, 2020

Hasbro Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin Green Ranger

By Joe
Go! Green Ranger! Go!

In the early days of the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic I found myself filling the social hole in my heart with toys. That has continued, but in the earliest days I went backwards. I grabbed some toys that I had wanted as a kid, but never got, and I talked about them here. One such toy was the Bandai Dragonzord and Green Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Toys from the show were shockingly hard to come by in 1993 and beyond, and it was something I always wanted despite not really being a huge Power Rangers fan.

Another thing you should know about me is that I’m kind of anal when it comes to toys. Especially my own, and it seems to extend to toys my kids own. I treat my toys well, and as a kid, if I broke one it really ate me up inside. When I got those Power Rangers toys for myself, I also grabbed a Red Ranger and Pink Ranger for my son and daughter. Over the summer, my nephew visited and he wanted to play Power Rangers with my kids. He was nearly 4 at the time, but he’s notoriously mean to his toys. Still, I didn’t want to be the grumpy uncle so I let him play with my Green Ranger. I do not blame the 4 year old for what happened, I blame myself for allowing it to happen. Needless to say, I wouldn’t be telling you this if it was an uneventful play date. It was not, as when I went to put the Green Ranger away at the end of the day I found his head was flopping around. Somehow, the kids managed to break the housing for the neck joint that is in the figure’s chest. It’s an odd setup for head articulation, as I found when I opened the figure up. My attempts at repairing the break failed, so now I have a Green Ranger with a floppy head. Oh, joy.

“Hey man, sorry to hear about your neck.” “Thanks. It’s…it’s fine.”

Just as I was when I was a kid, the broken toy has bothered me ever since. It looks okay on a shelf, the head just sits a little lower than before, but it’s enough to make me want to replace it. Rather than replace it with a vintage toy though, I was able to score a recent release: the Hasbro Lightning Collection Green Ranger. This figure is sold everywhere, but a new packaging variant was released to Target this fall. It’s rather snazzy, though the figure is the same as the other versions out there. I was drawn to it because it’s a more show accurate version of the character. It has the gold armbands, dragon dagger, and black holster. And since it’s a great deal smaller than the vintage figure, it looks a little better beside the Dragonzord than the vintage figure, which is basically the same size as the zord. It’s still not even close to scale, but it is a bit more aesthetically pleasing.

Not a bad look for you mint-in-box collectors.
One blade just isn’t enough.

2020 has been a year for me to get reacquainted with Hasbro. Over the summer I bought a Peter Venkman, a Deadpool two-pack, and more recently a Soundwave from the Transformers RED line. The Green Ranger is definitely similar to the Deadpool I acquired earlier. The body may even be identical to that figure with different paint applications. The neck, torso, and legs especially look to be the same and the articulation is quite familiar at this point. This isn’t a bad thing as the figure differs where it needs to and this sculpt is able to pack-in a great deal of articulation while remaining pleasing to the eye.

Yup, that’s a Green Ranger all right.
You gotta be in shape to wear an outfit like this.

From an aesthetic point of view, the Green Ranger certainly looks the part. The figure is mostly green plastic with the feet and forearms cast in white plastic. The sculpt-work is quite nice. The helmet features all of the details I remember from the show while the gloves and boots contain detail I didn’t even know was there! That’s standard definition for you, but in looking at some pictures from the show today I was able to confirm that these details, like ribbed material across the knuckles, was indeed present in the show. Where things are less impressive is with the paint. The paint application to the gloves and boots is quite sloppy in places with the gold parts in particular. The helmet could have also used a bit more to give it less of a plastic look and the dragon’s teeth around the visor are all silver rather than silver teeth on white. There’s more slop around the morpher and there’s a green dot on the inside of the right foot that really stands out on the white of the boot. At least the paint on the golden shield is neat as that would have really stood out if it was sloppy. I ordered this guy online, but I wish I had run across it in-store so I could have looked a few over and found a better one, but maybe they’re all like this. I should also point out that the chest is unpainted. The shield doesn’t appear to be designed to be removed, but if you did the figure wouldn’t be show accurate as he’s missing the white diamond. Hasbro actually worked in a piece of white plastic in the butterfly joint to create the impression that the undershirt was accurate. It seems rather lazy on their part.

Insert Jason David Frank’s unmistakable “Suh-ya!”

The articulation on those old Bandai toys was pretty impressive for 1993, and isn’t even too bad by 2020 standards, but it doesn’t come close to matching what this guy can do. Nearly everything is articulated here. He can rotate at the head and look up and down as well. The arms can go all the way around and come out to 90 degrees. There’s a butterfly joint that works really well and is also hidden by the shield, which is a nice benefit of that piece. There’s a bicep swivel and double-jointed elbows that allow for a full curl. The wrist rotates and there’s a hinge as well. There’s a ball-joint in the diaphragm that allows Tommy to tilt and rotate with an ab crunch below that which allows him to go back a bit and forward pretty much all the way. Just watch out for the lower point of his shield. The legs can go forward, but not really back. There’s a thigh swivel, double-jointed knees, boot cut, and ankle hinges with ankle rockers. Really, the only things he lacks are a true waist swivel and a toe hinge, neither of which are really needed. The only thing I wish he had was a side-to-side hinge on at least one hand for wielding his sword or dagger. He can achieve a variety of poses though and is well-balanced so he can even do the old one foot kicking position.

I always did like that evil sword.
Now we’re having fun!
Here’s an image you can hear.

The Green Ranger comes with a few accessories. He has his trusty Dragon Dagger which fits into his holster and he’s able to hold just fine. He can’t quite get it to his “mouth,” but you can get him into poses where it looks like he’s at least getting ready to summon the Dragonzord. He can play it off to the side, but it doesn’t really look the part. He also has his evil sword, or Sword of Darkness, if I remember it correctly. It’s the sword he used when he was in the employ of Rita Repulsa. It’s a nasty looking, curved, blade with a tassel at the end that’s sculpted plastic. It looks cool and it gives him something else to wield aside from the dagger. There’s also a green lightning effect piece that can attach to it that looks pretty impressive. He also has two extra hands. He come with gripping hands in the box which work well for both weapons. The extra hands are a closed, left, fist and an open, pinching, right hand that’s probably meant to work with the dagger as the hand pressing the flute buttons. Lastly, he comes with an alternate, unmasked, head featuring Tommy with his long hair and green bandana. It looks fine, but I’m probably never going to use it. Both weapons are well-sculpted and the paint is fine on both of them, which is a relief considering the paint issues on the main figure. The paint on the alternate head also looks great and they even remembered his lone earring.

Hey! It worked!
He can also go unmasked if that’s your preference.

Fans of the Power Rangers seems pretty enthused about Hasbro’s Lightning Collection and it’s easy to see why based on this one figure. This figure really looks great, especially considering it retails for right around 20 bucks. I even scored this for less as Target had a promotion running at the time that I wasn’t able to use on the NECA products I had purchased. It’s a shame the paint wasn’t a little better, but that’s pretty much the only negative piece of criticism I have for this one. The sculpt is quite good and the articulation is fantastic. It may be hard to get him into a proper flute mode, but I honestly don’t know how Hasbro could have done better. Best of all though, is that this figure just hits the right nostalgia points. If I had this toy when I was 10 I would have been over the moon. Similarly, whenever I see him next to the Dragonzord I’m going to get that little rush of excitement. Like I said, I’m not a huge Power Rangers fan, but this figure makes me want to be. Wish me luck in suppressing that urge, for the sake of my wallet.

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June 22, 2020

Bandai Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Dragonzord

By Joe

So a week ago I did a post that I titled The Toys that Got Away. It was about toys that I had pined for as a child, but for one reason or another, was unable to ever acquire. It wasn’t intended to be a sympathy piece or anything, because I had an awesome childhood and rarely was left wanting, and was intended to be a shared experience piece as everyone can likely recall a toy or other item that they wanted really bad at one point in time, but never attained. Well, the thing with toys is that they never go away. Sure, they disappear from store shelves (and in the case of toy stores, sometimes the very shelves disappear) and eventually go out of production, but there’s almost always a robust after-market for even the most obscure of toys. And once a kid becomes an adult, they usually have access to more money and that’s certainly the case for me so after making that post I went out and did the predictable: I bought a Dragonzord.

Back in 93, I found myself a fan of the show Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Many kids at the time could claim the same and Bandai was unprepared for the show’s popularity. And that’s important because Bandai handled the distribution of toys which meant that come Christmas 1993 a lot of kids wondered why there were no Power Rangers under the tree. I was definitely one of those kids, to a point, but I think my fandom took hold more in 1994. That’s when I found a flyer for the Dragonzord which came bundled with an 8″ Green Ranger action figure. I hung onto that advertisement for months telling anyone who would listen that I wanted that for my birthday when the summer came around. I figured that was enough time for my mom or grandmother to find it somewhere, but alas I was wrong. I couldn’t tell you what I did get, probably some Genesis games, maybe some X-Men toys, but I did not get a Dragonzord.

It’s been 26 years and I’ve hung onto that. Not that it has haunted me or anything, but any time I encounter the Power Rangers franchise I inevitably think about those old toys I was unable to acquire. Recently, I’ve started watching the original series on Netflix with my own kids and they seem to like it. The show is just as insane as I remember and it often feels like it’s making up the rules of the setting as it goes along. As an adult, it’s really easy to now notice when the old footage from Japan is spliced into the American production. It’s still pretty fun, in a good-bad way, but more than anything it just constantly reminds me how much I felt I had missed out when it came to the toys.

After doing some light research, I decided to just go for it. Going after a Dragonzord in 2020 presents more options. Bandai reissued the big guy as part of its Legacy line and Tamashii Nations has also released one semi-recently as part of its Soul of Chogokin premium collector line. There’s even a mini-one from a separate line of model kits that was really tempting, but in the end I felt I had to just get the one I had wanted as a kid. Maybe I’ll be tempted to upgrade at a later date with a more modern one, but I feel like I’d be doing my inner child a disservice by not getting the one I had wanted all those years ago.

I was able to score a Dragonzord complete in box on eBay along with the coveted Green Ranger (aka the best Ranger). I feel a little crazy in doing it since I don’t consider myself a Power Rangers fan. I have no idea where I’ll end up putting this thing, but I finally have a Dragonzord.

Before this guy arrived I tried to keep my expectations in check. This is, after all, a toy from the early 90s and it’s not going to compare to what I’m used to buying these days. It’s also the Dragonzord, a character that was pretty stationary in the show. He’s got stubby arms and basically no neck. He can kind of walk and has a tail with a drill-bit at the end, but mostly he’s supposed to just stand there and look cool (unless you have a Megazord to combine him with). And then there’s also the fact that this is a used toy with stickers that have already been applied that likely aren’t going to look great now.

Learn about Tommy’s likes and see all of the other stuff you need to buy, including the unfortunately named zord TIT ANUS.

The box the figures come in is pretty intense looking. Mine, being used and supposedly stashed in an attic, is pretty beat-up, but the graphics are all intact. There’s even some bios on the side of the box and, of course, advertisements for the rest of the line on the rear. It’s a pseudo-window box release as there’s a space for the Green Ranger to peek through, so buyers knew they were getting the figure as well. To see the main event though, you have to open the box up.

The Dragonzord comes packaged without his chest piece and everything is housed tightly in styrofoam. There are instructions for how to piece the thing together and also how to integrate it with other sets. There would have been a sticker sheet as well, but that’s not the case with a used set. His tail is in one pice, and there’s also a stand, base, and handle for the Power Lance for use when combined with the Megazord set. The Green Ranger comes with his golden shield on so he looks cool in the box. I assume his blade-blaster was holstered as well originally.

The Green Ranger stands a little over eight inches tall – let’s call it eight and a quarter. In 1994 this line represented a new era in terms of articulation, though by today’s standards it’s not quite as good. Tommy is articulated with a balljoint at the neck that actually sits below the neckline and in the figure’s chest. Mine is a little loose, but he holds a pose no problem and has a good range of motion there. His shoulders, on the other hand, are nice and tight and they’re on balljoints as well. He has a bicep swivel, and hinges at the elbows, wrist, and knuckles. The thumbs are frozen in place, and the index finger on each hand is a separate piece to give him trigger-finger poses. His legs are on balljoints with swivels above the knee. The knee is a standard hinge joint and there’s a hinge joint at the ankle as well. Excepting the neck, all of the joints are good and tight on my figure so he can hold any pose I can put him in. He doesn’t have quite enough articulation to achieve a wealth of posing options as he’s really harmed by the lack of waist and torso articulation, but if I had a team of Rangers I could probably get a decent display out of them.

The sculpt for this figure is the same sculpt Bandai used for all of Rangers. For the males, it’s fine, but for the females it looked worse. He’s got some bulk to him, but nothing outlandish. A lot of the figure is molded plastic, save for the white diamonds on the body and the green ones on the gloves and boots. The only other paint is reserved for the helmet and it’s nice and clean. The shield is a hard, light, plastic and it clasps together at the top seam. It can easily be removed and if done so the chest features a power coin design, something Bandai did with all of these figures even though no such design is featured in the show. For the Green Ranger, the coin image also looks like Titanus for some reason, as opposed to the Dragonzord or the emblem he has in the show. Students of the show will also notice that the Green Ranger isn’t 100% accurate as he’s missing the gold bands around his biceps, and his gloves and boots should have gold trim. The green diamonds should also be triangles. This is Bandai just being cheap as they copied the same design as the other Rangers, just switching in green. Even still, he looks the part enough and is an attractive piece. The only other negative is those hands are a bit annoying. Articulated fingers were a bad idea, but we didn’t know it at the time. It can be more challenging than it should be to get the blaster into one of the hands and have it look right. The blaster is also unpainted, but that was pretty common of accessories back in the 90s. Also of note, there’s no dragon dagger! Oh well.

Now lets talk about the big guy. The Dragonzord is only slightly taller than the Green Ranger as he’s just a tick under eleven inches. Future zords in this line would come with tiny representations of the Ranger pilot, which actually would have made a lot of sense for this figure had Bandai thought of it since the Green Ranger sometimes stood on the Dragonzord’s head. The Dragonzord has a lot of stickers that I thankfully did not have to put on. Some have taken a beating and could use some glue, but all in all this guy looks pretty nice for an almost 30 year old toy. As anticipated, there isn’t a whole lot of articulation to speak of. He basically can move his legs only. The drill-tip of the tail can spin, and if you disengage the arms from the body you can kind of gain a little articulation there, but that’s pretty much it. The horn on his head can also slide back and forth as I think it’s supposed to position straight-up for the fighting mode transformation. He’s basically a dragon-shaped tank so he’s not supposed to do much aside from just stand there and look cool.

The Dragonzord disassembles pretty easily, and I presume attaching him to the Megazord components would be just as easy. Everything clicks together in a very satisfying manner, and the designer took care to make sure parts can only go in a certain way to keep things simple. Popping off the tail is a cinch and from there the whole body basically splits in two with the chest piece sliding out from there. The chest piece is battery operated and is supposed to blink and make Dragonzord sounds, but mine arrived with two batteries that long ago burst inside it so mine does not function. With the chest piece out, you can also drop open the Dragonzord’s mouth to reveal a robotic face underneath for when it’s combined with some of the Megazord parts to go into its fighting mode. It’s in that mode that it’s supposed to use the Power Lance, which is just the chestpiece affixed to a separate part and the tail attaches to the top. It’s a very cumbersome-looking weapon, but it’s still pretty cool. The whole unit has some nice weight to it. It’s a bit creaky, but doesn’t feel cheap.

That’s a big lance.

As a toy in 2020, this thing is actually still pretty cool. There’s not a whole lot that can be done to improve the Dragonzord. The tail isn’t entirely accurate as it’s supposed to be longer with more segmented parts, but then the Power Lance would look even more ridiculous. Modern toys basically just include extra pieces for the tail that get discarded when the lance is formed, but Bandai was likely looking to keep the extra pieces at a minimum since kids tend to lose them (plus they add cost). Some of the sculpting could be better, like the hands of the Dragonzord which feature stickers for the missile portions. For the most part though, this looks like the thing from my television so there’s little to nitpick. The Green Ranger could obviously have better articulation and a paint-job that better matches the show, but even he still looks pretty cool. Never underestimate the appeal of a shiny, golden, shield.

As a result, I have no regrets about picking this guy up. I do wish I had inquired with the seller regarding the electronics as that wasn’t disclosed in the listing, but I honestly don’t know if it would have stopped me from buying it. I could always buy another chest piece as loose parts show up on eBay from time to time anyway. And since this is an old toy, I don’t feel as much anxiety when I let my kids play with it. The only worry I have is that shield on the Green Ranger getting broken. Mostly, now I just wish I had a Megazord to combine with this one!

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

June 16, 2020

The Toys that Got Away

By Joe

My whole life I have loved toys. Anytime I had money as a kid I wanted to spend it on a new toy, for my birthday I always wanted more toys, and when it came time to write Santa a letter I asked for more toys. Most kids like toys, that’s a given, but I feel like many mix in some other loves as well. Maybe arts and crafts, movies, books, comics, etc. And I liked a lot of that stuff too, but not enough to sacrifice even a tiny fraction of my toy allotment. As an adult, my love continues though I’m not as single-minded when it comes to my pursuits and hobbies. Though even now, few things thrill me in such a unique way as a brand new toy.

For a kid with a middle-class upbringing, I really wasn’t left wanting for too much. My parents usually delivered around the holidays and I had a grandmother that seemed to enjoy buying me toys as much as I enjoyed receiving them. It also helped that I liked action figures and they usually weren’t too expensive. Most Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cost less than a Barbie, and I never really got into more expensive properties like Transformers and Lego. Sure, I had a few from both lines here and there, but for the most part I focused on one major franchise.

Even though I rarely lacked for anything, inevitably there’s always something that remains elusive. Either the toy was hard to find or it arrived at an inopportune time, but there are a few items that vexed me as a child enough to still leave a lasting imprint. Now that I’m an adult, there’s sometimes a temptation to try and fill that void now that I have the means, even though I know doing such is often fleeting. A recent reintroduction of a certain property to my life has recalled some of these feelings though and is serving as the genesis for this post, and I’ll save those for last. This post though is about the toys I never got as a kid, but am sorely tempted to seek out now.

Venom II – Toy Biz 1992

Toy Biz had the comic book figure on lockdown in the 80s and 90s. It even held both the Marvel and DC license at the same time, before it eventually became owned by Marvel through one of the venerable comic book company’s many bankruptcy filings. Toy Biz no longer exists now, but it was best known for its Marvel action figures and the first line was simply referred to as Marvel Super Heroes. As part of that line’s second series, a Venom action figure was introduced. It came with a plastic spider that resembled the insignia on Venom’s chest. It could be inserted into a rather large hole on the figure’s back and squeezing it caused black goo to ooze from a hole on the figure’s chest. Eventually, a running change would be made to replace the spider with a generic red plunger that was instead intended to just use water instead of slime. The lame gimmick, combined with the giant hole it required exist in the figure, made this Venom kind of shitty.

Toy Biz rectified this with a new figure in 92. I recalled seeing it for what felt like a year on the back of other card-backs, but never could find it in stores. This Venom was leaner with a bit more articulation. It’s gimmick was a tongue-flicking action controlled by a little button on the figure’s back which was simple and didn’t detract much from the sculpt. It also came with a chest attachment that I guess was meant to create the illusion of a living costume, but it was kind of dumb. Venom would become my favorite Marvel character, due mostly to my dad taking me to a flea market where he bought me a copy of Lethal Protector #1. When the Spider-Man cartoon arrived in 94, it meant more Venom action figures so even though I really wanted this one, the sting of never finding him was mostly removed. This is the only toy on this list that I did seek out as an adult. Since I have him now, I can say if I had been able to find one in 92 it probably would have been one of my favorite toys for a long time, at least until the Venom II from the cartoon line with removable mask.

Monty Moose – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1993)

I had a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys as a kid, most of which are now gone which is unfortunate (kids, don’t let your parents throw away your old action figures!). That line was fairly easy to collect because it was well distributed and also pretty affordable. When the first figures came out, they retailed for $3.99 in my area – that’s a mere two visits from the Tooth Fairy! Because for a few years Turtles were all I wanted I usually cleaned-up at Christmas and birthdays and as a result there were only a few I didn’t get that I really wanted. Some of them included really popular characters like Baxter Stockman and the Rat King, but for some reason the only one that bothers me a little today is Monty Moose.

Monty even got featured in a commercial, though he never made it into the cartoon.

I don’t know what it was about Monty Moose I found so appealing. Moose are kind of funny looking in general, and Monty Moose certainly looked a bit odd with his huge antlers and long snout. I also really liked the blue and red color combo as a kid, so he was just eye-catching to me. And I saw him in a store on one occasion. It was an Osco Drug, which I don’t think even exists anymore. For those who don’t remember, Osco Drug is basically like a CVS or Walgreen’s and it was a store that was never known for its toy selection. My mom and I had to go into one for a prescription for some reason, it wasn’t our usual pharmacy, and we walked down the toy aisle and I saw Monty Moose staring back at me. I tried to get my mom to buy it for me, but I think my birthday was coming up so she was in no mood to buy me a toy with that on the horizon. My birthday would come and go and I had to beg my mom to take me back to that specific store now that I had some birthday money. She thought it was silly to go to a pharmacy, of all places, to spend birthday money, but she took me and of course the figure was gone. I’d never see him again.

Batman Returns Batmissile Batmobile – Kenner 1993

Despite being a bit dark, the Tim Burton Batman films were a merchandising behemoth for DC and Warner Bros. I had a few toys from the first film and the supplemental series Kenner produced in-between, but what really caught my attention was the Batmobile from Batman Returns. If you recall, in the film, the Batmobile demonstrates a new ability to shed the sides of the vehicle to take on the form of a skinny, missile-like, vehicle to fit through a narrow alley. Kenner made a Batmbile that could do the same with the push of a button, and when I saw the commercial I immediately wanted it.

I do wonder how well this thing actually worked.

I had that toy on my Christmas list for 1993, and when Christmas morning came there was indeed a Batmobile under the tree. Only it was the wrong one. I was never one to complain about gifts, so I was happy to have a Batmobile. This was one was a re-release of the first film’s Batmobile with pop-up machine guns. It was pretty cool, just not what I wanted. It was somewhat overshadowed though by another gift that year – a Sega Genesis. Sometime after the holiday, I even saw the Batmobile that I yearned for at the toy store. I had some money and nearly bought it, but I did the smart thing and decided to be happy with what I had and put that cash towards something else. And I feel good about the decision even now and I mostly have it on this list because I’m still curious if the gimmick worked well or not.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Green Ranger and Dragonzord – Bandai 1993

And now we get to the real deal. Recently, my son has shown an interest in Power Rangers largely thanks to his best friend having some affection for the property. We’ve watched around ten episodes or so of the original run, and it’s stirring some memories. Painful memories.

Power Rangers burst onto the scene in the late summer of 1993. Saban Entertainment had found it hard to sell the property to American broadcast networks for years, and maybe because of that there was skepticism that the property would be a success. Whatever the reason, the show ended up being a smash hit, but Bandai of America was woefully unprepared to meet the demand for toys. Which sucked because the toys were awesome! The Rangers themselves were huge, around 9 or 10 inches, with loads of articulation. I had never seen an action figure with finger articulation before, and it blew my mind! I wanted them, but I wasn’t quite sure how much since the show was pretty new. I was also at an age where it was almost taboo to like it. I was supposed to be growing out of toys, but I found them way too compelling.

When these came out, I thought they were the most incredible action figures imaginable.

I didn’t get any Power Rangers toys in 1993 and I spent much of 94 chasing them without much luck. I would eventually get a Power-Morphing Green Ranger, but that was nearly all I got. What I really wanted was the deluxe Green Ranger who came bundled with the Dragonzord. I even found a page from a flyer sitting outside at my grandmother’s house advertising the set. I carried that thing around and clung to it reminding my mom and grandma that I really wanted that toy, but try as they might, it just didn’t happen.

He’s practically a statue, but damn does he looks cool.

I never once saw that toy in a toy store. To this day, I’ve never seen it in person. None of my friends had it, and because of that I still kind of want it. Looking at the set now, I still think that Green Ranger is pretty slick. The Dragonzord impresses me less, but he’s still a delightfully, chunky, robot dragon and robot dragons are pretty awesome on their own. It doesn’t do much beside just look cool, but that’s basically all I ask of my toys in this day and age.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Deluxe Megazord – Bandai 1993

As much as I wanted that Green Ranger and Dragonzord, I think the toy I wanted most that I never was able to my hands on was the Deluxe Megazord from the same line. Tommy the Green Ranger was my favorite of the Power Rangers for the time I watched this show (basically up to the first movie), so I naturally wanted the best toy based on him along with the zord. The White Ranger was cool too, but not as cool as the Green Ranger. The Megazord though, was just too awesome to ignore. It was five robots that combined into one massive robot – how awesome is that?! Yes, I realize this made the toy very similar to Voltron, but the Voltron toy from the 80s didn’t impress me much because it didn’t really look like the cartoon. It had to fudge with the scale of the lions a bit to work in real life, and that’s the type of thing that would bother me as a kid.

Now you can re-enact that same transforming sequence you see every episode!

The Megazord, however, seems like it was designed to be a toy from the very start. The toy basically imitated the transforming sequence from the show to perfection. The only compromise really was in the articulation of the finished product. The show would feature models to assemble the Megazord, but once formed it then swapped that out for a guy in a costume who would battle the monster of the week. He could obviously move in ways a clumsy toy could not, but that seemed like a small price to pay for such accuracy.

Robots that combine to form bigger robots are arguably the greatest toys ever made.

Unlike with the Green Ranger/Dragonzord set, I did actually see the Megazord in the flesh. A kid in my class brought one into school, maybe for show and tell or something, and he showed it to me at his desk. Cruelly, he wouldn’t let me touch it, but he at least demonstrated the transformation including both the robot and tank modes. I was floored by it and I wanted it so bad, but it was just so impossible to find! I never saw the thing in stores and I’m sure my grandmother likely never did as well.

I was able to get the Red Dragon Thunderzord (left), but never did get the rest.

When the showed moved on from the original zords, the toy supply improved. For Christmas, my grandmother was finally successful when it came to Power Rangers and she was able to get me the Red Dragon Thunderzord as well as some of the roleplay toys (blaster and morpher). The Red Dragon was pretty cool, and if I’m being honest, a better toy than the Dragonzord would be. I was never able to get the other zords though to form the new Megazord, and by the following Christmas the fad had passed for me. I would put all of my energy towards video games at that point, leaving toys behind for a few years.

In 2010, Bandai re-released the original Megazord, now often referred to as the Dino Megazord. It was almost an exact recreation of the 93 toy with a few changes to make the set cheaper to produce. The wheels were removed from the Triceratops and Sabre-toothed tiger, as well as the articulation on their guns. Otherwise though, it’s basically the same. It retailed for $75 and I am kicking myself now for not just buying it then. The 93 version, if you can find one in good condition, easily fetches thrice that on eBay and the re-releases are expensive too. I was tempted to buy one when I was first on my own, but got cold feet and didn’t really know what I would do with. Maybe my son or daughter will become obsessed and force my hand, or maybe Bandai will re-release it again when the show turns 30 in three years and I’ll finally take the plunge. Or maybe the Megazord is just a toy destined to haunt me for the rest of my days.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

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