Tag Archives: lightning collection

April 20, 2023

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Goldar

By Joe
He’s coming for your Power Rangers!

Last week, when we took a look at the first Power Ranger in Super7’s line of Ultimates! action figures based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers I expressed some surprise that Hasbro would license out this brand since it competes with their own Lighting Collection. I do feel like the actual Rangers are pretty safe. People who are into MMPR will buy a set of Rangers from both companies and be happy. When it comes to the monsters though then I think Hasbro could have an issue. In truth, the monsters have been a relatively small part of the Lightning Collection. The few that have been released have been of the deluxe variety with an increased cost relative to the Rangers. They’ve also been kind of terrible from what I’ve seen. A few look like they’re sculpted well enough, but Hasbro really cheaped out on the paint apps for most of them and they just look awful as a result. It’s surprising because MMPR is an in-house brand for Hasbro now. I may not like it, but I understand when a Marvel Legends figure or a Star Wars release has less money put into it because those have the additional burden of a licensing fee, but that’s not the cast with Power Rangers.

Goldar has some size on Tommy, and I’m happy to see he doesn’t completely dwarf a Lightning Collection release.

Since Hasbro has declined to make any monsters worth my money, I naturally saw Super7’s line as a potential replacement. I like having villains, especially monster types, that are bigger than the heroes so the larger scale of Super7’s figures didn’t seem like an obstacle to me, but really a potential benefit. Though so far I’ve only committed to buying one such figure, but if it’s any good I may change my mind. And that figure is Goldar. I don’t need or want a big MMPR collection, but Goldar always felt like a character worth having. He’s Rita Repulsa’s general and basically her right hand man…monster. Despite his inability to actually defeat the Power Rangers, he was kept in that position when Lord Zedd usurped Rita’s throne and attempted to take matters into his own hands. As an enemy, I think Goldar was the first monster the Rangers battled in their Megazord, though I also haven’t gone back to watch the show in years so I could be misremembering. I always liked him as a design. He’s some sort of armored wolf, and as the name implies, he seems to like gold. He looks scary, and even though he wasn’t exactly batting a thousand, I always felt like he was a threat to the Power Rangers and not the show’s version of a Bebop or Rocksteady.

It’s probably not screen accurate, but this works for me.

Super7 apparently felt like Goldar was rather important and he was chosen to be the main villain in the first wave of Ultimates! Like Tommy, he comes in the same Ultimates! styled box with a green slipcover over a window box inside. He does get his own “power coin” logo on the slipcover and there’s a bio and still from the show on the back of the inner box. Once removed, Goldar stands a mighty 8″ or so to the top of his head, a touch taller if you count the horns of his helm. He looks rather resplendent in his golden armor which appears to be fully painted. Like the Green Ranger, it looks like Super7 committed to giving us a nice finish by casting the figure in the appropriate color, but then painting over it with the same. It gives the figure a much more “premium” appearance which is a good thing considering he’s priced at $55. The inner parts of his suit are painted red in accordance with the character design and there are a few gems or something painted as well. The face looks really nice as it’s blue with shading around the eyes. The teeth are cleanly painted and the furry…things…that drape over his shoulders look fine too. The crown of his helm is done in a translucent, yellow, plastic that almost looks like stained glass. It’s an unexpected, but welcomed, embellishment. If I am to nitpick the paint I’d first go to the black strap on the calf area which do nothing to convey the illusion of an actual strap. They’re flatly painted and unconvincing. Some of the red could have also been applied cleaner. It’s pretty hazy around the kneepads and some of the hands are a bit messy. In Super7’s defense, the hands are hard to paint as there are gold plates over the digits with red underneath. Hasbro declined to attempt such a thing and I’ll say for the most part they look good enough. I also feel like the feet could have used some shading as they’re the only part that looks “plasticy” to me.

Goldar is also sized well to compete with zords. I’m curious how he’ll stack up against the upcoming Megazord.
I figured we should sneak in a comparison to another Super7 figure featuring some gold accents that a lot of people seemed to have issues with. And we might as well put him up against another big boy in Apocalypse.

As for the sculpt, well there’s really little to complain about. Super7 absolutely nailed the portrait with Goldar which is something I wasn’t sold on with the Lightning Collection release. This looks like the character to me and I feel like if he started talking on my shelf I wouldn’t even be surprised. Most of the body has a nice texture to it as the gold is dented like a golf ball in several parts. I am not an expert on the show, but it looks accurate enough to me. All of the details I associate with the character are present like the giant codpiece and the bundled up tail on his rear. Super7 has received numerous criticisms from me over the years, but rarely is sculpting an issue and this guy is no different. He might really be one of their best which is not faint praise.

This ornately designed chest looks pretty damn nice.
These things are less interesting, but you get five of them!

Goldar has a rather expensive look to him so I was expecting Super7 to skimp on the accessories, but he’s actually pretty robust. For heads, we have two options which are essentially mouth closed and mouth open. Both look great, though I think I like the open one just a little bit more. For hands, we get a whole bunch: fists, gripping with horizontal hinges, gripping with vertical hinges, and open hands. For those gripping hands he has his rather large sword which is painted very nicely with hits of silver and gold and the red gem in the center. He also has his little wing nubbins on the back which can be removed and replaced with open, black, wings that also look quite nice. They’re entirely sculpted in plastic and the feathers are nicely textured and the paint is clean. In addition to all of that, we get some episode specific stuff. There’s an elaborate chest that contains the power coins after they stole them or something. The chest has a hinged lid so it can open and close and the paint job is pretty damn spectacular. Goldar also has the five Badges of Darkness which I think he gave out to the Putties to create evil, clone, Power Rangers. They’re identical and they just resemble grey stones with a light blue gem in the center of a star carving. Nothing special, but those more interested in episode-specific trinkets will get more mileage out of them than I. His extra stuff at least feels more purposeful than most of the stuff the Green Ranger came with.

The alternate head is definitely a keeper.
“I will destroy those teenagers with attitude!”

Goldar is not a character that looks like he’ll move very well, but again, Super7 kind of surprised me here. For starters, his head is on a hinged-ball peg. I do not like that, but at least he looks up and down okay and can turn his head. He just doesn’t really get much in the way of more nuanced poses. His head sits high on the ball, so he gets more than the Green Ranger, but Super7, please just go back to using double ball pegs. The shoulders are the hinged ball joints that peg into the arm and he can lift his arms out to the side past horizontal. This really surprised me as he’s got some rather large shoulder pads, but they do a solid job of getting out of the way. Rotating the arms all around isn’t going to happen, but you get enough. He has a biceps swivel and a single-hinged elbow that can’t quite hit 90. You also get a rotation point at the elbow as well. The wrists rotate and he has the proper hinge for the gripping hands, so that’s a plus. They are a tad loose though and his heavy sword can be a touch finicky to pose, but it seems to hold in position well enough. In the diaphragm, we get what’s probably a ball joint of some kind that lets the figure rotate, but also tilt to the sides. He arches back a little, and crunches forward a little as well. In both cases, it’s more range than I expected. He does have a waist twist below that and some hinged ball joints at the hips. Goldar can just about hit a split before the armor at his hips gets in the way and he can kick forward to almost horizontal, though he can’t really kick back at all. You get some rotation at the thigh and the single-hinged knee can go about 90 degrees. It also rotates a little at the joint. The ankles feature the usual hinge and rocker, though the shape of the plating of the armor does restrict things a bit. The hinge goes back well enough, but you don’t get much forward. The rocker is also limited, but I think you’re going to get enough out of it to keep his feet flat even in some rather wide stances.

He’s not some super-articulated ninja figure, but he can look tough and swing a sword so that works for me.

I would say Goldar articulates pretty well for such a design. I admit, some of that opinion is colored by my low expectations going in which were influenced by both the look of the figure and my own experience with Super7. I think they did a good job though and I don’t really feel like other companies would do much better. Yeah, you could slip in some double joints at the elbows and knees and maybe get a little better than 90, but is that really going to up one’s enjoyment of the figure? I think the easiest point for criticism is the head as Super7 should ditch the hinged ball peg. I suppose a hinged joint in the diaphragm could get more ab crunch? That’s probably a little more expensive to implement though and presents gapping issues usually. He basically reminds me of a NECA figure and his range is pretty comparable to Warduke. And since he has a less restricting his torso, he probably moves better than that figure. That figure is probably a little visually more impressive, but it’s definitely more subjective than usual. At least Super7 is comparing well to something that’s much cheaper since usually they present worse and cost more, a true double whammy.

A lot of people have had a lot of issues with these parts so do be careful.
I think the wings are worth the hassle as they do look rather nice once applied.

One thing I do need to talk about though is the quality control issues people have been having with this figure in particular. I have seen and heard from lots of folks who had issues with the head and wings. I didn’t actually mention the wings in the articulation portion, but they do connect via a ball and socket joint on the figure’s back and they have a hinge as well. The left wing seems fine, but the right is a bit iffy. The socket feels like it’s off just a tiny amount, probably not enough to notice with the naked eye, but it’s noticeably tight. People have been snapping the peg when trying to rotate or use the hinge. I noticed before even inserting that wing that the hinge also stressed the plastic when pushed all the way. I guess naturally that means don’t push it all the way, but it still should not be. With the head, I’ve seen folks have a hard time getting the alternate head on and snapping the post as a result. One person I talked to snapped it just rotating the head after getting it on. I mentioned in the review that the heads seem to sit high on the ball and I think that’s by design to help clear the stuff around his neck. If so, it’s a bad design because every toy collector is going to think they need to seat that head all the way down and if that’s breaking things then Super7 deserves to have to eat some costs replacing them. Just elongate the post, or find another solution, this one feels half-assed. Out of an abundance of caution, I heated the little wing nubs on my figure before removing them and also heated the wings before inserting them. Once in, I’m just leaving them alone as I posed them via the hinge before inserting them. For the head, the default one came off without any issues and I heated the open mouth one before putting it on. It seems fine, but it doesn’t really want to rotate so I won’t force it. I prefer the look of the open wings with the open mouth so I would have been bummed if they had broke in some way. I technically didn’t have any issues with my figure, but I feel like a lot of others had to suffer broken Goldars in order for me to have such an experience. I guess tread lightly and make sure you purchase from a place with a good return policy if it comes to that.

“Buy my toy!”

Quality concerns aside, I think this is one of the best Super7 figures I own. It’s rare that they hit in all three phases for me: sculpt, paint, articulation. Usually they try to close the gap by tossing a bunch of junk into the box with their figures, but with Goldar that’s not needed. And better yet, most of his “junk” actually feels purposeful. While I liked the Green Ranger as a figure, I couldn’t help but feel like it was overpriced. With Goldar, I don’t really get that feeling. I think he’s actually pretty damn good and for $55 he’s the rare Super7 figure I can say is worth it. I have a lot of Super7 figures that I’m happy with, but objectively feel are overpriced. Goldar gets to be both objectively and subjectively a good figure. If you’re one of the folks who had a different experience with the head or wings then you might feel differently, but I’m reviewing both the figure and my experience with the figure and for me this is exactly what I wanted out of this character. He looks good with the other releases in the line, and extra menacing with the Lightning Collection Rangers. He can face off with Super7’s Green Ranger, and look good battling the T-Rex zord and he’s probably the star of this inaugural wave. If King Sphinx or Lord Zedd turns out this good then I may need to add some more bad guys to my collection in the future.

Interested in more Power Rangers action figures review? Gives these a shot:

Super7 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Ultimate Green Ranger

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…

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by Joe

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March 12, 2021

Hasbro MMPR Combining Dino Megazord

By Joe
The only Megazord that matters.

I wasn’t going to do a post on this particular figure, but there probably is some curiosity about it and how it works with the Hasbro Power Rangers Lightning Collection, so here we are. Last year, I fulfilled an almost lifelong ambition and acquired a Bandai dino Megazord from 1993 based on its appearance in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers television show. The toyline was white hot in the early 90s, and it was something I had to make due without as a kid (and for the record, I did just fine, so don’t weap for my childhood). It turns out, the kids of 2020 also enjoy Megazords from the 90s and my own children spent a fair amount of time playing with it, assembling it and disassembling it enough that I went to eBay and grabbed them some Power Rangers from the same era to play with. When Christmas came around, it made sense for my son to ask Santa for a Megazord he could call his own, and the big man delivered.

It was late last summer, or early fall, that Hasbro rolled out its own version of the classic Bandai toy. The zords were scattered across three blister pack releases that could be purchased at big box retailers and online at various toy and hobby websites. What was most attractive about the set was that it was really affordable. Each release retailed for $15 so kids, and collectors, could assemble a Megazord for a mere $45. I’m pretty sure it cost more in 1993 dollars to do the same. Of course, this meant the release was compromised compared with past iterations. The zords probably lost about 25-30% of their size and are primarily assembled with colored plastic with little or no paint. On the plus side, there were no stickers to place as the decals came on the toys, though they still appear to be as prone to peeling and such as stickers applied by the consumer.

The dino zords have never been particularly fearsome on their own.

As mentioned already, Hasbro chose to distribute these dino zords across three releases. The mastodon and pterodactyl come bundled together as do the triceratops and saber-toothed tiger. The tyrannosaurus, being the largest of the five zords, comes solo, but Hasbro did toss in the power sword so it wouldn’t feel so lonely. I’m not sure why Hasbro opted to do things this way rather than simply sell it as one, complete, set. They probably could have even jacked the price up another five dollars and sold it at 50 bucks. It’s just unlikely anyone would want just one set and not all three, because lets face it, most kids don’t want to play with the individual zords. All this does is make it a little harder to find everything you need. Thankfully, the zords weren’t terribly difficult to track down, but I know in my frequent trips to Target I rarely saw all three sets readily available, it was usually just one or two

Dinosaurs! Assemble!

These toys aren’t technically in the Lightning Collection, but are in that lesser line Hasbro mostly markets to kids. All that means is that these aren’t technically being marketed to collectors, though I’d wager most of the people buying stuff based on the Mighty Morphin era are folks my age. The engineering on all of the zords is very similar to the Bandai originals as Hasbro has largely preserved the transformation as it appeared on television. The sheer amount of plastic utilized though has been significantly scaled back. It can be seen in the tail of the T-Rex zord which has a lot of chunks just cut out of it and the rear of the mastodon which is fairly open. It’s definitely not a set as attractive as the old ones, though there are areas where things have been improved slightly. The T-Rex, for instance, has its mouth canons sculpted in now and they look pretty nice. Some of the joints are also tighter, specifically the tails of the triceratops and saber-toothed tiger, though I’m also comparing a relatively new toy to one almost 30 years old. Given time, maybe they’ll be just as loose.

Top: new sword, Bottom: old sword. It’s not great.
Paint is apparently expensive.

Where this set comes up short though is just in the details. The wheels on the saber-toothed tiger, for example, aren’t painted black and are just sculpted gray like the rest of the legs. The canon at the tip of the triceratops tail doesn’t articulate so it looks pretty lame, plus it doesn’t have actual wheels to roll on. I also miss the chrome details some of the old figures had, though I mostly miss it on the Megazord’s power sword. It’s just unpainted plastic with some of the design sculpted on just one side of the blade. It’s very bland and is the aspect of this release I see the most complaints about. Hasbro also utilized a new peg system for the legs of the Megazord which works fine, but it also means the T-Rex now has red pegs jutting out from its knees. I also dislike the head of the T-Rex and how it snaps in place with the Megazord head contained underneath. It doesn’t seem to want to actually snap and it just feels very cheap. The “horns” on the Megazord itself can slide all the way to one side and just seems junky, even though it does, in the end, get the job done.

The new one can’t articulate its canon, but at least it can hold its tail up unlike gramps here.
The pterodactyl zord didn’t have to make too many compromises, though I’ve always really loved that old decal on the front of the original so that’s a bummer.

Playing with the zords on their own doesn’t seem like a great experience, based on how my kids interact with it. Thankfully, combining them is fairly easy even for a kid. The legs take a bit of effort to seat properly, and the pterodactyl can be a bit finicky, but it goes together largely in the same manner as before. I actually like how securely the mastodon clips on with this release, though I hate how easily the legs of the mastodon pop off. The tail of the T-Rex also no longer has a joint towards the end of it so it sticks up more pronounced than before and isn’t particularly pleasing to the eye, but it’s not a big deal. You can also still do tank mode, but it’s just as janky as before and more of a novelty than a fun way to play.

The tyrannosaurus continues to be the only zord that’s any fun solo, though those new, red, knee, pegs are an eyesore.
The mastodon turned out kind of junky on its own and it differs most from the original as the head is now all black, but at least it functions very well as the arms of the Megazord.

Once together, the Megazord does very much look the part. Once again, we’re missing some of the details of past releases, but it’s certainly far from an ugly thing. The face is where some extra paint would have really been welcomed as that vintage Bandai release just looks sharp. And, of course, the sword sucks, but I already mentioned that. What is better than before though is the articulation. The classic Megazord can’t do much of anything, but this one at least has some joints. The arms can rotate and raise out to the side a bit and the Megazord now has elbows! It can bend them about 90 degrees and also swivel too. At the legs, it can kick forward and back still, but it also can fan its legs out slightly for a wider, more natural, stance. The legs also swivel there as well. There are no knee hinges, unfortunately, but you can swivel the lower legs at the knee pegs. The only thing missing that really should be here is a head swivel. It just seems like that would have been a very easy and cheap thing to include that would have really added some personality to the poses available because even a kid wants to put this somewhere prominent in his or her room when it isn’t being played with.

Tank Mode is still a thing, if you care.
I had to pull back so damn far to get that whole sword into the shot.

Obviously, this thing doesn’t scale at all with the figures in the Lightning Collection. Even the original doesn’t and in order to scale properly it would likely need to be six feet tall. It’s big enough at around 9″ tall though that I think it can be a reasonable centerpiece in your MMPR display. And if you’re ambitious, you could paint this thing up into something a bit more special. Hasbro sculpted most of the details one would expect, it just didn’t bother to paint them. As a toy, it seems pretty neat, to me. Admittedly though, my kids haven’t played with this much since Christmas and my daughter even told me she wants to play with my Megazord, not this one. Go figure. I think she just likes the sheer size of the original one, and as easy as it is to transform this one, it’s a bit easier for her to transform the original. Mostly I think it’s just a case of her being more familiar with that one and not wanting to take the time to get to know this new one.

The sculpt work is mostly there, it just needs a little love from a paint brush.
It’s a little smaller than the original, but also trimmer and less statue-esque.

If you’re a Lightning Collection fan that wants a Megazord, this is certainly an affordable option. It’s not a collector grade release though and that shows. Even with light play, some of the decals are already starting to peel on this one and that’s disappointing. It’s possible the same will happen for those who just set it on a shelf and forget it. The biggest thing this release has going for it is obviously the price and availability. A Bandai one from 93 will probably set you back a couple hundred dollars, while the Legacy Collection release is a bit cheaper, but also not as nice as the original and it suffers from a lot of the same shortcomings as this one. And then there’s the Soul of Chogokin Megazord which I think retailed for something like $350 and is no longer in production so it’s likely to cost even more than that now. This set is for kids and casual fans that need a Megazord, but don’t want to break the bank. I’ve seen this one getting dumped on a bit by collectors, but at $45, I think it’s pretty good. I definitely wouldn’t recommend displaying it in dino mode as the individual zords aren’t terrific looking, but who would do that anyway? As long as your expectations are reasonable, I think this will please most who buy it.

Definitely a more posable release.

If you are a collector looking to add a Megazord to your collection, you will soon have some more options. If you just want a posable Megazord, Super7 recently announced that it has gained the Power Rangers license. The company has already shown some vinyl, minimally, articulated Megazords, but it will be doing zords in its Ultimates! line and I can only assume a proper Megazord will arrive at some point. They’re doing the tyrannosaurs first though, and I don’t think they can do a combining Megazord so it figures to be a stand-alone zord. I could be wrong, but time will tell. Grabbing this Hasbro one at $45 doesn’t feel like a tremendous risk to me, but if you can wait, maybe hold out to see what’s coming.

Whether it’s a permanent part of your display or just a placeholder until something better comes along, the Hasbro Megazord is certainly an affordable option.

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February 1, 2021

Hasbro Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin Yellow and Pink Rangers

By Joe
Today we complete a team.

Last week we took a look at the male members of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from Hasbro’s Lightning Collection. Back when the show was red hot in the early 90s, all of the action figures of the Rangers were the same figure with a different head and decal on the chest. That isn’t going to work for a figure line aimed at both collectors and adolescents and Hasbro obviously knows that. That’s why they did a male body and a female body for the line and that’s why the women are getting their own write-up as today I’m looking at the Pink and Yellow Rangers from Hasbro’s Lightning Collection.

I am still a fan of the window box Hasbro uses for this line, but what’s with that awful posing on Kimberly?

The Yellow and Pink Rangers sharing a body sculpt makes sense, though it also kind of doesn’t. The Yellow Ranger was sort of infamous from this era because Saban chose to cast the late Thuy Trang as Trini Kwan to portray the teenager under the mask. Of course, she was never really under the mask as none of the American actors were since that was footage taken from Japan where the Yellow Ranger was portrayed by a male actor. There are some pretty humorous images online too that really drive that fact home. Technically speaking, the action figure of the Yellow Ranger should probably utilize the male body type, but since American audiences associate Trang with the role it would be kind of weird to have a very masculine Yellow Ranger on our shelf. This figure is already not screen accurate because of this choice, and yet, I think it’s the right move and it’s not something I’m bothered by and I can’t imagine anyone is.

I wish I could get my Pink Ranger into that straight a stance.

Trini and Kimberly use entirely new parts when compared with their male counterparts. Despite that though, they’re still engineered the same way so the figures feel pretty familiar. They’re just more slight than the men with thinner limbs and smaller hands and feet. They obviously have unique headsculpts and Kimberly differs from her teammate in that she has an extra piece of plastic for her skirt piece as she was the only female Ranger in the Japanese version. They stand at about five and three quarters inches, which is roughly half an inch shorter than the males. They look pretty good in relation to the male figures, though I think you could argue Hasbro went a little too far in slimming these two down. Their limbs probably don’t need to be quite this slight as these are pretty athletic women, and the thinness of the limbs apparently necessitated a compromise when it comes to the articulation. Their proportions also look less appropriate than the men. I can’t decide if it’s the torso that is too long, or the legs. Something just doesn’t look quite right to me and I notice it more with Kimberly than Trini.

These women are packing heat, albeit in an unconventional fashion.

Like the men, these figures mix colored plastic with painted plastic. And like the men, it’s a problem. With Trini, she mostly looks okay. The yellow is quite bright with her torso being ever so slightly darker than the limbs. I have to be looking for it. Kimberly is another story. Her torso is quite a bit darker than her limbs to the point of being near purple. The pink on her helmet appears to be a completely different shade of pink, as does the skirt. She’s a mess, and to make things worse my figure was quite bow-legged out of the box as she comes packaged in a rather awkward position. I had to heat her legs up to try and straighten them out and they’re definitely better now, but not good enough. Trini is a lot more interesting to position and move. Her paint is fine and she might be the cleanest one I’ve received. It also helps that yellow paint slop just isn’t going to be as obvious as a darker color, but it’s good.

The articulation here is not as good as it is with the male figures, but you can still have some fun.

The articulation with these figures is nearly the same as the male ones, but it also works a little differently due to the sculpt. We’ve got a ball-peg at the head, hinged shoulders, elbow swivel, single-jointed elbows, and swivel and hinged hands. Shockingly, Kimberly has a vertical hinge on her right hand for her bow. I don’t know what it is about a bow that made Hasbro decide she needed this hinge, and the others didn’t, but at least they got one hand right out of 14 in this line. Trini, sadly, still has horizontal hinges to deal with. The women having single-jointed elbows instead of double-jointed ones is something I can only assume was brought on by the thinness of the arms. Hasbro used a hinged, ball, peg system so that’s why they have a swivel at the elbow instead of a biceps swivel. It’s a bit more awkward looking, but the figures can still curl their arms past 90 degrees so it’s not a huge downgrade. The diaphragm cut is where things get a little worse. It’s still a ball-joint, but it’s far less effective. There’s a lot of gapping when the figure arches back and the range of motion in general is poor. I attribute this to the lower portion of the torso not sitting further inside the upper piece. The ab crunch is also still here, but even more useless than with the men. The belt floats and can be adjusted and for Kimberly it’s attached to the skirt. The hips flare out, since these are women, and reduces the range of motion there. The men couldn’t really do a split, and the women are even worse which is a shame as I feel Kimberly’s signature move was the jump-split-kick. There’s a thigh swivel and double-jointed knees to go along with a boot cut and ankle hinges with rockers. The ankles are still the star of the show. Overall, the articulation is okay, but definitely worse than the men. Kimberly’s skirt also further reduces her range down there and her bow legs make just standing straight like the phony product shot on her packaging impossible and far less elegant than it could be.

Kimberly does have a regular arrow, if you prefer it to the pink, zappy, one.

Trini comes packed with a pair of gripping hands for wielding her Power Daggers. The little sai-like knives look fine and she has no trouble holding them, she just misses the proper hinges for her hands. Kimberly has her Power Bow with a gripping left hand to hold it and the specialized right hand for knocking an arrow. She also has a silver arrow she can hold, but it doesn’t work particularly well or look all that good. She also has an energy arrow which is far more accurate to the show and easier to wield. And it also looks a hell of a lot better than the silver arrow. It’s a translucent pink with the form of an arrow at the front and looks quite good. Trini has two, yellow, translucent, sparks for her daggers that make me think of pom-poms. They’re fine and it adds a little flair to her posing.

A more traditional form of “heat.”

Like the men, both women come with a second set of hands and a Blade Blaster. For Trini, she has another gripping right hand that is meant to be used in tandem with the Blade Blaster. She also has a style pose left hand that’s similar to a karate chop. Kimberly comes with a left fist and a style pose right hand in the same shape as Trini’s chop hand. This is pretty smart on Hasbro’s part as it gives the women a set of stylized hands to share, should you want to. And I seem to recall at least the Pink Ranger using such poses in the show. Neither woman comes with the collapsed Blade Blaster or the knife version, which is a bummer because the blaster version doesn’t fit Kimberly’s holster as well as it does the other Rangers. Curiously, Kimberly’s blaster is painted differently from all of the other ones opting for a metallic silver instead of white. I think this actually looks better, but it drives me a bit crazy that hers is different for no apparent reason. She also doesn’t have a proper trigger hand and neither default hand works particularly well with the gun.

Tommy, your girlfriend – woof!

Of course, both have a second, unmasked, head. Thuy Trang’s likeness is okay. I at least know it’s her, but it’s not as good as Jason or either Tommy head that came with his figures. Kimberly looks awful though. It does not look anything like Amy Jo Johnson to me. The hair looks fine, so I guess she’s not as bad as Zach since both his hair and his face looked terrible, but it doesn’t really matter if she’s as bad as Zach since she’s still bad. It’s a good thing I don’t value these optional heads because I’d be livid if I did. Their long hair also makes articulation much trickier than before. Trini is okay, but Kimberly kind of locks in place once seated so she basically can’t move her head in this form, but you’re not going to use it so who cares?

The various power weapons join forces to vanquish evil! Yes, I had to look at a reference image to remember where everything goes.
In case you prefer something akin to a side view. The bow gets a little cockeyed doing this.

Since these are the last of the Mighty Morphin figures I will review, it feels like a good time to talk about how the weapons work. Just like in the show, the weapons can combine to form a clunky looking mega blaster of sorts. The axe is the base and the bow clips into the front of it while the sliding action on the axe serves to hold it in place. The daggers and Billy’s twin, mini, tridents peg into the underside of the bow while the sword slots on top of the axe and bow. It’s easy to assemble, though a little tricky to get one of the figures to actually hold it properly. I was able to finagle the pose from the show with Billy and Zach grabbing one end of the bow apiece and the women basically just placing their hands on Jason, so it’s doable. There’s no screen accurate blast effect packaged with anyone though, but that probably would have made it far more difficult to pose with added weight on the front. This gun has always looked kind of silly, but I love crap like this. I love that the weapons combined on the show and I would have been irritated if the toys could not do the same.

Megazord? We don’t need no stinkin’ Megazord!

The female portion of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers brought with it a mixed bag. Generally speaking, this sculpt does not function as well as the male figure and that’s disappointing because there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work just as well. Despite that though, I’ve actually enjoyed posing the Yellow Ranger. Her weapons are simple, but not restrictive, so she has a lot of freedom. I’m also happy with her paint as she turned out about as well as the White and Green Rangers. The Pink Ranger though is another story. Her articulation is slightly worse, but what bugs me more are her warped legs and mismatched colors. She’s definitely the worst of the bunch and what’s working against her is I never liked her helmet in the show very much. She looks like an alien or something. She’s not a good figure which sucks because she’s been the hardest to get. I had to pay over retail for her because Hasbro stopped shipping her, possibly because there’s a new version out done in a metallic paint with a different actress likeness. I’m curious if that one is any better, though the metallic paint made it a non-starter for me as she wouldn’t fit in with the rest of my display. And if I didn’t need her to complete that display, I wouldn’t have her. She’s the worst figure I’ve purchased in a long while.

Group shot! Yeah, I know, the presence of the White and Green Ranger makes little sense, but I don’t care!

But you need the whole team! And that’s where Hasbro gets you. They know they don’t have to hit a home run with each figure in this line because collectors are going to buy them no matter what since they want a full team of Power Rangers. And now that I have a full team plus the Green and White Rangers, how do I feel? Pretty good. This is a case where the end result is better than the sum of its parts. I have issues with these figures, some more than others, but I’d rather have a full team than just a lone Green Ranger. And even though the scale is obviously way off, I do like having these guys with my vintage Bandai Megazord which displays better with this set than it did the vintage sets. I suppose that would mean it’s “Mission Accomplished” on Hasbro’s end, and that’s how it is with mass market action figures. At least now, after almost 30 years, I finally have a set of Power Rangers toys!

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January 29, 2021

Hasbro Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin Red, Black, and Blue Rangers

By Joe
It’s morphin time!

If it wasn’t obvious after my White Ranger review, I have decided I need to assemble a team of Power Rangers on my shelf. Specifically, the Mighty Morphin era. I’ve already posted my thoughts on both the Green and White Rangers, devoting a write-up to each figure, but for today I’m going to do some combining. And that’s because I am basically going to just talk about three different versions of the same figure. The base Power Ranger male figure is the same for each one, at least for the Mighty Morphin figures. I assume the other teams are similar, but I don’t know that for sure because I don’t have any of them, nor do I intend to get any of them. These three though are the same, and they’re basically the same as the Green and White Rangers too, though those two had a few unique pieces due to the slight differences in costumes. Now I don’t intend for that revelation to be a knock on this line, toy companies reuse parts all of the time and when the characters are pretty similar there’s no need to re-sculpt everything just for the sake of doing so. The actors in the show who portrayed the “teenagers” who become Power Rangers were fairly distinct in terms of body shape, but the costumed Rangers really were not.

I like what Hasbro has been doing with their packaging. Simple, but elegant, window boxes.

The good news is, I generally liked what Hasbro did for the other Rangers I reviewed. If I didn’t then I probably wouldn’t have bought more. The molds aren’t cartoonishly bulky like the old Bandai ones and was more reflective of how these characters actually look on screen. You can still nitpick them here and there, but for the most part they look like what I recall seeing on television back in 93. The articulation is solid, the paint has been okay for a mass market retail figure, and each figure has come mostly with enough stuff. This time though we’re going into original five territory. These characters were even more uniform with really the only difference being the head and unique weapon. All of them, in the show, were also armed with what was called a Blade Blaster which was a little laser pistol that could turn into a bulky knife. These three should be pretty similar with some room for there to be a clear “best” and “worst,” but my expectation is if one is good then all three should be pretty good. And, of course, if one is bad then they will all probably be bad.

Though I wish they used actual product shots on the rear as opposed to renders. Good luck getting the Black Ranger into that exact pose.

All three Rangers come in the same attractive window box with some unique artwork on the front and side and product shot on the back. The box is also color themed to that specific Ranger and these would probably look just fine to a mint-in-box collector, and for you openers the packaging is fairly durable and can be resealed with minimal effort. Each figure stands a tick over 6″; we’ll call it six and a quarter. And each one is some combination of colored plastic and painted plastic. Since these figures are essentially just two-toned, Hasbro tries to get away with using as little paint as possible and it creates problems. The Black Ranger is the best of the three as black is pretty opaque and plastic painted black and molded black are going to look the same. The molded white and the painted white which shows up at the butterfly joint is a little off, but for the most part he looks good. There’s paint inconsistencies here and there, and one glove has an ugly smudge of black on it, but it’s something you kind of have to deal with as far as this line is concerned. Strangely, he doesn’t have a red ring on his morpher, something all four have, so this is clearly an error on Hasbro’s part. The helmet is at least clean and looks pretty sharp. It was always one of my favorite helmets in the show with the mastodon tusks curling under the visor and it’s recreated here pretty well.

I’m going to be humming the theme song as I drop images into this thing.

Unfortunately, the Red and Blue Rangers are not as good. On these two, the colored plastic and painted plastic is noticeably different. The torso on the Red Ranger in particular is way darker than his limbs to a distracting level. It’s readily apparent in box, and still when removed. When he’s posed on a shelf with his limbs in a more dynamic pose the effect is minimized a bit, but not removed. The same is true of Billy, our Blue Ranger, but it’s not as severe. Instead, he gets to introduce a separate issue and it’s with the white paint on his torso. It’s not nearly opaque enough and the blue plastic shows through it. It’s bizarre for this figure to have this problem when the black figure is fine. These figures were not all released at the same time so it would appear the factory just had a bad run when it came time to manufacture the Blue Ranger because he feels like the clear dud of this trio. He also has the worst helmet of the three too as there’s a paint chip on the center horn and the shape just looks a little off to me. It’s very round. There are some sculpted lines on it, but the plastic is so dark and glossy that they don’t show well. I wish Hasbro had added some paint to bring them out more like they did with the Black Ranger who has some added silver paint. He’s not awful, but this figure is definitely helped by the fact that I’ve always enjoyed the aesthetics of the Blue Ranger, but someone who doesn’t like blue as much as I do would probably have a harsher take here. The Red Ranger also would benefit from some more paint on his helmet to bring out the design.

Hopefully you can tell how dark Jason’s torso is vs his limbs and how thin the white paint on Billy’s diamonds are.

The paint on these guys is definitely a mixed bag, but at least they’re all the same when it comes to articulation. To run it down again, these guys have a ball peg at the head that gives them an acceptable range of motion. Up and down articulation is limited, but it’s fine. We’ve got a ball hinge at the shoulder with a butterfly joint behind it. The combination of molded white and painted white plastic with this joint is a little unsightly, but the range created by the joint is, for the most part, worth it. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with butterfly joints. There’s a biceps swivel, double-jointed elbow, and the hands rotate and have horizontal hinges, which are bad for these figures. There’s a ball-joint in the diaphragm that provides some tilt forward and back as well as side-to-side. There is an ab crunch that’s mostly useless, and no waist swivel. I wish Hasbro would ditch the ab crunch and just go with a waist swivel. The legs are ball pegs and can kick forward, but not back. They also can’t do a true split, which kind of sucks for acrobatic characters. There’s a thigh swivel, double-jointed knees, a boot cut, and ankle hinges with rockers. The ankles are terrific and will be your best friend when it comes to posing these boys. It’s fine articulation on the whole with obvious room for improvement. Unfortunately, any improvement to it though will be a benefit to other iterations of the Power Rangers as I suspect Hasbro is not going to re-sculpt the Mighty Morphin figures anytime soon. Maybe when they do guys like Rocky and Adam they’ll retool some things, but it’s not something I’d count on. It also should be noted some are more stiff than others, though I can say no joints are loose. My Red Ranger’s elbows were also curved slightly which made working them a bit difficult. I ran them under hot water to try to bend the bow out and was mostly successful. His shoulder hinges are real tight though and he’s a bit more awkward to work with as a result.

The weapons turned out pretty well, at least.
This is the only blast effect among the five Rangers so if you want the combined blaster to fire this is your only option.

The accessories present the most obvious opportunity for these figures to separate themselves from each other as each Ranger had their own unique weapon. For Jason the Red Ranger, it’s the Power Sword. Zach the Black Ranger has the Power Axe, and Billy has the Power Lance. Very creative names, I know. Jason’s sword is just that, a sword. It’s fine, but the lack of vertical hinged hands makes wielding it properly more difficult than it needs to be. Hasbro also painted the handle black, so now I have black smudges on the inside of the hands. Definitely just heat those hands to make them soft when inserting this thing unless you want your figure to have dirty hands too. Zach’s axe suffers from the same hinge fate when wielded as an axe, but it also functions as a gun which the wrist hinges don’t impact much. And it’s pretty cool! It even has a sliding action on it so he can pump it like a shotgun. It’s probably my favorite weapon so far. Billy’s lance is fine, though it’s a bit flimsy so it will often have a slight curve to it. It’s blue plastic, so there’s less fear of rub with this one as the only paint is reserved for the silver trident tips and some minor details. Hasbro packed in separate handheld daggers for Billy as his lance could break in half. This was mostly for when they combine their weapons (which is something the figures can do if you buy all five Rangers), but he can wield these like sais if you wanted. It’s probably the smarter play than just having the lance separate as they would have had to have a separate middle piece that did nothing in order for the lance to be long enough. These weapons are good though, so no real complaints there. Each one also comes with an effects piece for their respective weapon. Jason and Billy have a lighting effect that is blue for both of them. Zach has a blasting effect for when his weapon is used in gun form. It’s a translucent red with sparkles and works pretty well, though it kind of looks like a pumpkin. It does add a lot of weight to the front of the axe so posing him can get challenging when it’s inserted, but not impossible.

Ready for a shoot out.
Zach is the only one who got the memo it was actually a knife fight they were supposed to show up for.

For the blasters, Hasbro continues to confuse. Each Ranger comes with a Blade Blaster in blaster form. It would have been pretty awesome if they could have made a transforming blaster (since the transformation was very simple), but that might have resulted in too fragile a piece so instead there are just regular blasters. The paint on them isn’t great, but the sculpt work at least looks nice. Zach also comes with a Blade Blaster in blade form. This is cool since it was something each Ranger had, though as a weapon it looked really stupid even to an eight year old, but it was in the show so I want the toy to have it. The blade though is permanently extended so it has basically one function. This sucks because in the show the Rangers would holster these weapons in blade form, but with the blade retracted (it was essentially an ugly switchblade). That means each Ranger can’t holster this weapon in a screen-accurate manner. I’m tempted to just snip off the blade, but that won’t solve the issue of the Red and Blue Rangers only having the pistol version. The pistol fits in the holster, but again, it’s not screen accurate and it bothers me. You can brush this aside by saying “Well, this is a line meant to appeal to kids too,” but kids care about that stuff! I was arguably more obsessed with things being screen accurate as a kid than I am now. At the very least, each figure should have come with this bladed version in addition to the gun, but Hasbro got cheap on us. It’s like they put it in with the Black Ranger just to wave it in our face that they could have done this the whole time, but chose not to.

Spare heads, if you want them. Though I can’t imagine anyone wants that Zach.
Yeah, I’m not going to use these.

Lastly, each figure comes with some optional parts. All have two sets of hands: gripping and fists. I appreciate the extras, but fists aren’t very exciting as optional hands. I’d have preferred maybe some chop hands or more style pose hands since these characters did a lot of that in the show. The other optional part is the unmasked head that comes with each. This is a good thing if that’s something that interests you, though I personally won’t ever use them. The likeness for each is based on their original actor so we have Austin St. John as Jason, Walter Jones as Zach, and David Yost as Billy. Of the three, Jason looks the best. It more or less looks like St. John. Billy’s head is okay. It’s a bit goofy and glasses are always hard to get right, but it’s okay. Zach though looks terrible. I don’t know what Hasbro was trying to do with this one. He had dreadlocks in Season Two and I guess that’s what they were going for with this one, but his hair just looks terrible and the face looks nothing like Jones to me. It’s bad. It’s probably a bummer for diehard collectors of Power Rangers who want to assemble a team of every actor who played these characters, at least for a casual fan like me it’s just an ugly lump of plastic that will stay in the box.

All right, it’s face-off time!
“Don’t worry, Tommy! I’ll save you by smashing in your face with my Power Sword!”

This collection of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is okay. I definitely do not like these figures as much as I did the White and Green Rangers, but I’m not feeling any buyer’s remorse or anything. They get the job done when put on a shelf, it’s when placed under greater scrutiny that some things start to fall apart. I think the Black Ranger is fine, ignoring his ugly unmasked head, and I’m mostly happy with how he turned out. The paint issues on the Red and Blue Rangers are my biggest complaints. I can handwave the inaccurate Blade Blaster and lack of vertical hinges for the hands, but the paint is a bummer because that affects the aesthetics of the figure just as much as the sculpt. The Red Ranger’s elbows, in particular, are ugly because they’re basically a candy apple red and the Blue Ranger has those poorly painted white diamonds on his chest. The thing I keep coming back to is that these are mass market retail figures priced at 20 bucks or less, in most cases. I shouldn’t even expect NECA quality with these things, let alone high end collectibles. Even with that caveat, I still think they’re a little disappointing because this is Hasbro and we know what Hasbro is capable of. Whether it’s Ghostbusters, GI Joe, or Marvel we’ve seen them do much better with paint and certainly matching colored plastic to painted plastic. I can’t recall ever having that be as big an issue with another line as it is here.

Hasbro is able to get a lot of important stuff right with these guys like the overall sculpt and articulation. They also realize that Billy should have a separate set of weapons for when his lance is separated. Then they go and mess up the paint and fail to include holstered Blade Blasters and just do some weird stuff that keeps these from being great. It’s frustrating.

Ultimately, you are free to like or dislike these figures. I suspect most will have mixed feelings, as I do, but I also bet there are some extreme reactions too. For me, I like the aesthetics of these sculpts more than I have any other Power Rangers products, so they work well enough. I always hated the over-muscled look of some of the Bandai figures because these guys aren’t Jim Lee drawings, they were just actors who were probably gymnasts first. If I thought Hasbro was going to do better I might have held off, but I don’t think that will happen unless they do some running changes when they get to the other actors, assuming they do. And if they do, I hope they just cast everything in colored plastic save for the hands and I suppose the boots. And they can also keep the white butterfly joint, I guess, though I think they can do better in color-matching that too. And if that happens, maybe I’ll sell these and upgrade (the Red and Blue, anyways), but maybe I won’t? These get the job done for me, I just think Hasbro can do better and I don’t blame Power Rangers fans if they want to hold Hasbro to a higher standard by ignoring these.

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January 27, 2021

Hasbro Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin White Ranger

By Joe
Looks like I bought another Power Ranger…

A couple of months ago, I purchased a Green Ranger from Hasbro’s Power Rangers Lightning Collection line of figures. The intent was to sort of replace my vintage Bandai Green Ranger following an unfortunate encounter with my children. I never intended to assemble a full team of Rangers on my shelf, but I am a fool. I was mostly impressed with that Green Ranger figure, and after weeks of seeing him all by himself on my shelf I found myself getting the urge to find him some company. Soon enough, I found myself scrambling to assemble the entire team of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the only incarnation of the show I watched as a kid. And while I enjoyed the show, I lusted after the toys which were supremely difficult to track down and I never had a full team. I had a head-flipping Green Ranger and my sister had the Pink Ranger and I honestly can’t remember if we got anymore. Now some 30 years later I have the means to assemble a team and Hasbro is willing to throw this line out there for folks like me with arrested development.

No one wants to be lonely.

That original team of Power Rangers consisted of the following colors: red, blue, black, yellow, and pink. The Green Ranger was added shortly after the show started as a villain, who would soon become an ally. You’re probably aware at this point about the show’s unusual development. It’s a Japanese show called Super Sentai and what Saban, the production company with distribution rights outside of Japan, did was cast American actors to play the alter egos of the Power Rangers. They’d shoot that stuff in the US, and then just splice in footage of the rangers in action from the Japanese program and overdub the voices. Since all of the Power Rangers wore helmets, it was easy to dub. The problem with this format is that once you run out of footage you’re kind of screwed, and that’s basically what happened with the Green Ranger. To fix this, they wrote him out of the show by having him lose his powers. They then brought back the character of Tommy Oliver (played by Jason David Frank) as a new Power Ranger: the White Ranger! Only this was even weirder as the White Ranger was from a different iteration of Super Sentai so he looked quite different from the others and often found himself taking on the minions of Lord Zed by himself. This was all stuff I was not aware of as a kid or even noticed, but as an adult it’s kind of fun to go back and watch this stuff with that knowledge.

This is the standard packaging release. There’s also the slightly more fancy “spectrum” packaging sold at Target, but the contents are the same.

In order to assemble a team of Power Rangers on my shelf, you could argue I don’t need both the White and Green Ranger. Well, the White Ranger was one of the easiest to find on store shelves and I do like his design and I’m profoundly weak, so here we are! This figure is quite similar to the Green Ranger as they basically all use the same body as the base of the figure. Hasbro then gives each character a unique headsculpt and weapon while also modifying the sculpt where necessary. For the White Ranger, that means sculpting new forearms and boots as his gloves and boots feature gold cuffs that require new sculpting. He also has gold armbands that are different enough from the Green Ranger that he needs some new tooling there as well. The black and gold vest he wears is a soft plastic addition that just fits over the main body of the figure. He also has a distinct belt and scabbard for his sword making him the figure with probably the most unique tooling in the line as far as the Mighty Morphin brand is concerned.

Ready to throw down.

From a purely aesthetic point of view, Hasbro absolutely nailed this one. Even more so than they did the Green Ranger, who I felt looked pretty damn good as well. For starters, the helmet looks great. There’s a lot of fine detail on it and it would not have surprised me to find paint slop in this area, but it’s all really clean. It’s striking, and I like how his head sits on the body in tandem with the vest, or shield, or whatever that thing is. With the Green Ranger, I felt his head sat a bit too low and his torso looked a little too long, but I think that was caused by the presence of his shield and the White Ranger’s vest mitigates those problems. The sculpting and detail on the vest looks terrific as does the belt and other gold accents on the costume. The hands and boots both feature the same sculpting as the Green Ranger as do the other parts of the body so he has some folds and creases which really bring out that authentic look. The only visual flaw with my figure is the presence of a smudge or scuff on the lower, right, side of his vest that’s barely visible because it’s all black. I did see several of these figures at the store and not all of them were as clean looking as this one, so definitely try to pick him up in person if you want this thing rather than order online. Overall though, I’m quite pleased with how he turned out.

Can he stand on one foot? Hell yeah he can!

While the White Ranger’s sculpt may differ a bit from his green predecessor, his articulation does not. This figure features the same articulation as that figure, but I won’t make you go back and read that review to get a rundown. His head is on a ball-joint and he can look up, down, rotate, and tilt a little. The shoulders are ball-hinged and also possess a butterfly joint which the vest works really well to conceal. There’s a biceps swivel above that gold armband and double-jointed elbows. The hands swivel and have horizontal hinges, which we’ll talk about in a minute. There’s a ball-joint inside the torso that provides great tilt and range of motion and there’s an ab crunch below it if you really want this guy to lurch forward. There’s no waist swivel, but that diaphragm joint works pretty well and I don’t really miss it. You have ball-hinges at the thigh with a thigh swivel just below on each leg. The knees are double-jointed and you get a boot cut as well above the gold cuff. The ankles are hinged and also have terrific “rocker” action as they pivot easily from side-to-side. Really, the only thing I miss is a set of vertical hinged hands, or even just one hand, for proper sword wielding. That’s a fault with the entire line though and not something unique to the White Ranger.

The problem with a talking sword is you never know how to hold it.

The White Ranger comes with a few accessories, but a little less than what the Green Ranger came with. He has his trusty sword at his side, Saba, the weird, talking, tiger thing. It’s his signature accessory and really the only one he actually needs, but it might bug some purists when they find out that Hasbro took some liberties with it. The shape of it looks fine and is largely as I remember, but rather than have a white, tiger, face on the hilt Hasbro chose to paint it all silver. It’s cast in white plastic so maybe someone felt it looked too boring being in white, but it doesn’t really bother me. Again, I’m not a Power Rangers super fan or anything, so others may be bothered by it. The stripes are painted black and are relatively clean. One side of his face is gold, while the other is left silver. I think both sides should be gold and, but I don’t believe this is an error on mine as a quick search of other reviews seems to produce the same thing. I think it would have looked cool if they added a little red to his eyes. I think they would glow in the show, or maybe I just wanted them to. Overall though, it looks okay and it fits in his scabbard if you’re a monster and actually want to pose this guy without the sword in his hand.

He also has this thing for the end of his sword. Is it an energy effect that didn’t exist in the show or just supposed to mimic light shining off his blade? I don’t know.

Aside from Saba, the White Ranger just comes with some additional hands, head, and an effects piece. Out of the box he comes with a right gripping hand and a left karate chop hand. In the box you will find a set of fists. It’s weird that he doesn’t have a left gripping hand, but I guess Tommy was a righty. Since he needs to be able to hold his sword, I doubt most will make use of that right fist, but it’s there if you want it. And it’s good that I’m lukewarm on it because the right hand snapped out of the hinge joint when I tried to remove it. The break was clean and I was actually able to get the hand back into the the joint, but it was a bummer. The second head is an unmasked one, as is the case with all of the figures in this line. It’s Tommy, but with a pony tail which is appropriate for this era. I believe this head was also released with the first Green Ranger Hasbro did, but was then replaced with a more appropriate head in the single release from late last year. The likeness on it is fine, but I’ll never use it once this review is done. I also had trouble getting the helmeted head off of the figure, and after what transpired with the hand, I just cut my losses and let it be. This line is technically for ages 4 and up, so it’s probably cool for kids to have the second head as they play, provided they can actually get the other one off. Lastly, White Ranger has this blue effects piece. It’s very spiky and the plastic is translucent and it has a little slit in it so you can stick it on the end of the sword. I guess it’s supposed to be a shimmering effect? I think that’s what they were going for, but it doesn’t quite work.

Everyone does the pose with the unmasked Ranger holding their helmeted head, but how many do the opposite? This is the content you come here for.

The White Ranger is a pretty fine release. It’s a twenty dollar figure that has mostly great paint, solid articulation, an attractive sculpt, and enough accessories to make him feel like a complete release. If I’m being objective, this is probably a better release than the Green Ranger I reviewed last year, but I’m partial to that character so I don’t know that I enjoy this one more than the other. Basically, I think Hasbro could have done a little better with the hands and effects piece, but otherwise this figure checks all the right boxes. My only real complaint is a lack of a vertically hinged sword hand. I think that’s a problem for the entire line though, so for whatever reason, Hasbro just doesn’t like vertically hinged hands. And then of course the quality control issue I had with the hand is not ideal. The pegs connecting the hands to the forearm are almost needlessly long and in this case the hinge gave out before the peg could be freed. It surprised me because this guy had been out of his box for nearly a week before I really messed with him so he had plenty of time to warm up. I’m tempted to return this one for another, but the hand went back on fine and the hinge is functional so I’ll probably just keep it considering the paint app was solid. This guy is not exclusive to any retailer though and should be pretty easy to get ahold of if you’re looking for him, so get get him if Power Rangers are your thing.

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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.

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

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