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A Couple Years of The Lightning Collection

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Walt

Despite it being pretty much my absolute favorite tv show for a time back in the ’90s–particularly 7th/8th grade–I never really had any of the TOYS from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

I had a fair bit of licensed stuff–folders, paper pads, stuff with imagery from the show–but other than a McDonald’s White Ranger/Falconzord from the movie, it wasn’t really until maybe 2009/20010 or so that I got a Megazord or my own, and it was awhile before I discovered and acquired any of the Legacy Collection line.

Then a couple years ago the MMPR property apparently was sold, and Hasbro got the license and rather than continue with that, they started their own line…the Lightning Collection. lightning_collection_mmpr_sides

Due to already having a (for me) huge collection of MMPR stuff that doesn’t even fit onto TWO shelves’ space combined…I’ve been acquiring Hasbro’s Lightning Collection figures when they’ve had the Mighty Morphin’ characters. I don’t care for the later iterations…MY sweet spot, my nostalgia-spot, is Mighty-Morphin’! I’m also loathe to pick up on anything based on the Boom Studios comics, as I still–FIVE YEARS LATER–refuse to buy stuff from them in my one-man-protest against their handling of the initial release of their MMPR comics.

lightning_collection_mmpr_full_nonlightning_collection

Anyway…for lack of shelf space, I’ve yet to OPEN my Lightning Collection figures. And since they’re pretty much display-ready as-is, they’ve remained in their packages, as I’m showing them off here.

lightning_collection_mmpr_basics

2 years in, having just received an apparently-out-of-print/out-of-production Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger (bought as "not mint" and I expected a beat-up box but even the BOX is in as good or better condition than the others!) I now have all the Rangers I’m interested in.

Red, Blue, Black, Pink, White, Yellow, and Green.

Also have Goldar from (I believe) a Gamestop release (though I’ve seen the character elsewhere since, so I’m not sure now if it was exclusive or exclusive-for-a-time). And Lord Zedd was–along with the White Ranger–part of the initial wave a couple years ago, if I recall correctly.

While they might LOOK cool, I don’t need any variants like a Dragon-Shield Red Ranger or such. Just HAVING the single-figure packs of these characters mean pretty much the only other figures I might care for would be a single-pack Rita Repulsa, Finster, Squatt, and Baboo.

Yet those might be just as well in multi-packs or such.

Ditto for putties–army-building generic figures seem to me to be better to be part of a multi-pack than taking up limited slots in single-figure assortments. And simply AS generic things, better to get in bulk anyway!

lightning_collection_mmpr_twopacks

With the White Ranger being a single-pack figure from the start, when I saw a Green Ranger (albeit "Fighting Spirit Green Ranger") I leapt for it. Bonus…it came with a Putty! I wasn’t about to buy multiples just to get more Putty figures, but hey…I only ever had a single Foot Soldier with my classic TMNT figures, so hey…it is what it is.

Later there was a 2-pack release of Putty Patrollers that I got; though of all the figures, this is the only one not to have a window box display! Perhaps it was cheaper that way; and for bulk generics, it’d make sense. I only ordered the single pack, though as I type this I consider perhaps I should have ordered another.

Then there’s the Lord Zedd & Rita Repulsa pack. I’d actually more or less FORGOTTEN that I had a single-pack Lord Zedd when I ordered this; but not being aware of a single-pack for Rita, and being annoyed at lack of other similar-price-range figures being available to purchase from NECA, I ordered this from Gamestop partly out of spite toward NECA.

lightning_collection_mmpr_deluxe

I’d come across this deluxe pack/2-pack of Alpha and Zordon at some point and snagged it. I don’t recall if it was from Walmart or Target, but I suspect Walmart.

More recently I snagged the Pumpkin Rapper and King Sphinx deluxe packs. Given the general lack of villains ANYway in Power Rangers toys, I hadn’t really even NOTICED the lack of villains in the Lightning Collection.

Most of the "monster of the week" ("monster of the DAY?") monsters were largely forgettable and hardly as enduring as the Rangers themselves, or the "main" villains. Forgettable–so why do them at all? On the other hand–as an "of the day" or "of the week" there’s a HUUUUUUGE quantity of these things to have made!

On one hand, I could almost say that with some of the single-pack figures "out of print," they could be re-released with some villains a la NECA’s TMNT 2-packs. Buuut…already having all the Rangers, I would hate having to re-buy them just to get a villain.

If they re-released the Rangers as 2-packs (i.e. Red & Yellow, Black & Pink, Green & Blue) that wouldn’t really affect me. I could see them doing Ranger vs. Putty packs…which would not be ideal for ME but at least passing on Putty figures I wouldn’t be passing on unique monsters.

I’ve also snagged several of the Lightning Collection "prop" releases: White Ranger Helmet, Red Ranger Helmet, Power Morpher, and Dragon Dagger. I’d gladly buy a Lighting Collection counterpart to the long-outta-print Legacy Collection Power Sword. I don’t think I’d care for any of the other weapons outside of POSSIBLY the White Ranger Tiger Dagger (Saba?). And other than a Green Ranger helmet, I don’t know that I’d necessarily care for the other Rangers’ helmets. Particularly with my vastly-decreased display space for anything. (decreased due to sheer volume of acquisitions the last 2 1/2 to 3 years).

I’d also be VERY interested in Zord releases, especially toward an Ultrazord. But I suspect some of what made the originals and Legacy Collection Zords work was Bandai and Hasbro may simply not have the ability to duplicate that? Who knows.

Because I’d taken the photos anyway…here are closer-up images of the current-configuration of my Mighty Morphin Power Rangers shelves.

lightning_collection_mmpr_full_nonlightning_collection_left

The left part of the main shelving…

lightning_collection_mmpr_full_nonlightning_collection_right

…and the right part.

lightning_collection_mmpr_blogtrailer

Filed under: 2021 Non-Review Posts, 2021 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, showing off the shelves, The Toy Chronicles | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Tamashii Buddies

Posted on June 5, 2018 by Walt

I can’t remember when I first saw the Tamashii Buddies figures for Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers–but it feels like it’s been at least a year.

I’ve only ever seen them at Toys R Us, but the price has often put me off on ’em, and I never got around to actually getting any of them.

Of course, over the past year and a half or so, my Power Rangers collection has expanded quite a bit.

tamashii_buddies_mmpr

With Toys R Us‘ "Store Closing" "liquidation sale," prices recently moved to 40-60% off. "Action figures" went from 10% off (not really "worthwhile" as that’s barely tax) to 50% off (quite worthwhile).

After checking prices on a number of things, I ultimately settled primarily on these Tamashii Buddies figures.

I’m not 100% on how I feel about them…but whatever the case, I really like the way they look! I just wish they had figures for the other original Rangers–Black, Blue, Yellow. Based on the box art and the "look what else you can buy!" stuff, these are it…at least for what had made its way into Toys R Us.

These are from two different TRU stores–the one did not have Lord Zedd while the other, as it turned out, had all 5. Of course, I only "needed" Zedd when I went into the second store.

I wound up walking out with my second-largest single TRU purchase (price-wise) of my life (which I’ll likely post about some other time, along with the first).

Anyway…these are the latest additions to my Power Rangers collection…I just need to figure out the shelf arrangement to include them!

tamashii_buddies_mmpr_blogtrailer

Filed under: 2018 Non-Review Posts, 2018 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Toy Chronicles | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

More Imaginext Power Rangers: Dragonzord!

Posted on April 25, 2017 by Walt

There’s little quite like finding a far-too-expensive toy you’ve wanted (but been unwilling to pay that high of a price!) marked down nearly 50%, combined with unusual personal-life stressors to instigate an unplanned purchase.

In this case… the Imaginext Dragonzord!

imaginext_dragonzord01

Part of the expense on this one over the other various figures and Zords seems to be the “remote control” functions, and built-in sound effects/music.

When you turn the Zord on, it plays the traditional “dragon flute” tone; left sitting it’ll also roar.

imaginext_dragonzord03

With the dragon flute (remote), you can make the Dragonzord turn in circles, go forward, and fire the chest-missiles. Turning the platform the Green Ranger stands on will open the chest and activate the “arming missiles!” sound effect.

imaginext_dragonzord02

While this one is not nearly as detailed and awesome as (I imagine) the Legacy Dragonzord, this cost me less than 1/3 of what that one would…and this moves, has the sound effects, and is much bigger.

imaginext_dragonzord_and_megazord_and_white_tiger

While this Dragonzord dwarfs the White Tigerzord…it is itself dwarfed by the Megazord I got some time back. I won’t put it past myself to get on a kick and want to track down the other individual Zords (Pterodactyl, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Sabretooth Tiger, Mastadon). But really, for now, I’m quite happy with the ones I’ve got!

mini_dragonzord

A few weeks back, I found this miniature Dragonzord…some sort of “Armor Series” of Imaginext figures…this slides (just barely) over a Green Ranger figure. (Somewhere along the way I’d also bought a pack of Mighty Meeples…which included a duplicate of the Superman that I bought for $1 weeks before that.)

mmpr_and_marvel_mighty_muggs

And to close out this post…above I have a shelf with my Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Funko Pops figures and the Imaginext figures. They’re also sharing space with some of my much older Marvel and Star Wars Mighty Muggs.

Filed under: 2017 Non-Review Posts, 2017 Posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Toy Chronicles | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

MMPR and Why I’m Done With Boom! Studios’ Single Issues

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Walt

I was excited last week for the debut of the new Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers series from Boom! Studios. I was annoyed at the SEVEN different covers for the #0 issue…but they’re all such great-looking pieces, and the property has just the right bit of nostalgia, that I was actually looking at bucking my usual hatred of variants.

I enjoyed the story of the issue, in part along with the notion of acquiring not one, but SIX to SEVEN copies of the issue, to frame and display the covers in my “comic cave.”

Unfortunately, I was only able to acquire one single cover (Black Ranger), and when I took to online retailers, no one had any of the issues in stock…and then I was BLOWN AWAY when I tried eBay…and learned that TWO of the covers were RATIOED VARIANTS.

1_50_green_ranger

The Green Ranger cover was 1:50, and the White Ranger was a whopping 1:100.

That is…for every FIFTY COPIES of the regular covers a retailer orders, they can order ONE single, solitary copy of the Green Ranger cover. A retailer would have to order ONE HUNDRED COPIES of the regular covers to be able to order ONE single, solitary copy of the White Ranger cover.

That is complete and utter BS, and I call shenanigans!

1_100_white_ranger

This is a “team book,” that is–the book stars the TEAM, a cast of more than one primary character–in this case, a team of SIX characters. ONE of those characters spent time with the powers of two different Rangers–Green and White. So while all SEVEN covers would be a great set, since the story FOCUSES on the early part of the Green Ranger even being part of the group, the White Ranger cover COULD be seen as a “bonus” cover, separate from the “set.” Bad enough each character has to have their own individual cover (rather than any sort of team cover)…but then Boom! goes and pulls this, taking arguably the most popular (Green and White) and making them not 1:7 (equal ratio), not 1:10 but 1:50 and 1:100 respectively.

Even if a retailer gets the issues at $1 each, that makes the Green cover a $50 book, and the White a $100 book. Move that price upward the more the retailer has to pay.

What would have otherwise been a fun little “exception” to my no-variants personal policy has turned into downright frustration, and frankly, at this point, I’m done with Boom!

I was “all-in” for three years with Valiant, and dropped the publisher as a whole last summer over their crap with the Legends of the Geomancer. It’s been awhile since Boom! has really had anything of any interest to me–Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers was gonna be my gateway back into their product, to having something of theirs on my pull list (and through whatever house ads/etc, I’d see as a result) probably get some of their other series back in my attention.

Instead, on principle, I’ll be voting with my wallet. Instead of my buying 6-7 copies of THE SAME ISSUE now, and continuing to purchase the ongoing monthly series’ issues each month, AND whatever else would grab my attention from there…I’ll likely part ways with the copy of the issue I did buy. And going forward, I will not only not be buying the series at all, I’ll not only passively not currently be buying anything from the publisher…I’ll be actively AVOIDING the publisher’s entire output…at least as single issues. Perhaps later in the year I’ll make an exception for a collected edition (provided the collected edition itself does not have variants), but as single issues go, as “supporting the series” goes…nope.

Thanks, Boom! for operating on the short-sightedness and money grab. You’ve earned ill-will on my end.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments »

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