Power Rangers Lightning Collection Lord Zedd Gallery

"It is only a matter of time until I hold this world in the palm of my hand."

Rita Repulsa has had enough chances. After ruling over darker parts of the universe,*Lord Zedd has returned! The emperor of evil tasked Rita with conquering Earth, defeating Zordon, and destroying the Power Rangers. With her inability to do so, he has returned to do that job himself! With an army of super strong Putties, more powerful monsters, and an insatiable rage against heroes, could Lord Zedd finally defeat the Power Rangers?

Packaging
In creating this line, Hasbro was keen to make sure they appealed to collectors and fans of the franchise from throughout it's various eras. Given the aim to make this appeal to an older crowd, the packaging seems to have taken a page out of the Star Wards Black Series book. In similar collector style boxes, the Lightning collection figure's look a bit brighter thanks to a primarily white color scheme. But they also really pop thanks in no small part to some wonderful box art, lovingly crafted by artist Tom Whalen aka @strongstufftom on twitter. His artwork is breathtaking, and makes these figure's feel like just a bit more of a passion project from the folks at Hasbro. The artwork takes up a majority of the packaging, while the back of the box is relegated to a single stock photo of the figure. But that's not what we're here for anyway.

Main Figure
As the first proper collector oriented figure of any villain from Power Rangers, Lightning Collection Lord Zedd has to set a high bar. We know that the Gamestop exlusive Goldar is coming later this year, and other classic villains have been rumored for the line as well. But Zedd is so uniquely beloved that he absolutely had to be the first villain in the line. For years and years Bandai America produced a modest number of "evil aliens" and the like across their Power Rangers toylines. In the last couple of years thing certainly got better quantitatively as well. But we never got a fully functional and articulated villain. Things are changing at the entry level price point with Hasbro's 6" Basic line from Beast Morphers. See our Blaze review for a taste of that (Roxy coming soon). Zedd presents us with something we've never really had before though, a villain totally on par with modern hero toys.

Zedd is an entirely new mold. Every figure in LC Wave 1 is in fact. Each sharing only basic design concepts, but totally unique tooling. Zedd's is of course the most unique of all. One would have to be as a giant burnt flesh pile monster, and I wouldn't have him any other way. The last time we saw a true Lord Zedd action figure was the puny Legacy Collection 5" figure back in 2014. Before that we hadn't had anything since the old Super Legends figure. It's safe to say Lightning Zedd absolutely annihilates both of them. Zedd's entire body is sculpted, exposed, musculature. The character was absolutley terrifying upon first appearance in my childhood. There's a reason he had to be toned down a bit and made a little goofier as time went on. Parents thought he was pretty frightening as well. This figure captures the essence of evil that Zedd oozed in those early appearances with that wonderful sculpt. He appears near perpetually locked in a state of hypertension and anger, constantly flexing. And thankfully his body isn't just a flat off red like past figures, there's a subtle black paint wash that's been applied to really pull out the details. It gives the impression of depth and shadow.

On top of this red body, Zedd is criss-crossed with silver painted armor plating. I know plenty of people would like to see this as a chrome silver, and while I honestly would love that too, painted silver is just so much more practical. As is though I believe at some point in the future, a convention repaint of this figure with chrome parts could totally happen. It's the perfect idea for an exclusive. It neither excludes people from owning a character they want, nor is it the only option for a character. We'll see if it ever materializes but I'm confident. The silver we have here though is really well done. People have really inflated their displeasure of the paint apps on this figure and others in the line, which really perplexes me. For years we suffered with Bandai half painting (or not at all) tons of figures at over half the price point of this line. Even their supposed collector line of Legacy 6.5" omitted or just flat out got wrong the colors and details of practically every figure in the line. Hasbro has been making 6" collector style figure's for years via Marvel & Star Wars, they know what they're doing. While QC issues come up occasionally, I have no problem giving them the benefit of the doubt on them after the pathetic offerings we were given for years under Bandai. While my Zedd may have some minor silver imperfections, on the whole he's gorgeous.

For articulation Zedd comes with far more than the character has ever had before as well. Starting with the feet, Zedd has full tilt rocker ankles like Shadow Ranger & White Ranger before him. He is however missing some forward ankle movement due to the design of the shin armor. The knees are double jointed as well, but thanks to how thick the thigh and calve muscles are, he can't quite fully utilize them. However there is a wonderfully hidden thigh swivel underneath the thigh's silver armor bit. This provides so much extra movement for the legs that the ankle and knee issues can be overlooked. The hips remain fully functional too. All this adds up to a really dynamic range for this figure, more so than the actual physical suit could have ever accomplished across it's many appearances.

Unlike the rangers of wave 1, Zedd however does not have a waist swivel, largely due to the unique design of the v-shaped armor around his waist. One just couldn't be implemented. Zedd makes up for it with a perfect floating pectoral joint giving him plenty of range to move side to side. We also get a more standard ab joint, one with literal abs even! So Zedd's upper body can really move! The shoulders feature a wonderful butterfly style joint with lots of range in and out, and a full 360 swivel. We get the standard double jointed elbow and peg style hands with built in wrist joints. Nothing new or innovative here, but Zedd really has the perfect implementation of articulation cuts to get the job done. Zedd's head is where some really astounding detail is present, such as the exposed brain detail. Zed's mouth plate is also particularly well defined. The head is on a pretty standard neck joint and thanks to it's size and design you may miss a tiny bit of free movement, but I think Zedd can strike all the poses he really needs to.

You may have wondered this entire time whether the blue tubing running the length of Zedd's body would impact any of his articulation. Thankfully it does not. The hoses are all very soft rubbery plastic, and each has plenty of slack built into for extending any of the usable joints of the figure. Some of the tubing is free to move a bit as necessary while other parts like those under the silver chest armor are fixed. This mix of stationary and free parts provides stability and flexibility to really use the full potential of this figure.

Now as for scale, Zedd is a big boy, in a great way. If you're looking for him to fit in with your other Lighting Collection figures, then he's perfect. His proportions may seem a little squat, but he has all the mass and presence that the other figures of the line do. Hasbro's 6" Basic Line may come in a hair short, but I think it makes sense for Zedd to be a hair bigger there. If you're still planning to seed Lightning figures into an S.H. Figuarts display, Zedd will be a good head taller than most of the earlier realeases in the line. The Zyuranger/MMPR SHF's will be a bit puny by comparison. But with an Armored Red Ranger Lightninc Collection Figure (with Zeo Gold!) on the way now, it's likely only a matter of time before the 7 MMPR rangers all make their way to this line. As many collectors transition to LC from SHF, the ability to scale this entire collection together will only get better. Figuarts are great, but the scale of old sentai ones has long since been ditched. For the time being they work well enough to pose with a figure like Zedd though. I am very interested to handle that SDCC two-pack with red and gold though. They look like they could be great opponents for this mighty villain. Basically Zedd is going to work perfectly well with near any contemporary 6" figure line, and that's exactly what I was hoping for.

And while there's obviously no official toy of Zedd's throne (no I will not count that misshapen chunk of plastic from PMC last year either), I did find that Star Wars Black Series Emperor Snoke's worked perfectly! A while back, Snoke's were on deep clearance at Gamestop and that's where I got mine. They tend to run rather cheaply if you can find them in the wild these days. So if you're looking for a good substitute until or if an official one comes along from Hasbro, this is a great option.

Accessories
As this line continues to grow, we keep getting treated to a really great selection of accessories for each character. Zedd comes with:

1 - Monster Growth Bomb. A fairly simply piece but an essential accessory for the main man to have.

1 - energy effect. A red electrical/lightning effect, meant to wrap around one of Zedd's arms. As he was often seen flexing his own strength and energy to power up his staff, or simply to express anger, this is another perfect add-on for the character.

2 - additional hands. One being an open right hand, the other being a closed left fist. It may not seem like much but it's all the options you really need for Zedd given the two hands he already has attached by default. My one grip with all the hands is that the fingers are painted silvery/gray.

1 - Z-Staff. This classic weapon is nearly as iconic on it's own as Zedd's terrifying design is alone. The staff that menanced many a Power Ranger is a perfect scale weapon for this figure. There's a grip molded into the center of it that provides the most stable option for holding it, but really the hands have a close enough grip to hold it from any point on the staff if you so choose. As with Zedd's armor plating I know many people would have preferred it to be chrome, but I don't mind the gray so much either.

As is, Zedd is loaded with everything he could possibly need.

Final Thoughts
Lightning Collection Lord Zedd is another incredibly solid addition to this growing line for collectors. If you haven't gotten on board yet, then this would be the perfect entry point for you. But if you have already, Zedd will be the perfect compliment to your Lightning Collection White Ranger, and any future rangers yet to come!

Part 2

This is, without a doubt, the figure PR fans have been waiting for much of, if not their, whole lives. I could only grab one LC figure the other week when the entire case went up at my local Target, so there was no question I was going to snipe this one the moment the opportunity presented itself. And I was not disappointed. Zedd's victories against the Rangers may not be particularly numerous, but in this case?

Hail to Lord Z.

Me Wantee!

I'm so tempted to grab the snake from the Archive rerelease of Yoda and give it to Zedd.

Throne, lawn chair, Earth, Green Crystal!

Where do all of these non-P.R. accessories originate from?

Yeah, I can see why some missing paint apps would bother some people. But for the most part they look fine to me.

Remember, these are budget figures (I mean yeah they're like 20 bucks but still) so these things are expected. They're not Figuarts. Most likely reason is that some of the budget went to those GLORIOUS effect parts.

The throne is from Star Wars Black Series Snoke. Got him on clearance last year for like $10 and it worked out perfectly! Beach chair came from an old Palisades Muppets figure. I've long forgotten which one but the hair dryer in the last shot came from that set too. As did the pizza! The Earth is just my laptop screen. And that Green Crystal is one of the Morph-X Blades from a Micro Morphers Megazord.

I'm just rather resourceful
Exactly. Some missing paint apps, or in fact improperly applied ones, bother me. But I'd be much more bothered and critical of a figure double or triple the price of this one. As is these things are an incredible value at their price point.

This makes me realize just how much I'd love to see a Zedd figuart.

No need when this figure exists.