Power Rangers Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin Red Ranger Gallery

"It's Morphin' Time!"

Jason Lee Scott, was just a normal high school student. That is until an inter-dimensional being and his robot sidekick recruited the budding martial artist to be a hero. Jason, along with 4 of his friends, were transported to the Command Center, bestowed with the powers of the ancient dinosaurs, and tasked with a mission. Defeat Rita Repulsa and her evil monsters and defend the Earth as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! With mighty Morphers and a massive Megazord, Jason lead the Power Rangers in their fight against Rita, and even greater evils to come!

Packaging
As we are all pretty familiar with the line by now, I'm sure I probably don't need to go through my usual list of reasons why it's awesome. Hasbro was keen to make sure these appealed to collectors and fans of the franchise from throughout it's various eras. And 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.

Main Figure
It should be obvious by now, but this isn't the first time we've seen this mold. This is now the 4th outing of the male Mighty Morphin body. (MMPR White & Lord Drakkon share their own basic mold, differing from this one a bit.) What we have here is the exact same body type we got with the Dragon Shield Red Ranger, Dragon Shield Black Ranger, & Fighting Spirit Green Ranger, just sans the shield and armbands. This is a functionally identical toy, even more so without the armor, so if you want to skip the review portion and head straight down to the photos, feel free!

As mentioned above, nothing has changed other than cosmetically. The Mighty Morphin Red Ranger features full rotating rocker ankles as well as a clicking swivel joint for them to go back and forth, giving us a solid start. Above this is a shin swivel as well at the boot cuff, allowing you to rotate that portion of the leg 360 degrees below the knee if you wish. Then we get a very playful double jointed knee which allows you to fully bend the leg back in on itself. This is already great but there's also a 360 thigh swivel as well as full hips with back/forth and outward motion. Going backward you will impact that good old sculpted butt plate again. But it far from kills the articulation. All of these cuts are executed in the now standard Lightning Collection styling, doing their best to not be obtrusive to the character's design. On the belt is the classic Power Morpher featuring the Tyrannosaurus coin, while a holster sits on the left hip for the included Blade Blaster.

Like his mold mates, the Red Ranger features the same torso articulation, bot no Dragon Shield to restrict it's movement in any fashion. The lower half of the torso has the same satisfying ratchet ab joint I've come to appreciate from the line while the upper half sits on a ball joint. The combination of the two gives you quite a bit to work with when posing. The arms hit the sweet spot with that classic butterfly style shoulder joint. As you angle the shoulder back, the armor slides out to fill the gap and vice versa. There's a full 360 rotating bicep swivel, double jointed elbows, and the same peg style hands as the rest of the line. Honestly if nothing else the arms have been generally phenomenal on most of the Lightning figures. Making a great compromise of form and function.

The head nails the sculpt and design of the Red Ranger/Tyranno Ranger design, though I do feel it could be a bit sharper. As with the SDCC release, the stripe around the visor edge doesn't fully come around as it should. A minor but certainly overlooked detail on the production side. As for articulation, the neck assembly is identical to the rest of the line. Nothing new, just solidly functional. Remember that LC figures are a bit larger than SHF's both in general height and in proportionality so just take that into account when mixing a figure like this into your collection, if that's part of your gameplan. I've still retained a handful of SHF's to compliment my Lightning figures and been pretty pleased with it for the most part. This figure represents a pretty great if slightly basic Red Ranger/Tyranno Ranger.

Accessories

1 - Jason Lee Scott civilian head. Like most any Lightning Collection Ranger, the Red Ranger also comes with his alternate civilian head. Based on the likeness of actor Austin St. John. If this sculpt looks familiar that's because it is. We first saw it included with the SDCC 2-pack that featured Jason as both the Mighty Morphin Red Ranger & Zeo Gold Ranger. As before, I actually think the likeness is really good even if the expression is just a tiny bit dull.

1 - Power Sword. A straight repack of the weapon that came with the SDCC set, I still think this is a really nice 1/12 scale accessory. It feels about the right length, gets most of the paint apps right, and without losing it's definition is made of fairly pliable plastic. All in all it's a great representation that looks right at home in the Red Ranger's hands.

1 - Blade Blaster (Blaster Mode). Continuing an odd pattern, Hasbro has opted to include the Blade Blaster only in it's Blaster form. Meaning that when holstered in the Red Ranger's belt, it's entirely inaccurate. In all Zyuranger footage, and even in American produced MMPR suit footage, the Blade Blaster is always closed and usually fully collapsed when holstered. You can hide the butt of the gun at certain angles but it just isn't the right accessory. If we were going to get the blaster, then they should have also included the holstered form too, which is something that (so far) only the SDCC release of the Red Ranger came with.

1 - Lightning Effect part. Intended to use with the Power Sword, this part wraps around it's blade. Since the trend of this release is repacks as well, you guessed it, this part gets carried over from wave-mate Dino Charge Gold. Gold's is colored yellow to go with him, where as MMPR Red's is blue. That's the only difference here, the part is identical otherwise. I believe this part was specifically designed for MMPR Red as it doesn't really work all that well with DC Gold.

2 - Alternate hands. Continuing another recent trend with Lightning Collection figures, the Red Ranger comes with his two weapon holding hands attached in box. And his alternates are both closed fists, giving us two matching sets. As always I'd like more variety, but honestly I really appreciate having some matching pairs like this.

While this release doesn't deviate a lot from the SDCC Red Ranger release, I think there's maybe enough here to warrant a double dip of the mold if you're a big fan.

Final Thoughts
It's hard to say anything new this time around that I haven't talked about with this mold before. As my 4th experience with it, it remains a solidly designed and executed toy. I'm surprised we haven't see standard versions of the Black & Blue Ranger yet, but given the recent official reveal of the Yellow Ranger, and her discovery at retail, I'd say it's only a matter of time. For now though the Mighty Morphin Red Ranger is another fine, if a bit basic, addition to the line.

Part 2

Wish they would've fixed that helmet sculpt.

Anyway, the leaks have been dead on accurate so far so it's likely we'll see Billy in Wave 5 and non-shielded Zack in Wave 6.

Helmet sculpt is fine. It's the lack of the white paint on the visor that makes it look "wrong".

Maybe it's because it's 3:28AM right now but I swear you reviewed this exact figure

These should only stay at a $15.99-$19.99 price range.

If 2.0 ever comes in the future they better be at least Marvels Legends quality

The Zyuranger Red/ MMPR Red Helmet is just a perspective mess. It's a got a round profile from the front but not from the side. The Visor and forehead angle downward so it looks different every time he turns his head. Tack on the raised and lowered parts as well makes it more difficult. Green Ranger also has a similar issue but not as bad.

Notice that after Zyuranger, the helmet designs got a lot more streamlined or consistent. It's like they knew they made too difficult designs to reproduce for figures(though with 3D scanning now, they could probably get more complex again).

The Legacy version was just bad. I didn't have the shape at all and raised area's that shouldn't be raised. Looks like a lizard head.

The Lightning collection helmet is much better. Again because the front profile is almost a circle the LC helmet looks weird. Hasbro so far keeps squaring off the front profile of the helmets so straight on they look weird. It's like they are modeling from the wrong lens distortion.

The side profile though IS ON POINT. That side profile is the red ranger helmet. That's what it looks like.

The silver line on the visor is weakening the design. Put that on there with a paint pen and bam much better.

It's too late to fix the helmet now. Not too many people are going to put down another $20 bucks for a head. Now with a new body though that's a different story.

As to Marvel Legends quality?

These are Marvel Legends quality. The bodies I believe are the best of the one Hasbro are using. They also have the weakest paint consistency. Hasbro's line work is really not the greatest and well they designs depend on clean line work.

I think quite a few ML figures get away with errors is by either being mostly the color or the plastic or the figure doesn't need clean linework.

Still so of these LC figures are horror stories in comparison to their ML counterparts.



Blade Blaster - I get accuracy and all but the holster mode of the blade blaster for a figure is just excess. It's only purpose is to sit in the holster. It's not meant to be used for any real poses. I can see why Hasbro chose to just do the blaster that's actually "functional". Again notice how a lot of later shows don't have a useless holster mode.

The Zeo Pod get's away with it by combining in that for with the blaster. It's a little surprising now that after getting SPD red's blasters combining that they didn't do Zeo the same way.


Body wise, while this is the 4th time we've seen MMPR designs, they've been using this body for the majority of male figures. The Putty is the most basic form of the bodies.

Love this figure

The helmet looks off. Too narrow. Then again I loved the OG red ranger figure and his head sculpt was not accurate at all.

They should have lightning collection Incredible Bulkster and Super Skull “Boy Wonderful” as convention exclusives

It really baffles me that Hasbro could sculpt a perfect helmet for the nutcracker figures, but fall flat in their collector oriented line.