Power Rangers Lightning Collection Beast Morphers Cyber Villain Blaze Gallery

"Hey rookies, meet my new friends."

The Beast Morphers hiatus is going strong right now, so it's time to sit down and settle in for a new gallery! Blaze was meant to be a hero. Blaze was meant to be, a Power Ranger! Trained by Grid Battleforce with his teammates Roxy & Ravi, Blaze was chosen to become the Red Ranger. But on the day this new team should have assembled, fate and Evox, intervened. Taking the essence of Blaze and all of his innate abilities, Evox has created an Avatar of the would be hero, a new Cyber Villain general to lead his armies of Tronics & Robotrons. Now what began as a simple grudge between the original Blaze & Devon Daniels has morphed into something else entirely, as the would be ranger turned avatar battles the man who's taken his place, as the new Red Ranger......

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
The Lightning Collection has been going strong marching into it's 4th wave and I'm really happy with how it's come along. I'm stringing out my Wave 4 reviews a bit to make them last and today's subject was an absolute treat. Blaze is now the third evil ranger to join the line after Psycho Blue & Psycho Red, but he definitely brings so much more to the table, even given how awesome both of those were. He's also now the 4th release from Beast Morphers after Red, Blue, & Gold Rangers. (Where's Yellow Hasbro?) Gold has been my favorite thus far, but I think Blaze will give him a food run for his lead position.

Blaze is a marvelous fresh release after the basic paint swaps of BM Red & Blue. The Lightning Collection line has always had great sculpts, but Blaze is on another level. This is an exquisitely detailed figure from head to toe. Compared to the rangers he fights, Blaze's suit has so many more interesting facets to it, which of course is carried over from the Dark Red Buster suit that Enter utilized near the finale of Go-Busters. I've been a big fan of that design for years, and I dearly loved Go-Busters. Hasbro has brought that suit back and given it a toy when I simply never expected one to exist, and they've made it look incredibly good in the process. The articulation it should comes as no surprise is basically standard here, just the same as what the Red & Blue Rangers had. But What sets Blaze apart begins in the lower legs with his textured ankle joints, riveted boots, and striated flared pants. Thankfully none of this impacts the usefulness of the hinged and full rotating rocker ankles, the boot cuff swivel, double knee joint, thigh swivels or hip joints. This is all eye candy on top of functionality.

While the upper body is of course different from the Rangers, it follows the same basic design philosophy. A sort of "skirt" of the torso armor extends under the belt and around the waist though here it's meant to look more like armor than a piece of clothing. Blaze's design incorporates some nice angular shapes on the abdomen with some rivets looking like they hold the entire assembly together. Blaze's belt features the same Evox symbol as his chest (and the Tronics). It's a striking sculpt. The torso functions just as other figures in the line do as well, a ratcheting ab joint and ball jointed upper body. The design pairing just makes so much sense and works so well, I really feel like it makes up for the lack of a proper rotating waste joint. Around the shoulder joints Blaze has a soft plastic vest, in the same way the other rangers have harnesses too. His can be removed and put on another figure if you so choose, just be careful not to stretch the plastic too much in the process. The vest more than any other part of the suit, really has that fantastic leather texturing to it.

Blaze's arms are once again based around the archetype of articulation we get from this line, making them very solid. They feature the same kind of angular panel design as the torso and manage to incorporate the standard articulation cuts without any loss making them very versatile. The double jointed elbow and butterfly shoulder joint are always welcome. The one unique bit is the Evox Beast-X Morpher on the left forearm. This brings us to the headsculpt which is absolutely spot on and brings an even greater sense of villainy to the design than it already had. I love this suit and that helmet brings it all together.

If you're looking to pair this figure up with any of the Beast Morphers 6" Basic figures, then the good news everyone! The scale is near perfect between that line and Lightning Collection. As you can see below I've thrown in a few comparison photos with 6" Basic Blaze. The two figures are obviously aimed at different demographics, the Basic skews toward younger fans and collectors while Lightning Collection attracts decidedly older fans. Each has it's merits and of course the LC is a clear improvement on the design. Boasting a bulkier suit with more detailing and paint apps and quite a lot more articulation, it's a fantastic upgrade for collectors like me who jumped on the basic when it was released. The nice part is that the Lightning Collection Blaze will still fit in near seamlessly with 6" Basic's like Tronic, Roxy, or any other villains you may have purchased. And of course you can put him with his successor, Robo-Blaze!

Accessories

1 - Unmasked Blaze head. Looking at it straight on it feels a bit soft, but from angles it's honestly a pretty sharp sculpt. And I feel like you get a different expression from it depending on the angle you view it from. No matter how you look at it though, it's a dead on likeness for Blaze's actor Colby Strong. And of course, if you so choose, you can put Blaze's head on the Red Ranger body and create the future Blaze was meant to have before Evo intervened.

2 - additional hands. Between these extras and Blaze's base hands we have a pair of closed fists and a part of open weapon holding hands. As always I'd appreciate an open pair for expressive poses but honestly this gets the job done.

1 - Blaze Saber. Blaze's standard weapon is a more traditional blade than that of the Rangers, it isn't based on a transformation from any other device like the binoculars the Beast X Saber is formed from. As a more traditional sword, it fits with the edgier aesthetic of the Blaze ranger suit design. You can see in comparisons below that isn't all together that different from the one included with 6" Basic Blaze, but it is a bit bigger and more detailed over all. Also I've made up the name for this weapon because as far as I've ever been able together, it's officially unnamed.

1 - purple effect part. An excellent addition to any LC figure is the ever present effect part, and this one is wonderful. The purple is a perfect compliment to this evil ranger, and the part slides over his Saber perfectly snug for battle poses. It's very similiar if not identical to some of the electrical/lightning effects we've seen previously in the line, but I'm always a sucker for recolors.

1- Robotron Maker. Absolutely the cherry on top of this release is the Robotron Maker laptop. Inspired by Enter's personal laptop from Go-Busters, the Robotron Maker has been used by Blaze, Scrozzle, and Roxy through out Beast Morphers. So included with Blaze was Hasbro really going the extra mile. It's a very well sculpted accessory with just enough paint detailing to really bring out what you want in it. Specifically the "Virus Loading" screen.

The only additional accessory I'd have really liked with this release is the Beast Blaster the Basic 6" did come with. Even Robo-Blaze comes with a version of it in that line. But I get why it wasn't included here too. I have used that Blaster as well as the Blaze Morph-X Key in my gallery as well. All in all this is an excellently well rounded release.

Final Thoughts
The Lightning Collection has already delivered on some of my biggest desirues for 1/12 Sentai/Ranger action figures between Magna Defender, Beast Morphers Gold, the upcoming Ranger Slayer. This line is going places and I am here for every single release in it. But Beast Morphers Blaze is perhaps one of my absolute favorites. Hasbro did fans of Go-Busters a real solid but putting this excellent design in Beast Morphers for a considerable amount of original footage, but making such a faithful recreation of it in figure form really is the icing on the cake of this line so far. Now, bring on Roxy & the Yellow and Silver Rangers!

Part 2

Love love LOVE how he looks. He's downright perfect for what he is; I'd really like more hands, but aside from that the more I see of this figure the happier I am. They really did this one justice.

As always you do great with the "Morphing Sequence" on this gallery.

And yeah, Blaze was definitely the standout of the Wave he was in, and I'm sure he'll make both Beast Morphers and Go-Busters fans alike happy to have him.

Got this one in yesterday and, while LC in general has been great and the Beast Morphers in particular have been spectacular (apart from some one-off molding defects on Gold's horn), Blaze is easily my favorite of the bunch so far.

Also has anyone noticed that his unmasked head is a pair of sunglasses away from Albert Wesker/Johnny Cage/Duke Nukem/Johnny Bravo?

A figure long awaited, especially considering Enter's involved. Out of any LC figure, I feel this is one of the most important ones

This is one of my favorite figures. I really like how Hasbro did this one.

Enter was a better villain but I do like what PR has done with Blaze.

I really hope a 3p comes out with an enter head for this. That would be so killer!

If you're willing to either paint it yourself or pay someone to paint it for you, Casting Cave has an unpainted head sculpt that looks pretty good.