Power Rangers Lightning Collection Lost Galaxy Red Ranger & Psycho Red Ranger Gallery

"Who are you?"
"You don't know me? I'm Psycho Red!"

Faster, smarter, stronger, evil. The Psycho Rangers were the greatest weapons in Astronema's arsenal that the Power Rangers ever faced. But with the combined might of all 6 Power Rangers they picked off the Psychos one by one until all were defeated. Gone but not forgotten, a new darkness has risen in place of Dark Specter's Alliance of Evil. Seeking to destroy her own team of Power Rangers, Trakeena has resurrected these maniacal monsters as her own blunt instruments of destruction. Leo Corbett and the rest of the Lost Galaxy Rangers have never faced a threat like this before, but with the help of heroes of the past they may have the power to win. With the Psychos on the loose yet again, it'll take Rangers to the 10th power to save Terra Venture, and the galaxy!

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. The two-packs like this one really do shine the brightest though. The extra spread for the artwork really drives home just how gorgeous it is.


Main Figures

Lost Galaxy Red Ranger - "Go Galactic!"
Leo/Lost Galaxy Red Ranger come thematically packed with the Psycho Red Ranger, representing the one time the characters met in the "To the 10th Power" episode of Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. I know plenty of people were up in arms about this pairing, many preferring to have seen the In Space Red Ranger with Psycho Red instead. But I have to say I think pairing these two together was genius personally.

LG Red AKA Leo is a pretty standard design overall, but a really outstanding looking figure in hand. To get a basic feel for how this figure functions in hand, look no further than MMPR Red. The articulation and layout are basically identical, nothing is drastically different in hand. Leo has 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 classic sculpted butt plate again. But it far from kills the articulation. All of these cuts are executed in the standard Lightning Collection styling, doing their best to not be obtrusive to the character's design. On the belt is the iconic "v" symbol of the Lost Galaxy rangers, as well as a hip mounted holster for the included Quasar Saber.

Featuring the same basic articulation as much of the line, the lower half of the torso has the same satisfying ratchet ab joint I've come to appreciate, while the upper half sits on a ball joint. The combination of the two gives you quite a bit to work with when posing. Lost Galaxy Red's black striping is done expertly between these two parts as well. If you twist the upper body enough, you can see the black paint apps extending all the way up and under the upper body allowing for the design to remain seamless even if you arch the back fully or hunch the torso over. The arms hit the sweet spot with that classic butterfly style shoulder joint as well. As you angle the shoulder back, the body 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.

Lost Galaxy Red's helmet is another serious winner for the line. While occasionally the finer details can feel a bit soft on LC figures, and maybe they are a tiny bit soft here, but the overall package is very solid. I know not everyone is a fan of sculpted lips in a ranger helmet design, but I'm a pretty big fan and on LG Red they come across very well in figure form. The standard neck joint provides you all the necessary range you'll need to get this figure in all the natural poses you'd like. As always, I can't shoot a gallery without a cameo or two as well. This go around Leo get's to team up with his brother Mike the Magna Defender. But I've also busted out one of my vintage vinyls with the Starbeast Gingaleon. And to replicate everyone's favorite shirtless Red Ranger I've popped Leo's civilian head onto the body of Marvel Legends Namor. So, do with that knowledge what you will! It works astonishingly well.

Psycho Red Ranger - "Let's go Psycho!"
Last year, I was absolutely blown away by Hasbro's initial effort with the Psycho Ranger design in Lightning Collection Psycho Blue. After a completely fumbled attempt at this team from Bandai America's Legacy 6.5" line, it was refreshing to see it done right. I have really positive thoughts about this mold overall, and it should come as no surprise that my review of Psycho Red will be nigh identical to that of Psycho Blue. The mold is 100% identical, the only difference is the cosmetic one, red paint instead of blue. So if you're familiar with the first release of this mold and want to skip the review, feel free! We have over 90 images of this 2-pack for you to enjoy. Also, if you'd like a bit of insight into the design process of the Lightning Collection, I really really encourage you to head over to twitter and follow @alwaysbumping. Dennis is an outstandingly talented artist and he's begun sharing some of his sculpting work for Hasbro's Power Rangers line. Pertaining to this gallery, Dennis sculpted the Psycho Ranger mold! Something I was totally unaware of at the time that I reviewed Psycho Blue. You should really head over and look at his original sculpts for these figures, I'm particularly fascinated with the design process that goes into a toy line like this.

Since their appearance in Power Rangers In Space in 1998, the Psycho Ranger designs had never been translated to toy form prior to Bandai America's half-hearted attempt. In fact, no proper figures had ever been produced of these characters even for Denji Sentai Megaranger the year prior. So the prospect of having them has been appealing to many fans of both franchises, for many years. Coming as no surprise, Bandai's attempt was less than stellar. You can look back at examples of this in both my [URL="http://www.tokunation.com/showthread.php?t=94665"]Psycho Silver[/URL & Psycho Green galleries. But within the first full year of the Lightning Collection, we now have two Psycho Rangers for Hasbro with Pyscho Red & Blue. As Hasbro's fantastic one-upping of Bandai's Legacy 6.5" line intensifies I think it's safe to say we could see the whole team put together for the first time in the near future.

Hasbro's Psycho's come in at a much more agreeable scale than the old Bandai 6.5" line. As you can see below, when compared to most any standard ranger in the line, Psycho Red is a perfectly sized foe. While Psycho Blue was the first Blue Ranger of any kind in the Lightning Collection line, Red is now the 6th Red Ranger in the line. And thankfully for my gallery efforts and all of our collections, Red & Blue make a fantastic evil pairing to square off against Lost Galaxy Red and his brother the Magna Defender. The Psychos are still some of the most richly detailed figures in the line and all the credit goes to their sculptor.

Much of the articulation present in the Lightning Collection line is pretty standard, generally with a few adjustments to suit a new mold here and there. Psycho Red starts with tried and true side to side rocker ankle joints and ratchets for forward and back. These provide plenty of range for wide stances and stability for the figure to lean front or back. As with other Rangers, Psycho Red also has a hidden cut at the shin armor allowing you to rotate the leg beneath the knee joint, while the knee itself is double jointed to fold back upon itself.

The sculpt on the hips is much sharper and more accurate than Bandais while disguising pretty well the thigh swivel, where the old Psycho figures had limited in-set hip joints. The hips themselves aren't really obstructed in any significant way, so thankfully those combined with the ankles and knees gives you plenty of play for posing. The waist itself is another area of huge improvement. Where Bandai opted for soft flat surfaces, the Hasbro figure has raised 3 dimensional detailing, particularly on the hip armor and Psycho Ranger emblem.

The upper body takes a page out of the book for basically all the shield wearing rangers in this line as well. Bandai handled the Psychos' torsos by making them two vertical parts, interlocked by an ab crunch joint. Hasbro opts to have a lower torso with ab crunch coming out of the waist, while the upper body is on a floating ball-joint that can move independently and provide you a far greater range of movement. But this is also accented by the fact that the upper body armor is yet another separate piece sitting on the upper body. The chest armor is a soft rubbery plastic ala any of the Dragon Shield Ranger's in the line. This soft aspect comes into play when posing the arms as well, making them free and flexible.

The arms function like any other Lightning release with full rotating shoulders on a collapsing butterfly joint set into the torso. Some fantastic double joint elbows and the standard type of hinged wrist joint provide plenty to work with for posing. The head is the final piece that brings the whole design together. The mouth plate is fully sculpted and set into the helmet, the eyes on the visor are properly separated, and the entire head feels more accurately proportioned. While it does sit pretty low on the neck joint, meaning you lose a bit of backward movement, it's otherwise a pretty great design overall. Hasbro's second outing with this mold is yet another win.

Accessories
This two-pack is well, packed with accessories. It's a smorgasbord of what you need:

LG Red:
1 - Leo Corbett civilian head. Like so many figures in this line, Leo comes with an unmasked head as well, and it's one of the better sculpts. While a few of them have fallen flat in the likeness department lately, the likeness to actor Danny Slavin is actually quite good. I think the expression is maybe a little dull, but overall it looks the part to me.

2 - alternate hands. While the figure comes with two open weapon holding hands attached, the alternates are a mixed pair. One karate chop style right hand and one closed left fist. I'd always prefer a matching set when possible, but the variety of two different hands is hard to argue with as well.

1 - Quasar Saber (collapsed). This smaller version of the Saber, arguably a dagger, is intended for use in the belt holster. It's primarily painted gold, which isn't quite accurate, taking on the gold that should be on the outside of the holster. But collapsed form is really only meant for being in the holster anyway, so I'm less concerned by what's going on with this accessory.

1 - full Quasar Saber. The fully extended version of the weapon, this is the proper weapon we all wanted. Paint app wise I think Hasbro did a great job here too. It looks like the spitting image of the real deal. It scales very well with Leo as well, though I feel like it may be a bit on the thin and narrow side? I wish the grip was a bit thicker. Otherwise I think it looks really solid in his hands. I particularly love the attention to detail on the guard, like the sculpted in Red Galactabeast emblem, and the Lost Glaxy emblem on the reverse side.

1 - Flaming effect part. Designed to be used with the fully extended Quasar Saber, this sweeping flame effect is actually quite nice, but quite heavy as well. It looks fantastic and helps communicate some motion when posing with the figure. But if by chance you should have an LG Red with a weak wrist, it may be too much for the joint to hold up.


Psycho Red:
2 - extra hands. Changing the format of parts from Psycho Blue, Red comes with two extra closed fists. While on the right arm we already have the amazing energy effect hand attached in box. I absolutely love the sort of Force Lightning design of these alternate Psycho hands. They just look very menacing and the clear plastic really helps them shine in the right light.

1 - Psycho Sword. Each Psycho Ranger has their own signature weapon, and Red's is a unique twisted version Andros' own Spiral Saber. A really interesting tapered blade with a red and black etching set near the base, the grip has a super slick spiral hand guard that I just love. It can be a little bit difficult to get the hand around the grip because of the guard, but it just's such an attractive weapon that once it's in Red's hand, you'll be very pleased.

Oddly Psycho Red does not get his own effect part the way Psycho Blue did. But his weapon is a bit larger as well so maybe that's the trade off there. Both Lost Galaxy & Psycho Red come with a ton of fantastic parts, the sort of pipe dream I'd like fulfilled for both would be Lights of Orion parts for Leo and maybe a data card for Psycho Red.

Final Thoughts
I know I was a bit behind actually getting around to this photo shoot, but I'm honestly glad that I saved it for last as it's turned out quite well. With this two-pack out of the way I'm all caught up aside from the recently released Wave 4, which I've not personally found yet. But at this point I'm obviously in love with the Lightning Collection, and I'll basically buy any and every release Hasbro throws out there. The Lost Galaxy Red Ranger take a pretty simple mold but spruces it up with another flare and great accessories to make it a real winner. While Psycho Red builds on the success of Blue, adding another member of the team and pushing us one step closer to a full line-up. This is another excellent two-pack that was perfectly themed and I look forward to what Hasbro has in store for the rest of 2020!

Part 2

Part 3

Of all the figures in this line, I'm enjoying seeing the Psychos the most. In a line of fantastic looking figures overall the Psychos genuinely seem the most well-realised and defined and really get across their personality so well. As someone who hasn't seen either Megaranger nor In Space, I'd really like at least one of them because both design and sculpt are so fantastic. Here's hoping for a release of Black or Pink!

I know the two threw down in Lost Galaxy, but I still say it would've been better for it to be either Space Red + Psycho Red or Galaxy Pink + Psycho Pink.

If I had to guess , doing Space Red would have been even more redundant. Two figures you could still buy online from legacy.

In the end it's just a box. Two packs are to pair figures that won't sell alone. It's not to just make thematic sense.

That's pretty perplexing, though -- as Reds they're easier sells than most every other ranger on their team except Magna Defender.

I still think that the Psycho's horns look a tad too short in the LC

Easier to sell doesn't mean they will sell. Also the Legacy Psycho wave of figures still came out in that last year. Hasbro would be asking people to buy a figure they just purchased and doesn't do more then have a special hand(they do more but from just observation in packaging).

Mostly an angle thing. They appear longer when the head is angled downward and with the"gundam" face the Legacy line had.

Right, but does that mean we can then expect to see -every- LG ranger in 2-packs like this? If even Red can't sell well - especially when LG hasn't ever had figures before - that doesn't bode well.

If they were concerned about Psychos not selling well because they'd just come out, why bother with them now instead of holding off for a few years?