Toku Toy Box: Power Rangers Lightning Collection Zeo Gold Ranger Gallery

"Okay, now it's my turn!"

Courage, Wisdom, & Heart. The three elements that define a Triforian. Three beings as one. Travelling to Earth in the mighty Pyramidas,*Trey of Triforia*carried with him the awesome powers of the*Zeo Gold Ranger!*Aiding the Power Rangers whenever a new threat appeared, the Gold Ranger rushed onto the battlefield. And although Trey had to pass his powers to Jason Lee Scott for a time, this golden hero is tough to defeat. After helping the rangers to defeat the Machine Empire once and for all, Trey remained an ally of Earth for years to come in the battles against both the Alliance of Evil and the Armada.*After all, once a ranger, always a 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
It's been a while, over a year to be exact, but we finally have a standard retail release of the Zeo Gold Ranger for the Power Rangers Lightning Collection! Originally this mold was released exclusively in the SDCC MMPR Red & Zeo Gold Ranger 2-pack in 2019. It's great to see it finally hit retail in a more attainable way now, and in order to make this release something of a must have if you've already got the two-pack, this release of the mold comes as Trey of Triforia, rather than as Jason Lee Scott like the original release. You may be wondering just how different this release could be to warrant picking it up if you already have the first one, and the answer is maybe slightly more than you'd think.

The base mold of Gold Ranger is essentially unchanged physically. Right down to the the pre-molded chest details that were carried over from this mold originally, back to Zeo Blue & later Zeo Red. The articulation cuts are identical as well, so Gold Ranger has all the same range as his teammates, maybe slightly less because of armor bulk but it isn't reduced by much. Full rotating rocker ankles and swivel joints for forward/back motion as well provide the tried and true base of support. We get the 360 shin swivel cut into the shin just behind the gold armor. The double jointed knee is back as well and despite the bulk of the gold armor around this joints it's still very flexible. This figure also has the same 360 thigh swivel and that signature sculpted butt plate. As always these articulation cuts give the figure all the range it needs to be an excellent display piece and functional toy.

As I've pointed out before with this line, I really love sculpted fabric folds, and the Gold Ranger has some very subtle but well done details like this. It's especially noticeable around the waist where the "fabric" is tucked under the belt, which features a perfectly sculpted Gold Ranger emblem. The lower torso has the same satisfying ratchet joint as other rangers in the line, and a similarly ball jointed upper body. The combination of the two gives you quite a bit to work with when posing Gold Ranger. This is particularly nice in addition to the soft rubbery chest armor the figure has. These figure's are designed as toys first, but an extremely close second is their collector nature. I really appreciate the nice dark paint wash applied to the shield as it brings the sculpt of it out to the forefront. I kind of wish the other bits of armor were this way as well, but I'm still happy with how it turned out here.

The arms feature the same butterfly style shoulder joint. As you angle the shoulder back, the black armor slides out to fill the gap and vice versa. As mentioned above the Zeo print detail on the forward shoulder joint that would only be present on the core team of Zeo Rangers is pre-molded in, and the chest details are molded as well. A carry over of the original mold that we've since come to see in use on Zeo Blue & Red. The arms still feature the trusty swivel bicep joint, double elbow, and free moving peg style wrists. While the peg system means we miss out on some movement because of the cuts for the pegs with the hands, it still works phenomenally. Luckily the shield is also nice and flexible so even if it were to impact the arms while posing it doesn't pose much of a nuisance. The Gold Ranger's helmet rounds out the figure with it's striking gold trim. On a nice free moving ball joint, this figure can pose with the best of them.

Now how about those differences I mentioned above? Well, putting the two Gold Rangers side by side, you'll notice a couple. For my review the original release is on the left while the single pack version is on the right. If you look closely you can see that the Gold armor is just slightly off between the two. The paint used is just a shade or so off, the paint wash is just a little different as well for the chest shield. Even the Gold trim on the Trey release is of a slightly different color to Jason. If it were simply one component that was different I'd have chalked it up to being factory error. But it really seems like there was a purposeful effort to give this release I slightly updated paint job to set it apart more, however that's not where the changes end.

Accessories
This is where the real differences are. Trey doesn't really come with the same accessories that Jason had:

1 - Trey of Triforia head. This sculpt is of course based on the likeness of the DiFillippo triplets, take your pick as to which as to which specific one this sculpt represents. It's a good if very basic head sculpt, the expression is a bit subdued but the likeness is quite good. I'd have appreciated a sculpted smile or smirk, but I'm glad it gets the point across at least and features the signature scar across the eye.

2 - additional hands. Between the extras and those already attached to the figure we have two closed fists and two weapon holding hands. I always appreciate matching pairs but I really would have liked some karate chop style ones for additional battle poses.

1 - Golden Power Staff. This is a bit of an odd but notable difference between the two releases of the Gold Ranger. The SDCC set came with the standard closed Power Staff, where the upper portion is shut and the ornamental hilt sits just below the grip. It also came with the fully opened sort of battle mode version of the staff, where the gold halves of the head are opened and the hilt is molded to the bottom end of the staff. But Trey includes a weird sort of mid-form of these two. Trey's staff has the opened halves on top, but the hilt is still in the raised position below the handle. Not only that but his staff also has a couple of additional silver paint apps not present on either of Jason's. It's an oddity, but definitely something you won't have if you only own the two-pack.

1 - Golden Energy Effect. A recolor of the energy effect that came with Jason, this one is cast in more of a bright almost neon yellow rather than the nice gold of the last release. This effect part is probably my least favorite in the line, simply because it can't really hold it's shape very well.

Final Thoughts
While the differences are either minor, or just very odd, there are enough to justify a purchase here in my mind. Power Rangers is so unique, in that for a long time the same actor could have had more than one set of powers, been in multiple seasons, been multiple different ranger colors. In this case we had the same ranger powers used by two different people. And we know Hasbro isn't going to give use every civilian head to go with each Ranger who had multiple users in one release. So slightly different release like this totally make sense. Just look a the Pulse exclusive Metallic Armor Pink Ranger that comes with Kat's head for a great example. If you have the SDCC 2-pack do you really need this release? No not at all. But if you're someone like me who tends to be a completionist, then the Lightning Collection Zeo Gold Ranger is right for you.

The gold looks really realistic in your shots! Is this straigh out of the package? Or did you touch him up?

Shame about the staff though, really preferred the closed staff option, its like the one every gold ranger figure is packed with. Wish they had at least made the top modular so you could switch between open or closed.

A bit like the two versions of Seihou Kuuga, the differences in gold really do look like something where you just wouldn't notice unless you had them side by side; so that's pretty good!

Very weird thing with the staff, didn't know that before. They should have just gone with the 'active' version imo, as I'm sure that's the one most people would want.

Not touch ups at all, I'm completely incompetent when it comes to painting things

Nice gallery. Looking forward to more.

Wow, if the gold is that good, then i'll definitely pick one up. The product shots made it look too bright and plasticy, but yours make it look great. I guess hasbro's product shots suck on power rangers as well.

Also, does bandai still make the effects you use? I tried looking for the impact, lightning, and explosion effects, but all i found were bootlegs.

I remember someone on YouTube pointing out that the staff with this figure is actually inaccurate to any configuration in Zeo and Ohranger.

It certainly is inaccurate. It's a super weird hybrid. Don't know why it was made this way.

I can understand the reasoning - doing a compromise of the two to replicate both since they can't have both - but ultimately it's just kinda disappointing either way and I think they would have been better off choosing the active. Not that bad though.

What a way to kick off Toku Toy Box with my favorite and best looking Ranger. Brilliant gallery. Does anyone know why the DiFillipo triplets didn't actually speak and it was Brad Hawkins that supplied the voice instead?

Also, lol. When I was a kid and didn't know Gold Rangers visor meant "King" at the time, I just assumed it was "six" because he was the sixth Ranger and it had six "points" (lines?) and when I learned that it actually means "King" it's even cooler.

If I wasn't fat, I'd cosplay as Gold Ranger for damn sure!