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All Power Rangers instrumental theme songs (Unmastered) by Lemos Design
This was just too fucking awesome to not share. Enjoy! ^_^
Jyger’s Favourite 10?! – 10 Most Badass Red Rangers
I was recently having a conversation with my friend Sam about badasses in Power Rangers, when we eventually came upon the topic of who the most badass Red Ranger of all time is. I couldn’t really decide that, though, because in over two decades of Power Rangers, it’s usually a constant that the Red Ranger is a badass. Even the most unlikable of those that have worn the colour red have had plenty of badass moments. Nick, for all his belly aching, was still willing to charge The Master alone, and Mack, despite quitting with the other Overdrive Rangers in Once A Ranger, was willing on multiple occasions to sacrifice himself to save the world. Even Red Rangers that didn’t lead their respective teams, like Rocky, still had plenty of memorable moments where they put it all on the line to stop evil. So, with all of that in mind, I’m gonna try and determine who the 10 most badass Red Rangers are in all of Power Rangers. Before I do, though, here’re some ground rules…
- Power Rangers ONLY, no Super Sentai entries. Main reason is because it makes the possible candidates even longer than it already is. In Power Rangers alone, there’s been like 30+ individuals that have worn Red or a variation of it, maybe even closer to 50 when you consider that the Samurai Rangers were a generational team.
- Only one per team. In other words, if I, for example, picked one of the SPD Red Rangers, I can’t choose another.
- No evil Rangers. Nothing against them, it’s just, when one generally thinks of badass Power Rangers, we usually think of them in terms of what they’re willing and able to do against the forces of evil.
- The choices have to be made based on their credentials as Red Rangers, not any other powers they’ve had. As such, and I KNOW I’m gonna get a bunch of comments for this, Tommy is NOT on this list. Reason being, in having watched every episode of Power Rangers that Tommy was a participant in, his more badass moments happened when he was the Green or White Ranger, or even just as himself, plain Tommy Oliver, without his powers. Nothing against his tenure as the Red Ranger, he pulled off the role with the level of competence expected of him, just that in terms of those sheer “OMG, that was frigging awesome!” moments, they’re lacking when compared to other things he’s done.
- The powers have to actually be THEIRS. In other words, as much as I’d like to include more potential female candidates, Gia and Emma assuming Legendary Red Ranger Mode doesn’t count toward this list.
And as always, remember that this is all opinion based, so don’t freak out if my opinion is different from yours. Anyway, with all of that out of the way, I suppose we might as well start off with the archetype and standard bearer of the badass Red Ranger…
There’s this constant argument over who was the more badass Ranger: Jason or Tommy. In fact, it’s an argument that spills out into real life, with people debating Austin St. John vs Jason David Frank. However, while I refuse to comment on that and thus get it started here, I will say that, much like how Tommy’s more badass moments occurred when he wasn’t the Red Ranger, Jason was probably a bigger badass when he WAS the Red Ranger, as opposed to, say, when he was the Gold Ranger in Zeo. When the Rangers lose their confidence after being subjected to horrific nightmares from Goldar, he still finds it in him to stop Goldar’s plot. He manages to fight off Goldar and Tommy as the evil Green Ranger when trapped on his own and without his powers long enough for the others to find him. He defeats a monster by himself when the Rangers have been kidnapped, and then goes to rescue them before their powers are taken. He defeated Tommy in battle and freed him of Rita’s control. He took Cardiatron out. And there’s just his opening line to the General Venjix in Forever Red: “You know, if you miss King Mondo that much, I promise we can help you join him.” In the end, all you can say about Jason is that he is a consummate badass, strong in mind, body, and spirit, and is able to stand up to any threat, no matter how imposing…Actually, here’s food for thought: In today’s day and age with Power Rangers, MMPR Season 1 probably would’ve ended with Jason fighting Rita while she’s in some powered-up form. Imagine THAT ending. lol
What else can I say about a guy that tried to run down a monster with a hummer, held off two giant monsters with just his side-arms, blew up a monster at point-blank range, charged through deadly energy blasts to punch a monster in the chest, and whose trademark response to a monster terrifying people was to pull his blasters and shoot ’em down?…Well, not much, other than to say that I’m pretty sure his theme song is Move Bitch by Ludacris. lol Add in the fact that he is both an action hero and a rescuer, more concerned with the protection of people than the kicking of ass, and you’ve got more than enough reason for Carter to be one of my all-time favourites.
This was REALLY hard to determine, given his competition on his team, but ultimately, I decided to go with Eric. The first sixth Ranger to wear the colour Red while being sixth, he’s just a really ballsy, hard-assed SOB that will plough down anyone who gets in his way. And of course the Q-Rex is sheer metal awesome, too. For those that have never seen it, it’s a giant robotic t-rex with a pair of cannons strapped to its back, and can also turn into a warrior mode just for funsies. But, if nothing else, you gotta look at his Mega Battle armour and think, really, how many people can you think of who look badass while wearing ROLLER-BLADES? With that said, I DO feel bad leaving Wes outta this, because he had his awesome moments on the show. One thing I’m actually kinda upset about is that we don’t see his final stand from the timeline where he didn’t make it. Why? Because according to that, he managed to take every single one of the bad guys with him! Hot damn, that’s a hell of a way to go out!
………………Just show it.
Oh yeah, and he also had that fight to the death with Trakeena that ended with him blasting her at point-blank range with his Battlizer set to full power, and…My God, I could make breakfast on those abs…………………………………………*slaps myself* NEXT!
Okay, I MAY be a bit biased in this pic given my general favoritism and desire to see a girl on this list, but let’s be fair, she DID manage to destroy a giant monster that had taken down the Claw Armour Megazord with just ONE Zord. Right from the get-go, she’s shown to be someone with skill on par or greater than Jayden’s. Plus, anyone that can take the long-since dead running gag about how Mia can’t cook and make it funny again is plenty awesome in my book. Really, the only reason Jayden might rank higher with some people is because he was around longer. I guarantee that if Lauren had been on the show from the beginning that we would’ve gotten plenty more awesome moments from her. But, I suppose I should give credit where it’s due and bring up some of Jayden’s more awesome moments, particularly his deadly duels with Deker, where he showed he was a force the likes of which only a few other Rangers could compare with.
Looking back, I’ve realized that Mack really deserved to be on a better season with a better team. The potential of his character, being an artificial lifeform raised to believe he was human, could’ve been explored a bit more, and he wouldn’t have to be remembered as the Red Ranger on the worst season of Power Rangers. Also, while he DID quit with the others in Once A Ranger, he made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere, and I DO believe he would’ve at least tried to help out around the mansion and their base however he could. Then there’s his credentials as a badass, and he does have plenty. Ignoring probably the more infamous (and complete bullshit) of those moments, when he chopped a giant monster in half unmorphed, there’s the aforementioned moments where he was willing to die to stop evil, like when he was gonna blow himself and the Fearcats up, or when he went to the volcano alone to fight Moltor and retake the crown, or when he used every last bit of his power to destroy Flurious. Granted, one can argue that he did these things seeing himself as disposable with nothing to lose, but there’s still something to be said for his passion and relentlessness in the face of evil.
Yes, I like Wild Force. Leave me alone. lol And I like Cole Evans. Yes, his character was a ham and cheese sandwich, but he was still likable, and Goddamn if he couldn’t kick some serious ass. He was also capable of brushing off some pretty epic beatings, too. Just look at his fights with Master Org. These two lay the most epic of beat-downs on each other. He even took the team’s combined weapon, the Jungle Sword, and Savage Slashed the heck out of Zen Aku over and over on his own. AWESOME. And of course, there’s the infamous moment where he destroyed Serpentara with a frigging motorcycle. Although, looking back on it, you wanna know what annoys me more than that? The fact that, after doing so, he only ever uses said motorcycle for transportation. He has a War Zord slaughtering motorcycle, and he never uses it when, say, Master Org was killing the Wild Zords??? C’mon, given his character, you don’t think he’d summon that thing and go straight for Master Org’s head? That woulda been awesome! Oh well, Cole still had plenty of sweet moments, which make it all the easier to look past his cheesy dialogue.
It’s admittedly hard to stand out as a badass on a team FULL of them. For example, take Scott, RPM’s Ranger Series Operator Red and leader of the team. His whole team is one big pack of badasses. Even Ziggy, the clown of the team, has his fair share of moments where he’s walking awesome. So how do you stand out on a team like that? Answer: You be Scott. Everything he does exemplifies his awesomeness. He owns the room when he’s in it. He has mastered the art of being an action hero, where in his own words, “When it comes to talking, less is more”. And despite being from a completely different dimension than the mainstream PR universe, he’s clearly read from the Carter Grayson book of badass, in that if necessary, he can and has charged giant opponents with nothing but his weapons. To quote Jim Ross in talking about Shawn Michaels, Scott is “like a pitbulldog, he doesn’t know how big or how little he really is… he doesn’t really give a damn”. And everything he does just has this element of cool and charm to it, unless story-wise he’s specifically SUPPOSED to be shaken or vulnerable. He’s like the Will Smith of Power Rangers. How can you not like him?
Again, a tough crowd of Rangers to stand out from. Hell, one of the Jungle Fury Rangers is a blind warrior. Still, while he started off Jungle Fury as the new guy that was unsure of himself and made mistakes aplenty, Casey quickly grew into a kickass fighting machine. Even the big bad of the series, Dai Shi, found himself on the receiving side of a most righteous of beat-downs from Casey on more than one occasion, though the best was near the end of the season: Casey just walks through a squad of Rin Shi without much effort or thought put into it, and then proceeds to have a brawl with Dai Shi that trashes the villain’s lair. He’s also willing to put his life on the line to prove that Jarrod could overcome Dai Shi’s influence, turning his back on him and telling him to destroy him. He even dispenses of the standard Battlizer armour and instead gets smaller armour components meant to work with a kick-ass motorcycle that literally steams through opponents. Yes, Camille, Red IS the tough one. 🙂
HE SAVED THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE! Case dismissed! And even beyond that, just look at Andros’ first appearance, where he managed to infiltrate the meeting of the United Alliance of Evil. Not only does he manage to do so and get away while confronted with the biggest bads in Power Ranger’s history at the time, one thing I take considerable note of: He knocked Lord Zedd on his ass……..I will repeat that. Lord Zedd, one of the most feared enemies of the Power Rangers, the villain that tossed even Tommy around like a ragdoll and was only forced to retreat due to a stalemate in the fight, got KNOCKED ON HIS ASS by Andros. Anyone that can do that is a badass in my book. It kinda makes you wonder how quickly situations on Earth would’ve been dealt with if Andros was on Earth from the beginning. My guess is that, after Green With Evil, Andros would’ve been like “Nope, not going through this again, I’m taking my badass spaceship/Megazord to the moon and hacking that palace in half”.
Anyway, that’s my list. Who are some of your favourite badasses in Power Rangers? Leave a comment below, and we’ll see if the Red Dino Charge Ranger can live up to the legacy of the Red Ranger in February. Ja né!
Jyger’s Favourite 5 – My 5 Favourite Megazords
So as people probably know by now, I’m a big Power Rangers fan. I’ve been with it ever since the fourth episode of the original season, and from there, I’ve watched damned near every season from start to finish, as well as several Super Sentai seasons in the past few years. And as I’m sure a lot of people will agree on, one of the best parts of the show are the awesome giant robots, known in Power Rangers as Megazords. So I’m going to talk about 5 of my all-time favourites from Power Rangers and Super Sentai, though some could simply be different Zord/Megazord configurations, and as always, you’re free to list your own in the comments. Oh, and for the convenience of those who have never watched the Sentai, I’ll try to keep to using the English terms like Zords, Megazords, etc.
I thought I’d start off with one that hasn’t appeared in PR yet. GokaiOh is a swashbuckler of a giant robot, highly agile for its size and armed with twin sabres. The compartments on its chest, arms, and legs open to reveal a seemingly unending amount of cannonballs that are fired from the cannon protruding from the chest. But that’s not all it can do, as using the Greater Powers of previous teams allows GokaiOh to combine with Zords of the past to create different formations, occasionally based on said team’s Megazord.

#2 – Dragonzord in Battle Mode from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Gouryuujin from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger)
When the Dragonzord was added to the roster of Dino Zords in the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, they were granted the ability to combine it with the Mastodon, Triceratops, and Saber-Toothed Tiger Zords to create the Dragonzord in Battle Mode (also known as Dragonzord in Fighting Mode and erroneously the MegaDragonzord). While it possesses an attack notorious for never frickin’ working, its primary finisher is a massive drill thrust that has claimed many an enemy, even the dreaded Mechagodzilla…kinda. 😛

#3 – Ninja MegaFalconzord from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Super Kakure Daishogun from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger)
True story: When I was a kid, I used to draw really, REALLY bad comics for myself of the Power Rangers fighting giant monsters, and in them, they piloted the Ninja Zords. I LOVED the Ninja MegaFalconzord, probably because it was the first traditional Megazord capable of flight. And what was its finisher? It flies as fast as it can, channelling all of its power into its fists, and punches the bloody hell outta whatever is in its way, not unlike a move Superman popularised. AWESOME.

#4 – Supertrain Megazord from Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue (Grand Liner from Kyukyu Sentai GoGo-V)
Oh my God, I love this thing. To anyone who wonders why I love Lightspeed Rescue, my answers are Carter Grayson and THIS: The Supertrain Megazord. First off, it’s HUGE, and with that size comes a TON of power. Also, this baby be packing some serious artillery, from freeze missiles to an ion turbine weapon. Granted, it is slow as all hell, but a smart Ranger wouldn’t set it against speedier monsters unless absolutely necessary anyway. The only other problem with it was that using its artillery could cause overloads at times when they first used it. Still, love this thing. Anyone ever wants to make me happy, park this thing in front of my house. Sure, it would give me a heart attack at first out of fear, but I’d get over it.

#5 – Isis Megazord Predator Mode from Power Rangers Wild Force (GaoIcarus Another Foot and Arm from Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger)
During a battle where nearly every one of the Wild Zords were injured, the Wild Force Rangers were forced to get creative and combined the Falcon, Bison, Wolf, and Hammerhead Zords (along with the Gator Staff) to form the Isis Megazord Predator Mode. I LOVE this formation. Hell, it might just be my all-time favourite Megazord, as it has kicking power that could topple mountains, wings that grant high speed flight as well as an invulnerable shield, the ability to paralyse opponents in their tracks, and a final attack that takes the Gator Staff and flies it into the opponent so hard and with so much power that none can stand against it. Almost like the Ninja MegaFalconzord on steroids in a sense.
And that’s it for my favourite Megazords. Again, feel free to list your own in the comments below. Ja né!
My 10 Personal Favourite Power Rangers
This may surprise no one, but I am a complete and utter geek/dork. And as with most geeks/dorks/etc that grew up in my generation, I am a huge Power Rangers fan. Now I’m not quite as ranty or analytical about the series or about the production of it as others, but seeing as how this IS Jyger’s Rant, I’ll most likely be getting to that in the near future. For now, I thought I’d put my nostalgia glasses on and look at 10 of my favourite Power Rangers from the entire series (in no particular order). Now of course, this is entirely opinion based, so don’t freak out if you disagree with me anywhere. Also, I’m gonna try to avoid referencing each Ranger’s Sentai counterpart, hard as it may be for me as I’m actually a fan of both Power Rangers AND Super Sentai, and before you ask, no, on a whole I do NOT have a preference. So with that said, let’s start off with…
Trini Kwan, the Yellow Mighty Morphin’ Ranger
Ah Trini, my one true love…Err, that is until I met my girlfriend…Okay, so I had a HUGE fanboy crush on this girl as a kid, but can you honestly blame me? She was beautiful, she knew kung fu, and she had a passion to protect the environment. She often-times was seen assisting Billy with his devices and would also provide English-to-Technobabble translations between himself and the rest of the team. Oh, and apparently her favourite superhero was Wonder Woman. How awesome is that? Sadly, her time on the show only lasted a little over a year. Even sadder, Thuy Trang, the woman who played Trini on the show, tragically passed away in a car accident 10 years ago. She remains dearly missed.
Carter Grayson, the Red Lightspeed Rescue Ranger
For some reason, a few fans tend to think of Carter as being kinda bland and uninteresting. And to quote Lewis Black, “I wonder where exactly one can find a drug that would make one so delusional.” Carter was frigging bad-ass! First episode, there was a monster attack, and he tried to run it down with a humvee. When the Zords were brought down by monsters, he just charged them with hand blasters. When a monster cloned itself and was attacking one of Carter’s friends and fellow Rangers, he got out a couple of oversized blasters and held the monster at point-blank range, threatening to blow him away if he didn’t call off the clone. You mess with Carter Grayson, and you’ll either live to regret it, or you won’t live through it at all.
Dillon, the Black RPM Ranger
A lot of Power Rangers seasons fall into a pattern where the Red Ranger hogged most of the spotlight. RPM was NOT one of those seasons, wherein all 7 members of the team were very well-developed characters that shared the spotlight…though if any one member got more than the others, that would’ve been Dillon. Much like Carter, this guy is a bad-ass. A lot of times he prefers to work alone, often fighting enemies on his own away from the others when fights broke out. Also, as someone whose past was taken away from him and made part cybernetic by the main villain, he had the biggest score to settle, making his story a very personal one, made even more-so by the discovery that he had a sister that was missing somewhere in the world. Ultimately, he does embrace the team as his friends, but he still prefers to do things his way and is always bad-ass while doing so.
Tommy Oliver, the Green Mighty Morphin’ Ranger, White Mighty Morphin’ Ranger, Red Zeo Ranger, Red Turbo Ranger, and Black Dino Thunder Ranger
C’mon, are you really shocked this guy’s on my list? Tommy DEFINES what it means to be a Power Ranger. He’s strong of mind, body, and spirit. He is willing to put his life on the line if necessary to protect the world from some of the worst villains known in PR continuity. He’s had to live through the trauma of being placed under a spell that made him possibly the biggest threat to the Power Rangers in their early days, and after being freed from it had to make it through a long process of trying to hold onto his powers as the forces of evil tried everything to take them away or exhaust them to depletion. But even in losing them, he kept up the fight, earning new powers and the role of leader of the team. As the longest serving Ranger in Power Rangers history, he’s led multiple teams, and served as the mentor to a newer team of Rangers while in his adulthood, eventually joining the team himself as their Black Ranger. A running joke among many is that he won’t be satisfied until he’s worn every colour known to man as a Power Ranger. But let’s be honest, at the end of the day, Tommy is no laughing matter.
Jen Scotts, the Pink Time Force Ranger
The first and only Pink Ranger to lead a team, Jen is the leader of the Time Force Rangers. Smart, driven, athletic, passionate, and let’s face it, beautiful. I think she actually tops Kimberly as the best Pink Ranger of all time. For a while, she seemed like a woman possessed in her goal of capturing Ransik and bringing him back to the future, but when he genuinely felt repentant for his crimes, she forgave him. She had something of a love triangle with Wes and Alex, but ultimately concluded that she loved Wes, even though they could never be together due to coming from different time periods. Oh, and when she came back for Reinforcements From The Future, she came decked out in leather and heavy artillery. Now THAT is the sign of an awesome Ranger.
Cole Eva-…Wait, that’s not right…
Cole Evans, the Red Wild Force Ranger
Okay, I know I’m gonna get some tilted heads for this pick, but I like this guy. The Blazing Lion, Cole was chosen by the Lion Zord to be the leader of the Wild Force. Yeah, his actor could ham it up really bad in scenes, but he was also involved in some really brutal fight scenes, my favourite being his one-on-one battle with Master Org. He could speak to animals because he could connect to the heart of other living creatures, thus being able to understand the Wild Zords as well. His most notable accomplishments include helping to save the world from the Org threat and also destroying Serpentera…though the means by which he did so still piss me off, but I can’t really fault the character for that.
Adam Park, the Black Mighty Morphin’ Ranger, Green Zeo Ranger,
and Green Turbo Ranger
Before you call favouritism towards MMPR, I would just like to note that two of them that I picked were on multiple teams. With that said, Adam started out kinda bland and generic. There wasn’t anything wrong with him, he just didn’t do much to stand out at all. I think it wasn’t until Zeo that he started to stand out, but at that point, his character grew far more. He became Tommy’s main sparring partner, as well as his second-in-command. He became more proactive too, as seen in an incident where Tommy couldn’t pilot the Red Battlezord, a Zord that utilizes a psychic link with the pilot, and asked to have it reconfigured so he could pilot it instead. He would leave the show halfway through Turbo, but managed to return twice in Power Rangers In Space and Power Ranger Operation Overdrive, both times using his original powers passed down to him by Zack, the original Black Ranger. Asd such, he is the second longest serving Ranger in history.
Bridge Carson, the SPD B-Squad Green Ranger, SPD B-Squad Blue Ranger, and SPD B-Squad Red Ranger
Meet the only guy to shown on screen as three different Ranger colours for the same darned team. Bridge started off as the Green Ranger of Space Patrol Delta’s B-Squad, serving as such from the beginning of the season right up until the finale, wherein Jack Landors, the Red Ranger, retired from SPD and Sky Tate, the Blue Ranger, was promoted to Red, leaving his old position to Bridge. Sometime afterwards, Sky was promoted again, leading to Bridge becoming B-Squad’s Red Ranger by default. Some would call Bridge the most unlikely Red Ranger ever due to his quirky off-the-wall behaviour, but I think he’s pretty cool. He has the power of psychometry, though apparently he needs to wear gloves to keep such power in check or he’d read everyone’s auras uncontrollably. He also has the ability to achieve an epiphany by doing a handstand. Both are actually powers belong to two members of Dekaranger, SPD’s Japanese counterpart, but I’m trying not to talk about Sentai so let’s move on. Overall, Bridge is pretty cool. I do wanna punch him though, because now I can’t say the word “buttery” without wiggling my fingers. Thanks Bridge, really.
Trent Fernandez-Mercer, the White Dino Thunder Ranger
…Okay, I said I would keep Sentai references to a minimum, but I cannot keep this one down. Trent is frigging awesome, but he is also a VERY underwhelming counterpart to Mikoto Nakadai, AbareKiller. Seriously, if you have not watched Abaranger, let me just say that it is worth watching, if for no other reason than AbareKiller.
…Okay, mini rant over. Trent is the adoptive son of the man who would turn out to be the main antagonist of the show, and would later become the White Ranger for Dino Thunder, though he was actually a major antagonist to them for a while due to possession from his dino gem. When he was freed from his possession, he joined the team, though not before having his powers cloned into an evil White Ranger. For a long time, he had to grapple with loyalties to both his team and his father’s Jekyll/Hyde condition, as well as being in a constant grapple with his clone over the White Ranger powers. However, Trent’s will eventually saw him through both. Oh yeah, and did I also mention his powers let him move at light-speed for a few seconds at a time?!
And the last of my 10 favourite Power Rangers is…
Linkara, the White Zeo Pimp Ranger
Alright, chillax, I’m just kidding. I just couldn’t possibly resist that one. Seriously though, I WANT that hat.
Andros, the Red Space Ranger
How could I possibly not include the Ranger that saved the universe from the United Alliance of Evil? When the Turbo Rangers were without power and needed someone to lead them through space against the forces threatening the entire universe, Andros was just the man they needed. He taught them all about space and their new powers, and in return, they taught him about Earth and how to be a part of a team, something he’d forgotten since his friend Zhane had been critically wounded in action. In the final battle, he found their great leader Zordon, only for Zordon to insist that Andros shatter his energy tube, thus destroying him but leaving a wave of energy that destroyed or purified every single member of the Alliance, thus saving the universe. And with the war finally over, Andros, who had learned so much about being part of a team of friends, elected to go back with them to Earth, claiming his real home was with them.
So those are my 10 Favourite Power Rangers. I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, feel free to leave your comments below, and hopefully I can remember to talk more on Power Rangers in the future. Thanks for reading, and may the power protect you all.