Release Date: August 2020
RRP: $19.99/£19.99
The Power Rangers Lightning Collection roster continues to grow as Power Rangers In Space properly joins the fold! While we’ve already seen entries from that series (and a whole team no less) thanks to the release of the Psycho Rangers, wave six of Hasbro’s ever-expanding collectors’ line marks the debut of the titular team. And surprisingly it isn’t the obvious choice to begin with, as the team kicks off with the Lightning Collection In Space Yellow Ranger! Ashley Hammond succeeded Tanya Sloan to become the second Yellow Turbo Ranger, before blasting off into space with her teammates and joining Andros in his fight against Astronema.
As the first Space Ranger to appear in the line In Space Yellow marks the debut of Strongstufftom’s artwork for this team, but of course we’ve already seen the Power Rangers In Space logo slapped on these boxes before with the Psychos. The artwork is great as always, and the yellow colour scheme works great with the default white boxes used for the mainline Lightning Collection releases. The back of the box shows off the usual Hasbro figure render, with this one looking particularly sharp as it doesn’t seem to add any paint apps not present on the figure itself. Inside the figure and accessories are neatly laid out on a moulded plastic tray.
While the Power Rangers In Space suit might be one of the simpler ones (along with these least difference from member to member) among the Power Rangers alumni, there’s a certain elegance to its simplicity. Huge sections of its primary colour, broken up with white for the gloves, boots, belt and central strip - the latter also showing off all five colours of the team. The only other suit details are the collar and belt buckle, both done up in a gold that blends in with Yellow’s overall colour scheme. The helmet is a simple but effective visor with white background, but above that sits that glossy black sphere that makes these suits instantly recognisable. It’s another great job from Hasbro here, and the glossiness of the visor pieces really stands out on what’s already a shiny plastic helmet. While admittedly there aren’t many details to get wrong here all the paint apps are sharp and crisp, presenting a figure that’s very satisfying to behold. The helmet and skirt are the only new pieces (other than the weapons that is) sculpted for the figure, with the rest being a reuse of the Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger figure. Not that it makes any difference, because it was a given that a select number of bodies were going to be used for these figures in the first place. Top marks to Hasbro for this one - looks-wise it’s hard to imagine them doing much better.
As established in previous reviews the female Lightning Collection body isn’t quite as articulated as the male one (which seems to mostly be the case across all Hasbro collector lines), presumably due to the smaller proportions and joints used in the construction. It kinda sucks, but that’s sadly the way it is and it doesn’t look to changing anytime soon. But what we do have here is;
- Ball jointed head, torso and hips
- Single hinge neck and ab crunch
- Swivel hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists and ankles
- Butterly joint shoulders
- Double hinge knees
- Thigh and boot swivels
The skirt is most of soft plastic with slits at both sides, so can stretch with the movement of the legs. In most cases you’d still expect to see some restriction with something like that, but surprisingly the figure is able to pull off a sitting pose rather comfortably! Not sure how much the skirt would be able to tolerate that over time, but it’s still way too early in the line’s life to know that yet. The top of the skirt does however restrict the ab crunch a bit, so the bend forwards is a little less than the one backward. On a more positive note, the butterfly joints on this figure are really good - you can bring the hands in to meet right at the centre of the chest. The lack of elbow bend compared to the male body is a bit disappointing, but there’s still a lot to love about this figure’s poseability.
The figure includes four swappable hands (a pair of default weapon holding hands, knife strike pose right hand and closed fist left hand), the team's standard Astro Blaster sidearm, Yellow's personal Star Slinger weapon, and finally a designated energy effect part for the Slinger. Only the combined version of the Astro Blaster has been included, and the piece is unable to break apart into the two smaller guns. Not all that surprising given how limited versions of the Blade Blaster have been in the Mighty Morphin lineup. Nevertheless it's a nicely detailed piece, and the blue and silver colouring is a nice contrast to everything going on with Yellow's suit. Even nicer however is the Star Slinger - a catapult weapon that's definitely feels unique in the Power Rangers arsenal. Again this is a solid piece and can't combine with the Astro Blaster like it does in the show. That's a little disappointing, but is probably hard to work out on a universal Astro Blaster piece that can be included with all five rangers (each of their weapons has its own configuration). Whereas most Lightning Collection effect parts tend to be universal this is definitely one solely intended for the Star Slinger, plugging directly into it's two barrels and then merging into a single shot. I'm curious to see where else Hasbro will be able to use this to get their money's worth out of the tooling, but I'm all for figures getting completely unique effect parts too. While there are a few other things that could have been included (or alternatively, gimmicks to be implemented) that would have made this a "perfect" release, for the price this figure is all the essential bases were covered.
Rounding off the accessories is an alternate Ashley head, and boy is it one to talk about. Even if you want to give it the benefit of the doubt and say it resembles Ashley/Tracy Lynn Cruz (in which case Hasbro have and can do much better), that toothy grin and heavily sunken-in cheek dimples do not do it any favours. That expression just stares into your soul, and overall makes Ashley look about ten years older than she actually is. The sooner Hasbro realise that closed mouth head sculpts are the only way to go, the sooner the overall quality of these alternate heads will go up. There’s been some really great ones in the line so far (Blaze, Nate and Drakkon immediately spring to mind), but the bad ones are so bad they don’t stick in your mind all the more. While maybe not the worst head they’ve done so far in the line, this is certainly up there.
Moans about that alternate head aside Lightning Collection In Space Yellow is a great addition to the line, and it’s really nice to see Hasbro begin tackling a new series with a ranger other than the Red or Sixth. Though relatively simple in comparison to other designs Hasbro hit all the right notes on the In Space costume, along with some great accessories that ensure the figure isn’t left missing anything vitally important. As one of the more popular teams I imagine this will be one Hasbro will be completing the lineup for relatively soon. Combine that with the already complete Psycho Ranger team, and the Lightning Collection is looking like a pretty great place for Power Rangers In Space fans.
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