Release Date: December 2022
RRP: $24.99/£24.99
The Lightning Collection may be as good as dead by this point, but despite all the QC woes it will at least go down as the most varied and arguably best Power Rangers figure line collectors have ever gotten (and potentially will ever get). Though there were a number of teams sadly left untouched during the line's four-year run, some however were lucky enough to be completed – one such example being fan favourite Power Rangers Dino Thunder. The Lightning Collection Dino Thunder Yellow Ranger joined the line as part of its 12th retail wave at the end of 2022, completing the core trio of heroes despite being the fourth in the series to be released by Hasbro.
As part of the final wave to come in the line's original style packaging, the box of the Lightning Collection Dino Thunder Yellow Ranger will be all too familiar to collectors – a clean white colour scheme sporting yellow as a secondary colour to go alongside the newly created bust artwork from Tom "Strong Stuff" Whalen. Box sides of the box also feature the Power Rangers Dino Thunder series logo, ensuring each series has its own unique logo as well as the umbrella Lightning Collection one. The back of the box sports a single CG render of the figure in an action pose that also serves to show off most of its accessories. While previous releases have shown minor colour/paint differences between the CG render and the actual figure, there doesn't look to be anything out of place here. Open it up and both the figure and accessories are neatly stored on their plastic tray.
By merit of coming fairly late in the line's run, the Dino Thunder Yellow Ranger is lucky enough to feature the pin-less Lightning Collection body - something primarily associated with the remastered Mighty Morphin figures but featured on a number of other figures around that time. For the female figures it impacts articulation more than it does aesthetics, but it does at the very least mean there aren't any obvious pin joints present on the figure. The core three Dino Thunder Rangers feature a relatively simple suit design that emphasises their main colour, but that doesn't mean there aren't details on this figure that Hasbro did a really good job on. The logo on the chest is especially sharp. However what Hasbro don't do very well at is consistency, so there are a number of differences between Red, Blue and Yellow that really just shouldn't be there. To start with Red is the only one to have the white sections painted on the hands, while Blue his Morpher painted white whereas Red and Yellow's are unpainted plastic. A weirder inaccuracy though is that Red and Blue both have an inaccurate silver trim around their visors. Yellow on the other hand has the correct white trim, which is great for accuracy but also just creates more inconsistency across the three of them. Was it so hard for Hasbro to just get it right in the first place and avoid all this? Of the three I'd say that Yellow has come out of the best, but really they all should have been like this.
On top of a slightly cleaner sculpt, the pin-less body also offers a noticeable upgrade in articulation to the female body figures. Altogether Dino Charge Yellow features;
- Ball hinge head/neck
- Swivel hinge shoulders, wrists and ankles
- Butterfly joint shoulders
- Ball jointed waist and hips
- Single ab crunch
- Double hinge elbows and knees
- Bicep, thigh and boot swivels
These slight alterations finally put the female figures on par with the male ones when it comes to poseability, and the fact it took that many years to happen is ridiculous. That said, the arms are so thin on the figure that it's nearly impossible to get full use out of those double jointed elbows - so it isn't quite as significant an upgrade as one might hope. What the joints are on this release though is sturdy, so Dino Thunder Yellow is still able to pull off a lot of impressive poses without feeling especially restricted. That's particularly impressive given the soft plastic skirt piece surrounding her hips, which does offer some resistance but is slit at either side to give the legs proper movement. It's not so great on the side that also has the weapon holster, but the other side it hardly gets in the way at all. While it is possible that the pin-less aspect is something Hasbro needed time to work on, arguably all of the women rangers they've released should have been like this in the first place.
Dino Thunder Yellow's accessories include two posed open hands (nicely complimenting her default accessory-holding pair), her signature Ptera Grips, Thundermax Blaster and then a blast effect part to use with the Blaster. As with the other core Dino Thunder rangers, the Thundermax Blaster can be holstered on the belt when not in use (albeit inaccurately to how it looks onscreen). The twin Ptera Grips are very nicely moulded and in terms of shape look just like they do on the show, despite lacking a fair few paint apps. The white pattern on the grips is missing, as are the red eyes on the Pterosaur face. A shame, but not all that surprising given the other weapons' suffered similarly. Mould-wise the Thundermax Blaster is the same as the ones previously included with Red and Blue, but in classic Hasbro fashion it’s made confusing once again but sporting slightly different paint apps. While they’re all roughly the same in how screen-accurate they are, Yellow’s features possibly the most accurate of the three - retaining the grey part underneath the barrel as well as leaving the bottom of the grip unpainted (though it should technically be gold). It lacks the gold paint on the barrel tips (which is present on Red’s but not Blue’s), but in it’s place uses glossy black as opposed to matte. While they might seem like little differences, the fact this means all three Dino Thunder Rangers have their Blasters painted differently is truly bizarre. The effect part is one of the more unique among the Lightning Collection too – moulded in translucent blue plastic and designed to fit over the Blaster's twin barrels. There is however one key accessory missing from the release – the Thundermax Saber. Given that this was included with both the Red and Blue Rangers, its omission here is both noticeable and somewhat disappointing. While it could be because Yellow already has a number of alternate parts, the Ptera Grips are hardly as plastic-heavy as something like Blue's Tricera Shield. Once again, consistency seems to be the one thing that the Lightning Collection never quite grasped.
Rounding off the accessories is the alternate Kira Ford head, which to its credit is probably one of the line's best civilian heads. Overall the quality between them has been mixed to say the least, but this one bears an excellent likeness to actor Emma Lahana. Not only is the facial resemblance good, but the moulding and the texture on the hair is great too. The sides do restrict head movement a little, but are made of softer plastic so not to hard to bend out of the way so that the head can turn. Despite some slight disappointment with the overall accessory count, it's always nice when the signature pieces come out the best.
Power Rangers Dino Thunder was one of the lucky series in that all of the team made it into the line, and for the most part it does seem like minor improvements/adjustments were made with each release. Lightning Collection Dino Thunder Yellow Ranger definitely stands out simply by merit of having a higher quality body denied to previous female rangers, but compared alongside the whole Dino Thunder team continues to have those little inconsistencies that wouldn't really matter if there weren't so many of them. The constantly shifting deco is a little easier to overlook since Yellow is arguably the best one, but the lack of Thundermax Saber is quite disappointing. Still, better a figure with minor issues than a gap in the team left unfilled - Dino Thunder Yellow is still a great release and a worthy addition to your Dino Thunder (Lightning) collection.
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