Hasbro Power Rangers Lightning Collection White Ranger figure review

Power Rangers came around right when my local TV stations were ditching the weekday afternoon marathon of cartoon classics. I was old enough to fully understand Power Rangers was a bit cheesy, but I was desperate for that brain drain after school. Of all the Rangers, Tommy was always my favorite from his mind controlled days as the Green Ranger to his ascension as the White Ranger.

I was thrilled Hasbro included him in the first wave of their pretty impressive looking lineup of Power Rangers Lightning Collection figures. While I don’t know how deep I’ll be getting into the line, I’m definitely on the hook for the original squad and their villains.

Packaging:  The packaging is much slimmer than your standard Marvel Legends figure, but just a bit larger than the Star Wars Black line.

Hasbro went ultra simplistic with this packaging going with an art deco portrait that stretches along the side and a standalone on the right side. The back is even simpler and there’s no kind of write-up at all. As an 80s kid reared on bios, this is disappointing.

The presentation of the figure and accessories is nice although the narrow window almost makes it look like there’s more hidden from view.

Likeness:  It’s always exciting when Hasbro debuts a new line as they go all-out to impress collectors. The first wave of Star Wars Black Series is still fondly remembered enough to the point Hasbro re-released it under the Archives banner.

That same knock your socks off mentality carries over to Tommy as well as this White Ranger figure is very impressive.  Hasbro didn’t cut any corners with the sculpting with dedicated work on the armor pads, the segments on the boots and gloves and the belt.

This is more detailed work than most Marvel Legends figures, but the Lightning Collection is only giving us four at a time while the Marvel Legends will regularly provide seven or eight figures per wave. The costs have to be spread out so it makes sense.

One thing that does stand out as incorrect is the thickness of the black lines on the boots and gloves. They should be much thinner.

Scale:  This is your standard 6-inch scale albeit slighter than a Marvel Legends figure.

Paint:  Interestingly the only thing that’s off with the figure is the paint job. The actual paint work is fine, but Hasbro went with a duller, darker gold instead of the bright almost yellow shade used on the show. This figure more closely conveys gold, but it’s one of those cases where being more accurate to the source material would have made the figure pop a little better.

There is some minor run off of paint around the bands on the sleeves and the black dips in somewhat on the gold, but it’s not immediately apparent until I started looking for it.

Articulation:  For articulation at this scale, SH Figuarts pretty much runs the table. Hasbro is a close second with their MLs, but they’ve engineered some nice upgrades for White Ranger. For a line based around martial artists, that makes sense.

I really had a lot more fun posing and trying out the articulation than I expected. The torso point has great side to side range, which allows him to move slightly better than the average Marvel Legend. Crazy that Hasbro is still finding ways to enhance articulation now.

White Ranger has:

• neck
• shoulders
• elbow (double-jointed)
• wrist
• wrist hinge
• torso
• waist
• hip
• knee (double-jointed)
• ankle

Accessories:  White Ranger has all the necessary accessories I think he needed.

Most importantly, we get the alternate Tommy head sculpt.

Hasbro has really upped its game with the face printing technique as this is a great likeness.

Additionally, he comes with his signature sword, which features a ton of unique sculpting.

This was clearly done with love as it also has all of the paint applications. It can fit in the scabbard on the left side.

Tommy has swappable fists for when it’s time to just put a hurting on some bad guys.

Finally, he has an energy blast effect. That can be attached to the sword for blaster deflections.

Worth it?  Figuarts made these figures and the cheapest Tommy will run you nearly twice as much as this version. I don’t think the Figuarts is twice as good as this so it’s a nice reasonably priced alternative at $16.

Rating:  10 out of 10

Where to get it?  You won’t have too much trouble finding this wave as a Target, Wal-Mart, Gamestop, Walgreens and Best Buy have them in stock. Online you can try Hasbro Pulse and Amazon.