Power Rangers

The Power Rangers are the team of fictional superheroes in the titular franchise. They mainly consist of young warriors (commonly 5 to 6) whom armed with morphers that allow them to wear combat suits instantly when their enemies in action. They also have zords, powerful colossal superweapons that able to merge into humanoid megazord.

Background
The first group of Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, was founded by Zordon, wise galactic sage who fought for the side of good against the forces of evil at Command Center. They were formed soon after defeat Rita Repulsa and banish her and her follower into trash dump albeit also caused him to be banished into a time warp in which he existed outside normal time by the alien witch and hs only communication with the outside world would be through an energy tube. It is probable that around this time he also befriended a young robot created by King Lexian named Alpha 5, and became a father figure of sorts to him after having to leave his home planet, Edenoi. Zordon also had a student who called Gosei, and he put him on the Command Center to be the guardian of the earth. Zordon also prepared for the eventual arrival of evil by placing key weapons across the solar system such as the Mega Voyager which he left on a moon of Jupiter during his time in the tube.

Though eventually died by the events of Power Rangers in Space, his methods in creating Power Rangers technology and also Power Rangers themselves has inspired many people to create their own Power Ranger teams that immediately active once the evil came to threatened humanity, even includes those whom having conflicts with evil forces earlier before his own war with Rita Repulsa began (such as Keeper). Individuals whom creates the new Power Rangers teams served in much of the same role as their predecessor Zordon - in some cases, the role of Zordon is divided into two characters, one being the philosophical mentor and the other being the technical genius of the Power Rangers team. However, so far only two of them whom confirmed to known him as their direct associates (namely Tommy Oliver and Gosei).

By the events of Power Rangers Super Megaforce, Megaforce Power Rangers revealed had all access to previous Power Rangers' arsenals and suits to better combat against Warstar aliens provided by Gosei, vaguely implies that he was responsible for the creation of more new Power Ranger teams whom appeared since the incarnation of Power Rangers in events of Power Rangers in Space had done their task.

Characteristics
Though each generations of Power Rangers are different from one to another, they always consists of a group (commonly 5) of young warriors that used to be normal citizen, which then provided by arsenal and morphers that give them powers so they can be ready for fight the evil. Each generation of these Power Rangers are guided by their respective mentors that provided both advice and arsenals to battle their enemies.

Arsenals
It doesn’t matter whether their provided arsenals are technology based or magi-tech based weaponry, the most distinctive characteristic of Power Rangers are armed with morphers, guns/sword type weapons, and zords.

Morphers
Morphers are objects that always carried by Rangers, which instantly suit them with their battle suits that doubles as body armor whenever they activated it at will. The battle suit themselves are functions as both to cover their civilian identity as well as body armor. The battle suits are quite unique as they mainly consisted of helmets and spandex-like suits with little to no additional armor plates (which appearance can be virtually comparable with spandex suits). The battle suits seems to instantly either shift places or cover the wearers’ clothings, as had the Power Rangers has these battle suit dissipates, they retains clothings that they wore prior to activating their battle suit.

In spite of the appearance, the battle suits' durability must not to be underestimated, as they could withstand any attacks from their enemies’ weaponry which damage are more severe, if not devastating than that of humans’ conventional weapons. However, had these battle suits are receive enough damage, the battle gear would automatically dissipates, render the user helpless. This shows that the battle suit not providing absolute protection.

Through these morphers, they can also summon their weapons and zords. Some morphers can also doubles as communication devices as well. The last, but not least, shapes of these morphers are varies, either in form of handphones or even glasses like in Jungle Fury’s.

Weapons
Whenever the Rangers had their battle suit activated, they can summon their weapons for battle. Weapon themselves are vary in appearance, but can be either in form of guns, cannons, or melee weapons.

In some cases, their weapons can be combined into a single and deadly ones, which are used for finishing blows. As they can only uses these weapons while their battle suits activated, these weapons would dissipates and return to their base as well.

Zords
Zords are mechas that mainly used as superweapons to fight the larger enemies that ranges from commanding monsters that enlarged into colossal proportion or enemy battleships/zords like Serpentera. While the zords are also armed with weapons for battle, it’s rare to see them uses these arsenals alone to defeat the enemies. Reason of this was due to them often combined into megazords, combined forms of zords that primarily humanoid in appearance. Numbers of zords that used for combinations into Megazords are ranges from 3 to 5, but on certain circumstances, could be more than either. As megazord, zords’ heights are equals with the enlarged forms of commanding monsters, giving them advantages.

The megazords also armed with weaponries that more devastating than those of their separated forms, that ranges from either built-in weapons to guns/cannon/melee weapons that designed to used by megazords, though the latter was more common.

The shapes that each zords have are ranges either modeled after animals/mythological creatures or vehicles/ships that highly futuristic in appearance.

Teamwork and Quantities of Members
Arsenals alone are not enough for the Rangers to won the battle against their foes, as the teamwork and friendship are required for accomplish such feat. This was supported by the fact that their arsenals are mainly designed for doing so, increases their chance to won against their enemies.

Masterminds and Other Supervisors

 * Zordon: Wise galactic sage who fought for the side of good against the forces of evil. He was known particularly for being the mastermind behind the appearance of the first Power Rangers. Even after his death, he has entrusted many people for create their respective Power Rangers teams presumably through Gosei.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
The first Power Ranger team became actives soon after Rita Repulsa and her followers released from their prison at the moon, promp Zordon to orders his robotic assistant Alpha 5 to select five "teenagers with attitude"(or rather qualities that made them fit to be Power Rangers) to defend the Earth from Rita's attacks. The five teens chosen are Jason Lee Scott, Kimberly Hart, Zack Taylor, Trini Kwan and Billy Cranston. Armed with Power Rangers technology, they are ready to fight monsters that sent by Rita Repulsa.

Numerous deaths and failure of her monster warriors lead Rita to adopt a new method for conquering Earth and destroying the Power Rangers: by attacking them with one of their own. Using her magic, Rita kidnaps and brainwashes a local teen whose fighting skills prove to equal that of Jason's in a martial-arts contest held in Angel Grove. The new teen, Tommy Oliver, passes Rita's tests, becoming the Green Power Ranger. Entrusted with Rita's Sword of Darkness, the source for the continuance of the evil spell he has fallen victim to, Tommy comes dangerously close to defeating the Power Rangers, especially when Rita causes a solar eclipse that temporarily drains the Megazord's power. However, the Green Ranger is ultimately defeated, and the Sword of Darkness is destroyed by Jason. Now free from Rita's spell, Tommy chooses to use his Green Ranger powers to assist the other Rangers in defeating the evil that gave them to him in the first place. His Zord, the Dragonzord, is reconfigured to enable it to help form more powerful Zord combinations alongside the other Dinozords.

In spite of the resulting loss due to Tommy Oliver's redemption, Rita knew how to counteract the problem; using a special wax that was touched by Tommy when he was evil, Rita uses a magic Green Candle to slowly remove his powers, returning them to her. In the end, Tommy loses his powers, but he prevents Rita from reclaiming them by transferring them to Jason who, feeling guilt for failing to protect Tommy's powers, accepts them. However, Tommy later returns to the team when the other Rangers' Power Coins are handed over to Rita in exchange for their kidnapped parents. With Zordon's help, Tommy regains his powers and successfully retrieves the other Rangers' Power Coins. However, Tommy's regained powers are only temporary and must be frequently re-charged by Zordon, who warns that the Green Ranger's powers will ultimately fail. Despite this, Tommy remains determined to continue assisting the other Rangers as long as possible.

Power Rangers as suffer major setback once Lord Zedd shows up, where his forces turned out to be more dangerous than Rita's. They even send the crippling blow on the Rangers by destroying Dinozords, resulting Zordon and Alpha to reconstruct them into more powerful Thunderzords. Worse, Zedd also managed to removes Tommy's Green Ranger powers for good, causing him lost his access to his Green Ranger arsenal and Dragonzord. Despite this, Zordon and Alpha counteract this loss by giving him the better, Silver Ranger powers.

During the Team Ninja Trials in Angel Grove, the Rangers become friends with three teenagers from Stone Canyon: Rocky DeSantos, Adam Park and Aisha Campbell. During an ensuing battle with Zedd and a magical serpent, Rocky, Adam and Aisha discover the Rangers' identities and, having been entrusted with their secret by Zordon himself, the three newcomers become allies of the Rangers.

Later on, Jason, Zack and Trini are selected to represent Angel Grove at the World Peace Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Rangers are faced with the task of finding replacements. In order to transfer the powers of the Red, Black and Yellow Rangers, they must find the Sword of Light, which is located on the Deserted Planet. Zedd pursues them across the galaxy in Serpentera, his massive personal Zord, and destroys most of the Deserted Planet. Serpentera runs out of power before being able to finish the Rangers, and they return to Earth safely with the Sword of Light. Zordon then chooses Rocky, Adam and Aisha to replace Jason, Zack and Trini as the Red, Black and Yellow Rangers, respectively.

Sometime before the power transfer, Rita had returned to Earth when Tommy made his debut as the White Ranger, and fell into the hands of Bulk and Skull, but the Rangers sent her back into space. She later returns to the Moon while the Rangers are in Australia, and with the help of Finster, she gets a special "makeover" to gain a younger and "prettier" face. She then uses a love potion on Zedd, who is in a deep sleep during his centennial re-evilizer, and he falls in love with her when he wakes up. They get married and thus join forces to make an even more terrible threat for the Rangers, but not even this can prepare them for what is to come.

Criticism on the Series
In spite of the popularity of the franchise where they featured at, Power Rangers brought some criticisms which are:
 * No Alternate Means in Dealing Villains: Many critics of the early Power Rangers series claimed that the Power Rangers use unnecessary force to destroy their monsters, and often get into fights when better alternatives were available, such as supposedly occasionally trying to talk to the villains and convince them to change prior to use brute force if they are unable to peacefully persuade them to abandon their dark path. In some cases, networks pulled Power Rangers from its lineup, citing such concerns. Later incarnations of Power Rangers often attempt to explain the actions of the Power Rangers, but many still believe that Power Rangers remains a series too violent for young children. Norway pulled the series as they believed that the series caused two boys to beat up a girl in 1993 (it was eventually found that the murder was unconnected to the series).
 * Fortunately, some incarnations of the Rangers are shown not to kill the monsters outright but rather sealed/incarcerate them, which is more merciful than the rest. For instance, Power Rangers S.P.D. group sealed the monsters within card-like cage as means to safely transport the captured monsters to special jail where they would forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the Rangers' superiors as a form of punishment for their crimes.
 * Title That Sounds Too Familiar With Drugs: For a time Power Rangers was pulled from Malaysian television screens as the word "morphin" (in the phrase "It's Morphin Time!") sounded a bit too much like the drug morphine. Then they showed the title shortened to only "Power Rangers" instead.
 * Racism Out of Color Palette of Each Ranger Members: The first season of Power Rangers also drew criticism from some groups claiming that the Ranger colors were racist, specifically referring to Zack, the Black Ranger (played by African-American actor Walter Jones) and Trini, the Yellow Ranger (played by Asian-American actress Thuy Trang). This criticism was rendered moot when the two actors left the show (along with the Red Ranger) halfway through Season Two and were replaced with an Asian American male as the Black Ranger, and an African American woman as the Yellow Ranger. This was mentioned on VH1's I Love the '90s. Amy Jo Johnson and Walter Jones appeared in the "1993" episode.
 * Little Connection Between One Group To Another: The fact that there are very few links between the later Power Rangers series (apart from the name and format) is often resented by the older Power Rangers fans. Each series now seems to start the story anew instead of continuing from the previous season as it used to . The first Power Rangers show to stop being a direct continuation from the previous was Lost Galaxy; however, recently there has been a small attempt at making the series after Lost Galaxy in canon with the Power Rangers timeline with Tommy Oliver's recall of the events in an episode of Dino Thunder and in Wild Force's tenth incarnation celebrationary episode "Forever Red" which featured all the Red Rangers from Jason Lee Scott right up to Cole himself.
 * The very few links between one incarnation to another was very apparent with other characters whom served in much of the same role as Zordon after the latter's demise (such as Princess Shayla whom controls Wild 'Force Power Rangers group) since events in Lost Galaxy were not given explanation on how they gained the technology which similar, if not identical with the one that Zordon had to create their own Power Ranger groups. When the technology that formed Power Rangers group was invented also came into question, especially in Power Rangers Dino Charge that introduced Energems which seemingly serves as one of (if there's more out there) prototype version of the said technology due to Energems already exist more than 65 million years ago.
 * Power Rangers' Extreme Stunts: In the United Kingdom, the first incarnation sparked fears that kids would hurt themselves by recreating the moves in the series. As a result, GMTV had to issue a warning at the end of an episode stating, "The Power Rangers are specially trained martial arts experts, so don't you copy them!"