With the recent announcement of the Gamestop-exclusive Lightning Collection Rita Repulsa, I realized I never posted anything on this adorable little Rita. I was pretty sad when Bandai lost the Power Rangers license to Hasbro, but it wasn't necessarily because of the collector-level 6" Legacy figures that I had been buying. Rather, I was most upset because the Power Rangers Imaginext line would also be coming to a close. Over the course of a few years, Fisher-Price had released a really fun collection of figures (including the first ever Scorpina action figure). For those collectors who dive into the preschool market, it is well known that Fisher-Price (Mattel) is much better organized and productive than Playskool (Hasbro). The Playskool Marvel line has almost no character diversity, just the same 5 guys over and over again for years. The occasionaly solicit a new character, but they are almost always cancelled.So I feared the same neglect for the Playskool Rangers (and it seems my fears are well founded).
So far, the line has had only a couple overstocked products warming the shelves for a year, and more fun products like this blind-bag assortment have had almost no distribution. I found them in a small mom-and-pop toy shop. For a property that is focused on a team of five heroes, there is almost zero effort put into producing a full lineup (of any iteration). Luckily Rita is amazing and is the easiest figure to feel in the package. Between her horns and her staff it's a no-brainer.
Here is a lineup of all 16 figures in the first bland bag wave.
Time for some Group and Comparison Pics!
Here is Rita with her two Imaginext figures: The original purple version and the version 2 with Finnster.
And with the 2011 Bandai figure.
Cheers!
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