The Dragon Shield Black Ranger is a Walgreens exclusive figure. Those can be dicey for me to find sometimes (I’ve yet to see a Dani Moonstar), but sometimes they can be really easy. This one was easy as he was online for a minute and I’ve seen quite a few on the shelves as I hunt the latest Marvel Legends figure. Let’s take a look at the the Dragon Shield Black Ranger!
The box has a nice big window and some snazzy minimalist drawings of the Black Ranger on the sides and front and a figure photo on the back. I’m not sure it’s a great idea to have a nice gold paint job on the figure in the back photo when that compares negatively to the figure in the box.
The Black Ranger comes with four swappable hands (two grips, a right fist and left chop), the red blade blaster sidearm, an unmasked head, a blast effect, and the Power Axe.
The blade blaster doesn’t transform into the knife mode, so it does look a little awkward in the holster.
The extra head isn’t quite working for me as a likeness of the actor. I can see where they were going, but it doesn’t quite get there for me. I’d also say the skin tone is off too.
The hands are a little creaky to swap and take a bit of force. The pegs are still extra long, so be careful inserting them because I’ve almost bent a couple.
The axe has a piece on the head that slides in order to transform it into gun mode. It’s sharply sculpted, but is missing a couple paint details like the yellow lines on the handle. The handle is also thick for these hands and stretches them out to the point where he can’t hold the blaster solidly any longer.
The blast effect is a translucent blue piece that plugs securely into the barrel of the power axe and I think it conveys an energy blast very well.
The body looks to be re-use of the recent Green Ranger figure. The re-use works for me here, but I wonder if the hardcore fans are looking for a little more body type variety between rangers.
Articulation should be familiar to Lightning collection collectors and the Black Ranger has:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, hips, neck and ankles
- Thigh and boot swivels
- Hinged pecs and lower torso
- Ball and socket head and upper torso
The articulation for these figures is the main part of the appeal of this line as they are generally super fun figures to pose and play with. I really like the expressiveness and range of motion we get from the lower torso hinge/ upper torso ball and socket combination.
Paint is decent on this figure, though I think the gold could stand to be a bit more metallic feeling.
Overall I enjoyed this figure, much like his Mighty Morphin bretheren as he’s got a lot of fun posing and play options with solid articulation and interesting weapons. I do think it’s an interesting strategy to release these dragon shield variants first. We’ve already seen a new Red Ranger without the shield get a regular line release so I can only assume we’ll eventually see a regular Black Ranger as well. I wonder if they thought having the Dragon Shield variants hit first was a way to guarantee more sales of the figure.
