With 2023 being the big 30th Anniversary celebration for the Power Rangers franchise, it’s no surprise Hasbro has a number of plans for future entries into their popular towline the Power Rangers Lightning Collection. As often seen with this line and other Hasbro lines, there have been a number of leaked upcoming items soon to be added to shelves going around so far this year. Today, we can add some organizing to these listings and give fans an idea of what to expect for the rest of the year in order to begin budgeting before Hasbro officially reveals these items.
REMASTERED
One of the most popular new additions to the Lightning Collection has been the Remastered rereleases of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers team. A few months ago Hasbro officially revealed the first Wave of these releases with MMPR Yellow and Blue. It’s likely these were timed in order to go well with the release of the upcoming Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always special dropping on Netflix April 19th. While not outright confirmed by Hasbro themselves it has been discovered to not much surprise that the rest of the original teenagers with attitude will be getting this treatment as well.
Wave 2 of Lightning Collection Remastered is currently being planned by Hasbro for a July 1st, 2023 release date. While codenamed, like everything else today, we can confirm 2 out of the 3 of these will just be case refreshes of the Blue and Yellow mentioned previously, with the only new addition being that of MMPR Black. This is coming shortly after a new version of MMPR Black, this time to represent Adam instead of Zack, was just released in late 2022, so fans might be less interested in yet another release for him.
Wave 3 of the Lightning Collection is being planned for an October 1st, 2023, release to finish out the original Season 1 team with Red, Pink, and Green. All of these in their original releases were highly sought-after figures, and with word this past week of retailer Entertainment Earth canceling pre-orders for a restock of Green’s original 2020 release, this new one will be very popular.
At this time, those are the only Waves Hasbro is planning for their Remastered line, though leaker @EuSouRalf on Twitter has hinted that a new Deluxe Release of Rita Repulsa may also be on the way to join this subline and anniversary celebration as well.
WAVE 15
When it comes to Lightning Collection what keeps it afloat is the normal retail Waves released every few months. The next one up, Wave 15, has been a bit of a mystery thus far. Leaks for upcoming figures to start brand new teams with Turbo Red (TJ version), Lightspeed Rescue Blue, and RPM Yellow have been floating around for a few months we can now comfortably report these 3 figures will be the lineup for October 1st, 2023’s Wave 15.
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Right now, this Wave of the Lightning Collection only has confirmed codenames and it’s unknown which codename matches up to what character just yet, but what is interesting and possibly concerning is the fact that Wave 15 looks to only be 3 figures instead of the typical 4 per Wave. The only other time this occurred was in 2020 when Wave 7 was cut down a figure to 3 in order to include a restock of Wave 1’s MMPR White. At this time, it’s unknown if something similar will be happening in Wave 15, but hopefully, we’ll get word on what to expect here from Hasbro sooner than later.
A few weeks back, a leaked accessory for a Spin Sword weapon used by the Rangers from Power Rangers Samurai was discovered online, but it’s safe to say that Wave 15 will not be including the identity of who this accessory belongs to, nor can we confirm who it will end up being with.
DELUXE WAVE 4
Recently The Illuminerdi confirmed that Wild Force Red with his Battlizer, the Red Savage Warrior, would be joining the Lightning Collection this fall. It appears now this will be with Deluxe Wave 4 on August 1st, 2023. Cole, without a civilian head, should be making his debut to the line with the next Monster release, Mighty Morphin Minotaur.
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Minotaur may seem like a random choice for the next MMPR Monster to get a figure, but he’s actually quite important to the lore of Power Rangers. He was the first Monster to be destroyed by the Rangers using their Power Weapons and thanks to an article from Netflix, we now know that he will be making a return during Once & Always next month, which makes this release much more planned out to go along with the special.
This Wave should be pretty locked in at this point; however, both of these figures were originally planned for release during 2022 before being pushed in favor for other Deluxe releases like the recent Turbo Blue Centurion and In Space Silver with Silver Cycle. Hopefully, this time around, fans will finally be able to add these characters to their collections.
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That appears to be the major releases Hasbro has planned for wide retail for the rest of 2023, but as it always goes with leaks, we know other things yet to be seen or mentioned in this article, such as more Cobra Kai figures, Omega Rangers, Zord Ascension Project Tigerzord, and Master Morpher are also in the works for later this year. You can find a breakdown of all this info and more in today’s milestone Episode 200 of the Lightning Storm series:
What do you think of the latest news for the Lightning Collection? Which figures do you plan to pick up once revealed? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow The Illuminerdi on social media to be notified of more Power Rangers news and updates in the future!
KEEP READING: MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS ONCE & ALWAYS: ROBO RITA’S PLOT FOR THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL REVEALED: EXCLUSIVE
Source: @LightningFigPR & @EuSouRalf
