The late Disney era of Power Rangers is a strange beast (ba dum tish). They started out as 38-episode orders with Ninja Storm and by the end, they were down to 32 episodes with RPM. Most Sentai seasons tend to be in the ballpark of 50 episodes and one has to imagine it’s tough to pick and choose what to include in the American adaptation when you have a limited amount of screen time. As a result, some characters that get introduced “later” in the season only get a handful of episodes to leave an impression.

That being said, Dominic Hargan still managed to make his mark.

NAME: Dominic “Dom” Hargan
RANGER DESIGNATION: Jungle Fury Rhino Ranger, Power Rangers Jungle Fury
BASE OF OPERATION: Ocean Bluff
FIRST APPEARANCE: “Path of the Rhino” – Power Rangers Jungle Fury
LAST APPEARANCE: “Now the Final Fury” – Power Rangers Jungle Fury
PERSONAL WEAPONS/GEAR: Rhino Morpher; Control Dagger
ZORDS: Rhino Steel Zord
PORTRAYED BY: Nikolai Nikolaeff

PROFILE

Once an impressive Pai Zhuq student, Dominic Hargan left the academy at the orders of Master Mao to find his true path. He was the poster boy for “brilliant but lazy,” a smart dude that just didn’t know how to apply himself and couldn’t focus on any particular goal. Six years later, he found himself at Jungle Karma Pizza to meet up with his old pal RJ. Instead of letting him help make pizzas, Casey assigned him to scraping gum off the bottom of the tables.

This was until Casey was called to join the others fighting a crocodile monster. Dom follows him and discovers what his old friend RJ was really up to: mentoring a group of Power Rangers. He tried to help out by fighting the monster, but he wound up almost getting a skateboarder hit by a car. Dom was hoping to get back in on the action and continue his training, but after pulling an elaborate health inspector prank on the Rangers and almost sabotaging their fight, they simply couldn’t take the guy seriously enough to let him join the team. Especially Casey.

Dom wasn’t about to take this sitting down. In an effort to prove himself, he started helping out around the restaurant, but he wound up mixing up chili pepper with regular pepper and freaking out some customers. Obviously he wasn’t very good at the whole service industry thing, so that certainly wasn’t the calling he was looking for. Convinced he just wasn’t meant to be there, Dom left to continue his wandering lifestyle.

Before he could dip out, Fran had a little heart-to-heart with him to sway him back. And then a sign almost fell on her until Dom saved her by cutting a hole in it with… his hand. Casey saw this and realized that he’d made a mistake. RJ gifted the poor boy a morpher the size of his head, allowing him to become the Jungle Fury Rhino Ranger. Realizing his full potential, he solo’d a bunch of foot soldiers and 1v1’d the croc monster with ease. He expressed his gratitude by gifting Casey a ball made out of all the gum he scraped up.

Though he was a big jokester, Dom was able to gain the respect of his peers. His strength in battle was matched only by the scale to which he was a doofus who couldn’t quite get anything right, which caused some frustration among the more serious Rangers. You wouldn’t tell by looking at him, but he was actually a book lover like some kinda nerd. Although it got Fran’s attention, so you can’t hate the man.

Before he left the academy, Master Mao gave Dominic a Control Dagger, something that he said would eventually be useful on his path. He stored the dagger in a very safe place: under the table at a nearby restaurant. Theo joined him to retrieve it but ended up losing it in a lady’s laundry basket. He found it in a laundromat dryer and subsequently lost it to the evil Camille. He and his teammates got derailed yet again by a chicken monster. Dom wasn’t having a great first outing as a Ranger, all things considered.

With Dai Shi in possession of the dagger, the Rangers had to race to the Rhino Nexus and beat them to it. Jarrod just barely beat Dom to the Rhino Steel Zord, but the spirit rejected him and Dom was able to fulfill his destiny.

Dom became enamored with a pretty genetic engineer who was attacked by some of Dai Shi’s goons. He revealed his identity to her in an effort to A) get some information about her cloning formula she invented, and B) to shoot his shot. She rejected both of these when he betrayed her trust a little. He was able to convince her to help out and to stop a monkey monster from multiplying himself and causing a G-rated version of Planet of the Apes. Unfortunately, she never did show up for that date he offered her. But no worries. Fran did.

After the final Beast War (not Transformers) with Dai Shi and fulfilling his destiny, Dom left once again to travel wherever the wind takes him. This time he wasn’t alone. He got Fran a ticket to Europe and invited her to go backpacking. I like to imagine they’re still out there bein’ cute and shit.

 

SUGGESTED VIEWING

Path of the Rhino is his introduction episode and it’s a bit rushed. That being said, it’s really funny. So is Maryl and the Monkeys. He literally uses his Ranger suit to get the attention of a pretty girl, and she still stood him up. A great example of how being a superhero doesn’t inherently get you chicks. Sorry, Ziggy.

 

RANKING

Poor Dominic probably has one of – if not the – lowest episode counts of any “main” Ranger. It feels almost unfair to judge him based on the fact that he drew the short end of the stick. He proved himself to be a great foil to the rest of the team, who save for RJ were pretty serious most of the time. I really like him, I just wish he got a little bit more exposure. Maybe a couple of more focus episodes at least.

I’ll pit him up against other goofball Rangers. He doesn’t have the same screen presence of Ziggy, but he’s also cooler than Jake because his sole motivation isn’t just, you know, girl. Heck, I’m even gonna put him above Scott because he truly wanted to better himself as a person, which is more than I can say about cool hair guy. Oh, and vanilla Leo. He also has one of my favorite Ranger suits and my favorite Megazord. I really love rhinos, guys. I think that’s why I’m gonna place Dom Hargan as the new number seven on the Children of Zordon.

Make sure you follow me on Twitter (and also no context power rangers, of course) and check back every Monday (mostly) for new entries on the list. I might do some other stuff in-between, and @childrnofzordon is probably the first place you’ll hear about it. As usual, I don’t make promises. If you wanna see where other Rangers stand on the list, make sure you take a gander at that link.

Next week, we’re gonna have a look at Kira Ford of Dino Thunder. Also for the love of god stop calling her Kira.