After a handful of seasons, Power Rangers had become accustomed to mixing things up with the introduction of the Sixth Ranger, someone outside the core team who gains Ranger powers one way or another. Sometimes they formally joined the team, sometimes they didn’t. When it came time to adapt GoGoV, the crew hit a bump in the road: aside from an ally who wore some face-revealing armor in a chunk of episodes, the show didn’t really have a sixth member.

So like any good American, they said, “Screw it, we’ll do it ourselves.” And that’s how we got Ryan, the first American-made Power Ranger. [citation needed]

NAME: Ryan Mitchell
RANGER DESIGNATION: Titanium Ranger, Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue
BASE OF OPERATION: Mariner Bay
FIRST APPEARANCE: “From Deep in the Shadows” – Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue
LAST APPEARANCE: “Time for Lightspeed” – Power Rangers Time Force
PERSONAL WEAPONS/GEAR: Titanium Morpher; Titanium Laser
ZORDS: Max Solarzord
PORTRAYED BY: Rhett Fisher

PROFILE

The Mitchell family was going for a nice little car ride when they veered off the road and off a cliff. William, the father, was able to save his daughter. However, his son Ryan seemingly fell to his death. That was until he was rescued by the demon Diabolico, who decided to keep the kid and not let his dad see him until his 20th birthday.

Diabolico didn’t know when Ryan’s birthday was. Not that it mattered, it was completely arbitrary.

Many years later, Captain Mitchell was now in charge of the Lightspeed Rescue Power Rangers, one of which included his daughter, Dana. Ryan, having been raised by evil demons for the better part of his life, decided his 20th birthday surprise for daddy would be to infiltrate the Lightspeed Aquabase and steal a prototype Morpher from his dad’s office. Security was very, very relaxed. Serving his surrogate daddy Diabolico, Ryan now possessed the powers of the Titanium Ranger — a fact that shocked his father and the entire Ranger team when he kicked their asses.

Throughout his life, Diabolico filled Ryan’s head with lies about how Captain Mitchell cared more about his sister, creating a desire for revenge within him. Dana confronted him as the Pink Ranger, trying to talk some sense into him, but Ryan resisted. Captain Mitchell found him at the scene of the fateful crash and — even after falling off the cliff again and morphing to save both of their lives — Ryan still got mad, tossed the Titanium Morpher away, and ran from his problems. A visit to Diabolico’s lair confirmed the truth that was there all along: the demons were using him and Ryan had to carve his own path from now on.

Paying a visit to his father (not sneaking in this time but also security pegged him as an intruder THIS TIME???), Ryan explained that he needed to skip town and do some soul searching. Captain Mitchell entrusted him with a small silver box that he should only open once he realizes he is truly good. Gee I can’t imagine what could possibly be in that small b–

Oh. It’s the Morpher. Shocked, I tell you.

Ryan broke it out upon realizing that a big ass feather that he gave to a little boy earlier was actually Diabolico’s and it was going to explode upon sunset. He jumped in just in time to save the other Rangers from the perpetrators, officially joining the Lightspeed Rescue team. He promised his sister that he was never ever ever ever gonna leave again.

Except when he realized that Diabolico put a living tattoo of a cobra on his back that would slither closer and closer to biting his neck every time he morphed. That’s something he sorta had to deal with.

It’s a burden Ryan intended to carry on his own, but the red flags couldn’t be hidden. Carter saw the tattoo without his knowledge and the Titanium Ranger was visibly weakened on his first mission. I can’t blame him, though — my lower back prevents me from fighting my demons all the time. Once Captain Mitchell found out about the true nature of the cobra, he forbade Ryan from morphing until they could figure out what’s going on. What Ryan once saw as his one chance to redeem himself and do something good with his life was now a curse.

So, naturally, nobody would let Ryan have any fun or play with the other Rangers. To remedy this, he got the bright idea to venture out into the desert to confront the source of the curse: a cobra monster, because we’re just making this up as we go along at this point. He got his nuts fed back to him until he tossed his Titanium Axe at a pillar that knocked the cobra out, removing the tattoo and freeing him from its grasp. He arrived with the Max Solarzord just in time to help the other Rangers defeat Diabolico.

Ryan spends much of his time afterward keeping tabs on shit going on in the desert, including the resurrection of Diabolico. It’s rather uninteresting. He mostly just gasped at things while he made a face like he’s staring into an eclipse. He attempted to decode the hieroglyphs along the walls of the demon’s tomb, but his stupid ass drank some sleepy potion given to him by a stranger, who stole Ryan’s notes.

It all worked out though, because the old stranger’s crow actually wound up being the Sorcerer of the Sands that could assist him with translating the ancient symbols. Well, repeating the incantation just ended with the Sorcerer being turned into sand by Diabolico. Oops.

Eventually, Ryan was able to find the golden key that revealed Queen Bansheera’s true plan to unleash a whole barrel full of demons upon Mariner Bay. Then he got his stupid ass captured by the demons and Carter had to rescue him. While they were in the neighborhood, the duo pulled a sneak attack on Bansheera, but were too late to stop her plan of executing her weird stone ritual on the streets of the city.

Using the last vehicle that hadn’t been taken over by Batlings, Carter and Ryan crashed the Mobile Armor Vehicle into the Omega Megazord to interrupt the ritual. The rest of the Rangers joined up to infiltrate Bansheera’s house or whatever and put an end to the ceremony. They sent the evil lady back into the pit she came from, with Ryan doing the honor of sealing the lid.

Their mission complete, Ryan and the other Rangers turned in their Morphers and lived happily ever after. And then Vypra came back and they had to help the Time Force Rangers get rid of her and her terrible acting once again. Ryan showed up at the last minute. Stupid ass.

RANKING

Ryan’s a good Ranger. As it stands, he serves his purpose well. However, the novelty of being the first American-made Ranger wears off once you realize he hasn’t morphed in a few episodes. I think the dude spent more time holding his shoulder than fighting monsters.

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As hard as it is not to take the limitations of the Sentai footage into account and grade on a curve, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Hindsight is 20/20 but I wish they’d have gone all-out with the Titanium Ranger. I wanna know more about what it’s like to be a human kid raised by demons without being under a spell. Like, this dude should be REALLY screwed up, but he’s just so docile most of the time. A nice happy medium would be something of a mix between the attitude of Eric Myers and the bitter power trip of Lord Drakkon (without the whole killing Rangers and taking over the world stuff). The best place for him will be just below Xander and above the slightly more vanilla Leo as the new number 14 on the Children of Zordon.

Follow me on Twitter if you wanna see more thoughtful(?) analysis of color-coded spandex teenagers. Is four months a new record for Longest Stretch Without a Post? I lost my DVDs for a month, does that excuse me? No? Eat a dick.

Join us next time when we check in with Sydney Drew, the SPD Pink Ranger. Yes, I know she has a new Lightning Collection figure. Yes, it’s a coincidence. I do have this somewhat planned out, believe it or not.