I generally don’t like country music, but I do like this guy. Oops, I guess that’s a spoiler. Please keep reading, I promise it’s entertaining.

NAME: Aiden Romero (birth name), Levi Weston (stage name)
RANGER DESIGNATION: Ninja Steel Gold, Power Rangers Ninja Steel
BASE OF OPERATION: Summer Cove
FIRST APPEARANCE: “Return of the Prism” – Power Rangers Ninja Steel
LAST APPEARANCE: “The Poisy Show” – Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel
PERSONAL WEAPONS/GEAR: Gold Ninja Battle Morpher; Gold Ninja Power Star; Rockstorm Guitar; Lion Fire Gold; Superstar Mode/Superstar Blade; Burger Selfie Phone™
ZORDS: Robo Rider Zord; Ninja Bull Zord, Piranha Zord
PORTRAYED BY: Jordi Webber

PROFILE

For reasons not entirely clear to him, Levi Weston was held captive hooked up to a machine on Galvanax’s Warrior Dome space carrier. Rescued by the Astro Zord, he arrived back on Earth as the mysterious Gold Ranger, much to the confusion of the Ninja Steel team.

Levi was a country music superstar that everybody seemed to be a fan of. During a meet-and-greet, he and his manager Tom were attacked by Ripcon and his forces attempting to hunt down the Gold Power Star (poorly) hidden inside Tom’s briefcase. After the attack, Levi recruited Red Ranger Brody — one of his saviors and an admitted non-fan who just treated him like any other dude — to be his bodyguard for the duration of his tour stop in Summer Cove.

Ripcon did manage to kidnap Tom, who he assumed was a traitor from Galvanax’s ship who brought the Power Star to Earth. When the Rangers rescued him and realized he wasn’t the guy, Levi showed up and morphed into the Gold Ranger to help placate Ripcon.

After a fierce battle with a Skullgator, the Rangers showed Levi their headquarters and he gave them the rundown of what happened. Shortly after Brody, Sara, and Preston received their Power Stars from the Nexus Prism, it visited Levi and granted him the Gold star while he was in the middle of nowhere working on his new album. Madame Odius was quick to kidnap him and take him aboard the Warrior Dome, where they messed with his head real bad before the Astro Zord’s rescue.

Despite his celebrity, Levi was just a normal, charming guy who loved cheeseburgers, his fans, taking selfies with exploding monsters, and helping people in need. This made his decision to cancel his three-month world concert tour even more difficult, but his priorities as a Ranger took over. This probably wasted a lot of his record label’s money but that’s fine because the music industry sucks anyway. Also the massive earthquake caused by a monster during his concert probably made for some bad press.

Also he’s gonna… finish high school. Nothing weird about a massive country music star attending public high school with a five-o’clock shadow.

Brody’s long-lost brother Aiden decided to show up one day and disrupted the team dynamic by being an overall dickhead. He got a little rough during some training with Levi, who pegged him as a suspicious little character. When Brody was poisoned by Madame Odious and asked for all of the Rangers’ Power Stars in exchange for the antidote, Aiden immediately insisted on caving to her demands.

Levi and Hayley found this to be even MORE sus and hatched a plan to make some chocolate versions of the Power Stars to give to Odius. Thankfully, alien monsters are stupid and she fell for it hook line and sinker.

Levi assisted Mick with the creation of the Ninja Fusion Star and left headquarters for two seconds, which was all Aiden needed to paralyze Mick and Redbot and snatch the Ninja Steel for Madame Odius. Levi was the first to confront Aiden and realize he was a robot before the other Rangers showed up to destroy him.

In the process, RoboAiden’s memories leaked back into Levi because I don’t know, science maybe. Thanks to a childhood song Brody sang for the talent show, Levi was able to put the pieces together and realize that he himself was Aiden all along, just in time to sing along with his brother. Aiden had changed his name to hide himself from Galvanax before finally being captured upon retrieving his Power Star. Preston suggested that they keep calling him Levi Weston instead of Aiden Romero for the sake of simplicity and probably to keep the children watching from getting confused.

The Gold Ranger fought side-by-side with his brother and friends until they destroyed Galvanax and, in the process, broke the Nexus Prism and lost their Ranger powers. And then that was the end of the show. Forever.

I know, I know. You’re not stupid. You know there’s a Super Ninja Steel.

Or Ninja Super Steel, as the Rangers call it in the show. Silly stuff out of the way, once Madame Odius came back and tried to revive the Prism, the team was able to stop her just in time, creating new Super Ninja Super Steel Super Stars. Levi teamed up with Brody to beat Odius’s new monster *ahem* Smellephant and the Ninja Steel Super Ninja Stuper Seel Rangers were back in business.

The Rangers stumbled upon a pretty lady on the boardwalk singing one of Levi’s songs, so naturally, he came a-courtin’. Jess appeared to be starstruck, pretty much asking Levi to listen to her mixtape. They went on a cute little date where she tried to turn him into Fred Durst. There’s only one explanation for this: the woman is evil.

Actually, it’s true: Jess turned out to be Spyclops, luring Levi into singing a song of magic words that would turn himself evil. The Rangers were too late to stop the show and were forced to fight the Gold Ranger along with Spyclops. Preston was able to break the spell by… reading the lyrics backwards. However, Levi’s trust issues couldn’t be magically erased. How do you come back from your girlfriend being a monster? It’s okay, because it’s never really brought up again.

Chaz, a huge fan of Levi’s music, approached him in the common room at school. He had developed a parasocial friendship complex with the singer based entirely around how his music inspired him. Also “Levi” (as in his manager) replied to one of his letters with “let’s hang out soon,” so I can’t really blame the kid for trying to be his friend. Not wanting to disappoint a fan, Levi went along with Chaz’s schtick just to be nice.

It didn’t take long for him to regret the entire interaction, as Chaz starts dressing like him and inviting him to hang out with his friends and shit. Levi and the team had to take care of a recently-werewolf’d Mick (yep), so he was in no mood for groupies and told Chaz to take a hike, in so many words. Mean, but effective.

What’s even meaner is Chaz when the monster of the week assumed — based on his cowboy attire — that he was Levi and turned him into a werewolf instead. Levi was able to calm him down and remove the werewolf spell, and Chaz learned not to dress like Keith Urban ever again. Isn’t it weird that there’s a country singer named Keith Urban? Shouldn’t his name be Keith Rural? Feel like that’s more appropriate. Anyway the Nexus Prism decided this was a good time to give the Gold Ranger the Lion Fire Armor power-up to defeat the monster Dreadwolf. In my opinion, Levi owed nobody an apology, but he made up with Chaz anyway because he’s such a handsome sweetheart.

A little late in the game, Mick developed a Superstar Mode Star for Levi to use, but when testing it out, Tynamon (my favorite Digimon) showed up to switch voices with him because they ran out of ways to fuck with the Rangers at this point. Since their morphers respond to their voices, this left Levi with no way to be the Gold Ranger, but gave Tynamon the ability to use his Power Stars. Preston attempted to reverse the spell but ended up turning Levi into a 10 year old. Oops.

In his new form, Baby Levi took a walk in the park while the Rangers looked for a new spell to cure what ails him. He got picked on by some kids playing soccer, but a little redheaded devil child named Rosie told them off. She explained to her new friend “Aiden” that you can’t let that stuff get to you, conveniently referencing her favorite Levi Weston song. Remembering his own lyrics that he wrote reminded Baby Levi that he was happy being himself, further legitimizing the idea that kids in Power Rangers are either incredibly stupid or precocious with no in-between.

Preston was able to reverse all of the spells and restore Levi and Tynamon’s natural voices. He got the chance to use his Super Star Super Ninja Mode or whatever — the one with the Clint Eastwood poncho — to defeat the Monster of the Week as well as put a stop to whatever the hell Tynamon was doing. Later, Adult Levi reunited with Rosie and played some soccer with the kids in the park. The kind of stuff that would put a less charming man on a government list somewhere.

After the destruction of Odius, Levi and the other Rangers returned their powers to the Nexus Prism and lived happily ever after. Levi probably went back to writing music, but if I were him, I’d finish high school before my stubble starts going gray. A billboard for one of his shows popped up in the background of an episode of Beast Morphers, so I guess he’s still at it.

RANKING

I can’t think of any other celebrities that become Power Rangers, so I would consider Levi pretty unique. His episodes are some of the best that Ninja Steel has to offer — which, admittedly, isn’t saying much.

However, that “true” reunion with Brody where they play that song? Such a good payoff. It’s legitimately heartwarming, even if only one of the characters is interesting (we’ll explore that one day, don’t worry). Everything surrounding it is incredibly wacky, of course, with Levi being a famous country western star that returns to high school like it’s a normal thing to do. But that’s when Power Rangers is at its best: balancing the absurdity of the world they live in with genuine emotional stakes.

Levi never quite reaches that peak again, but that’s okay. Sixth Rangers rarely live up to the hype they create in their first few appearances. Overall, I’d say he’s equally as interesting as Ryan, if not more. His charm rivals that of a Chase or a Xander, so I’m going to squeeze him right in-between them as the new number 13 of Zordon’s Childrens. Someone will wanna fist-fight me over this probably, but they eat me. You try playing favorites ya jerk.

Thanks for reading all of this. And if you didn’t, thanks for reading this part. Anybody who takes the time to read any amount these dumb little “””articles””” I make about Power Rangers, let alone all 24 of them so far, is a hero. And probably a little insane. But anyway, follow me on Twitter if you haven’t already and make sure you check out The List if you want a comprehensive explanation of why my opinion is better than yours.

Join us next time because we’re checking out a special one — Theodore Jay Jarvis Johnson, baby. Stay tuned.