If you can’t tell by now, I like my Rangers weird. The ones that don’t fit the superhero mold. Sometimes they’re idiots with a heart of gold. Sometimes they’re dweebs with zero coordination and no right to be wearing a Morpher. Sometimes they’re big ol’ jerks who need to be put in their place. But on occasion, they’re really really old men that talk in broken sentences and break their friend’s cell phones out of fear. Like Koda.

NAME: Koda
RANGER DESIGNATION: Stegosaurus Power Ranger Blue, Power Rangers Dino (Super)Charge
BASE OF OPERATION: Amber Beach / a cave somewhere in the past I guess
FIRST APPEARANCE: “Powers from the Past” – Power Rangers Dino Charge
LAST APPEARANCE: “Grid Connection” – Power Rangers Beast Morphers
PERSONAL WEAPONS/GEAR: Stego Charger; Dino Steel/Stego Shield; Blue Energem
ZORDS: Stego Zord
PORTRAYED BY: Yoshi Sudarso

PROFILE

Koda was born on a mammoth hunt some one-hundred thousand years ago. As a Neanderthal, he lived in a cave and spent some time carving out drawings on the walls of his home, where he stumbled upon the Blue Energem. When a sabertooth tiger threatened his little brother Taku, Koda jumped to his rescue — and off a cliff to certain death.

The Energem bonded with him, protecting him from the fall and freezing him for 100,000 years. Kendall Morgan and Chase Randall found him encased in a glacier and freed him from his icy prison. As the holder of the Blue Energem, Koda became the Dino Charge Blue Ranger and spent his spare time working at the Amber Beach Museum’s Dino Bite Cafe. Holy wow, that was a lot of Proper Nouns. What a mouthful!

Speaking of mouthfuls, Koda really liked burgers. In many ways he was your typical doofus comic relief character, but he differed in that he had a true to life reason to be doofy. As a recently-defrosted caveman, Koda had a lot to learn about functioning in modern society. Morphing was hard enough of a concept for him to grasp. And full sentences.

In spite of all that, Koda was truly loyal to his friends and treated them like his new family. His bonds were so strong, when a monster tried to use his friendship-killing scissors on the Rangers, it cut every tie except for Koda’s. The scissors friggin’ broke. That’s how much he loved his dang family.

Turns out you can take the man out of the cave, but you can’t take the cave out of the man. The caveman, specifically. I mean it’s not a literal cave inside of him but you know what I’m talking about, right? He got to put his survival skills to good use when one of Sledge’s monsters captured him, along with his teammate Chase and some kid named Peter, and held them captive in a cave. Koda and Peter helped each other out of the cave, with the caveman tending to his wounds and lighting a torch while the kid used his GPS to guide them out. Peter later taught Koda how to ride a bike because he’s a big scaredy cat.

Prince Philip III of Zandar showed up to claim the Gold Energem for his country during a museum exhibit. Koda tried to reason with him, but his barefooted dirty ass didn’t exactly impress his royal hiney. When Sledge’s goon Fury intercepted Philip’s limo and tried to steal the Energem, Koda came to his rescue and took him to safety. Even though the mean prince treated him like dirt, Koda still saw something good in him.

Uncovering an Energem of his own from a dino fossil, the Prince consulted Koda to figure out how to harness its power. The caveman spilled the beans over a meal at the Dino Cafe, letting him know that the Energem will only respond to someone with a good heart. Koda must have gotten through to the prick, because Philip rescued Chase’s sister during a monster attack and became the Graphite Ranger for the first time.

After Sledge’s alleged defeat, the Rangers turned in their guns and badges and went about their normal lives, some leaving Amber Beach behind. Koda continued working at the Dino Bite with Sir Ivan, attempting to keep it afloat while they were short staffed because nobody wants to work anymore. But then the reanimated monster Iceage ambushed Tyler and froze Kendall and Ivan solid when they came to his rescue. Koda managed to narrowly escape his own ice prison, running away from the scene in fear of being frozen for another 100,000 years.

Tyler and Keeper helped to alleviate the caveman of his survivor’s guilt. To track and rescue their friends, Koda and Tyler got Iceage to freeze them in their Ranger forms, slipping out of them just before they could be completely solidified. I’m still not clear on the logic behind this. Either way, they tracked down Iceage and the new big bad Snide and used the Dino Blaze Charger to free their pals from their icy prisons. With an all-new threat to take down, the Rangers had to resume their superheroing duties once again.

Koda tried out a few different sports before realizing he could use his caveman clubbing skills to dominate baseball. When they were attacked by a sports monster, he literally knocked him out of the park. Riley didn’t hesitate to capitalize on this and served as his “personal trainer,” getting him a gig with the Amber Beach Earthquakes. While Koda enjoyed the attention and activity, he was never one to follow civilizational customs like wearing shoes or eating healthy, and Riley was really pushing him. Like, uncharacteristically hard. But ooh we’ll get to that when we talk about Riley.

As it turned out, Koda mixed up his baseball bat with the monster’s magic bat. Also the bat was gonna explode, so they needed to take care of that right away. But they were in the middle of a big game of some sort, I dunno, I don’t watch sports. Riley, living ever-so vicariously through his friend, insisted on staying to play. But Koda reminded him that being a Ranger is more important or whatever and they went off to fight the monster instead. They made it back just in time for Koda to hit a home run using his caveman instincts instead of a magic bat.

Kendall’s grandma showed up at the museum with a crazy mirror thing she found while exploring some canyon. Koda immediately recognized it from his ol’ cavemanning days and the Rangers rode him over to the canyon. There they found Koda’s old home in a cave with a bunch of cave drawings, including a warning from his grandfather telling his family not to wander too far into a cave because it could be dangerous.

So naturally, they all threw caution to the wind and explored too deep. For no other reason than to find something to do in this episode, Riley and Chase unlocked a clearly dangerous door that unleashed a monster onto the world. Not just any monster, but one that used the sun’s rays to mind control people. But not just mind control people — she fired “vacation rays” that made everyone not want to do anything other than chill and party. Koda and Kendall were the only ones who avoided the beam, while the other Rangers just fucked around.

Koda was left to clean up the mess they made while Kendall found a way to reverse Leisure’s spell-thingy. Nothing should have happened in the first place. The whole thing is stupid.

The Dino Museum debuted a new robo-caveman exhibit that they named “Worg.” Museum patrons weren’t all that interested in it, and Worg only caused trouble because his programming was a little janky. Koda thought he could improve his efficiency at the cafe by bringing Worg to work with him, but it continued to create more problems than it solved.

Ms. Morgan got pretty pissed off when Worg started pelting customers with tomatoes, so she ordered Koda to put it in storage. However, Koda had grown attached to the robot because it reminded him of his fellow cavemen. He’d tell it stories about mammoth hunts and stuff. It was kinda cute as long as you forget that Worg was a really really ugly robot and not a real person.

Worg’s remote command headset was the only thing that prevented Koda from being turned into a zombie by a horn-blowing monster duo. He had to get everybody to cover their ears to break the spell, and quickly separated the monsters from their terrible trumpets. Kendall developed headsets for each Ranger so that they could finally put a stop to the musical menace. When they were cornered by some civilians-turned-zombies, Koda commanded Worg to break free from its storage crate and distract the horde.

The Blue Ranger also led the Dino Charge Ultrazord in the final confrontation with Lord Archanon. He would later find a new use for Worg: assisting him with a… fitness class at the cafe.

After throwing Sledge into the sun and pulling off some time travel hijinks, Koda returned to a time before discovering the Blue Energem with his little brother Taku. He was called to action once again to help the Ninja Steel team rescue a handful of other kidnapped Rangers from the clutches of G-rated Lord Drakkon and his robo-ranger army.

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Later, the danger came to him. Preston, also known as Ninja Steel Blue, teleported to Koda’s dimension and warned him of Sledge and Poisandra’s return. The caveman helped him save the other Ninja Steel Rangers and also Christmas.

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In the “prime” Ranger dimension, Keeper was kidnapped by the evil weapons collector Ryjack. Koda and his fellow heroes helped the Grid Battleforce Rangers rescue him and retrieve some dusty ol’ villain weapons (or “relics”). They’d team up again soon after — alongside some other Dino-related veterans — when the newly-revived Goldar Maximus stole their Energems and caused a ruckus.

RANKING

I want to start by promising you that my bias doesn’t skew toward male Blue Rangers. That being said, Koda is the world’s best friend, and Yoshi Sudarso plays him with such genuine enthusiasm and heart that it’s hard to deny him being a top-tier Power Ranger. What he lacks in booksmarts and modern sensibilities he makes up for in loyalty and brute strength. Not only does he love his own personal Ranger family, but the guy goes out of his way to help other teams of Rangers on the regular. And he’s been active for what, six years??

I think the only thing truly holding him back is that damn baseball episode, but that’s not entirely his fault, right? Every character sorta became an idiot in Supercharge. I’m a sucker for a good fish-out-of-water character, though, so it all evens out to make Koda the new number 8 on the Children of Zordon.

I’m really glad I did Koda. He makes me happy. You know what else makes me happy? Following me on Twitter to make those precious numbers go up. Make sure you @ me to tell me why Koda is actually the best and/or worst Ranger and we can get into a big fight in the replies. You can also check out the full list to see where your favorite Rangers stand and why your opinion is wrong.

Next up is Damon, the Lost Galaxy Green Ranger. I have a feeling it’s gonna be a real fun one. Maybe. Stay tuned.