You thought the Mighty Morphin gang were teenagers with attitude? Dino Thunder had teenagers with actual attitude. Some of them were good attitudes. Others had some slightly worse attitudes. Bordering on assholes, even.

Completely unrelated, here’s Conner!

NAME: Conner McKnight

RANGER DESIGNATION: Red Dino Ranger/Triassic Ranger, Power Rangers Dino Thunder

BASE OF OPERATION: Reefside

FIRST APPEARANCE: “Day of the Dino” – Power Rangers Dino Thunder

LAST APPEARANCE: “Grid Connection” – Power Rangers Beast Morphers (sort of)

PERSONAL WEAPONS/GEAR: Tyranno Staff; Shield of Triumph; Triassic Battlizer; Triassic Morpher

ZORDS: Tyrannozord; Ankylozord; Triceramax Megazord

PORTRAYED BY: James Napier

PROFILE

Conner McKnight was Reefside High’s resident jock butthead. He skipped class on the first day of school to practice his soccer kicks out on the field until he was berated by Principal Randall and sentenced to detention. Alongside his classmates Ethan and Kira, he was forced to take a field trip with Dr. Oliver, the new paleontology teacher. The students literally stumbled on his secret man-cave and Conner bonded with a dinosaur rock that gave him super speed. This rock also gave him the powers of the Red Dino Ranger, leader of a new team of color-coded crime fighters under the tutelage of the good doctor Tommy.

Stubborn, headstrong, and a little stupid, Conner initially had his doubts about being a Ranger since it got in the way of his soccer practice. Seriously, dude was so into soccer you’d think he was a Digimon gogglehead. It took a hug from a little girl that he saved from a Tyrannodrone to convince him that maybe being a superhero is a smidge more important.

As time rolled on, Conner revealed himself to be a capable fighter and a pretty alright leader. When a monster was creating duplicates of their weapons, he proposed closing the barrel of the cloned Z-Rex Blaster so that the weapon would backfire. The plan didn’t work and the monster figured it out, but the effort was there at least. And for a guy like Conner, that’s all you can ask for.

Ethan happened upon a Japanese TV show that was like an adaptation of their lives as Power Rangers. Conner thought it was really lame and wanted to work on his social studies project instead. The jock wanted to do homework instead of watch TV? Now that’s character development. But since the project involved comparing two countries, he used the show to make his point, even though he didn’t quite agree with their portrayal. After all, what do they know about Power Rangers in Japan?

Star soccer player Alexi Somethingorother came into town and Conner wanted to get him to join his club team. Alexi was a man of few words, however, and completely blew him off. Meanwhile, an evil White Ranger clone showed up and made him suspicious of the recently purified Trent. It didn’t help when Tommy took Trent on a secret mission while they had to go off to fight Terrorsaurus. Overall, it was looking like Conner was no longer the favorite.

The mission was a success, and Mr. Dr. Tommy and Trent retrieved the ancient Shield of Triumph from a waterfall that looked suspiciously like Ninja Ops. The shield was meant for Conner to use and, combining its power with the energy of all five Dino Gems, he became the upgraded Triassic Ranger and sent Terrorsaurus to the shadow realm.

Conner was really into this hippie girl who wanted to save a local tree, so naturally, he attended one of those “Save the Tree From Being Demolished and Stuff” protests. Krista the tree babe saw through his fake jocky ass. But seeing how much Krista cared about that tree really made Conner question if he was passionate enough to continue his superhero job.

Leave it to Teacher Tommy to instill some confidence in the Red Ranger when it mattered most – when it turned out the tree had a fountain of youth under it that Zeltrax was drawing power from, he sucked it dry and turned it into a monster. Conner was inspired to summon the Triceramax Megazord (a combination that does not include the Tricera Zord but it’s ok don’t worry about that) and the powers of the Battlizer, an upgrade that gave him plenty of toys to save Krista and knock out Zeltrax. Some of these toys included stretchy extendo arms like Mr. Fantastic and “Super Fire Power,” whatever that might be.

Conner’s time as a Ranger humbled him quite a bit, even to the point where he would hang out with a dork like Ethan and show him a thing or two on the soccer field. Once Mesogog was done and dusted, he attended the school prom with Krista and, after graduating, started an after-school soccer program for younglings. He and the other Dino Rangers would go on to assist the SPD Rangers a couple of times through some time travel juju and, according to SPD Blue, future Conner McKnight opened a bunch of youth soccer camps all over the country.

Some version of the Dino Thunder Rangers (and pretty much any other Ranger with a prehistoric theme) showed up in high-definition to assist Grid Battleforce when a bunch of old villains came back to do some bad stuff. We have no official confirmation that the Red Dino Ranger was Conner, and he didn’t sound anything like him, but there was definitely a guy in that suit alright.

RANKING

Conner’s fine. I know he has his fans, and I’ve mentioned plenty of times how I like douchebag Rangers, but he just doesn’t QUITE do it for me. He’s an average douchebag. Perhaps slightly above average. I’m going to put him just above our last guy Merrick as the new number 19 on the Children of Zordon.

Twitter. The List. You know the deal by now. I don’t know why I have to keep telling you this, but your lack of listening skills are really putting a strain on our relationship. To be quite honest, I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. But for now, stay tuned for the next entry when we talk about Lily from Jungle Fury.

And if you’re at Morphicon this weekend, have fun ya dangus.