Being a Power Ranger means dedication. Nobody embodies that more than Tommy Oliver.

NAME: Dr. Thomas “Tommy” Oliver
RANGER DESIGNATION: Green Ranger / White Ranger / White Ninja Ranger, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers; Zeo Ranger V Red, Power Rangers Zeo; Red Turbo Ranger (I), Power Rangers Turbo; Black Dino Ranger, Power Rangers Dino Thunder
BASE OF OPERATION: Angel Grove, Reefside
FIRST APPEARANCE: “Green With Evil: Part 1” – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
LAST APPEARANCE: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always
PERSONAL WEAPONS/GEAR: Master Morpher; a Power Coin for each of his five Ranger forms; Sword of Darkness; Dragon Dagger; Saba; Zeo V Power Sword; Defender Wheel; Turbo Lightning Sword; Brachio Staff; Brachio Morpher/Gem; Invisibility
ZORDS: Dragonzord; White Tigerzord; Ninja Falconzord;  White Shogunzord (shared w/ Kat); Zeo Zord V; Super Zeo Zord V; Red Battlezord; Red Lightning Turbozord; Brachiozord and a bunch of other ancillary Dino Zords
PORTRAYED BY: Jason David Frank

PROFILE

A kid in green clothes hit the scene at Angel Grove and made his grand debut with some spin kicks at a karate competition. Tommy gracefully accepted a draw against Jason Lee Scott, a like-minded teenager with a habit of wearing red. These boys were oiled up and ready to go, I tell ya what. They glistened.

Tommy began his time at Angel Grove High the same way I imagine most guys named Tommy do – by throwing some karate moves in front of the school bullies to rescue a pink lady. He immediately charmed Kimberly and she invited him to hang at the youth center. Tommy accepted this gracefully, again, as he does everything – but not before flashing her that damn smile. Ooh la la.

This new kid ended up being pretty popular, though perhaps with the wrong crowd. Rita Repulsa took notice of like this nice young man and thought it would be fun to make him a bad boy because she’s quirky that. After accosting him with some Putties, she used the power of her Green Power Coin to transform our dreamboat into her evil Green Ranger. Along with this came the power of the Dragonzord, which is like Godzilla if he were composed entirely of metal and had missiles for fingers. I bet Tommy has missiles for fingers.

Anyway. Tommy immediately broke into Zordon’s Command Center, deactivated Alpha 5, and pretty much vacuumed Zordon out of his tube. I mean, not literally. But could you imagine? Man pulls out a hoover and just sucks him up. Like a flippin straw.

While the Rangers tried to figure out just who this green fella could be, Tommy still had to prove himself to Rita, apparently. By fighting a group of Putties unmorphed – you know, a thing she already knew he was more than capable of because that’s how she chose him to be the Green Ranger a couple paragraphs ago – he earned the Sword of Darkness. She then ordered him to use his coin to teleport Jason to the Dark Dimension.

The Green Ranger spent much of his time fighting and tormenting Jason while Rita sicked her various monsters on Angel Grove. But then Jason got rescued, so the evil Tommy stayed in the Dark Dimension and did some karate moves to keep in shape, I guess. The Rangers got Zordon back for a short time, before Tommy showed up again to suck him dry. Don’t be gross. This is a callback to the straw joke. This is comedy.

This time, Alpha was able to contain the Green Ranger in a force field. Briefly. Rita used a spell to summon him back at the last minute, then turned him giant to fight the Megazord alongside Goldar and Scorpina. They emerged victorious, and the Zords fell into a fiery pit. It was a bummer day all around, especially after the Rangers figured out his identity.

Their newest friend, wearing green, also happened to be their greatest enemy, also wearing green. He sure was Green with Evil.

The teens tried their darnedest to bring Tommy back to the light side, but he was sippin’ on that Rita simp juice too hard. He summoned the Dragonzord to fight the Zordless, grounded Rangers, but it wasn’t long until Zordon and the Zords came back.

That’s a good band name. I’m taking it. Don’t steal.

After some evenly-matched Megazord action, the Red and Green Rangers took the fight to the quarry. Jason destroyed the Sword of Darkness after some back-and-forth, finally purifying Tommy and adding a Sixth Ranger to the team. They shook on it, then did some sick-ass poses together as a family.

A new member of any group is bound to shake things up, especially when these Rangers barely so much as argue with each other. It took a little while for Tommy to fully gel with the team. He and Jason participated in a Team Ninja competition (no, not the famous NIOH and Ninja Gaiden developer), which required them to coordinate a karate exhibition together. But they just couldn’t get on the same page.

Trini suggested “Gung Ho”, which, for the purposes of the episode, was just Chinese for “working together”. Its origins are a bit more complicated than that, but I’m not here for etymology. I’m here to talk about a children’s show.

Rita summoned her new Super Putties, prompting Zordon to tell the Red and Green Rangers to go find some new weapons. The only solution. These two doofuses put their brains together and came up with a great plan, which just involved swapping weapons in order to retrieve the new ones, as well as fight off a giant brachiosaurus robot named Titanus. They went on to win the ninja contest, but you probably already forgot about that because I just said “tit anus” which is very funny.

Tommy would spend much of his time as the Green Ranger showing up late to fights for various reasons. Sometimes he’d leave his communicator in his locker. Other times some Putties would trap him in a giant net without his Morpher. The dude could rarely catch a break, but in times when less-enthusiastic Rangers may have just given up, he always persisted.

The Big Dance™ was coming up and Tommy was fittin’ to ask Kim to go with him. But wouldn’t you know it, Goldar showed up to kidnap him. Rita had created a Green Candle, which contained magic wax sorta like the kind Gwyneth Paltrow makes. But instead of smelling like her coochie, it smelled like the Green Ranger losing his powers. Once it burned out, that was the end for our green friend’s superheroing days.

In the meantime, Rita’s shapeshifting Cyclops monster ravaged the city, disguised as the Dragonzord for some reason. Once Tommy and Goldar were free, the Green Ranger summoned his 100% authentic Dragonzord to fight back. The Rangers concocted a plan to break into the Dark Dimension to take care of the evil candle situation. Though he was close to retrieving it, Jason had to return once he learned Tommy needed their help right away.

The Cyclops was down, but unfortunately, so was Tommy. He had no choice but to give his Power Coin to Jason in order to preserve what little mighty morphin’ energy was left in it. Bummed out, Tommy resigned himself to a life of practicing karate at the part and finally kissing Kimberly.

And then Tommy was never a Ranger again. Sad.

Rita kidnapped the Rangers’ parents and stole the Dragon Dagger. To rescue them, the Rangers had to turn in their Power Coins to Goldar. Dumb idiot forgot to ask for the Dragon coin, though, which Zordon recharged with some of his energy because I guess he can just do that. With a few cartwheels and an erroneous Blade Blaster in his holster, the Green Ranger regained control of his Zord and put Goldar in his place, narrowly making it back to the Command Center before falling over. His ability to morph again came with a heavy burden: every time he did it, Tommy risked burning the powers out forever. Again.

So you see, I lied to you. Tommy became a Ranger again. I had you so fooled. You shoulda seen the look on your face.

At this point, though, he was running on fumes. Rita’s moon palace operation got hijacked by Lord Zedd, the Emperor of Evil. His first order of business was taking the Dinozords out of commission. Zordon replaced them with the Thunderzords, but Tommy’s powers were too limited for him to receive a shiny new toy. Zedd took note of this weakness within the team and made targeting the Green Ranger a priority.

Zedd’s brilliant 100% original idea was to brainwash Tommy. Again. This would give him an insider at the Command Center who could convince the Rangers to summon the Sword of Power (not to be confused with the Power Sword)(or the Mega Power Sword), a weapon that could only be summoned by all 6 Rangers that we’ve never been privy to until now. You’ll be baffled to hear that this plan did not work, though it did wear down the Green Ranger powers. Tommy’s tenure was coming to an end sooner rather than later. Again.

His penultimate fight as the Green Ranger found Tommy teaming up with his QT GF to fight off Guitardo, a monster Zedd summoned from using Kim’s guitar. In one of his coolest moves to date, the Green Ranger passed his Dragon Dagger to Pink, who fired it with her bow like a gosh dang arrow to take down the guitar monster.

One fateful day, Tommy’s not-so-distant future self appeared before him as an apparition to deliver a cryptic message about his powers. Meanwhile, Zedd was jealous that Zordon got to hog all the teenagers with attitude, so he wanted his own. He used a magic Green Crystal to siphon Tommy’s powers into his new Dark Rangers.

Our handsome, powerless boy found himself in a remote wheatfield fighting a shell monster for a while, until Goldar showed up to take over. He presented him with a highlight reel of his time as the Green Ranger, making Tommy feel guilty for not being able to help his friends. He wouldn’t take this lying down though.

He did what he does best: kick the problem away. The device Goldar brought with him allowed him to retrieve his lost communicator from his past self, because the laws of physics have never applied to Tommy Oliver. Teleporting to Zedd’s pocket dimension, he destroyed the Green Crystal before his Dark Rangers could even do anything noteworthy. Sucks to suck.

With one more fight left in him, the Green Ranger used it wisely by blasting the recently-engianted shell monster with a laser while Zack froze him from the outside. Again, physics.

Though he wasn’t the Green Ranger anymore, Tommy remained loyal to his friends. He took a sabbatical at his uncle’s cabin out of town while his pals continued their multicolored adventures. But he and his friends were in for a surprise once he returned to Angel Grove.

Zordon and Alpha got to work on a super secret project that hogged all of the Command Center’s power. They didn’t warn the Rangers before cutting off their communication, but it’s fine, I’m sure there won’t be any monsters. It was all worth it for the glorious debut of the White Ranger.

Regardless, everyone was shocked to learn that not only was this new White Ranger their friend Tommy, but he was also to be the new leader of the Power Rangers. Jason seemed oddly okay with this, even when there was 0 indication that he would be losing his leadership status. Zordon had even just complimented Jason on his leadership capabilities a few episodes ago. But nah, Jason was… not the leader anymore.

But hey, this was also when Tommy got the best weapon of all – Saba, the talking tiger sword! Remember that one time in MMPR the movie when it shot lasers out of its eyes to cut a rope? That was incredible.

Jason, Zack, and Trini got into a dispute over their pay with Zordon. Zordon decided he didn’t need them and they were entirely replaceable. He sent Tommy and the team to a deserted planet to retrieve a sword that could transfer their paychecks over to Rocky, Adam, and Aisha from Stone Canyon. Now there was no awkward power dynamic between Tommy and Jason. How convenient for everybody involved.

Unsatisfied with simply leading the Power Rangers, Tommy also ran for class president, in an attempt to scoop up more power and influence. LOL J/K it was a friendly competition between himself and Kimberly (which only became heated once they were under a spell, of course).

One time Zedd and Rita convinced some Putties to cut off a piece of Tommy’s hair so that they could clone him as an evil Green Ranger. Then the Green Ranger and the White Ranger fought and it was so freaking epic dude. You had to be there.

Oh and don’t even get me started on how the other Rangers got sent back to *shuffles papers* *checks notes* uhhhh, colonial Angel Grove, California, which was apparently colonized by Australians. Damn that’s crazy. They got attacked by some giant rats.

Once all of this complete and utter nonsense was said and done, the Green Ranger clone turned good, so he and the White Ranger went back to fight the giant rats together. Then the Tommy clone stayed and cosplayed as a colonial guy for the rest of his life. Incredible stuff, and not a single ripple in the timeline was created.

After his White Tigerzord got decapitated and the team lost their powers, they made the journey to meet a fella in a foam suit named Ninjor who granted them Ninja Ranger powers. Tommy got… this outfit that would get meme’d on for years to come.

He also got a new Falconzord that had a head and everything! Neat. 

Tommy had to say goodbye to Kimberly as she fucked off to Europe to do yoga or something idk. A nice Australian girl named Kat showed up to succeed her as the Pink Ranger. So, naturally, Tommy may or may not have developed “the hots” for her. Tehe. They also had a lot to bond over, both having been directly brainwashed by Rita to do her evil bidding and threaten the Rangers.

So anyway he was the White Ranger for a while, then the Rangers got turned into kids and had to find the five pieces of the Zeo Crystal to return to their proper twenty-something teenage selves.

Baby Tommy ended up at a Native American village where he was pointed in the direction of a man named True of Heart. He climbed a mountain and was presented with 3 different crystals. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal, just take all 3 and go, right? But if he picked the wrong one he’d be stuck on that mountain forever. What if a bear showed up? He could get eaten.

True of Heart just told him to listen to his… heart, of course, and Tommy was successful in picking the correct crystal. The “forces of nature” and a “conveniently placed phantom arrow on a tree that pointed where he needed to go” also helped. The wise old man also gave him an arrowhead, which will come back into play in a few paragraphs, I’m certain.

All the Rangers reunited at just the right time for the Command Center to blow up, thanks to Rito and Goldar. With their powers gone, they needed something else. The Zeo Crystal provided just that: the power of geometry! Tommy now had a big ol’ star on his face as Zeo Ranger V Red, granting him and his friends the strength to take on the evil Machine Empire.

With a new status quo in place, everything was going super swell and the Rangers were back to fighting one monster a week, per their contract.

Then, everything changed when Kimberly attacked.

Her attack came in the form of a “Dear John” letter, informing Tommy that she had met a new man during her European gymnastics excursion. She also said Tommy was “like a brother” to her, which says a lot more about Kimberly than it does about him. You kissed your brother, dude. Gross.

In order to take his mind off the whole thing, Billy and Kat took him to the snowy slopes of… wait are they still in California? Whatever, they went snowboarding slash skiing. Here, Tommy had a brief flirtation with Kaitlin from VR Troo– I mean, a snowboarder named Heather who got stuck hanging from a cliff after some Skugs– I mean, Cogs, got rid of the danger signs. His brilliant plan to save her? Tying a bunch of coats together to form a rope. It worked, so I can’t even hate.

Though Tommy wanted to spend more time with Heather, his Ranger duties just kept getting in the way. She grew increasingly frustrated because she was really looking forward to seeing his Dragon Dagger if you know what I’m saying.

To cheer him up, Kat set up a fancy candlelight dinner for the cute couple, and Heather drove all the way to Angel Grove to be there. But who could have guessed, they got cockblocked again by monster business. When he returned, Heather had disappeared back to virtual reali– I mean, wherever she’s from. But it was truly a blessing in disguise, as Tommy and Kat got to spend some time together. They even danced, because eventually he was always gonna get with the Pink Ranger. That’s just how it goes.

It didn’t take long for Tommy’s attention to veer away from his heartbreak and toward another piece of his destiny: nightmares brought on by the half-arrowhead given to him by Sam Trueheart (or True of Heart) a few paragraphs ago. During a Native American art exhibit at the youth center, Tommy stumbled upon the man, but didn’t remind him of who he is or how they just had a very important encounter involving a big crystal. That Tommy, always forgetful.

Either way, he gave Sam a ride into the desert, which he didn’t think much of at first. But then the Zeo Megazord got effed the heck up and it fell upon Tommy to use the new Red Battlezord that Billy designed specifically for him. To properly use it, the Red Ranger needed to be fully focused and at peace with himself. Tommy was not these things, until an astral projection of Sam appeared in his cockpit and told him to trust in the Force or whatever.

This bizarre experience brought Tommy back to the desert, where he went on a vision quest that led him to David Trueheart. David had the other half of the arrowhead and revealed himself to be Tommy’s lost brother that he didn’t even know he had since they were both adopted by different families. Oh yeah also Tommy is adopted?? Did I mention that? He doesn’t talk about it much.

It wasn’t long before King Mondo kidnapped David. Tommy had to exchange the arrowhead – which had some incredibly strong magic powers or some shit – to save him, but of course Mondo came from the Goldar villain school of not staying true to the terms of the deal he himself made.

All of this culminated with Tommy clearing his mind and focusing enough to combine the Red Battlezord with the Zeo Megazord to create the Zeo Mega Red Battle Mega Ultra Zord. That’s not the real name, but you believed it, didn’t you? David and Tommy then separated the arrowhead to ensure that it didn’t fall into the wrong hands again.

Also side note, it’s worth mentioning that throughout all of this arrowhead business, there’s not a single confirmation one way or the other that Tommy actually has any Native ancestry. Take that as you will.

The Rangers were joined by a new Gold Member of the team, an alien named Trey who needed to pass the power to someone else because he was feeling sleepy. Out of everyone in the entire world, Tommy decided to recruit his first friend from Angel Grove, Jason. Making your former leader your new Sixth Ranger is sort of like putting him in the cuck chair, but it’s okay. This time around, Jason had the cooler costume, and therefore was the one with both the muscles AND the power.

The Machine Empire kidnapped Tommy, brought him to a distant planet, and brainwashed him into thinking he was the Machine King for some reason. After showing him some highly doctored videos of the Rangers committing various acts of terrorism, he became fully convinced that they had to be taken care of.

Not wanting to let Tommy down again like he did when he fumbled the Green Candle situation, Jason showed up in the arena and tried to get Tommy back to their side. Again. He wasn’t swayed. It took the rest of the Rangers showing up and doing some Power of Friendship shit to rescue him. Just in time for Tommy to finally ask Kat out officially. Like, on a date.

This one time there was a movie where they kicked Rocky off the team for hurting his back and replaced him with a kid they had to babysit and got rid of the Zeo powers for no real reason and started using Turbo powers which gave them cars and so Tommy got super into race cars for a little bit which caused him to miss his high school graduation ceremony before also leaving the team along with everyone else except for the kid because they needed to move on with their lives after high school or whatever.

Anyhow he gave the powers to T.J. T.J. was pretty cool.

Tommy returned a few years later to lead a mission to the Moon as Zeo Ranger V, alongside all of the other past Red Rangers except for Rocky because nobody seems to count him. Maybe his back was still broken. Some stragglers from the now-defunct Machine Empire were trying to reactivate Serpentera, so it took ten red guys to take them down. Well, only one red guy and his super cool flying motorcycle was needed to blow up Serpentera, apparently. But the other nine were there too. They kicked some Beetleborgs.

Between all of this, Tommy got a PhD in paleontology (somehow) from MIT. There he met a few nice folks including Anton and Smitty, with whom he would collaborate to do crazy dinosaur science experiments on an island. Unbeknownst to Tommy, a lab accident turned his new friends into the evil Mesogog and Zeltrax. Mesogog blew up the island and took all of his wacky and zany dino experiments with him.

Luckily for the safety of the world, Dr. Oliver had unearthed these colorful Dino Gems from some fossils, which he converted into Dino Morphers. He took a teaching job at Reefside High and was forced by the (actually evil) principal to oversee detention for three Teenagers with Attitude. He took them on a quick museum field trip that went awry and ended with the teens becoming their own team of Power Rangers.

By “awry” I mean Tommy kicked a fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex in the face.

Soon after, Doctor O. (as he was affectionately known by his students) was abducted by Mesogog. Tommy’s new proteges went through his lab archives and found out fairly quickly that their teacher also used to be a Power Ranger.

The Dino Rangers rescued him from Mesogog’s lair, along with a mysterious rock that wound up being the Black Dino Gem. The good doctor used it to morph into the Black Dino Ranger, his fifth Ranger form with the power of the Brachiosaurus and invisibility. His Zord was just a Carrierzord for the rest of the team, because it’s about time we humbled this guy a little bit, right?

Eventually the Rangers would come across an evil counterpart all their own – the White Dino Ranger. Once Tommy found out he was another student named Trent, the adopted son of his old colleague Anton Mercer, it was too late – the White Ranger fossilized him. He was eventually freed, but found that he was unable to de-morph. Then he was stuck as an invisible guy for a while.

Hayley used the power of the Black Dino Gem and some green Nickelodeon slime to bring him back to being visible and human. Though this was a success, the gem broke and Tommy was rendered comatose.

In his dream, Tommy was visited by three Ghosts of Rangers past – the Red Zeo Ranger, White Ranger, and Green Ranger. Defeating all three in battle reaffirmed his will to live and his dedication to being a Power Ranger. They each presented him with a piece of his Dino Gem and bam, Doctor O. was back to action.

All this time, Trent had kept his father’s role as Mesogog a secret from everyone. When the truth was revealed, Tommy considered telling him to turn in his badge and gun. Wisely, he left the decision up to his fellow Rangers, who elected to let him stick around. Once Mesogog was finished off once and for all, Tommy continued to be a science teacher and put his Ranger days behind him. Again.

Just kidding. A few years later, he returned as both the White and Green Rangers to lead an army of other Legendary Rangers warding off an alien armada. At some point in the middle of all this craziness going on in his life, Tommy found time to marry Kat and have a son named JJ. Another few years and he returned again: this time with Kat and some other allies to help the Ninja Steel Rangers fight Lord Draven, a monster hellbent on putting all of the Dimensions in Danger and using past Rangers’ powers to create an army to help him do it.

He saved the Rangers that Draven captured, but not before fighting an evil robot Black Dino Ranger clone. The robot didn’t expect that Tommy brought with him the Master Morpher, a reconfigured original Power Morpher that allowed him to morph into all of his past Ranger forms. It was pretty sick. He would later summon the Falconzord one last time for the final strike against Lord Draven.

This one time Rita came back as a robot, killed Trini, and later kidnapped Tommy and various fellow Rangers to power one of her evil machines that did evil or whatever. CEO Billy and Congressman Zack enlisted the help of Kat, Rocky, and Trini’s daughter Minh to destroy Rita for real and rescue their friends.

As an adult, JJ Oliver became a recruit at Space Patrol Delta. Tommy, meanwhile, slowed down his Ranger duties on account of his back being effed the heck up and just generally getting old. He and Kat also reckoned with the fact that even after all this time and all of the work they did, there’s still so much evil out there in the universe and they can’t save everyone.

In the midst of this identity crisis, Tommy was also leaving his teaching duties due to… well, they cut the entire science department, which sounds ludicrous. But whatever, Doctor O. was now unemployed and looking for something to do. Lucky(?) for him, he got busy pretty quickly. JJ went missing and someone had to find the poor kid. With a busted-ass Master Morpher that only had one morph left in each coin, he was gonna have to be careful in his approach.

But by now you must know this is Tommy Oliver we’re talking about. One way or another, he’s made a career out of literally never being careful. Motherfucker spin-kicked a T-Rex in the face once. I mentioned that, right? Definitely.

After finding out from Commander Tate that JJ had mysteriously quit SPD, shit got murkier. He enlisted the help of Anara, one of JJ’s colleagues, and the two discovered him making illegal morphing crystal deals out on the streets. We all know “doing crystal” is bad, so Tommy was understandably concerned. When confronted, it was clear that JJ wasn’t doing this under any sort of duress or magic brainwashing spell. JJ was doing gang shit because he was gang shit.

Tommy took one of the green morphing crystals to a villain-turned-friend known as Finster, who ascertained that the dark magic it possessed could only come from Rita Repulsa. Knowing that the ringleader of all the gang activity was known as “The Witch”, figuring out who put JJ up to all this was a forgone conclusion.

Except oopsie, JJ was actually deep undercover for SPD trying to figure out who The Witch was. All Tommy had done, though, was blow his son’s cover and render the whole operation FUBAR. This is what happens when you’re a helicopter parent. The Witch wasn’t even the person he’d thought it was. It was Scorpina! She made quick work of Tommy and Anara before capturing JJ and taking him to be sacrificed to the evil Lokar.

Leading a rescue mission with some allies, Tommy came to JJ’s rescue and, to defeat Scorpina, passed his morpher to his son to use its last morph as the Green Ranger. Burnt out by all this Ranger business, Tommy finally retired and took a holiday with his lovely wife to figure out what’s next for the Oliver family. JJ would carry on as the SPD Green Ranger, wearing his father’s Dragon Shield.

*Listen, I know I mostly focus on the show for CoZ, as the comics exist in this sort of nebulous “what-if” universe. But Jason David Frank himself was a consultant on Soul of the Dragon and appears heavily modeled after the show version of the character. From my view, it’s all but confirmed that SotD is a straightforward conclusion to “main universe” Tommy’s story. Plus I already mentioned it in Sky’s entry, and I’m nothing if not 100% consistent with myself at all times. Try to find one single time I’ve contradicted myself. Ever. You can’t. It hasn’t happened. Except that one time, but I’ve already forgotten about that. You should too.

Anyhoo I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the other comic-based elephant in the room: Lord Drakkon. There’s a universe out there where Tommy never stopped being evil and eventually usurped Rita and pretty much took over the world and controlled all the Power Coins. “Shattered Grid” is still one of the best stories Power Rangers has to offer. Don’t rely on me to retell it for you.

“RANKING”

From their greatest threat to their most valuable player, there’s no greater Power Ranger success story than Tommy Oliver. Rita had no way of knowing that, by summoning this young man to be her paragon of evil, she was actually ensuring her own downfall.

I’m not ranking him. Comparing him against any of the other people on this list is a fool’s errand. Tommy gets his own rank at the very tip top. He’s beyond #1. He’s untouchable.

There’s no doubt that he caused a lot of problems when he first showed up as Rita’s evil Green Ranger. But from the second the spell was broken, his life’s mission seemed to be all about becoming the best Power Ranger he could be. Time and time again, the odds were stacked against him. Through every brainwashing spell, every Command Center that exploded in his face, every intrusion on his life that made him fashionably late to the monster fight, Tommy persevered. And he looked damn cool doing it.

Tommy Oliver’s dedication to Zordon’s cause is completely unmatched. Rita and Zedd wish they had a servant as loyal and capable as Tommy that they didn’t have to brainwash. No wonder so many villains repeatedly tried to replicate the (brief) success that was the evil Green Ranger.

JDF once said that the Green Ranger was like the “Wolverine of Power Rangers”. While there’s certainly an argument to be made there (I think he just meant to imply he was the badass one tbh), I see more of the X-Men’s Cyclops in Tommy than I do Logan. Tommy was Zordon’s star pupil, much like Scott to Professor X: a living, breathing emblem of his mentor’s cause.

His leadership skills weren’t always perfect, but Tommy grew into his own by the time he was powered up by the Zeo Crystal, and as a mentor to younger Rangers once he finished his education. Sure, not every decision was the right one, but he was decisive and on top of things. He’s the best to ever do it.

Being a Power Ranger means dedication. Nobody embodied that more than Jason David Frank.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=W14osD2kiDI%3Fsi%3DujZBUgipYd51LqhT

Even a year out from his untimely passing, it still feels unreal to be talking about JDF in the past tense. But if I were never to touch this website again, I needed to at least talk about Tommy. This felt like the right time. Especially given the current state of Power Rangers, what with the uncertain future, the alleged upcoming reboot.

I’m not even sure who I’m gonna write about next. I’m definitely taking a break for a while. This one was… rough. Until then, here’s the list. Here’s my Twitter (it’s called Twitter).

Until next time, may the Power protect you and all that.