Dino Charged: The Greatest Toy Line of The Last 10 Years?

Guest Editorial by Mike (@BigMike8109 on Twitter)

A few weekends ago, my son came up to me and told me he was ready to go through his boxes of toys – five huge bins to be exact. I did what any sane person would do, I told him “next weekend”. Ha!

Well that weekend finally happened and I took a few pics of the chaos and posted them on my Twitter feed. Some were quick to point out that I had a lot of figures, but in the vast sea that was five bins worth of toys I came to the realization that Power Rangers Dino Charge and Dino Super Charge had the greatest toy line over the last 10 years. I don’t know if anyone could change my mind on it, even if they tried to argue the point. Let’s talk about what came before and after the toy line for a moment that made me realize this.

2011 brought the return of Power Rangers fresh off of Saban’s re-purchase of the brand from Disney with Power Rangers Samurai. Samurai and Super Samurai were… well, they were a show and they had toys to sell. I can’t even think of anything that stands out toy wise except a Japanese import of the Bandai Japan Samurai Megazord. There was also a Rita Repulsa figure…

Then came Power Rangers Megaforce which brought us a whole wide range of Power Cards to collect. Power Rangers Super Megaforce is what a lot of people were wanting and waiting on, and it delivered with the Ranger Keys! They were the first of many gimmick items to collect. The Ranger Keys were based on the Power Rangers themselves. This meant that we couldn’t get random Ranger Keys unless you were a ranger. Super Megaforce had a big disadvantage over any of these toy lines in the last 10 years: it was technically only one season, so they had a lot of work to do to get the toys out for a show that only lasted a year. To the credit of Bandai America, when they realized (after a lot of fans speaking up) they didn’t produce every Ranger in the Ranger Key line, they went and completed them. These extra keys released concurrent with the Dino Charge toys.

After Dino Charge/Dino Super Charge we have Samurai... I mean Ninjas! We had Ninjas. Power Rangers Ninja Steel was odd to say the least. They tried to replicate the Ranger Key concept with Ninja Throwing Stars that could be shot out of a small launcher that came packaged with some of the Ninja Star packs. Those didn’t land too well, but I think what they did with the Zords was equally weird. During Ninja Steel the auxiliary Zords got full on Megazord modes for no real reason at all except to sell you different color Zords. While this worked well with the previous season, this approach fell flat for Ninja Steel.

With Power Rangers Beast Morphers, Hasbro took over the toy license from Bandai America. The toy line was decent, but it’s also the only toy line that didn’t complete the show’s Zords. We never got a toy of the final Megazord. They upped the height of the basic figures to 6 inches, but it made them look stretched a bit or maybe that’s just a me thing. Hasbro added keys with the Morpher, which after about five different phrases it would just repeat. This differed from the Super Megaforce Gosei Morpher which would call out the seasons or Ranger if it was a Super Megaforce Ranger Key.

With all that said, it’s about to get wild! Power Rangers Dino Charge/Super Dino Charge ran from 2015 – 2016 and those two years brought with them a MASSIVE amount of things to collect and buy.  And boy, it was really wild.

Let me start with the figures first because there is quite a bit of them! The first wave was all 5 core Rangers, Vivix, and Fury. Then, I thought, “Ok, they’ll add in Sledge and the remaining five Rangers next year!” I was very wrong! Dino Charge introduced something called Dino Drive Mode. They mode was activated in the Megazord cockpit and would grant them Dino Drive powers.  This wasn’t in the Sentai footage and was completely American made for the show. Those crazy people at Bandai America made figures of them, but that’s not all they made!

Super Charge had a mode on top of that mode, Dino Super Drive! And I didn’t even mention the Dino Steel mode, which granted the rangers an armor to one of their arms and different weapons to combine into the Dino Spike! So just off Rangers alone we’re at: 10 regular figures, 5 Dino Steel figures, 9 Dino Drive figures (Silver never got a Dino Drive figure), 10 Dino Super Drive figures and  a few extra figures. These included the T-Rex Super Charged Red Ranger figure, Black Dino Armor X figure (exclusive to a Toys”R”Us 6-pack), Male Purple Ranger, and 5 translucent Dino Ranger figures (the core 5). They even released figures of the Megazords; Dino, Plesio, and Ptera!

Just from the Ranger figures alone we got 42 Dino Charge figures! But here’s the kicker. This is where I think, figure-wise, the line shined: Villains. We got a lot of villain figures… ALL of Sledge’s crew and yes, that even means Poisandra! This included most of the Super Charge villain crew as well. In total, all figures included, we are well over 60 figures. That’s wild.

Then they got even wilder when it came to the Dino Chargers. If you know the season then you know what these were. Powered by the Power Ranger’s Energems to morph, they were also used to summon their Zords and auxiliary Zords into battle. Dino Changers upped what Super Megaforce did with the keys, and boy did they! Each Dino Charger pack came with 2 Chargers and 1 mini-dino figure. There were so many packs of them! In the middle of the line they released an Ultimate Charge Pack which came with all 22 Chargers in 1 pack. Talk about making people double dip if they wanted to! Bandai America didn’t actually have to release this set as no Dino Charger in that pack was ever exclusive.

There were exclusive Dino Chargers though, and those mainly came from San Diego Comic Con and Toys”R”Us. The exclusives included basic Dino Chargers, Chargers with fossil silhouettes, some with eggs, and some translucent ones with glowing dinos inside. Bandai America made Legendary Ranger Chargers, but sadly the line was never completed and four teams still remain missing. At this time there is no chance that they will ever be finished. Those Chargers came in a gold color matte/translucent finish, legendary season’s logo, red ranger, sixth ranger, and Megazord inside the Charger’s art. These Chargers were packed with a black mini dino figure.

Who wouldn’t want to roleplay as a Power Ranger? Power Rangers Dino Charge/Dino Super Charge’s toy line let you and then some. Released were the Deluxe Morpher, Dino Saber, T-Rex Super Charger Morpher, Dino Com, and Dino Spike. On top of all of that we got Zenowing’s Morpher and matching Dino Saber. It doesn’t end there, since we also got recolored versions of the Deluxe Morpher and T-Rex Super Charge Morpher in Green and White respectively.

Let’s make a Megazord or should I say, let’s make several!

This toy line had the greatest Zord line that I can remember. Here are the list of Zords listed individually: T-Rex, Tricera, Stego, Raptor, Para, Pachy, Ptera, Plesio, Titano, Ankylo, Spino. All of these could combine to form Megazords with lots of different combinations. Those Zords were just for the 10 Rangers, but Bandai also made auxiliary Zords just for Dino Charge that weren’t even in the show! These Zords were: Ammonite, Deinosuchus, Oviraptor and Archelon.

It doesn’t even end there. Repaints of 85% of these Zords were also released! This is the thing I think Ninja Steel’s toy line took too far, but Dino Charge got right.

• Black versions of T-Rex, Tricera, and Stego
• Green T-Rex
• Yellow T-Rex
• Red Ptera
• Green Para
• Red Raptor
• Green/Yellow Ankylo
• Purple Pachy
• Black/Orange Deinosuchus
• Blue Ammonite

There were so many different combinations and color variants to mix and match with. It truly was Zord heaven for collectors. Let’s not forget to mention the random Purple Tricera that was shown at a trade show which had people up in arms about (it was never released)!

That’s a lot of Dino Charge toy goodness. Going through all those toys again brought back so many memories of that toy line; a toy line that I’m saying now is the greatest in the last 10 years.

Just a few little Dino-eggs to toss at you before I wrap this up: The first wave of Dino Chargers came in a Dino Egg shaped plastic packaging versus the “teeth” style that most remember. Dino Charge Graphite when first released came with clear versions of the Dino Morpher and Dino Saber, which would later get fixed in his Super Charge re-release to include solid green color weapons.

Here’s hoping Dino Fury’s toy line can live up to Dino Charges and more! Dino Chargers ready?

Credit:

Written/Pictures by Mike (@BigMike8109 on Twitter)
Edited by Eric Berry (@trekkieb47)