Hasbro Gives Up On ‘Power Rangers’ As Franchise’s Costumes, Props To Be Liquidated At Heritage Auctions
Readers of Bounding Into Comics may not know that Power Rangers has marched on through the decades since it’s explosive debut in 1993. 31 years later, all assets from the franchise are headed to auction as Hasbro liquidates the entirety of Power Rangers via Heritage Auctions in November of 2024.
Bounding Into Comics reached out for an official clarification from Heritage Auctions, who replied:
Question (BIC): Does the “All Power Rangers Auction” feature auction items that span the franchise’s history?
Answer (HA): Yes, the auction includes lots that span the entire history of the franchise.
If you’re a fan with a couple bucks, you are in luck.
How Did The Power Rangers Auction Come To Be?
While the show was initially popular with young boys, it was met with a great deal of criticism from concerned parents who complained that their children were re-enacting the martial arts seen in every episode of the show. Despite the best efforts of censors and pearl-clutchers, Saban Brands pressed on and brought the show to the global stage in the coming years.
The history of this franchise stretches back further than it’s name, and even Saban brands. In the 1970’s Stan “The Man” Lee of Marvel Comics fame had been traveling to Japan with Margaret Loesch of Marvel Productions. The pair were visiting the land of the rising Sun to oversee the Toei Company’s progress with the Japanese Spider-Man television show. During a visit to the Japanese production studios for Spider-Man, Stan caught some of Super Sentai’s current offering: “Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan”. He believed the series’ action, humor, and appeal to kids and teens would be a hit in the U.S. He and Loesch worked to produce a $25,000 pilot for an American adaptation of the show, but it was rejected due to the violence.
Decades later in 1990, Loesch would become the founding President and CEO of the Fox Kids Network. Her attitude about embracing the high-energy, attitude-driven decade as it emerged led Fox Kids to setting the standard in children’s after school and weekend programming. Margaret’s meeting with Hiam Saban (Saban Brands) almost ended with no deal struck; Saban’s last offering was a pilot for a show called “Phantoms” that merged Japanese action sequences with footage filmed in Californias. By pure luck Haim had stumbled onto the formula that Stan and Margaret had attempted back in the 70’s with Sun Vulcan. “Phantoms” would be retitled “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” and receive a full season green light from Margaret.
The Mighty Morphin Rocket Ship
You might think that’s it. That from there all of this became history and at the end of the Mighty Morphin series; the franchise closed it’s doors and took it’s place in Nostalgia Nirvana. That would be incorrect. Power Rangers would go on to have not one but two feature-length movies and 30 more years of content. Power Rangers: The Movie took the series to Hollywood and Power Rangers: Turbo would be the second theatrical release of the Power Rangers brand—and it would mark the end of these productions for another twenty years.
The franchise has been on the rocks before – literally. The Power Rangers went to space! The ‘In Space’ series was supposed to act as the swan song for the entire franchise. The afterglow of Mighty Morphin had faded with Turbo‘s theatrical release, and when the last of the familiar faces from the Mighty Morphin series (Jason David Frank aka Tommy “Green Ranger” Oliver) left the series, ratings fell through the floor. Saban brands elected to close all the gaps, and send off their universe of spandex clad freedom fighters in style.
Power Rangers: In Space would draw inspiration from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and fashion a team of space traveling young adults on a quest to save their floating head father figure, Zordon. The show would end with a climactic battle across the known Power Rangers universe, that at the time, was more ambitious than the Endgame final battle. Every villain, every hero, every zord, every weapon, every theme song – all of it thrown into the mix!
It was a wonderful and truly passionate display from the showrunners, crew, actors, and all those involved over the years. It was so well received that Saban decided to carry on the series anyway, and so on went the progression of Power Ranger teams. Each year a new group of young Americans would rise up and defend their coastal Californian town from the inexplicable focus of demons, aliens, haunted pollution, evil martial arts schools, and aliens again.
Enter the Walt Disney Company
In 2003 the Walt Disney Company would officially announce their aquisition (made in 2001) of Power Rangers, and release their first Power Rangers season filmed in New Zealand titled: Power Rangers: Ninja Storm. Disney would hold onto the brand for sometime before, once again, interest faded in the rainbow helmet heroes. Disney sought to mothball the franchise with Power Rangers: RPM. Much like Power Rangers: In Space, RPM would take the theme of a total war against evil; the Power Rangers losing that battle and being forced into a life-or-death defensive position. This season was much more mature than any before it. Concepts of death, resurrection, brutal human experimentation, child slavery, and even total human extinction were central to the plot. Each of the RPM Rangers having survived the collapse of Earth’s civilization by somewhat brutal means…
Neo-Saban’s SEVERE Mistakes
But once again, saved from being vaulted away into memoryland, Saban brands returned to purchase back the Power Rangers brand. In 2010 Hiam Saban’s brand re-acquired the entirety of the franchise. Initially the effort was to revisit elements of the 1993 brand and lean into an appeal to generational fans who had their own children now. Thus a push to merge the identity of the 1993 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with what fans called the “Neo-Saban Era” of Power Rangers began.
Many appreciators of Power Rangers complained that the Neo-Saban era was obsessed with the original theme song, and in fact Neo-Saban did find a way to tick that tune in anywhere and everywhere they could. Deciding to adapt the footage from two extremely Japanese-centric Super Sentai series; Power Rangers Samurai and Power Rangers Ninja Steel were met with mixed opinions. The seriousness presented in the combat footage did not line up with humor from the American footage… So we begin to see the cracks start to form.
Facing another drop in market appeal, Saban chose to revisit the 1993 formula but with a 2017 memer twist. This took form in Power Rangers (2017) which successfully alienated existing fans, while completely confusing new fans that were not familiar with the deeper lore of the series. The failure to see success with the 2017 film led to Saban selling the franchise to Hasbro in 2018.
Hasbro’s Blind Gambit
Readers may recall that Hasbro is a toy company with a history of creating boy-centric media to facilitate the sale of such toys. One would think that Power Rangers would be right at home next to the Transformers, and next to G.I. Joe. Hasbro having a history in making transforming robots, unique vehicles and weaponry should have had no problem at all reigniting the flames of these high-energy heroes. However, it did not go that way at all.
If you’re keeping track you’ll note that this franchise has been saved three times now from destruction. That would not remain the trend. In 2021 Hasbro was outed for embracing CRT (Critical Race Theory), which chased out a bit of their talent that didn’t want the backlash. This brought Simon Bennett, an episode director and producer, to the forefront of the intellectual property.
As showrunner Simon brought Power Rangers: Beast Morphers to life, revitalizing the brand by introducing a few new elements to the visual stylings of the Power Rangers. However, Simon would reveal a few years later that he did not like the Super Sentai television show that provided the action sequence footage for Power Rangers. He claimed to have mocked it with other creative team members in Hasbro’s Power Rangers department. He expressed that he found it hard to take seriously, and that he found it boring most of the time.
This brings us to the final two installments of the Power Rangers franchise: Power Rangers: Dino Fury and Power Rangers: Cosmic Fury. Dino Fury borrowed suits and giant robot footage from Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger, but Simon insisted on filming new action sequences with those suits. This resulted in an immediate spike in production costs. Hasbro would later end the decades long contract with a New Zealand based stunt company that has longed worked on the Power Rangers franchise. The new footage was much more focused on the use of wire teams and forced perspective camera angles. This meant that on top of filming the footage of the Rangers has civilians, Hasbro needed to also pay for the production of action sequences.
Power Rangers: Dino Fury won a GLAAD award for the Green Ranger of that season “Izzy” ripping off her Power Ranger skirt. This was seen as an empowering moment for lesbians. However the donor suit from Japan was worn by a male character, as was common with Power Rangers. It still boggles my mind what they were trying to say with this. But it spurred on showrunner Simon Bennett’s desire to virtue signal. Power Rangers: Dino Fury would go on to feature the first black 6th Ranger. However, the story that introduces him suggests that the gods of this universe froze him for millions of years at the bottom of a lake while all of his friends died… and he’s just cool with that! Gotta love DEI writing.
Power Rangers: Cosmic Fury would be the final installment for the franchise as we understood it from 1993 to that point. Cosmic Fury was mostly American footage and assets. The season would only borrow the giant robot footage from Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger, and the remaining on screen assets would be generated by Hasbro. This was part of the toy maker’s drive to separate the Japanese toy designs made by Bandai from the Power Rangers property that Hasbro was producing. Ultimately it failed, resulting in an extremely bloated and ugly season with little to no spirit of the original series left within it. They even managed to turn one of the Power Rangers into space Jesus. Complete with healing the sick, transforming the bodies of others, and self resurrection. I am not kidding you.
Hasbro’s CEO Chris Cocks spoke during a conference call back in April regarding the Power Rangers brand and it’s fate within Hasbro. He explained that Power Rangers had fallen under $50,000,000 in gross revenue, and that without licensing the brand out to Playmates, Hasbro stood to see the full collapse of the brand. Cocks explained that Playmates has a lower cost-to-market than Hasbro does, and felt that Playmates could keep the branding going sub-$50,000,000 annually. In June of 2024 it was revealed to investors that Hasbro had no plans for Power Rangers when they acquired it from Neo-Saban. The Research and Development department hadn’t even been made aware that Hasbro was thinking about purcashing the IP let alone being tasked with adapting Bandai’s designs into Hasbro’s market space.
The Heartless Road Ahead
Now the ultimate end has arrived. As mentioned at the beginning of this article Heritage Auctions seeks to sell over 900 lots in their first-ever all Power Rangers auction. Liquidating the franchise in its entirety through private auction indicates that Hasbro will not be returning to television with a live-action Power Rangers offering, nor will it be returning to the big screen with such an endeavor either as Netflix has backed out of a collaborative reboot leaving Hasbro with no distribution avenue for any production they stand to create.
Boom! Studios has indicated that they are still in possession of the Power Rangers comic book license and that they had no plans of relinquishing it in the near future. It’s unclear if that means they will continue to publish new Power Rangers content, or if it means they will not be releasing that license back into the wild…
As of this writing there is no public statement from Hasbro stating that the Power Rangers brand has been permanently suspended. There is no indication that Hasbro will be selling the property, but there is also no indication that they won’t be doing that either. There has been no statement from Heritage Auctions, nor Hasbro on whether or not auction items will be directly donated to museums or if these auction lots will be sold to private collectors alone.
What Happens Next?
Well, Super Sentai in Japan has not slowed down. Because this is where Power Rangers pulls the majority of it’s action footage, the Sentai series feels very natural to Power Ranger fans young and old. While the series isn’t available in dubbed English, subtitles are available, and currently TokuSHOUTsu on Youtube is airing previous Sentai series FOR FREE! The Toei company’s Super Sentai franchise is currently firing on all cylinders with Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger.
It is the hope of the author of this article that the end of Power Rangers allows the transforming hero genre in the USA to expand into it’s own genre and finally rise up to where it belongs…!
MAY THE POWER PROTECT YOU. ALWAYS.
More About:Collectibles and Toys TV Shows