Things have not been going well for Power Rangers fans as of late.
When Hasbro purchased the brand for $522 million back in 2018, things looked good to start. Their first series, Power Rangers Beast Morphers, adapted a Super Sentai show fans thought would never be, and used it to tie up some loose ends from a beloved series from a decade prior. They followed up on this with Power Rangers Dino Fury and the much shorter Netflix-exclusive Power Rangers Cosmic Fury.
And, besides a 30th anniversary special which tied in to Cosmic Fury, that was it.
There was talk of a new movie and/or a reboot of the franchise, but those plans apparently stalled out. Meanwhile, Hasbro has apparently divested itself of its toy-making responsibilities to the brand by licensing it out to Playmates, so they can do it instead.
Still, hope persisted, as it usually does. That is, until the auction was announced.
It was revealed back in October that Hasbro would be getting rid of all the various Power Rangers props, suits, and other material used to create the show for the past 30 years via Heritage Auctions. Three decades of television history. Japan gets a Super Sentai museum exhibit for their history, and we get an online auction for ours.
Suffice to say, it's not been a popular move among fans nor the people who brought us the show, who were even explicitly told they weren't allowed to keep the jackets that had been tailor made for them, in at least one series' case.
Via Gizmodo:
And it wasn't even a charity auction, either, which would at least be in the spirit of so many of the characters people grew up with and idolized. No, Hasbro instead seems desperate to claw back whatever they can of their initial investment to reline their pockets, history and all others be damned. Well, fair enough, we suppose. After all, they are a corporation, and corporations, as you might have heard, are here to make money.
So, how much money did they make?
Well, if you somehow missed it in the title, here's a more precise figure for you, anyway: $3,310,929.
Gizmodo highlighted some of the items which garnered a higher price.
The highest bid of $87,500 went to the Cosmic Blaster (left), the combined form of the weapons wielded by the Cosmic Fury Rangers in what may be the show's final season. A slightly more modest $47,500 was put down for the filming miniature Astro Megaship (center), headquarters to the Space Rangers in the popular Power Rangers in Space series and fully capable of converting into the Astro Megazord (right).
Other items that were on the chopping -- er, auction block included the Green Ranger suit worn by the late Jason David Frank in his role as the ultra-popular Tommy Oliver, which went for $30.000, as well as the original Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger's costume ($22,500) and Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger's costume ($23,750).
Well done, Hasbro. 30 years of Rangers and the people behind them are proud of you for making back 0.63% of what you spent to kill the franchise, we're sure.
If you're interested in what else was up for grabs and what it fetched, you can check it all out here, though you'll need an account to pull up the final amounts.
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