Villains in Power Rangers in Space

The villains of the television series Power Rangers in Space are a group of aliens commanded by a villain called Dark Specter. This group included many villains from previous seasons of Power Rangers.

Dark Specter

Dark Specter is played by T.J. Rotolo and voiced by Christopher Cho.[1]. Dark Specter is a gigantic entity, as the Dark Fortress is smaller than his hand. He is portrayed as the ultimate evil; the other villains are terrified of him. He is known as the Grand Monarch of Evil. As the Grand Monarch, Dark Specter forms an alliance of villains consisting of Lord Zedd, Rita Repulsa, Goldar, Squatt, Baboo, Finster, Master Vile, the Machine Empire, Divatox, Rygog, Porto, Elgar, General Havoc, Ecliptor, Darkonda, the Psycho Rangers, and Astronema.

He captures Zordon, the Power Rangers' former mentor, and drains him of his powers. Selecting Astronema to battle the Space Rangers, Dark Specter makes sure they never rescue Zordon from his clutches. In Countdown to Destruction, Dark Specter initiates a full-scale assault on Earth, Gratha, Triforia, KO-35, and Eltar. Astronema, who was now fully evil and brainwashed by Dark Specter, turned on him in order to destroy him by prolonging the attacks of the Psycho Rangers and other evil forces that drew power from him; while she was able to seriously weaken him in this manner, she did not succeed in destroying him. Though the attack was going well, Dark Specter is assaulted by Darkonda, who tried to slay Dark Specter with a planet-destroying missile. The attack destroyed Dark Specter, but only after he swallowed Darkonda's Velocifighter whole, completely destroying the bounty hunter along with his steed.


He is also considered the true villain since he created Astronema and is leader of the alliance of villains .

Astronema

Main article: Karone

Astronema (played by Melody Perkins) is known throughout the universe as the Princess of Evil, Dark Princess of Space, and the Princess of Darkness. She is the main antagonist of Power Rangers in Space. She is also known for being one of two primary female villains in the Power Rangers series to enter hand-to-hand combat with the Rangers themselves. She carried a staff called a "Wrath Staff" that shot lightning, and a boomerang. Anytime Astronema is out of her Dark Fortress, she wears what she calls her "Battle Gear", which consists of two shoulder plates, a chest plate, and a back plate. This "Battle Gear" helps protect her when she is in hand-to-hand combat.

Once known as Karone, sister of Andros (the Red Space Ranger), she lived on the planet KO-35, a human space colony. She is kidnapped by Darkonda when she and Andros are playing in the park with a toy sphere and practicing telekinesis. She is transported to another planet, where she meets Ecliptor and Dark Specter, the Grand Monarch of Evil.

When Andros discovers Astronema's true identity, he tries to reform her. She becomes an honorary Power Ranger. However, she is captured once again by Dark Specter and his forces. Ecliptor cybernetically brainwashes her, using advanced computer implants to suppress her emotions. She becomes Astronema once again.

In the finale of Power Rangers in Space (Countdown to Destruction), she becomes the Queen of Evil after Dark Specter's destruction. After she becomes the Queen of Evil, Zordon reaches out to her, telling her that because she is now the leader, she doesn't have to do Dark Specter's bidding anymore. His plea almost breaks through the power of the cybernetic brainwashing implants, it does not work. Then, Astronema begins to attack Earth. Andros sneaks into the Dark Fortress and tries to convince his sister to stop and come back to him as Zordon did. A battle ensues, and when she delivers a powerful energy blast to finish Andros, he protects himself with his Spiral Saber deflecting it back to her, seemingly killing her. After Andros destroyed the energy tube of Zordon at his command, it released a wave of purifying energy that eradicated all evil, but left Astronema's body unchanged. Andros cried, and two tears ran off his nose and landed on her cheek. This removed Astronema's cybernetic programming. Restored, she returns to Earth with Andros and the other Rangers.

She was also Zhane's love interest for a time, but after Zhane had to stand her up to defeat a monster, she seemingly lost all interest in him, but was seen holding onto her photograph of him at the end of the episode.

In Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, Karone returned, as she welded the power of Kendrix's Quasar saber after Kendrix died and became the second Pink Galaxy Ranger.

Elgar

Elgar (played by Kenny Graceson, voiced by David Umansky) is a rather dim-witted goon from Turbo. Astronema did not particularly like him. However, when Divatox was relegated to transporting Zordon from world to world, Dark Specter transferred him under Astronema's command. He served mainly as an assistant to Ecliptor and Darkonda, and also operated the Satellasers, a beam of energy fired from Astronema's space base to the planet's surface to enlarge monsters. He was destroyed by Zordon's energy wave along with many Quantrons and Piranhatrons in the battle at Angel Grove.

Ecliptor

Ecliptor (played by Yasuhiro Takeuchi (Megaranger footage) and Danny Wayne Stallcup (U.S. fooatge), voiced by Walter Lang) is Astronema's second-in-command. He is a powerful general, capable of holding his own against even the Red Space Ranger, Andros. He wields a sword, which can fire electric blasts, fires beams from his eyes, and make a duplicate of himself, called a Cyber Shadow.

Ecliptor was built to be a creature of evil. He is charged with raising the captured Karone to be evil, so that she would become Astronema, Dark Specter's most devoted acolyte. It is implied that Ecliptor is more devoted to keeping Astronema safe rather than to furthering his evil cause, which would suggest some kind of love, or at least a protective instinct. Ecliptor treats Astronema as both his queen and his daughter, offering advice when needed. He is always quick to reaffirm that Astronema is, and always has been, evil - although this is not the case.

He is destroyed in battle against the Astro Megazord, but was revived in a bulkier second form.

Ecliptor's arch-rival is Darkonda, a bounty hunter who worked for Dark Specter to capture Karone. Darkonda treats Ecliptor with disdain, always trying to one-up him. Ecliptor places a very high value on loyalty and hates the treachery in which Darkonda delights. Darkonda can also merge with Ecliptor to form a powerful entity named Darkliptor. In this form, Darkonda is dominant, but Ecliptor can force them apart. Ecliptor killed Darkonda on three occasions, during one of which, he saved Andros from a booby trap set for him by Darkonda.

When Andros discovered that Karone was Astronema, Ecliptor attempted to keep them apart, to prevent Astronema from learning the truth. He failed, and Astronema returned to the side of good as Karone once again. Ecliptor remained devoted to his princess, defending her against the attacks of his own forces. He was branded a traitor and was captured by Darkonda.

Ecliptor is brainwashed by Darkonda to be fully evil, driving out any protective instinct he may have had towards Karone, and he is turned into a more powerful version of himself. It was this reprogrammed Ecliptor who captured Karone for her to be brainwashed into being Astronema again.

Towards the end of the Rangers' conflict with Astronema, Ecliptor gains an upgrade, turning red for a time. In this super-powered form, he destroys the Delta Megazord and severely damages the other Zords before his new power expired, as after taking hits from each of the Rangers' individual weapons, he took one slash from Andros' Spiral Saber (in addition to a couple of hits from Andros' Battlizer), turning him back to normal.

In Countdown to Destruction, when Andros inadvertently kills Astronema, Ecliptor appears. Partially free of his programming, he demanded to know how Andros could have done this to his own sister. He vowed to avenge her death and they began dueling. Andros strikes him down and then destroys Zordon's energy tube. The destruction creates a wave of energy which dissolves Ecliptor into a pile of sand. He is the first of many Zordon-era villains to be destroyed.

Ecliptor was also one of the few Power Rangers characters to exhibit the "honorable villain" personality, which was used again for Villamax, Diabolico, Ransik, Nadira, Jindrax, Toxica, Zen-Aku, Koragg, and several others.

Ecliptor was the second villain to battle a Megazord one on one after Goldar.

Darkonda

A bounty hunter from an unknown world, Darkonda (played by Naoki Ofuji (Megaranger footage) and Yoshio Iizuka (American footage), voiced by Steve Kramer) was the first treacherous antagonist in the Power Rangers series. Darkonda, as well as later villains such as Deviot, Frax, Vexacus, Zeltrax, Broodwing, Imperious, and Serrator claimed allegiance to the primary villain of the series - in this case Astronema and Dark Specter - while working for their own agenda and plotting behind their leader's back. In this way, Darkonda was portrayed as the rival of Ecliptor, a villain who was wholly loyal to his superiors. This rivalry was brought to a head when he forcibly merged with Ecliptor to create the being known as Darkliptor.

In Darkonda's first appearance, he injects Carlos Vallerte, the Black Space Ranger, with the venom of a Barillian Bug. He became one of Dark Specter's commanders, and is responsible for taking Karone from KO-35 to Ecliptor for brainwashing. He attempts to destroy the Rangers and Ecliptor as well as his superior, Astronema, several times during the series.

He is Andros' greatest torment, having kidnapped Andros' sister when they were children.

Darkonda died several times during the series, but was regenerated each time. After each 'death', he marked another life on a scroll of paper that he carried with him, as he had only a limited number of lives to live.

In Countdown to Destruction, in a final act of betrayal, Darkonda commandeers a Super Missile to destroy Dark Specter in an attempt to take power in controlling the universe for himself. However, he is destroyed in turn by the evil monarch before he fell. This is Darkonda's last life.

Darkonda, according to his scroll, had 9 lives during the series, although only 7 of his deaths were shown on-screen. It is unknown if he had any more lives prior to his first appearance. Another fact was that he was one of the few villains in the Zordon era not to be dissolved by Zordon's energy wave as he died before the finale to Countdown to Destruction.

Psycho Rangers

Main article: Psycho Rangers

Evil rangers created by Astronoma after being force to become her old self again. The Psycho Rangers oringily drew their energy from Dark Specter, who felt the drain more strongly if the Psychos fought hard. As spirits, they sought a way to return to physical form; this lead them to the lost city, where they used a digitizing device in reverse to become real again. However, the rangers digitized them into data cards; the cards later ended up in Deviot's possession. Keeping with their team name, the Psychos are indeed psychotic.

Quantrons

The Quantrons are Astronema's robotic foot soldiers. They wield dual edge blades and pilot the Velocifighters. As Andros and Zhane were able to disguise themselves as Quantrons, it implies Quantrons are robots wearing armor.

Monsters

The monsters used in this season work for Astronema. The monsters are adapted from the monsters that are featured in Denji Sentai Megaranger. To make a monster grow, Astronema would give orders to fire the Sattelaser at the monster making it grow.

References

  1. ↑ Power Rangers in Space at the Internet Movie Database