Ranger Days
Author: Red Sonic
Artist: Red Sonic
First released: The first strip was released at the Acorn Cafe on October 28, 2005.
Title reference:
Continuity: There is a spin-off named Ranger Days Valentine Special.
Length: Work in progress; there are 85 strips as of July 3, 2008.
Rating: PG
Red Sonic posted nine strips as Ranger Dayz until May 2006 before he went into a hiatus of more than one and a half years. He returned in January 2008, reposted the original four strips, and has been drawing and publishing new strips at an irregular rate since then.
Ranger Days is a sprite comic based on Toni's Ranger sprites plus countless sprites Red Sonic found on his hard drive and on the Web and partly reworked.. The backgrounds, of which there are only a few, match the style of the sprites. Each strip is 697 pixels wide and 299 pixels high and usually consists of six panels.
Contents
[hide]Synopsis
The comic begins with Gadget right outside Rescue Rangers Headquarters trying to fight Fat Cat who is wearing his FatCatron 5000-X battle suit. The Ranger-Wing X-O suit with its rainbow-colored wings doesn't prove to be much help, neither are the other Rescue Rangers who are reluctant to go onto what's obviously a suicide mission. But not only Fat Cat is after the Rangers, many more villains are, and they are only part of the long list of cameos in Ranger Days.
Tammy offers her help, and the first new strip published in 2008 shows her addiction to guns when the inside of her place is shown with the walls practically plastered with hundreds of guns ranging from small pistols to heavy machine guns, from modern SMGs to ancient front-loaders. Her craziness is frequently demonstrated by her drawing a pumpgun whenever she finds it appropriate.
Foxglove reveals herself to be a Magic Users Union Certified Ordained Witch (M.U.U.C.O.W.) which brings up a couple of extra problems—mostly because the Rangers don't pay her—but saves the Rangers on a later occasion by using some Teen Titans magic. Dale's imaginary friend is Richard Nixon. Gadget is the ex-love interest of gun-toting, magic-using Mickey Mouse who has some rather unhappy memories of Monterey Jack, too. Zipper overtly flirts with Sally Acorn who happens to be Foxglove's legal consult and about to drag the Rangers to court for a whole list of reasons.
To help the Rangers get out of their situation of being attacked, Sally suggests them to hire a sixth Ranger, but all of more than a hundred candidates (including Mr. T, Solid Snake, Bill & Ted, the Kaiser, the Animaniacs, Mario, Spiderman...) fail at the interviews. As if the comic wasn't weird enough, a demon king named Ograth has been living at Rescue Rangers Headquarters for weeks, surrounded by purple flames but almost unnoticed by everyone, and cannot think of anything but fast food. So does Ichigo who suddenly enters the universe through a portal together with Sonic the Hedgehog...
Important Characters
Canonical
The Rescue Rangers
Rangerphiles
Real-life
Richard Nixon
Crossover
(This list is incomplete.)
Dr. Robotnik (from Sonic the Hedgehog)
An Imperial Stormtrooper
Sigma
Sonic the Hedgehog
Captain America
Solid Snake (from Metal Gear Solid)
Vash the Stampede (from Trigun)
Dante (from Devil May Cry)
Mega Man
Mickey Mouse
Sally Acorn (from Sonic the Hedgehog)
Cobra Commander
Mr. T
Cloud
Shadow
Bill S. Preston
Theodore Logan (both from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure)
Yakko Warner
Wakko Warner
Dot Warner (all three from Animaniacs)
Mario
Spiderman
Dr. Doom
Darth Vader
Link (from Legend of Zelda)
Ichigo (from Bleach)
The Dark Messenger
Tigger
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
Original
Contraptions
Original
The FatCatron 5000-X
Awards
Criticism
A number of strips which reveal that she who everyone thought to be Gadget is instead a mouse named Tress who accidentally killed the original Gadget and took her place (spoilers blanked) reminded several readers of a similar plot line from the web comic Kevin and Kell which stirred up and eventually divided the fan community into two factions after a several-years-long flame war. Having been in this situation, these Rangerphiles feared the very same could happen to the Rescue Rangers fandom.
