 This article is about a/an comic book issue in the Power Rangers comic sub-franchise by Boom! Studios.
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Ranger Academy #2 is the second issue of the Boom! Studios comic book series, Ranger Academy.
Synopsis[]
Freshman year starts for Sage on her first day at Ranger Academy! But it's hard for a girl so used to isolation to make friends amongst the Red, Black, Blue, Yellow, and Pink campuses; even with her new yearmate Lindy.
But given that this is no ordinary academy, Sage will have her fair share of secrets to uncover... and what connection does her paranoid father have to the mysteries of the school?[1]
Plot[]
Continuing immediately where the previous issue left off, Sage puts on Tula’s old school uniform and is a bit nervous as it is her first day ever at school. Mathis is pleased with how she looks and helps adjust the uniform’s shirt collar while revealing they hacked into the Academy’s cadet database to update Sage’s profile. Tula is upset about this but quiets down when Mathis retorts that they both made an “unauthorized pit stop” on a moon due to her navigational fiasco and she heads off to study hall.
As they walk, Mathis gives Sage a brief rundown of the Opalescent Dome’s facilities and rooms after she rehearses her story that she will say to to the Headmaster as they head for her office. They also give Sage a summary of what she will be doing in the late half of the first year: finding Spectracite, building her morpher, then moving into her second year by finding a Zord. Sage has no idea what Mathis is talking about and already feels lost.
Mathis continues by saying that first year cadets have a rotation through the different Chroma Campuses, attending one campus each school day. Mathis then takes her to the Nexus Hall, a place where active Rangers visit the school to give guest lectures, feeling honored to have met living legends and hopes she will too. Sage is impressed that Mathis knows how to navigate the school and asks how long it took for them to learn, to which they say it took a month but she has to learn faster because she doesn’t have a choice.
They approach the Headmaster’s office, with Mathis going over her cover story and telling her not to add anything else or it may arouse suspicion and to smile, be grateful and say as little as possible as she enters.
The Headmaster greets Sage, with latter shocked that the authority figure takes the name literally as she is just a floating head in a tube. Sage nervously tells her backstory, that her “sweet Aunt Nugget” gave her permission to attend the Academy and she is grateful to be here. Headmaster is delighted with Sage’s enthusiasm and hopes she works extra diligently to catch up to her fellow first year classmates. Sage eagerly says she is up for the challenge and Headmaster admires her go-getter positivity, hoping to see how she fares in the first year.
After that nerve wracking experience, Sage questions Mathis on what Headmaster even is, to which they say that she is older than the school itself, possibly older than the asteroid that it sits on and nobody is certain where her body is or if she even has one. This unnerves Sage but she pretends not to be scared and is escorted by Mathis to the Cafeteria since it is dinner time to meet her classmates. They have to leave her, but promises Sage that they will check in every once in a while to see how she’s doing. This makes Sage uncomfortable, but she awkwardly says hello to her new dorm mates; Lindy and Theo.
Theo hazes Sage about a “tradition” that new first years must go up on the observation deck to keep watch and avoid falling asleep or else she will miss the plasma worms emerging from their burrows. Sage accepts given her skill in keeping watch and later goes up to the observation deck. She seems to see some kind of light in the distance but it disappears and she dismissed it as an illusion. She falls asleep wondering what her father is doing at the moment.
Sage has a strange dream about a boy pleading for someone to not do something because he doesn’t want to lose that person before an explosion happens and she wakes up, wondering if the boy was looking for her.
It is then morning and Lindy chastises Theo for not getting to Sage earlier since they thought she would come back in an hour and not sleep up on the deck all night. Theo wants to hurry up and get down because he is scared of heights and has vertigo from being up high. Sage is upset, realizing that she was tricked, but Lindy reassured her that they didn’t do it for malicious reasons and it is a tradition, encouraging her to come with them to her first day at school.
At Pink Campus, Professor Scotts quizzes the class about how to navigate using a Spectra Scanner through the space time continuum and what star system they should use as a compass. Lindy gives the correct answer and Sage begins to get nervous because she knows nothing about the subject.
Having only her skills as a farmer and shepherd, Sage knows about changing weather patterns and some outdoor survival training such as what plants are edible and which are dangerous and was not prepared for any of the classes. At Yellow Campus, she struggled with the rescue training lessons on CPR while Theo does it correctly. At Black Campus, she is thrown into a simulation of a hostage situation with Theo volunteering to be one of the hostages. Sage’s teacher expects her to use criminal psychology, stating she should attempt to use empathy as a negotiation tactic. Sage only sweats and is unsure how to do that, feeling the pressure.
At Blue Campus, Sage undergoes environmental survival training, with the simulator creating artificial arctic temperatures. The teacher encourages the cadets to pitch their tents as extreme temperatures can be a life or death situation without shelter. Sage cannot pitch her tent and struggles as Lindy peeks out of her finished tent to see her new friend using the tent as a blanket and giving up.
At Red Campus, Sage finally finds something she excels at as she is asked by her gym coach to climb up the training tower obstacle course. She confidently climbs up, thinking it isn’t much taller than her treehouse back home, and reaches the top before anybody else. She sees Tula heading somewhere and wonders what she is up to then hears her classmates cheering for her. This improves Sage’s mood and she decides to tell Tula about her accomplishment after climbing down. She runs to find her and gets distracted by a hologram, bumping into Tula and knocking her over, with the latter not happy to see her. She tells Sage that unlike Mathis, she doesn’t have time to babysit her and doesn’t want to give Sage all the answers despite saving her and Mathis. Tula wants to be left alone and for Sage to stay out of her business, Sage is shocked and sad that Tula yelled at her, as she thought that Tula was her friend. She sits on the floor and then sees the hologram more closely to reveal it is a memorial projection for the cadets and graduate Rangers who died on missions. She is shocked that there is a possibility that they could all die as Rangers, beginning to have doubts about becoming a Ranger after her bad day.
Sage has another strange dream about a corridor and a figure giving a younger version of herself a toy spaceship, which then burns in green flames. This nightmare stirs her awake and she cries out for her father in her dorm. She is embarrassed and apologizes to Lindy for waking her, but Lindy shows a bit of sympathy, remembering how scared she was when she spent her first night at the dorm by herself far from home. Lindy then lets Sage borrow a stuffed toy that belonged to her older brother to help her sleep, Sage thanks her and goes back to sleep, unaware that green energy is swirling above her, thinking that those strange dreams she is having felt so real…almost as if she was really there.
The next day, at Blue Campus, the Teacher is doing a chemistry lesson which ties into the Morphin Trials, stating that on the planet Chromia, the cadets must navigate a toxic environment and be able to identify gases and liquids on their quest for Spectracite. Sage gets a little uneasy when the teacher mentions that their survival will depend on identifying these substances while mixing chemicals. When Theo asks if she needs help, Sage gets angry and overreacts saying she can do it herself, which leads to her over pouring the two chemicals and the mixture reacts by fizzing over and making a mess.
Sage gets upset she failed again, crying and running away as the pressure that she puts on herself trying to succeed reaches a breaking point. She runs into the hallway of the Opalescent Dome and then hears a loud explosion caused by her spilled chemicals in the Chemistry lab, which upsets her even more as Tula and Mathis see her and she runs away and hides up in a palm tree. Theo and Lindy find her and try to convince her to come down and play hooky to relieve her stress, but Sage thinks that they are going to trick her again and explains that she keeps having weird dreams and is scared that she will be sent home a failure and a fraud, showing signs of imposter syndrome. Theo promises that what they have to show her is not a trick and Lindy says that she needs to promise not to tell anyone about their “secret spot”.
The trio go below the school through a tunnel with glowing crystals to a large underground lake. Lindy explains that the Academy was built on an asteroid and the Grid energy that powers it is concentrated in the very core that they are in. The three go swimming and Sage confesses that she feels stupid compared to the other cadets, Theo recommends that she visit the Library to catch up. Sage wonders why they are being so nice to her and Lindy simply says it is because they are her friends. This makes her feel better and thinks about how she has never had a friend before that doesn’t drool or try to eat her shoes.
The next day, Sage enters the Library and meets the librarian Nika, asking for help as she is new and feels lost and unable to catch up. Nika is glad to assist her as the wisest person is one who recognizes what they don’t know, starting with an introduction to the history of the school with a holo-record stating it began with Zordon establishing the Academy.
After going through several hours of study, Sage finds a hologram of her father with his classmates as a boy, shocked that Rhianth was a Ranger Academy cadet and later she falls asleep. Nika wakes her to let her know her friends are waiting for her, with Theo and Lindy telling her it is dinner time and the Cafeteria has ice cream for dessert. Sage hugs Nika unexpectedly and thanks him for helping with her studies and then asks Lindy what ice cream is, though she wonders why her father didn’t tell her about his time at the Academy.
Nika says Sage certainly has grown up, indicating he somehow knew her identity and suddenly gets a call from Rhianth, whom Nika has familiarity with as he addresses him as “old friend”. Rhianth doesn’t reciprocate his old colleague’s friendship and angrily demands to know where his daughter is.
To be continued.…
Appearing[]
Students:
| Red Junior Ranger | Tula |
| Yellow Junior Ranger | Mathis |
Faculty:
Supporting Characters:
Locations:
Covers[]
Reprints[]
- Ranger Academy Volume One
Errors[]
- To be added
Notes[]
- The first comic panel image of the Library has a holographic display of the Mighty Morphin team, minus the White or Green Rangers.
- The Library itself is named the Scotts Library and Archives, named after the Pink Time Force Ranger, Jen Scotts.
References[]
Footnotes[]
