Lord Zedd aboard "Serpentera"
What's to know about Lord Zedd? He's one of the most infamous Power Ranger villains and is well remembered by all who watched the original show. His debut episode was "The Mutiny", which aired in the USA in 1994, and later in 1995 for us in the UK (and I dare say elsewhere, too). His final TV appearance was made in "Countdown to Destruction" in Power Rangers in Space in 1998, though he did rear his head more recently for the Power Rangers: Super Legends video game in 2007.
Lord Zedd aboard "Serpentera"
Lord Zedd was the first Power Rangers villain to be completely original for the US version of the show - i.e., he had no counterpart in the Japanese Super Sentai series, from which most of the footage of Power Rangers was, and still is, ripped. He came complete with his own personal throne room, the "Chamber of Command" (this website's namesake), which contained that must-have bad-guy gadget: a rotating throne! Though he seems to have the ability to use magic without aid, his main source of power is his enchanted sceptre.
(Also, like Rita, he has an incredible throwing arm, and can toss growth bombs to his monsters on earth from the moon -- and manage to hit the target every time! Now that's impressive!)
Lord Zedd's Lunar Palace. The Chamber of Command is on the
right side.
(One presumes Rita's control room was on the left.)
Zedd's impact went beyond his lunar base set-up and magical powers, of course - he also impressed on appearance! Here was a man made up of flesh and blood, encased in shining chrome, and audacious enough to flaunt his skinless form (how many other villains walk around in next to no clothes?). No one can deny that Zedd's "faceless-ness" added a chilling dimension to the character as well, which has arguably not been present in another Power Ranger villain since.; it gave him that same fear-inciting edge that makes the likes of Star Wars’ Darth Vader and A Christmas Carol’s “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come” so darkly enchanting.
When I watched Power Rangers as a kid, I was never young enough to be scared by Zedd - in contrast, I loved his skinless "ickiness" and his fear-factor, strange child that I was - but I get the impression that many other viewers, who were younger than me at the time, were rather creeped-out by this gruesome individual. (He is practically inside-out, after all.) In fact, word has it that the writers felt it necessary to "dumb him down" so as to make him a little less fearsome for the kids. (Shame on you, writers! It's good to scare children once in a while.)
The Faceless Wonder
In terms of background information, Zedd seems to have no history whatsoever (except for the fact that he is, according to Zordon, "Rita and her minions' lord and master"), nor is there any explanation for why he looks the way he does (bar a hint, far later in series 3, that it might have something to do with the Zeo crystal - but we can't be sure). Perhaps most importantly of all, we have no idea what Zedd might want with planet Earth if he ever did manage to conquer it! (He contradicts himself a lot over this point, some times declaring he shall rule over the earth, and other times proclaiming he shall reduce it to "mere cinders"!) One presumes that he must have been very bored ruling over those "darker places" to which Zordon referred, and that he thus deigned to come on over to the Milky Way to tell Rita what a terrible job she was doing, and show her how it was done.
It doesn't really matter why he did everything that he did - the important thing is that he came into our lives and brought a whole new bad-ass dimension to the Power Rangers series! (Even if it was only for a brief time. Then the writers turned him into a pussycat...)
Zedd sat pretty (well... y'know...) as one of the core Power Ranger villains for a whole two seasons. He made his greatest impression in the first two thirds of series 2, of course, when he ruled solo over the space alien band and entertained us week-in, week-out with his acerbic tongue and an unfailing but aimless ambition to take over the world. Then Rita showed up again and Zedd's funeral march began.
Lord Zedd: Hen-pecked husband. :-(
Zedd continued to have some great moments into the colourful but ultimately disappointing series 3 - with his entrance into the Command Centre, and fight with Tommy during the "Changing of the Zords" episodes being highlights - but Master Vile, and even Rito Revolto, seemed to have stolen his thunder, and he was left to rot in the position of hen-pecked husband, providing comic relief in practically the same sphere as the Rangers' school friends, Bulk and Skull. Even the love potion which was said to have duped him into marrying Rita was cured only to leave us with a man who had apparently liked Rita all along! o_0 It would have been so easy for that potion to have worn off, for Zedd to have lashed back against Rita and the Rangers - but apparently that was not the direction the series had wanted to go in. Pity.
It was something many of us fans had only dreamed of - Zedd
going one-on-one with the White Ranger!
It was short but well worth it. Definitely one of Zedd's "golden"
moments, and the highlight of MMPR: series 3.
In 1996, the Machine Empire decided to roll on up and unceremoniously kicked Zedd off his perch. This fourth series, Power Rangers Zeo, set the stage for Zedd's final spiral down into inferiority and obscurity. He last reared his head in the Power Rangers in Space finale "Countdown to Destruction" where, given the ultimate insult and shove-off, he was rendered human and left to live "happily ever after" in an (apparently) evil-free universe.
Fortunately (or otherwise, depending on your point of view), some evil survived somewhere and several more Power Ranger seasons have since come and gone. ;) But there's been no sign of Zedd since. (Though there was a son, apparently - but the less said about him, the better.)
It seems somewhat appropriate that "Daishinryu", the "Great God Dragon" of the Japanese Sentai series Gosei Sentai Dairanger, was translated into Lord Zedd's personal Zord "Serpentera" in the American series. And what a statement this dragon mecha was for Lord Zedd! Serpentera is something of a physical manifestation of Zedd's power and authority - a giant metaphor, one might say - and, being a dragon, could possibly also represent the Emperor's nobility and cunning.
Unfortunately, "Serpy" (as I fondly used to call her) also suffered from that same weakness which blighted Zedd throughout his career - and that was to be consistently tripped at the finish line every time the Power Rangers were close to being defeated! Oh, how irritating. (But without plot holes to fall down, Zedd might well have destroyed the world with Serpentera.)
The mighty "Serpentera" silhouetted against the lunar surface.
Serpentera made a "guest appearance" in the tenth anniversary Power Rangers episode, "Forever Red", but she was let down by a rather shoddy CGI makeover and a plot that did her no credit. With a bigger budget and more imagination, maybe something more could have come from it, but as it was, maybe "Serpy" should have been left well alone to sleep in her cosmic tomb and await the day that her master might return...
I've no idea who designed Lord Zedd, but they deserve extra credit - he's ingeniusly put together, and compares favourably to the myriad of bulky, OTT villains that Power Rangers has since been infested with.
Actor Robert Axelrod gave him a perfectly fearsome voiceover (and I have been rather excited to finally catch a glimpse of Mr. Axelrod on footage from the 2008 ACEN, where he appeared as a guest along with other classic Power Rangers actors - click here for links). Ed Neil was the regular man in the suit, and I personally think that he did a good job, using well-orchestrated movements of his arms and head, and general body poise, to the best advantage; in a character with no face it is a challenge to, voiceover aside, bring out more than two dimensions in such an individual, but fortunately Neil did us proud, and at times instilled true menace and character into our Emperor of Evil, without being OTT.
Lord Zedd also had the coolest bad-guy musical theme going, composed by Ron Wasserman (in my opinion, it's up there with Darth Vader's "Imperial March"). Click here for an example. I'd love a fully orchestrated version of that thunderous theme on CD!
...quibbles and degrading character-changes aside, Zedd contained all the right ingredients to become the ultimate Mighty Morphin adversary, and his continued popularity with fans, and status as something of a "legend ", proves it. In his time, Zedd destroyed the Dinozords, fought the White Ranger one-on-one, destroyed the Green Ranger, bartered his way into the Command Centre, and intimidated the masses in his magnificent mecha, Serpentera. He walked, talked and acted like he owned it all, and we sometimes wish that he had. It is little wonder that, even fifteen years later, he is still arguably the best thing that ever happened to Power Rangers.
Because he did have some great ones... (You can listen to some of these, and others, on Zedd's media page) I'll add to the list as I come across them!
A rather menacing-looking Zedd, flanked by a less-than-menacing-looking
Goldar, in series 3.
Zedd shows a bit of man-love! XD Heheh.
He gives his loyal winged warrior a big kiss when Master Vile's departure leaves
him exalted. Steady on, boy!
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