Zordon

Zordon of Eltar is the overarching protagonist of the franchise. He was a wise galactic sage hailing from the planet Eltar who created the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Zeo and Turbo Rangers and served as their mentor. He appeared in the original and remained a regular character until , and died during the finale of .
Zordon is voiced first by David Fielding who also provided the superimposed face. The late took over the role after Fielding left the show for other projects and would remain Zordon's voice up until the character's death. In Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, he was played by who played Zayto.
==Biography==
===Past===
Details of Zordon's origin, youth on Eltar, and his emergence as a champion of good are unknown. Sometime eight to ten thousand years ago, the viscous space witch Rita Repulsa sought to conquer many worlds in the universe and among the opposition was Zordon. War broke out between Zordon and the factions of Rita. This war stretched for 2,000 years and across countless planets. Many of Zordon's warriors perished in battle with Rita's minions, such as the Nasty Knight.
Sometime during the conflict, Rita entered into service to Zordon's longtime archenemy the great Lord Zedd, who assigned her to conquer Earth. She and her henchmen occupied a palace on Earth's Moon, located directly above the location of the powerful Zeo Crystal. It was also during this period that Zordon discovered five Power Coins and a map to the Desert of Despair. It was also known that Rita came into the possession of a sixth power coin, the Dragon Dagger, and the Dragonzord, through unknown means.
In the closing days of the war, Zordon came close to victory. In desperation, Rita lured Zordon to meet, with a promise of peace. However, this was a trap. Rita banished Zordon into a time warp in which he existed outside normal time and would eventually communicate via a tube.
Zordon, however, managed to seal Rita and her minions into a space dumpster where they were to reside for eternity -- until being discovered in 1993 on a drifting planetoid. Zordon knew that Rita may one day return and continue her war on Earth. In preparation, Zordon constructed a base of operations known as the Command Center in the California desert and used it to stage the creation of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It is probable that around this time he befriended a young robot named Alpha 5. Zordon also prepared for the eventual arrival of evil by placing key weapons across the solar system such as the Mega Voyager which he left on a moon of Jupiter during his time in the tube.
===Mighty Morphin Power Rangers===
When Rita is released in 1993 by curious astronauts, Zordon, now only appearing as a large blue head in a blue tower of light, asked Alpha to find five "teenagers with attitude", thus creating the first generation of Power Rangers. Jason Lee Scott, Trini Kwan, Kimberly Hart, Zack Taylor, and Billy Cranston were chosen. Each Power Ranger received a Power Coin - one of the five coins used in the coin toss that decide the fate of the universe eons ago, and thus Zordon creates his team of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
When Tommy Oliver becomes the evil Green Ranger with the sixth Power Coin received from Rita, he sabotages the Command Center and disrupted the link to Zordon. After much turmoil, Alpha reestablishes the link and Zordon helps the Rangers stop Tommy's evil rampage. Once the evil spell on Tommy is broken, Zordon accepts the new Ranger, even giving him an enormous amount of his own energy to make him the Green Ranger again so he retrieve the stolen Power Coins. When those powers ran dry, he makes him into the White Ranger. When Lord Zedd banishes Rita and begins his own conquest for Earth, Zordon transforms the Rangers' Dinozords into the Thunderzords.
As time goes on, Zordon sees off four of his original Rangers. Jason, Trini, and Zack are asked to attend a peace conference in Switzerland, and are replaced by three friends the Rangers had made (and had previously saved), Rocky DeSantos, Aisha Campbell, and Adam Park.
===Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie===
In the non-canon movie, Zordon senses the return of Ivan Ooze, a demon of unparalleled evil that he banished years ago and quickly summons the Rangers and informs them of the direness of the situation. When the Rangers fail to stop Ivan from being released from his egg (opened by Zedd), they fight his Oozemen.
During the battle, Ooze makes his way to the Command Center and destroys it, smashing Zordon's time warp in the process. Zordon then begins to age rapidly. The Rangers travel to the planet Pheados, where, with the help of Master Warrior Dulcea, they obtain a legendary Great Power. After destroying Ivan Ooze, they go back to the Command Center, only to find out that Zordon is already dead. However, using the Great Power, they bring him back to life.
===Season 3===
When Kimberly decides to move to Florida to focus on her gymnastics, she chose Katherine Hillard, a girl who had been used by Rita and Zedd for evil purposes, as her replacement. Though Zordon is sad to see his former Rangers leave, he gladly accepts each of the new Rangers and wishes the previous ones well on their futures.
===Alien Rangers===
When Rita's father Master Vile transforms the Rangers back into kids, Zordon sends the Rangers (except for Billy, who gained his adulthood back), into different time portals to retrieve the sub crystals of the Zeo Crystal. He continues as a mentor for the Alien Rangers, who protected Earth while the Rangers were gone. After the Rangers come back, Zordon, with Billy's aid, reforms the Crystal and restores the Rangers back to adulthood. However, Rita's brother Rito Revolto and Zedd's leading general Goldar plant a bomb underneath the Command Center and destroy it. The Rangers make it out safe but Zordon and Alpha are presumed deceased in the explosion.
===Zeo===
However, Alpha and Zordon survive by escaping to the secret Power Chamber which had been built for just such a situation and they eventually bring the former Power Rangers there as well. Revealing the Machine Empire has attacked the Earth and driven away Rita and Zedd, Zordon utilizes the power of the Zeo Crystal and gives the Rangers new powers, making them the Zeo Rangers. He also welcomes Tanya Sloan, who had been sent back by Aisha in her place.
With Billy now as a technical aid, Zordon continues to mentor the Rangers, giving them new weapons, Zords, and any advice he can offer against the monsters of the Machine Empire that threatened Earth. Zordon is also reunited with Jason, who takes temporary control of the Gold Zeo Ranger powers from Trey of Triforia.
Whilst studying for a test, Adam ends up falling asleep and waking up in a strange dream world where his other Power Rangers have become weird parodies of classic movie monsters. Behind all this is Zordonicus, a dreamified version of King Mondo posing as a corrupted Zordon, although the real version of Zordon does not appear.
===Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie===
One day, the good wizard Lerigot comes to Earth to flee the space pirate Divatox, who wants his magical key, capable of passing through safely into another dimension and join forces with the powerful demon Maligore. He seeks the help of Zordon, who summons the Rangers but knows that, to defeat Divatox and Maligore, the Zeo powers will not be enough, so he and Alpha began work on the Turbo powers.
He then sends Tommy, Tanya, Kat, Adam, and the newest Ranger, Justin Stewart after Rocky was injured in a martial arts training session and was forced to retire from Ranger duty) to the ocean, where a phantom ship is awaiting them to take them through the Nemesis Triangle (the border between two dimensions). As a last piece of advice, Alpha 5 tells them that, once through to the other dimension, communication with the Power Chamber will be impossible.
===Turbo===
Zordon and Alpha 5 discover that a temporary wormhole has opened up that will take them back to Eltar. He has the wizard Lerigot use his magic to release Zordon from his time warp, so that he and Alpha can return to the planet of Eltar and be reunited with his family, saying farewell to his Power Rangers, leaving them in the capable hands of a lifelong friend, Dimitria. 
Not much is known about what happened to Zordon afterwards since he is rarely mentioned for the rest of the series. However, during Divatox's campaign on Earth, Dark Specter organises an attack on Eltar and succeeds in capturing Zordon who he begins draining his power and then calls a meeting of the United Alliance of Evil to celebrate.
===In Space Era===
After invading Eltar, the evil monarch Dark Specter imprisons Zordon in an energy tube, slowly draining his power. As this happened, lava began to rise from the bottom of the tube, which would destroy Zordon once the draining process was complete.
When the Turbo Rangers journey to space to find Zordon, they join Andros, the Red Space Ranger, and become the Space Rangers themselves. Dark Specter puts his right-hand, the princess of evil Astronema (later discovered to be Andros' long lost sister who brainwashed into being evil) in charge of keeping Zordon from the Power Rangers whilst the Phantom Ranger is also tracking the wizard but is always one step behind.
In the end, Andros, on the orders of his former mentor, is forced to kill Zordon by smashing the column that contains him in order to defeat evil once and for all by unleashing a power energy wave that washes across several galaxies. Zordon's Energy Wave purifies Rita Repulsa, Lord Zedd, Divatox and Astronema and turns all the other villains to piles of dust.
===Cosmic Fury===
25 years after his death, Zordon appears in the Morphin Grid in Zayto's form to Aiyon, telling him that Zayto' essence still exists but that he lost his physical form. To encourage Aiyon, Zordon tells him "may the power protect you". After Javi uses this line in a song, Billy is given hope that he could find Zordon again.
===Legacy===
Although Zordon ceased to exist, many other characters in later incarnations served in much of the same role as Zordon - in some cases, the role of Zordon is divided into two characters, one being the philosophical mentor and the other being the technical genius of the Power Rangers team (examples include Captain Mitchell and Angela Fairweather for the Lightspeed Rangers, Captain Logan and Circuit for the Time Force Rangers, Princess Shayla for the Wild Force Rangers, Sensei Kanoi Watanabe and his son Cam Watanabe for the Ninja Rangers, Tommy Oliver and Hayley Ziktor for the Dino Rangers, Anubis Cruger for the S.P.D. Rangers, Udonna in Mystic Rangers, Sentinel Knight in Overdrive Rangers, Robert James for the Jungle Fury Rangers, Dr. K and Colonel Mason Truman for the RPM Rangers, Mentor Ji for the Samurai Rangers, Gosei and Tensou for the Megaforce Rangers, Keeper and Kendall Morgan for the Dinocharge Rangers, Mick Kanic and Redbot for the Ninja Steel Rangers, Comander Shaw and Nate Silva for the Beast Morphers Rangers and Solon for the Dino Fury Rangers).
==Resurrection Theories==
Because of Zordon's influence on much of the first part of Power Rangers, there remains persistent rumors of Zordon's return in a future incarnation. An opening for Zordon's return was provided in his last words: "My spirit will live on forever in all that is good," meaning that if some team of Rangers can harness and release that spirit inside them (since they are good), Zordon might be revived.
Other potential methods of Zordon's return include: Going back in time, such as with Wild West Rangers, to a time when Zordon was alive and well, thus bringing Zordon back for one episode.
Since the end of Power Rangers in Space, the new generations of Rangers have had to battle evil that was not destroyed by Zordon's energy wave. These beings exist because they either did not exist until after the wave or because they existed, at the time of the wave, in universes or dimensions separate from our own. In the case of machines, it is understood that those that were not activated during the time of the Z-Wave were not affected by its power, which is how Lord Zedd's personal War Zord, Serpentera, and the remaining generals of the Machine Empire, survived.
Other lasting effects that Zordon has on the series, to this day, include, without limitation, the following:
*The giant machines that Rangers use to fight large enemies are called "Zords," rather than having unique names in each season, like Sentai does.The series is divided into the Zordon Era (Mighty Morphin through In Space), and the Post Zordon Era (Lost Galaxy, and every season thereafter), even though a more noticeable difference is probably the fact that they change the cast and setting every year.
*When characters from the Zordon Era make appearances in Post Zordon Era episodes, they usually reference Zordon (e.g. Alpha 6 asking himself "What would Zordon do?" in Once a Ranger).
==Behind the Scenes==
*In the pilot episode Day of the Dumpster (pilot), Zordon's original name was Zoltar.
*In an earlier version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, Zordon was a member of the "Order of Meledon". He was regarded as the finest commander in the galaxy, a true legend. After the Order's enemies were defeated over time, he moved on to continue the struggle against evil elsewhere. It was also stated by Dulcea that if not for him, the universe would be a very different place. She also said that he was always an inspiration and if he died, a piece of all of them would die, and the forces of good within the universe would be dealt with an irreparable blow.
==Quotes==
==Trivia==
*One of Zordon's more notable quotes, "too much pink energy is dangerous!", has since become an internet meme and recurring bit on Atop the Fourth Wall.
**Additionally, it unintentionally set up the events that led into Dino Thunder's "Strange Relations." In this story it's revealed that there can only exist one active copy of a ranger power at any given time; if two versions exist, the secondary copy begins fading since the original is recognized by the Morphing Grid as the true ranger.
*While the phrase "It's Morphin Time!" is often credited as being the signature phrase of Jason Lee Scott, it was actually Zordon that first coined the phrase in the second episode of MMPR.
*During Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, Zordon outside of his time-warp was portrayed by Nicholas Bell although Manahan reprised his role as Zordon's voice.
*Zordon's actual power tends to vary from time to time. For example, in the first season of MMPR, Zordon nearly destroyed himself while trying to recharge the Green Power Coin for one more fight, and the rest of the Rangers had to use their coins to revive him. However, in Countdown to Destruction, releasing him from his energy tube wiped out all the evil in the galaxy (although it should be noted that in the first instance he was only able to release his power in limited amounts from the other dimension that he was trapped in, while in the second instance he was releasing all his power at once with no thought for his own continued existence).
*In the real world, Zordon was likely the initial reason why the term "zords" were used for the Rangers' giant robots after his demise. Thought after two decades since his demise, the term zords has more than likely just become a force of habit, since the term has been deeply ingrained with pop culture related to Power Rangers for nearly 30 years.
*Zordon's motto, "May the Power protect you", is a reference to the famous phrase "May the Force be with you" from franchise.
==External Links==
*
* on the Wikipedia
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