When it came to the ’90s American tokusatsu shows, Power Rangers was unequivocally number one…but VR Troopers was easily the number two show. It was novel how it used footage from three different Japanese shows, yet was still able to have a story that somewhat made sense.
I recently acquired a large amount of VR Troopers puzzle cards for a pittance. A pittance!
What are puzzle cards? Well, they’re a group of cards you have to collect and put together to form a picture (like a puzzle). Some of the Alien Nation cards I looked at a few posts ago had puzzle pieces on the backs, for example.
Sometimes to make things easier, as in VR Troopers‘ case, they just put all the pieces together in a pack, so you don’t have to go searching for all the different cards.
Which is convenient because I’ve never actually put puzzle cards together, so this will be my first time. And my second, third, and fourth, since they only made these four VR Troopers puzzle packs.
Ryan Steele
Let’s start with Ryan, who was the leader of the VR Troopers. Each pack has five cards, so each image is 5×7″ and you could put these in a frame if you really wanted to! The cards are double-sided: one puzzle is a portrait of Ryan, while the other side is a full body shot of him standing awkwardly in the VR lab (or whatever it was called in the show).
J.B. Reese
I thought maybe the full body shot would be different for everyone, but no, J.B. is also standing awkwardly in the VR Lab.
Kaitlin Star
Caitlin is not awkwardly standing in the lab and is instead in the cockpit of her vehicle.
Jeb
And now the best for last – Jeb the talking dog, who was played by Zeb the dog actor! The other side of his portrait is just a group shot of the three VR Troopers in the lab; another photo of Jeb would have been better. If I’m putting together the Jeb puzzle pack, I need the maximum amount of Jeb. They gave me 50% Jeb and that is not acceptable.
They should have made more of these puzzles. What about the villains? You always need villains to go with your heroes. Ziktor would have been perfect because Grimlord (his alter ego) could be the puzzle on the opposite side!
These card packs are still easy to find and really cheap, but what the hell are you supposed to do with them? You can’t put them in trading card protector sheets because that ruins the puzzle, and they’re not really fun to revisit and reassemble either. You can frame them and put them on display, but if you really want VR Troopers decor, you might as well print better photos yourself or buy high quality fan art instead.
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