| “ | Your concern is well founded, Rangers. As you can see, the Machine Empire is arriving well equipped with very efficient fighting machines. They are called Cogs. They are King Mondo’s highly sophisticated mechanised fighting robots. They have no fear and must be completely dismantled to be defeated. | „ |
| ~ Zordon introducing the Cogs to the future Zeo Rangers. |
| “ | Tommy: Oh man, I never thought I’d miss Rita and Zedd’s Tengas. Those Cogs are brutal. Adam: Tell me about it and there’s a lot of them. Billy: You know that Zordon says that King Mondo can manufacture them at a rate of one an hour. Rocky: Mmm, thank goodness for the Zeo Crystal ah? |
„ |
| ~ The Zeo Rangers and Billy after defeating the first squad of Cogs. |
The Cogs are the footsoldiers of the Machine Empire and major antagonists in Power Rangers Zeo as well as minor antagonists in Power Rangers In Space and Power Rangers Wild Force.
Who voiced the Cogs is unknown but they were played by many different actors which included Danny Wayne Stallcup (who was also the suit actor for Goldar, Rito Revolto, Elgar, the Batlings and voiced Jindrax), Ed Neil (who also was the suit actor for Lord Zedd and later Rygog) and Akihiro Noguchi (who had many roles including the Tenga Warriors and the Piranhatrons).
Biographies[]
Past[]
The Cogs were the manufactured footsoldiers of the Machine Empire, working under King Mondo and Queen Machina and were known to be at least as strong as the Tenga Warriors. They could be created so efficiently on a massive production line that one was created every hour and, as revealed later, the production and of the Cogs left a toxic green sludge dubbed Cog oil. With their Quadrafighters and never-ending numbers, the Cogs helped their masters to devastate and conquer entire galaxies. They grew so powerful that even Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd grew to fear them; both openly showing fear when they learned of the Empire's arrival on Earth. At some point prior to the series, Mondo and Machina granted Sprocket control of the Cogs only for him to destroy half of them. They would remember this and the time they gave him a nuclear reactor and hold these events against him even though Sprocket considered the latter “a dumb toy.”
Zeo[]
In 1996, King Mondo leads his Machine Empire to the Moon where they drive out Rita and Zedd using the army of their Quadrafighters. King Mondo believes that Earth will be an easy conquest but is surprised when the Zeo Power Rangers defeat a squad of his Cogs sent to conquer the planet. However, King Mondo is intrigued by this more than he is angered since all of his previous conquests had been boring and too easy and these Power Rangers actually prove formidable. They are later sent to find and sabotage the Zeozords before they can be completed but are fought off so more later deploy in Quadrafighters to help Staroid destroy the Zeozords only to be destroyed. Later, Staroid inspires King Mondo to start enlarging his monsters so he has the Cogs upgraded Klank and Orbus with a growth program which they use to enlarge Silo after the Cogs build the monster. When Boohoo the Clown kidnaps Joey to destroy the power-plant with his destructive cries, the Cogs help to guard him against the Ohrangers. With the aid of some Quadrafighters, they manage to hold off the Rangers and even accidentally send Joey plummeting to his death but Tommy saves him and the Zeo Rangers destroy the Cogs.
Inspired by a monster B-movie dubbed "Invasion Of Blueface", Prince Sprocket decides to shoot his own movie but use it to destroy the Zeo Rangers and render the Earth defenceless. Instead of using pre-built monsters of the Machine Empire though, since Sprocket thinks that using any other monsters will make his movie less impressive, he decides to steal the monster suits from the movie set. Klank thus sends a group of six Cogs to steal the suits; two getting pulled onto the film set and nearly killing the film’s lead actor Biff Starr until Rocky defeats them. Despite this, the other Cogs succeed in taking the monster suits and lure Rocky, Kat and Tanya to the countryside where they find an army of Cogs waiting for them. Although they defeat the Cogs, the Video Vulture is able to kidnap them and more Cogs act as Sprocket’s film crew only for the entire plan to later fail.
After the failure of his arrowhead stealing plans, King Mondo complains that sending so many Cogs and monsters is a waste of resources; outright calling the Cogs useless, Klank suggests creating a monster from the Machine Empire's component dump to reuse materials. Klank and Orbus suggest using their new monster to pretend to defect and lure the Zeo Rangers into a trap so he has assorted monster parts merge together and form the Defector which includes several Cog parts. Later, once the Defector gains Rocky’s trust, Mondo stages an attack on the Defector at the Angel Grove Quarry by Klank and the Cogs which prompts Rocky to respond to help his new friend. The battle goes in the Machine Empire's favor until the other Rangers arrive which prompts Klank to turn the Defector against the Rangers but the plan fails when the Defector is destroyed. Dream versions of the Cogs are seen after Zordonicus reveals himself to be King Mondo and torments Adam with a group of Cogs and past monsters. However, these versions almost immediately cease to exist when Adam abruptly wakes up from his dream.
After many failures against the Zeo Rangers, Klank and Orbus create a massive armada of battleships commanded by Cogs and led by Admiral Abominator with a plan to use the armada to attack and conquer Angel Grove. As they amass in Angel Grove National Forest though, they are uncovered by Bulk and Skull who have been investigating the disappearances of trees that they have been cutting down to build their battleships. Admiral Abominator is first seen capturing them with his Cogs when Bulk mistakes the metal flower on his lapel for a real one. Although they capture the duo and throw them in a cage though, Billy reverse engineers a cog medallion Adam found whilst training; allowing them to discover Mondo's fleet and invade his forest headquarters and spring Bulk and Skull. Before the Machine Empire can react, the whole armada is destroyed as part of a chain reaction when the Disruptor Array in the Power Chamber destroys the power source of the cog medallions. Angered by how it upsets Sprocket, Mondo sends Admiral Abominator and the remaining Cogs to destroy the Rangers and prevent further destruction where they fight in the forest only for the Cogs to be swiftly dispatched.
After the destruction of Admiral Abominator, Mondo plans an ambush by dividing the Zeo Rangers with two separate distress signals; one in Angel Grove Forest and another in the Angel Grove Power Plant. Whilst the Cogs attack Tommy and Adam in the Power Plant, more ambush Rocky, Kat and Tanya with Sprocket then sending Wolfbane to finish them off. Despite being outnumbered, he easily overwhelms the three Rangers and withstands their special attacks without a scratch only to be withdrawn with his Cogs when the arrival of a mysterious pyramid from space interferes with the Machine Empire's electronics. Later, once the Rangers have split up to use Signal Emitters to track the pyramid, Wolfbane and the Cogs once again ambush Rocky, Kat and Tanya in the quarry. Despite Adam and Tommy quickly joining, Wolfbane easily defeats them and prepares to finish them off only to be attacked by an energy streak which is soon revealed as the pyramid's occupant; the Gold Ranger. Horrified by the new Ranger, Mondo sends Cog reinforcements and even Quadrafighters but the Quadrafighters are completely ineffective and the Cogs are defeated by the new Ranger singlehandedly.
After Prince Gasket takes over the Machine Empire, he kidnaps and brainwashes Tommy into thinking that he is the next machine king. Multiple Cogs are seen in the grandstands when Tommy forces Jason to fight Altor. One is later amongst the five enemies summoned by Gasket to fight the Zeo Rangers after Tommy is de-brainwashed but the Rangers are able to escape after Tritor destroys the shield generator which renders Gasket's plan a failure. Later, during his ultimate attack against the Earth, Gasket has an armada of Quadrafighters attack the planet; many attacking the Super Zeo Megazord and being destroyed. However, others attack the Zeozord hanger; forcing Zordon and Alpha to lock down the Zeo Megazord and Warrior Wheel which leaves the Super Zeo Megazord and Red Battlezord exposed to Mechaterpillar.
At the end of 1996, during the Machine Empire's last days on Earth, Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd confront Mondo arrives and the Cogs to try and claim the Gold Ranger powers. Outnumbered, they summon the Tengas and send them to fight the Cogs but the fight ends in a draw with casualties on both sides before the Machine Empire and Evil Space Aliens retreat. Later, after Jason gives the Gold Ranger powers back to Trey of Triforia, King Mondo and some giant sized Cogs arrive for a final battle so the Rangers forgo summoning the Zords in favour of enlarging themselves. Together, they completely wipe out the Cogs and defeat King Mondo once and for all. After the Royal House of Gadgetry is later blown up by Rita and Zedd, the Machine Empire completely withdraws from the Moon until they are rebuilt.
In Space[]
By 1998, the Royal House of Gadgetry has been rebuilt and the Machine Empire have returned to power but are now members of the United Alliance of Evil. Multiple Cogs are seen at Dark Specter's conference celebrating his conquest of Eltar and one even tries to stop Andros from fleeing but fails. A Cog is later seen strolling around Onyx when Andros challenges Darkonda for the Mega Voyager cards but what it was doing there and away from the Machine Empire is unclear.
Later that year, King Mondo leads the Machine Empire and General Havoc in an attack on KO-35 and the Phantom Ranger's planet. Using an overwhelming amount of Cogs and monsters, they easily conquer both worlds and defeat the Blue Senturion and Phantom Ranger. However, Zordon's Energy Wave turns almost all of the Machine Empire into piles of dust although several remain albeit how they survived vaporisation is left ambiguous.
Forever Red[]
Four years after the collapse of the United Alliance of Evil, the remnants of the Machine Empire resurface under the leadership of General Venjix along with a platoon of Cogs. They gather on the Moon where they plan to take control of Lord Zedd's long abandoned Zord Serpentera so as to attack the Earth and avenge King Mondo before using it to conquer the universe and re-establish the Machine Empire in his name. Although the Cogs successfully uncover it, all ten past and current Red Rangers show up and defeat the last of the Cogs at the site of their memorial for King Mondo. With the deaths of the generals soon after, the Cogs are completely extinct.
Dino Thunder[]
Two years later, the Cogs that hunted Jason and Tommy for the Gold Ranger powers are featured in a chronicle of Power Ranger history compiled by Tommy shortly after he formed the Dino Rangers which is found by the nascent Ranger team in the Dino Lab.
Personality[]
| “ | Kat: I don’t remember seeing them there when you filmed this. What were they doing there? Tommy: Watching us. And if we didn’t see them this time, no telling how many times they’ve been around. |
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| ~ Tommy summarizing the Cogs’ behaviour after spotting one in Tanya’s music video. |
The Cogs are extremely loyal and relentless footsoldiers completely subservient to their masters and usually ruthless fighters. On rare occasions, they act like animals; speaking exclusively in mechanical whines and gorilla-like yells and often beat their chests. However, although they are initially presented as threatening antagonists to the Zeo Rangers, they gradually become more comedic and bumbling as the season goes on.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Strength: The Cogs can carry around massive silver pipes like they are nothing, restrain any of the Zeo Rangers with ease and lift massive boulders over their heads. The Cogs are also strong enough to lift Biff Star completely off the ground, lift the monster suits and run with them effortlessly, swing each other at Adam in chain attacks and haul around heavy safety signs without difficulty.
- Jump Karate Chop: As seen in the episode “A Few Bad Seeds,” the Cogs can jump and karate chop with enough force to demolish a shelf.
- Durability: The Cogs are almost completely immune to punches and kicks from the Rangers and even Rocky repeatedly slashing some with his Power Axes in the episode “Graduation Blues” failed to faze them. The Cogs were also unhurt by repeated energy blasts from the Red Battlezord in the episode “Brother, Can You Spare An Arrowhead?”
- Reverberations: The Cogs that fought Biff Star were so durable that hitting them was extremely painful.
- Skilled Fighters: The Cogs are skilled fighters who can match the Zeo Rangers such as in "The Shooting Star" when one matched Tommy blow for blow or in the episode “Bulk Fiction” when a large group completely defeated Billy and forced him to retreat.
- Weapons Combat: The Cogs are also skilled fighters with their spears, shown in the second part of the three-part episode “There’s No Business Like Snow Business” when one fought Rocky and his Power Axes.
- Expert Fighter Pilots: The Cogs are skilled fighter pilots since they prove to be very capable in their Quadrafighters.
- Speech: The Cogs are capable of speaking in monotone, robotic voices.
- Speed: The Cogs that stole the movie suits were able to outrun Rocky, Kat and Tanya in a sprint.
- Agility: The Cogs were able to duck, dodge and block attacks from each of the Zeo Rangers on multiple occasions. In the episode “Every Dog has its Day,” they were able to jump away quickly enough to dodge the Digster’s jackhammer.
- Reflexes: The Cogs were easily able to duck and dodge attacks such as punches from Tommy and kicks from Rocky.
- Eye Beams: The Cogs can flip up their face-plates and unleash blue energy beams from their eyes strong enough to take down all five Zeo Rangers as well as the Defector with one blast.
- Portal Summoning: The Cogs can summon purple-black cog portals to allow them to teleport any location at will. These can be used to either enter battle, escape battle or suddenly appear to ambush their enemies.
- Surgery: As seen in the episode "Target Rangers," the Cogs are able to take apart Klank and Orbus and install a growth program inside them.
- Headportation: The Cogs can detach their heads and fly off as energy.
- Teleportation: The Cogs can teleport to any location at will by phasing into existence as purple energy silhouettes.
- Machine Assembly: The Cogs were able to quickly assemble the People Pitcher machine in the episode “Rangers in the Outfield.”
- Tree Scaling: As seen in the episode “Every Dog Has its Day”, the Cogs can scale trees very quickly like when they ran from Smokey.
- Acrobatics: The Cogs were able to pose as preformative acrobats when they played along with the children’s act in the episode “The Puppet Blaster.”
- Reality Slices: The Cogs can channel blue energy into their fingers to draw it down in mid-air cut a blue line in our dimension through which they can escape. However, this was very rarely used in favour of the usual portal ability.
- Snowboarding: As seen in the first part of the three-part episode “There’s No Business Like Snow Business”, the Cogs were shown to be very talented snowboarders as they effortlessly snowboarded down the challenging Widowmaker.
- Boxing: As seen in the episode “Challenges,” the Cogs are reasonably skilled boxers.
- Shipbuilding: In the episode “Game of Honor”, Mondo built an armada of ships for Admiral Abominator to use to attack Angel Grove with his Cog army helping to build it.
Weaknesses[]
- Cynophobia: Despite Zordon describing them as fearless, the Cogs were shown to be terrified of Smokey in the episode "Every Dog Has It's Day."
- Water: The Cogs can be fried and destroyed just by having water thrown onto them.
- Snow: As seen throughout the episode “There’s No Business Like Snow Business-part I”, the Cogs can also be destroyed just by being exposed to snow.
- Magnets: Despite not being made of a metal found on Earth, the Cogs were still metal and thus susceptible to magnets as seen when Billy used it to defeat the Cogs in the episode “Bulk Fiction.”
Arsenal[]
- Fists: The Cogs only use their fists in American footage, relying on their strength to lead them to victory.
- Spears: The Cogs carry large silver spears with razor sharp golden tips but only in Sentai footage.
- Electric Shocks: The Cogs' spears can be pressed to other robots to fry them with golden energy and temporarily disable them. They did this to Alpha 5 when kidnapping Joey for Boohoo the Clown.
- Battle Staffs: The Cogs' spears can also become regular sticks to bludgeon the enemy as seen in the second part of the three-part episode “There’s No Business Like Snow Business.”
- Quadrafighters: The Cogs' signature weapons are large brown fighters that can fire blue energy spirals from gattling guns on their undersides.
- Cog Ships: The Machine Empire's signature invasion craft are large, rotating cog-shaped ships piloted by the Cogs that are commonly used to launch Quadrafighters.
- Snowboards: Whilst on the Widowmaker, the Cogs used snowboards to descend the mountain and to attack Kat at speed.
See Also[]
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 Villains
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Mighty Morphin Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie Other Zeo Turbo In Space Lost Galaxy Lightspeed Rescue Time Force Wild Force Other Ninja Storm Dino Thunder S.P.D. Mystic Force Operation Overdrive Moltor's Forces Kamdor's Forces Fearcats Thrax's Alliance Jungle Fury RPM Other Samurai/Super Samurai Other Megaforce/Super Megaforce Toxic Beasts Robots The Armada Vrak's Forces Other Dino Charge/Dino Super Charge Ninja Steel/Super Ninja Steel Sledge's Outlaw: Snow Fright Gruesome Grunts Other Beast Morphers Gigadrones: Cycledrone | Needledrone | Shoveldrone | Slicerdrone | Meltadrone | Raildrone | Vacuudrone | Antennadrone | Drilldrone | Tooldrone | Delta Model Gigadrone | Clonedrone | Tubadrone | Tubadrone 2.0 | Burnerdrone | Turbodrone | Shockadrone | Spikedrone | Infernodrone | Drilldrone 2.0]] | Trapperdrone | Gamerdrone | Keydrone | Controladrone | Digidrone | Alphadrone | Betadrone | Gammadrone | Deltadrone | Tiaradrone | Bulldozerdrone | Thiefdrone | Clawdrpne | Antennadrpne 2.0 Revived Enemies Others Dino Fury Sporix Beasts: Shockhorn | Vypeera | Draknarok | Brineblast | Smashstone | Wolfgang | Doomsnake | Roostafa | Tombtress | Fogshell | Tidemare | Trawler | Stone Triplets | Boneswitch | Sporix Beast Fly | Bitscreem | Occulo | Junkalo | Squashblight | Trackenslash | Flapnarock | Hexcurio | Quickspine | Sugarhit | Clawfare | Crashflood | Nemesis Beast Evil Space Aliens Other Cosmic Fury 2017 Movie 2016 Comics Empyreals Video Games | ||
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United Alliance of Evil Divatox's Crew | ||
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