As quite possibly the darkest mainline series thanks to taking place in a world where the bad guys didn't just win but also managed to wipe out most of humanity, Power Rangers RPM did not hold back in showcasing the horrors of this bleak status quo and how terrifying the mastermind behind it all, Venjix, could really be.
- Dillon tearing Mecha-Mooks apart off-screen, in the first episode. As he leaves, we pan away to see the carnage, complete with the lower half of one of the mooks stumbling on-panel before falling lifelessly to the ground. That perfectly illustrates the Darker and Edgier tone of the entire series.
- The very premise, given the history of the show: it's set After the End, as in a near-genocide of the entire human race. Thankfully, Word of God says RPM takes place in its own universe, not as the endpoint of the normal shared continuity. (Later proved during crossover episodes, as all interaction with the RPM universe involve portals to that dimension. Still, someone with a helmet similar to Mack's didn't fare so well protecting that ruined city against the forces of Venjix).
- "Alphabet Soup", where really young children could very well be kidnapped and put to work by their own government for being too smart.
- Speaking of which: assuming Dr. K wasn't bluffing while threatening Colonel Manson in "Ghosts" Explanation , this even included biological warfare.
- Summer's backstory: the killer robots came on her birthday and she had to walk through the blasted wastelands alone.
- The villains have forced labor camps, and perform experiments in cyborg creation on the laborers. A Nazi by Any Other Name, indeed.
- Venjix, who managed to cull the entire population of Earth down to those in a single colony. And even a significant portion of those are his sleeper cells.
- Want to know scariest thing about Venjix? This villain wasn't an alien or an evil spirit. Venjix was created by humans, one in particular, but still. He's scary for the same reason HAL 9000, Skynet and Ultron are scary. And if that's not enough, he survived the end of the series, played the long game, and bade his chance at resurrection (which was also the work of a human) as Evox.
