Dave's Animorphs Page


Visit the OFFICIAL ANIMORPHS SITE	Dave's Animorphs Page	Page last updated on: 2/11/00 Beetle Marco review, some pics added.
Images taken from Tomart's Action Figure Digest, various eBay auctions and the back of the toy packaging. Reviews copyright 1999 by Dave Van Domelen. Please ask before using any images from this page, even the simple scans represent some work on my part.

Animorphs started as a series of books aimed at roughly the Junior High School reading level, and has since branched out into television and a toy line. I've read one of the books, In The Time of Dinosaurs, click here to read a short review of it. Other than this one book, I don't really plan to read or review any of the other books, or watch the TV show. I'm pretty much in this just for the toys.

--- NEWS ---

UPDATE - 9/18/99 - R.I.P. Transformers Animorphs. Emails to Hasbro about the line are being answered with "we don't make that anymore" form letters, so it looks like Wave Two will never see the light of day. However, despite this apparently corporate abandonment, the second wave is coming out anyway. Mega Tobias, Ultra Visser-3, Super Tri-Rex and Deluxes Ax/Panther (a recolor of Jake/Tiger) and Macro/Beetle have been sighted in various stores. Also, Taco Bell is running a promotion, see below.

UPDATE - 3/13/99 - Ben "Wonko the Sane" Yee has started his own Animorphs toy page. It has come to my attention that certain microcephaloids have been giving Ben a ton of grief about this, as if he were somehow betraying them by not joining in on the Animorphs-bashing. Because I know a lot of younger viewers come to my pages, I will not say what comes to mind regarding these induhviduals. But it does involve creative use of the Yeerks that come with the Deluxe toys.

Tacomorphs
Taco Bell is doing a promotion with transforming Animorphs toys in September/October of 1999.

REVIEWS

Run-down of the line, Marco/Shark: Zobovor pointed out to me that the entire torso can slide forwards to put his waist over his hips.
Tobias and Cassie/Anteater
Rachel/Fly
Jake/Lizard

The bag used for the kid's meal has a good shot of all five toys on it, HERE is a scan of the bag.

First Wave Deluxe
This wave is composed of Jake, Rachel, Marco and Tobias initially, with Cassie held back to ship at about the same time as the Mega assortment (well, a little later, as it turned out). Jake the Grizzly will also be considered part of the First Wave (wave 1.5) if it comes out in April as promised. Well, it made it in May, so I'll slide it under the door. Besides, there ended up only being one wave. Click HERE for a review of Jake/Tiger, Rachel and Tobias. Click HERE for a review of Cassie. Click HERE for a review of Jake/Bear. Finally, click HERE for a review of Marco/Gorilla and Ax/Scorpion.

Group Shot - From Tomart's #61, this shows the toys in various levels of transformation, and it's not pretty. Human heads and painted on shirts amidst beast parts, basically. UPDATE: the same picture in Lee's Action Figure Guide labels the wolf as Cassie. Also, the colors in this picture are the prototype colors...at some point, some dummy decided to go with weakly metallic paints for most of the clothing, or bright colors where they were muted, so the human mode clothing is pretty hideous.
Jake/Tiger - Just the tiger mode is shown here.
Jake in Package - They seem to be putting all of them in the package sort of half-transformed, not that it looks like this ever transforms all the way to human. Oh, and as you can barely see in these in-package scans, each figure comes with what looks like a Yeerk slug for you to drop down the shirt of unsuspecting friends and relatives.
Rachel in Package - Geez, I know she acts pretty macho in the book I read, but making her a male lion? Okay, she turned into a male lion in the TV show....
Rachel on back of package - Note that while this picture shows her human face visible, they must have glued it in position, because in the actual toy her face won't stay visible on its own.
Marco in Package - From gorilla to impossibly bulky fratboy.
Marco on back of package - Sigh. Looks like a member of Marvel's "Headmen" villain group.
Tobias in Package - Shown here with his "mutant head" that has a feathery cowl, he has a normal head as seen in the group shot as well. Very simple transformation.
Tobias on back of package
Ax/Panther NEW 2/11/00 - From the back of Marco/Beetle's card. Basically just a recolor and slight remold of Jake/Tiger.
Marco/Beetle NEW 2/11/00 - Thanks to Terry Flora for sending me this guy, who never appeared in my area and was on clearance in Terry's. Scans of the actual toy, since there's no picture of the "human/mutant" mode on the card, and the color is wrong in the pic of the beetle mode. Click HERE for a review.

First Wave Megas
Looks like they're reserving this level for the Andalites. See Ax's review up with the Deluxes.

Ax - Ax turns into a scorpion, which is something of a cop-out considering he already has a scorp-like tail. UPDATE: Well, turns out his Andalite tail turns into a pair of the scorpion legs. But the toy doesn't look that great in scorpion mode, as you can see here. TIP: Nolan Bennett suggests folding the tail in half to make a passable Spider abdomen, and then the claws become pedipalps. Now that I have one, I agree that the pseudo-spider looks better than the scorpion mode.
Visser 3 - Evil alien leader type. He's supposed to turn into a hideous monster. Compared to...? UPDATE: Compared to a normal Andalite form like Ax's, according to Blitz1717. The picture shown is of the hideous monster, an "Inferno Creature." Click here for a review of Visser 3. Also, you can get an idea what the toy looks like from the box photos.
However, these pictures are somewhat misleading, especially regarding the Andalite mode. They removed the forearm shields and the missile, then positioned the toy so that the trigger for his grabbing claw mechanism would be hidden. Then they flipped the photo mirror image. All to make the Andalite mode look better on the box. And since he's packaged in Inferno Creature mode, this is rather disingenuous.
Mega Tobias - Thanks to SwiftEagle, I have this picture of Mega Tobias. Really simple transformation, overly long bird legs, but apparently has some electronics in it according to other sources.

Ultra Triple-Changer
The Ultra level toy is another Visser-3, with the ability to shift between Andalite, Hork-Bajir and Inferno Beast modes. Click HERE for a picture from the side of the box, but note that all modes are slightly mistransformed. Click HERE for a review of Ultra Visser-3, plus comments on the Tri-Rex set (which I don't intend to buy).

Super Combiner
A combiner set is planned for later this year, three kids combining into a T.rex, but I'm guessing that's all they do...no altmodes of their own. Here's a conceptual drawing showing just the T.rex form, whee. SwiftEagle also took this pic. Later reports confirm that the components have no altmodes of their own, and there's an electronic sound effect gimmick in the tail. Click HERE for a picture from the bottom of Ultra Visser-3's box. Later reports note that all three kids are in "halfway/mutant" modes, with snarling scaly faces. Also, there's a stomping sound when you move the hips and a roar when pushing a button on the back, Marco carries the sound unit.

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