Dave's Last Animorphs Rant: Marco/Gorilla Ax/Scorpion Well, Hasbro has apparently discontinued the Animorphs line for whatever reason (maybe sales, maybe the TV show was tanking, I dunno), as emails to customer service asking about release dates get a "we don't make that anymore" form reply. Combine that with the sale at Kay Bee this weekend, and I decided to pick up the last two I didn't have. CAPSULES Marco/Gorilla: So-so human form, transformation a bit better than I expected, very nice looking gorilla mode (although it can't stand like a gorilla). Mildly recommended. $7.99 on sale at Kay Bee. Ax/Scorpion: Floppy as all get-out in both modes. Transformation has some interesting bits, but isn't too stable in either mode. Mildly recommended. $12.99 on sale at Kay Bee. RANTS I'm not going to type in the introduction quotes this time, I've really had my fill of the turgid prose they use. ANIMORPH: Marco Human Mode: 4.5" (11cm) tall, and rather bulky for a teenager. Has metallic blue ripped shirt design on his chest, and red cutoff shorts. Arms and legs are basically gorilla limbs. "Mutant head" fills in a gap in his chest, continuing the trend of Marco being the hairiest kid in school. Good poseability, although his legs are a bit stubby. His feet are too small to let him stand up in most poses, he's top-heavy and tips over. He can hold his "rage chain" in his left hand, the right hand being a fist. Intermediate Mode: Swap in the mutant head, stick on the gloves and you're done. While most of the figures have some mechanism for popping the mutant head out, on Marco you have to open the back up and manually swap the heads. His human head is clearly visible through the gap in his chest. Chain can be held in either glove hand. The gloves stay on reasonably well and can be rotated for an extra point of articulation. Transformation: The main part of the transformation involves flipping down the back, then lifting the torso up between the shoulders and rotating it, which involves a few intermediate steps of folding things down and around. This totally hides all human parts in the upper body. Then there's panels on the thighs which rotate to cover the pants, and a sort of loincloth you have to snap off his butt and snap back in place over his pants to totally cover up the human bits on the lower body. If you don't have strong, long nails, you may need a knife or other implement to get this loincloth off. Beast Mode: Same height as human mode, or a little shorter if you crouch him. As with most of the other Deluxes, the toy was clearly designed around this mode, and almost nothing of the human mode shows through. However, unlike Ultra Optimus Primal, this gorilla can't really stand like a proper gorilla. He can come close if you rotate his thigh flaps to the side, but his head is aligned for an upright standing position. His head also pops down like a turtle's, thanks to a necessity of the transformation. Coloration is black with metallic cool grey and blue accents. One odd trick you can pull with this mode is that the abdominal wall can be pried up, revealing the human head (or the mutant head) in his belly. Vaguely disturbing. Overall: Nice beast mode, and the transformation isn't completely lame, but the human mode is pretty much a write-off, as with most Animorphs. If you can get it on clearance, go for it. ANDALITE: Ax Andalite Mode: 5" (12cm) tall at the head (up to 6"/15cm depending on how you fiddle with the legs) and 5" long if tail is curled up. Mainly blue with yellow and metallic green accents, plus silver hooves and stinger blade. Not a whole lot of beast mode kibble in this mode, mainly some odd detailing and the claws on his forearms. Of course, since this is an alien and not a human, there's a lot more leeway in hiding beast bits. However, stability is a big problem here. His legs have lots of floppy joints in the rubbery plastic, with the ball jointed ankles being major offenders. Note: he comes mistransformed in the box. His forelegs are on swiveling pieces which should be swung forwards. This helps a little with stability. Transformation: Largely intuitive, since almost everything turns into a leg. The instructions aren't really necessary, just refer to the picture if you're having trouble. Beast Mode: A mess of legs splayed out over as much as 8" (20cm). The joints are too loose and the body too heavy for anything but a variant on the "splayed out" pose. Head looks more like a crab's than a scorpion's. Pincers are rather small and pop off easily, although they do have a nice spring-loaded gimmick. Pull them open, and then push a button to have them snap closed. The scorpion tail is composed of several vertebrae-like joints including some that swivel, and the stinger is basically the front of Ax's Andalite-mode torso. It's a bit top-heavy and tends to flop over. A single missile loads into the stinger and will fire a couple of feet (less than a meter). The missile can be left in the launcher in Andalite mode, and even has a safety of sorts (a panel that flips up to cover it). In general, the proportions are all out of whack for a scorpion. Overall: It has some redeeming features, but really suffers from soft plastic and insufficiently tight joints. Of the two Megas, I prefer Visser-3, but again, if you can find this on clearance, you might wanna consider it. Dave Van Domelen, now has another webpage dedicated to a dead line....