Retromorphs: Animorphs #15: The Escape

So far Marco's 2 for 2 when it comes to Animorphs books. Aside from Tobias he's been the character written the best so far, especially with everything we know so far about him, as well as learning that his mother is the controller for one of the most powerful Yeerks. Will we score a hat trick? This one is an underwater book though and they're always a mixed bag. It's time for The Escape.

We open the book with the Animorphs at the mall, hanging at the Amazon Cafe. The cafe is very much a rainforest motif complete with three talking parrots. And since Cassie's here, it's ethics time again as she's not happy with the parrots not being allowed their dignity. Though I'd imagine at least the birds are taken care of, but then again this is the mid-90s so that's not a given. But maybe Cassie's warranted on this as some kid tries to get him to say "Howard Stern rules". I mean, it's actually "Baba Booey! Baba Booey! Howard Stern's penis" but book for kids, book for kids. Also Ax is here in human form and of course being in human form he's going wild for cinnamon buns. 

So the Animorphs morph the parrots and begin to squawk bad things about the cafe, which again feels really unwarranted. Yes, the parrots are property of the store and it's not great, but they could literally be doing anything of better value here. This is paying us back for the lack of a Cassie crisis last book, huh? Also, just a thought, but this is going to make the ACTUAL parrots look bad in hindsight. But you know, we have to do this because we do need one of these early morph scenes in a book. In the midst of their parrot comedy hour, Marco notices a kid in the crowd. It's Erek, a member of the Chee, the race of anthro-dog robots we met in Marco's last book. When they demorph, the group meets up with Erek who puts up a hologram wall around them so they see him in his Robo-Snoopy form. He commends them on the freeing of the Hork-Bajir two books ago, but then wishes to speak to Marco alone.

As expected, this has to do with Marco's mom AKA Visser One. And since Jake is the only other person privy to this information, he listens in as well. Well, Visser One is back on Earth and is doing something involving the waters around Royan Island. He doesn't know much else other than there's a possible new type of controller on the island. Creatures known as the Leerans. Erek makes a comment about Marco possibly making a mistake on their mission, which angers Marco, even though he knows that to be kind of correct. If the call had to be made to kill his own mother, would he do it? He asks Ax about the Leerans, which we learn are an amphibian race of aliens that live in the water. They have psychic powers, which was a concern for the Andalites given their battle plans. It also makes sense as to why the Yeerks would want to work with them. Namely in finding a certain group of "Andalite bandits" and all. 

The group make their plan to head to Royan Island, but first Tobias needs a dolphin morph, which admittedly gives us a pretty wacky scene as Tobias acquires a dolphin during a show, which means the crowd sees a hawk latch onto a dolphin and almost drown. But it's successful and they all fly out to the island, which is a mostly secluded area save for the mansion belonging to the Marquez family. The group morph dolphin while Ax morphs shark, which Marco still has PTSD over given the near-death experience he had in book four. They search around and eventually find some sort of underwater hideout beneath a force field, inside are people in offices being guarded by Hork-Bajir. But before they can get more answers, a group of hammerhead sharks show up. The group try fighting them off and injuring one of the sharks in hopes the others will attack it instead, but they don't. Before the Animorphs are killed, a strange siren goes off, sending the sharks into retreat. They also see a strange, cigar-shaped submarine rising, with Hork-Bajir, Gedd, Taxxon and humans inside, including Marco's mom Visser One. As well as Leeran, which are described as having pebbly yellowish skin, webbed frog legs, tentacles and a large wide face. So yeah, alien frog creatures, pretty accurate.

Marco returns home and does his homework on Lord of the Rings while also dealing with a lot of issues. His mother, his feeling of looking more weak and cowardly during the mission, being unable to really talk with his father over anything because of both the stuff involving Visser One and also because, you know, could possibly/eventually become a controller. The next day, the group decide they have to make into the underwater facility to find out what's going on. But that requires hammerhead morphs, which Marco is against, but ultimately realizes that he's going to be doing so like it or not. They head to Ocean World, a newer park, and decide that they should morph dolphin, knock out a shark, then demorph and acquire it. Cassie's against this, as you'd expect, but ultimately gives in to the idea. But before they can do anything, they got caught by a security guard, who is also a controller. Tobias attacks the guard while they make a run for it inside the pump area where the water is filtered in and out. Another guard controller catches them, but thinks nothing of Jake or the other humans, thinking they're just hoodlum teens lurking about, unrelated to the Andalite. Which, yeah, dumb controller who like Visser Three and the other yeerks think that the bandits are all Andalites, but I dunno, this might border on asspull territory. Ax slashes one of the plexiglass tubes with his tail causing the water to come out in full force. 

Marco gets chased by one of the sharks, but manages to subdue it and acquire the morph. And with the shark in a trance, the others get their morph as well. He tries to morph the shark in the school pool, but almost gets caught by a pair of bullies named Drake and Woo, who beat him up and mock his missing mother. Marco thinks to just morph shark and tear them up, but Jake shows up in time before he can do that. To which I'll again say, Jake's more calm and understanding about this mess up than he was with Rachel and the pervert. The day of the mission to infiltrate the underwater facility approaches and Marco is still having a crisis of not wanting people to pity him, which is one of the main reasons he doesn't want his mother's identity revealed to the others. They morph shark and have a hard time controlling their morphs for a bit, having a frenzy over some blood Marco had bled in the water, but when they gain control, they evade the other sharks and make it to the facility. They enter only to see the other sharks heading toward a large machine. It drills a hole into the other Animorphs' heads and they notice that their minds feel smarter. They realize why the sharks are acting the way they are, they're being mutated so that they can be controlled by the Yeerks. 

The group try to morph fly to search the facility, but then realize something's wrong. They have devices in their heads for the mutation, and it's not exactly going to vanish from their skulls even outside of shark form. So they need to find a way to fix that first. Jake, Cassie and Rachel use their beast forms to attack the Hork Bajir and Taxxons while Marco, Ax and Tobias all go bird and enter a windowless room, where Marco comes face to face with Visser One. She also doesn't suspect Marco of being an Andalite Bandit, but a technician. She had planned for a thousand of these mutated shark-controllers, but with the Andalite Bandits here, their cover now possibly blown, that plan is now in disarray. Also, a snake-like alien arrives in the facility. It's, of course, Visser Three. In case you thought he was going to miss this book. Ax checks one of the computers and understands what's going on. The Yeerks are planning to invade the Leerans. a full scale assault instead of trying to be subtle, given the psychic powers of the Leeran. However, the Leerans live underwater, so the Yeerks needed a way to invade. Hence their mutation of the sharks. Mutate them, Yeerk them, send them to Leeran to invade. There's also a way to get rid of their devices, which is just to blow up the facility. No facility, no remains to be found. Well that's convenient.

So Marco morphs gorilla and the trio help the other three fight off the Hork-Bajir. Marco comes face to face with Visser One who uses the Leeran to try to read his mind, but doesn't because it's trying to read an Andalite mind, and he's in gorilla form. So Marco just punches the Leeran out. Visser Three shows up and argues with Visser One for a bit before he goes after the Animorphs, almost eating Ax, but the others beat him to submission. They find Visser one and almost go for the kill, but Marco tells them to stop, revealing that his mother is the host. They spare her, knowing that this will piss Visser Three off and the pair can keep going at it. Marco smashes a window in the facility which floods the building. They morph Shark and escape, with Marco even killing one of the guard sharks in the process. They see Visser Three escape, but no sign of Visser One. As they leave, Jake asks if Marco's okay, to which Marco says he will be when he knows his mother is free.

So, I'll preface this by saying that I never meant for it to take four years to get back into Animorphs. It was just something that sadly took a backseat to other things I got interested in. My ADHD in full effect. I'll say that this wasn't exactly the best book to take that break as it is an important book. Maybe not the most earth-shattering, most important book in the series, but we do get the fuller revelation of Marco's mother being Visser One to the Animorphs in it. Even with that though, it does feel a tad filler in that the plot is more about controller sharks and a plan to invade a different planet with said controller sharks. Granted, it's more pivotal to the plot overall than, say, the alien toilet of the last book, but still feels like a very filler plot. But one with some stuff I really enjoyed. Be it the scene with Tobias and the dolphin, the fight scene with the sharks, and the tension we do get as Marco confronts his mother, but can't do anything about it. It's part of the overall point of the story, but does feel tense. He can't actually be able to communicate with her given the Yeerk in her head. So he has to fight with his own emotions and stick to the plan.

This book is another good Marco book. Granted, not as strong as the last two, but still good. And it's good because the focus is on his frustrations. How he has to essentially put on a fake face to hide his frustrations over everything. While also weighing in everything else that's important. His dad's safety, trying to find a way to save his mother, trying to control his own emotions while in such a situation. Marco, who is introduced to the series as more the comic relief character, comes off as the series' most complicated. A kid trying to keep everything together and the difficulties surrounding that. Someone who can accept the help of others but also fears being looked at as weak for showing that he needs that help. And the book does a good job in having Jake be that support he needs, even if Marco again tries to keep himself from fully accepting it. And we see that his fears and PTSD from his near death experiences haven't disappeared either, with a portion of the book still focusing on his feelings after the shark attack from The Message. 

But I'd be remiss if I said I didn't have problems with this one. Namely, there's a lot of cases of the Animorphs managing to make it through this mission without being outed as the Andalite Bandits where they absolutely should have been. I get that it's a lower ranking controller, but the scene with the one guard not cluing in as to why four kids are sneaking around in the vicinity of an Andalite annoyed me. Same with Visser One not sussing out Marco. I'd imagine that Visser One is also in full control, but no realization of Marco being her host's son is a bit too convenient, as is the Leeran not reading Marco's mind right. Also the facility having no other humans around at the time, not to mention the brain device being liquidated after the facility is destroyed. It's a case of one too many slip on a banana peel victories for me to overly call this one as good as some say it is, but I think the action, the character work with Marco and the important little pieces of continuity are enough to still make this one worth reading. Maybe one I could have gotten to sooner at least. Jake book next. I promise not to take four years to get to it... hopefully. The Escape gets an A-. 

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