Controversial opinion incoming: I don't like the end of this book.
Like, this post really sums it up:
Animorphs is not that bad. Cassie's not related to anyone important, at least, and Jake's tie to Tom is mostly just inconvenient. HOWEVER. It's still canon that the Ellimist "stacked the deck" by recruiting Animorphs who are relatives of people like Eva and Elfangor and Tom, and the implication about ~*~superior genes~*~ is still in there.
To me, the reveal about Tobias being related to Elfangor:
Cheapens the message about these being ordinary kids — dumb jocks, bully magnets, screw-ups — who are literally in the wrong place at the wrong time when superheroism gets thrust upon them. Jake is my favorite because he cuts against type for SF heroes: he's not an outsider nerd, he's not talented; he's just some dumb jock who is also kind and brave and optimistic. Giving Tobias the classic SF backstory makes him less relatable, in my book.
Undercuts Tobias's friendship with Ax. Along with the backlash to "they're such good friends they must be in love", I'd like to start a backlash against "they're such good friends they must be related." Because it's still implying that some types of love are more valid than others. The shorms are family before they find out they share genes; do we really need that added element?
Undercuts Tobias's own call to action in the first book. Tobias makes this instant connection with a stranger from another species, in a way that Jake notes only Tobias could ever do, and it ends up pulling all five human kids into the war. There's heartbreaking power to the idea that Tobias is this overflowing with empathy and also naïveté. But whoops, nope, turns out it was a genetic connection all along!
Straight up doesn't make sense? It's a rare case where Animorphs' otherwise pretty good continuity slips up big time — Loren's three husbands, Chapman's contagious amnesia, both Tobias's parents going from "dead" to "missing", Ax's childhood suddenly being illogical. There are so many ret-con gymnastics going on that this twist doesn't feel worth it.
Loses the realism. Animorphs has my love forever for details like Marco not being able to afford admission to the Gardens and Ax fighting tears at the thought of disappointing his dad and Rachel having to be the second parent to her sisters. Tobias having a dogshit home life, just because, and using morphing as a desperate escape hatch — that's realism. That feels perfectly in line with the themes of the series. It feels like things I saw as a kid that no adult, and no other kids' book series, would talk about. Tobias having a dogshit home life because his dad's an alien prince who got time-warped off to fight a cosmic war while his mom was attacked by his dad's ancient enemies and given fantasy!amnesia because of her former role as the first human ever to be mind-controlled... Fuck off. If I wanted fantasy escapism, I'd read a different book.
Animorphs books can be read here | Book Club schedule is here
To be fair, id argue Tobias being Elfangor's son (beyond them seeming to have some connection when they meet) doesn't really make HIM anymore special or fanatastical as a person. Its not like his alien heritage gives him some special powers and he stil lived his life on Earth as an avaerage kid, magical space reasons or not, his life DID still suck for reasons outside his control. Though I would argue that hits on an an issue I might find more with this twist nowadays: It....doesnt really MATTER?
Like, "Tobias is Elfangors son" feels like a twist that could be done in Animorphs (honestly, they couldve just had him leave either by choice or Andalites coming to Earth to bring him back and Lorens memory just erased by Andalite tech, thus hitting on those themes of war and duty and the Andalites kinds sucking.) But him being Elfanors son doesn't really change anything. Tobias's stories are still more about him being a hawk or being with Rachel. Even his relationship with Ax feels like it should....change more considering Tobias is his nephew. Heck, maybe it'd even be cool to see what the Andalite's as whole think on that. Like, what ARE the Andalite rules for interapecies breeding while in morph? Feels like something that should come up. Hell, how does Tobias feel about Elfangor now, since he has to ASSUME his father abandoned him and his mom to go fight the Yeerks? Resentful? Angry? Hurt? Tobias being Elfangor's son isn't really something that changes anything like it should. I'd even argue Marco's mom being Visser one has more effect because it drastically changes how Marco considers his mission in the war and his motivation.
Like, the twist itself doesnt bother me, its more how it feels like it SHOULD really change more for Tobias in SOME personal way.
No, you're right, and to me that's an extra frustration. I think it'd bother me less if it ended up being setup for a plotline where Tobias communicated with the andalites somehow, or it mattered to, like, the war-prince they negotiate the treaty with in #54. But it's basically just a weird little fun fact for the rest of the series.
And yes, all the other family connections pretty much get a pass from me as well. Tom's role is mostly 'surprise, kid; you thought you could ignore the war but it turns out there's already a yeerk living inside your home." And even when that yeerk does become important for the war effort, it becomes important because of Jake -- it steals the morphing cube and gets a giant promotion by holding Jake's family hostage against him. So that connection isn't coincidence. Ax is similar -- he was the only aristh on his Dome ship because he's Elfangor's little brother, not out of luck.
As you said, Eva and Marco feels more coincidental, but even then you can argue that Marco is an Animorph because of Eva. And it's a major plot point that Marco wants Visser One in particular dead. Just like it's a major plot point that Visser Seventeen* wants Jake in particular dead, just like it's a major plot point that Elfangor's death requires Ax to kill Visser Three.
All this space opera crap with Tobias is just... there. It's never important to the story that Tobias is half andalite, other than being another reason (besides everything we already got with Loren) for Elfangor to love Earth and trust humans. And even then, Elfangor says outright in #23 that he neither knows nor feels attached to Tobias. So it's basically just space opera nonsense.
*Visser Seventeen = the yeerk that controls Tom from #6 - #54, and ends up head of invasion security for the Empire. Whose name we never learn. And who might in fact be several yeerks.
Weird headcanon: The letter says Tobias is Elfangor's son, but is there any actual evidence that's true? Elfangor wasn't there when Tobias was born, he only thinks Tobias is his son because the Ellimist told him so, right? The same Ellimist who sent the letter in the first place? Do we as a fandom consider the Ellimist a trustworthy source now?
I remember when I was younger, anytime I watched a movie where the characters have to kill a scary monster/alien, I always thought the act of killing it was intended to be part of the horror. Like there’s this amazing creature that we’ve never seen before, and maybe under different circumstances we could’ve coexisted with it, but it’s trying to attack you and you have to defend yourself, but by destroying it you also destroy the ability to ever understand it and that’s sad and is supposed to make you feel conflicted.
It was not until well into my adulthood that I realized most people do not have complicated feelings about movies where people have to kill a scary alien monster, nor is that necessarily meant to be part of the narrative (unless it very obviously is). They just want the scary thing to die because it’s scary. I don’t have a real conclusion to this I just started thinking about it for some reason.
Have you talked about secunits/murderbots in animorphs? I feel like the Chee would get heated
This is the closest I've come. And yes, the chee and the Secunits would find each other sooooo upsetting. Possibly to the point where they have exactly one minor spat and the chee get annihilated.
Takes place in the Animorphs canon, after the war. Tom is a ghost (spoilers). And there's this other ghost who can't remember his name or anything else from when he was alive (though strangely he doesn't seem too concerned with finding out). And the two of them team up to become Ghost Detectives. Although they're not all that good at the detecting part, it's really just an excuse to hunt spooky bad guys and work out their pent-up anger issues.
Soon enough it comes out that the second ghost is David. He was lying about not remembering, he just didn't want to admit his dark past to Jake's brother. But Tom knew the whole time and just chose not to say anything.
If I did write this, I would possibly include Melissa as the obligatory living-person-who-can-see-ghosts.
So I'm re-reading The Message (and then I re-re-read the graphic novel version to see if the line is there too and it is) and there's this line that I SOMEHOW never noticed before:
<There are only three races left in all the known galaxy that still fight the Yeerks,> Ax said proudly. <And only the Andalites can stop them.>
So besides the races already conquered, there were two other mystery species fighting alongside the Andalites? How did I miss this and how was it never brought up again??? I understand that Applegrant just forgot, but I feel like the fandom should be talking about this more.
Batman #147 is the one where Batman Becomes Bat-Baby. There's got to be a universe out there where Grant Morrison incorporated this story into their writing instead of the Batman of Zurr-En-Arhh, and whenever he gets mentally compromised he just hypnotizes himself into becoming a baby. Welcome to the Gutters!
When I started this project, I didn't want to become the Angry Video Game Nerd. I'm always saying how I didn't want to become the Angry Video Game Nerd. Other people are always saying how I'm always saying that I don't want to be the Angry Video Game Nerd. But that is not out of any disrespect for the AVGN. James Rolfe, as a filmmaker, is absolutely legit, and I have nothing but respect for his work. As a critic, I want to do different things, but philosophically, I find his wisdom undeniable. Sometimes, when you take yourself back to the past, you find the shitty comics that suck ass, and all you can do is button up your white dress shirt, straighten your wire-frame glasses, stare right down the barrel of your Panasonic AG-DVX100 Camcorder and ask "What were they thinking?"
The story is a brisk ten pages, and it wastes none of them, although I can't say that it makes good use of any of them either. Batman breaks into the hideout of some mobsters and their mad scientist, Garth. Garth zaps Batman with the Baby-Rayby, and Batman just stays in it for long enough for him to turn fully back into a child. Who is Garth? Why does he have a baby gun? How does it work? What made him turn to evil? These questions and more will go completely unanswered by the narrative, bravely telling a story in which we learn absolutely nothing about any of the characters involved.
I'm not normally one to pick on a fictional child, but Batman is a fictional adult in the body of a fictional toddler, so my consistence is fictionally clear. Bat-Baby looks grotesque. Not once in any of these comic panels does he look anything like a real human child. Mostly that's just due to the uncanny valley, but these first panels where he's wearing the floppy batsuit and we can see his massive chubby baby cheeks will never fail to induce a visceral reaction in me. He looks like somebody made a racist caricature of a cabbage patch doll.
This premise raises a lot of interesting questions about Batman as a person. Famously, Batman lost his parents at a young age, and has been in a state of arrested development ever since, so how does he react to suddenly being a child again? What negative effects does having a child's body have on Batman's ability to fight crime? The answers to these questions is "Shut up and stop asking questions." Batman has all of his maturity and intelligence as an adult, and is only moderately bothered by having to sit on phone books to reach the table. Furthermore, despite having the body of a toddler, Batman is every bit as strong as an adult man, but he is all too willing to put on short pants and little dress shoes to fight crime.
The art has absolutely not improved in these next few pages. Outside of his costume, Batman looks like he has a young man's head on a child's body, and his arms and legs are disturbingly muscular. When he's in his Bitty Baby Batsuit, Batman's still got those gross sausage limbs but he's also got those weird puffy cheeks and, for some reason, full, pouty lips. He looks like he's been Weinerized. Why does he... why is that a thing? Why is any of this happening? Why do I do this to myself? I just cannot fathom the artist looking at this at any stage of the production and deciding that it looked like it was good enough to print.
Anyway, gotta move on. Batman next has to deal with the arrival of Katy Kane, who in this issue has decided that she's in love with Bruce Wayne. Bruce could do the sensible thing and have Alfred say that he's out sick with Rubella or some other pre-vaccination disease, but instead they do this convoluted scheme where they invite Katy into Wayne Manor, and then let her see the shadow of Bruce kissing some other woman, trusting that she, like the emotionally fragile lady woman-girl that she is, will turn around and run away, crying big feminine tears. Later, Bruce will explain that he wasn't seeing another woman, he was just making out licky-style with his cousin, a normal thing everyone does.
This scene is absurd on its own, but it's really just the nadir of a phenomenon endemic to Silver Age comics. The protagonist seems to be able to predict the actions of other characters as if they had nigh-omniscient prescience. Here we see Batman knowing that Kathy Kane would turn and walk away instead of angrily confronting Bruce and his lover, or indeed paying attention enough to notice that these shadows aren't moving or even making any noise because they're just a cardboard cut-out. Batman may be the world's greatest detective, but this story is treating him like the Kwisatz Haderach.
If you're in any way invested in this story, and why the hell would you be, you probably can't wait to see how Bat-Baby gets himself back to normal. So the hell would I, because this story doesn't even show us. We see Bat-Baby go off-panel, Robin mops up the thugs by himself, and then Batman pops back up, fully adultified. We don't even get to see him as a muscle-bound adult wearing tiny little baby pants. This should be the climax of the story and they don't even whiff it, because they don't even take a swing. It just soars clean through the strike zone unchallenged like Casey at the Bat.
I can't say that this is the worst moment in the history of Batman. Not in a world where Frank Miller didn't retire after 9/11 broke his brain. But this is without a doubt the single dumbest moment in the history of Batman. Comics like these were almost enough for DC Comics to cancel Batman outright, but against all odds, they rallied. In a few years, Batman would have a new art style, more dramatic writing, and a hot TV show putting him in the public eye, and Batman's fortunes would keep rising to the present day. When you hit rock bottom, sometimes you can climb out of that hole. Until next time!
Comic writers of '62: "People of the future, pursue careers in writing fiction! And take comfort in the knowledge that no matter how bad you are, you could never do worse than 'Bat-Baby does okay for a kid'."
2019: "Somehow Palpatine returned."
Comic writers of '62: "I stand corrected."
Batman #147 is the one where Batman Becomes Bat-Baby. There's got to be a universe out there where Grant Morrison incorporated this story into their writing instead of the Batman of Zurr-En-Arhh, and whenever he gets mentally compromised he just hypnotizes himself into becoming a baby. Welcome to the Gutters!
When I started this project, I didn't want to become the Angry Video Game Nerd. I'm always saying how I didn't want to become the Angry Video Game Nerd. Other people are always saying how I'm always saying that I don't want to be the Angry Video Game Nerd. But that is not out of any disrespect for the AVGN. James Rolfe, as a filmmaker, is absolutely legit, and I have nothing but respect for his work. As a critic, I want to do different things, but philosophically, I find his wisdom undeniable. Sometimes, when you take yourself back to the past, you find the shitty comics that suck ass, and all you can do is button up your white dress shirt, straighten your wire-frame glasses, stare right down the barrel of your Panasonic AG-DVX100 Camcorder and ask "What were they thinking?"
The story is a brisk ten pages, and it wastes none of them, although I can't say that it makes good use of any of them either. Batman breaks into the hideout of some mobsters and their mad scientist, Garth. Garth zaps Batman with the Baby-Rayby, and Batman just stays in it for long enough for him to turn fully back into a child. Who is Garth? Why does he have a baby gun? How does it work? What made him turn to evil? These questions and more will go completely unanswered by the narrative, bravely telling a story in which we learn absolutely nothing about any of the characters involved.
I'm not normally one to pick on a fictional child, but Batman is a fictional adult in the body of a fictional toddler, so my consistence is fictionally clear. Bat-Baby looks grotesque. Not once in any of these comic panels does he look anything like a real human child. Mostly that's just due to the uncanny valley, but these first panels where he's wearing the floppy batsuit and we can see his massive chubby baby cheeks will never fail to induce a visceral reaction in me. He looks like somebody made a racist caricature of a cabbage patch doll.
This premise raises a lot of interesting questions about Batman as a person. Famously, Batman lost his parents at a young age, and has been in a state of arrested development ever since, so how does he react to suddenly being a child again? What negative effects does having a child's body have on Batman's ability to fight crime? The answers to these questions is "Shut up and stop asking questions." Batman has all of his maturity and intelligence as an adult, and is only moderately bothered by having to sit on phone books to reach the table. Furthermore, despite having the body of a toddler, Batman is every bit as strong as an adult man, but he is all too willing to put on short pants and little dress shoes to fight crime.
The art has absolutely not improved in these next few pages. Outside of his costume, Batman looks like he has a young man's head on a child's body, and his arms and legs are disturbingly muscular. When he's in his Bitty Baby Batsuit, Batman's still got those gross sausage limbs but he's also got those weird puffy cheeks and, for some reason, full, pouty lips. He looks like he's been Weinerized. Why does he... why is that a thing? Why is any of this happening? Why do I do this to myself? I just cannot fathom the artist looking at this at any stage of the production and deciding that it looked like it was good enough to print.
Anyway, gotta move on. Batman next has to deal with the arrival of Katy Kane, who in this issue has decided that she's in love with Bruce Wayne. Bruce could do the sensible thing and have Alfred say that he's out sick with Rubella or some other pre-vaccination disease, but instead they do this convoluted scheme where they invite Katy into Wayne Manor, and then let her see the shadow of Bruce kissing some other woman, trusting that she, like the emotionally fragile lady woman-girl that she is, will turn around and run away, crying big feminine tears. Later, Bruce will explain that he wasn't seeing another woman, he was just making out licky-style with his cousin, a normal thing everyone does.
This scene is absurd on its own, but it's really just the nadir of a phenomenon endemic to Silver Age comics. The protagonist seems to be able to predict the actions of other characters as if they had nigh-omniscient prescience. Here we see Batman knowing that Kathy Kane would turn and walk away instead of angrily confronting Bruce and his lover, or indeed paying attention enough to notice that these shadows aren't moving or even making any noise because they're just a cardboard cut-out. Batman may be the world's greatest detective, but this story is treating him like the Kwisatz Haderach.
If you're in any way invested in this story, and why the hell would you be, you probably can't wait to see how Bat-Baby gets himself back to normal. So the hell would I, because this story doesn't even show us. We see Bat-Baby go off-panel, Robin mops up the thugs by himself, and then Batman pops back up, fully adultified. We don't even get to see him as a muscle-bound adult wearing tiny little baby pants. This should be the climax of the story and they don't even whiff it, because they don't even take a swing. It just soars clean through the strike zone unchallenged like Casey at the Bat.
I can't say that this is the worst moment in the history of Batman. Not in a world where Frank Miller didn't retire after 9/11 broke his brain. But this is without a doubt the single dumbest moment in the history of Batman. Comics like these were almost enough for DC Comics to cancel Batman outright, but against all odds, they rallied. In a few years, Batman would have a new art style, more dramatic writing, and a hot TV show putting him in the public eye, and Batman's fortunes would keep rising to the present day. When you hit rock bottom, sometimes you can climb out of that hole. Until next time!
Re-reading Fraternity by Andy Mientus and I got a bad idea for yet another fanfic that I'm never going to write:
Zooey and Leo and Daniel, as grown-ups in 2006, working for Torchwood.
And the millisecond after I thought it I realized just how bad an idea it is because the boys are distinctly American and Torchwood is a distinctly English organization that wouldn't have an American branch.
While writing this post I did a quick look on the wiki and discovered there is exactly one Big Finish audio drama that features Torchwood Los Angeles in the 1970s.
Re-reading Fraternity by Andy Mientus and I got a bad idea for yet another fanfic that I'm never going to write:
Zooey and Leo and Daniel, as grown-ups in 2006, working for Torchwood.
And the millisecond after I thought it I realized just how bad an idea it is because the boys are distinctly American and Torchwood is a distinctly English organization that wouldn't have an American branch.
Being an Animorphs fan has made me so critical of the Phantom Thieves' opsec. What do you MEAN you're doing whole-group meetings in public that included a victim of your first target for the first incident and then added a victim of your second target for the second incident. What do you MEAN you're carrying the cat to school every day. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE OPENLY COMMUNICATING ABOUT YOUR CRIMES VIA TEXT MESSAGE.
Not really but they did a million times better than these idiots. They obeyed strange and esoteric principles like "never say anything suspicious over the phone or in writing" and "don't immediately form a tightknit friend group with your fellow child soldiers in public immediately after becoming a group of child soldiers, enemies could be watching anywhere" and "do not ever, in any circumstances, at all, discuss the war in a location where you might be overheard".
Admittedly they did occasionally do stuff like "claw our way out of a predator's stomach in the middle of an enemy base/event", but usually they were too covered in alien guts to be identifiable, and the one time they were clearly identifiable the enemy who saw them turned out to be a pacifist alien dog robot who was on their side, so like. Not too bad for fourteen year olds.
The did have the benefit of already having being two friend groups that would logically hang out because Jake and Rachel were cousins and Jake had a crush on Cassie.
I genuinely can't forgive any choice of hideout the Phantom Thieves make. The second one is especially bad.
We watching the Phantom Thieves gather on the roof of their school: Guys please this is the worst possible hideout. One of you lives in the attic above a cafe. Why are you on the school roof, no place could be worse.
The Phantom Thieves, appraising a public thoroughfare in a well populated area that doesn't even have any seating: hold my juice.
The journalist?? The journalist for a major publication that you met at your last crime scene very shortly before criming it??? That's who you want to ask to investigate your next target????
Sure, send Mishima to talk to the pretty, adventurous reporter woman. He's so clever and controlled. No chance at all that fucking Mishima will slip up trying to impress her and out you all.
Ann is literally right there and her best friend is like half her backstory. But no, Mishima is The Guy for this.
Comparing Animorphs to Persona 5 is like comparing a thriller movie to a horror movie. In the latter the protagonists makes stupid decisions every step of the way, but the audience doesn't question it because that's just the rules of the genre… except here they somehow survive anyway? (I write this having not actually watched many horror movies so I think my metaphor falls apart.)
Headcanon: MCU Billy Kaplan can't watch The Summer Hikaru Died. His friends keep recommending it for queerness, but he just can't sit through it. It hits too close.
So. The new Animorphs reprint came out yesterday. While my collection has gaps from later in the series, I'm lucky enough to already own copies of the first three books. So there's really no need for me to buy the reprinted versions. It would just be a waste of money and shelf space. I don't need 2 copies of the Invasion, the Visitor, and the Encounter. That would be silly. I don't need it.
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