Okay, so we have a few more covers to talk about here. Again, wasn't my intention, but there is some interesting trivia to bring up. Apparently, the cover above, the gorilla morph which Marco gets in book one, was only used in certain countries.
In other countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Poland, we get a cover where Marco morphs into a lobster, which is one of the morphs in the book. I don't believe there was any explanation given, but if I were to hazard a guess, Marco is described and shown on the cover as a Hispanic boy. More than likely some places may have thought an image of a Hispanic person turning into an ape was racially insensitive. Again, that's a hazard of a guess. It's also the rare book where the mid-morph is used as the behind page.
HOWEVER, when the book was re-released in 2011, all countries went with the gorilla morph for the cover, so it's unclear just what the real explanation was for the alternate morph cover. Hey, when I said I was going to be reviewing these books, I meant as thorough as possible.
After another quick recap of the premise, we see Marco heading home from the local 7-Eleven when he notices three thugs holding up an old man. And despite being the one who mainly chewed out Rachel for morphing to defend herself from a would-be rapist, he morphs gorilla and beats down on them, even avoiding gunfire in the process. But if you think the old man would be thankful for his simian savior, you'd be wrong as the old man points the gun at Marco, who thinks it wise to run. After getting far less chewed out over this than what happened with Rachel (which is just forgotten. But we bring back up the Dealin' Dan Hawke incident), Jake tells Marco that he called them out to the fields where Ax is making his residence. It turns out that Ax is ready to go home. But how do they get him back to the Andalite home planet? Why, steal a yeerk spaceship of course.
They visit Ax, who is on board with this ship hijacking, as we learn that the andalites are creatures that fight more for honor than anything else. Marco asks if he's even fought controllers before, and Ax says he didn't. Despite the fact he tore up some Taxxons in the last book. Despite Marco's concerns, as usual, the group decide to enact their plan. What plan? To build a yeerk distress beacon to lure them without the presence of Visser Three. So, Marco and Jake take a human morphed Ax to the mall. And we see that Ax is still extremely shaky in this human form. He keeps repeating words that he learns to speak with his new mouth, acting weird, and goes crazy over the new sensation of taste.
They get the parts they need, except for one. A Z-Space transponder. Z-Space is a dimension where neither time nor space exist. It can also be used to communicate beyond light years super fast. We'll learn a lot more about Z-Space as the series goes on. But that's not important now as Ax, still fascinated by taste, ditches Jake and Marco, heading to the food court and eating leftovers. This attracts the attention of mall cops, who Ax annoys more by unintentionally throwing a sticky bun at as he makes a break for it. Ax, panicked, begins to demorph back to andalite, and in the fracas of frightened shoppers and mall cops, Marco notices one of the mall cops reacting like only a controller would to the sight of an andalite not named Visser Three.
With police approaching, the trio make it to the closest grocery store as more people panic. With no other alternative, Marco screams that there's a bomb in the grocery store (This book was only a year removed from the Oklahoma bombing BTW) and the shoppers flee en masse out the only exit in the building. But the three still need to duck the cops, so they only have one alternative. Acquire a lobster morph and hide in the tank. They morph, which seems to bother Marco the most mentally, due mainly to the creature's poor eye sight. They decide to lay low until it's close to the time limit, but suddenly Marco is lifted in the air and his claws banded. Jake and Ax join him as they seem to be on some sort of ice tray, which makes Marco pass out. He awakes with minutes to spare, just as the three of them are about to be plopped in a boiling pot. No alternative left, they demorph in front of the panicked woman who was about to cook them alive. They manage to make her believe it's all just a crazy dream and tell her to free the other lobsters as they make their escape. It took a few books, but we've already topped the lizard morph for most screwed up moment in morph. And believe me right now, IT'S GONNA GET WORSE REAL QUICK.
Marco has a pretty screwed up nightmare involving Jake's stomach exploding with bugs and Marco turning lobster again. He's woken up by his father, who is still extremely screwed up after the loss of Marco's mother. To the point he stays up to the wee hours of the night. The next day, Ax has his distress beacon ready, but still lacks the Z-Space transponder. Tobias suggests that maybe Chapman has one since he communicates with Visser Three (as seen in The Visitor). Ax tells them that the transponder is microscopic in size, so Cassie suggests morphing into ants so they can get into the basement without being seen. Marco, sick of the thought of having an exoskeleton again, just leaves. Jake tries to convince Marco the next day, but Marco reminds him that next Sunday will be two years since his mother went out to sea on a boat at random and never came back. The last thing he needs to do right now is have his father mourn another family member. But ultimately, his conscience gives in and he agrees to go ahead with the ant plan.
They sneak into the empty house next to Chapman's and morph ant. And unlike the flea which Jake got the hang of easily, they do not have such luck with the ants. Mindless, with a force constantly pulling at them. The force of an enemy being here and they must flee. Regardless, they get their bearings in time and make it to the wall of Chapman's place. They dig underneath and find a crack that leads to the basement. They demorph and before they take the transponder, they see a document in alien language that says that Visser One is approaching. There are 47 vissers and Visser One is the highest ranked official. They get the transponder and start to get back to the surface when suddenly other ants show up and brutally tear the kids apart, particularly ripping apart Marco's leg and almost snapping him in half before they manage to morph back in time. Like I said, it got worse real quick. This book so far has shown us the real dark side of morphing and how life threatening it really is. It's that frightening dose of reality that blends with the bizarre nature of this book series.
The ant incident screws them all up the next day. Rachel is so agitated that she starts a fight with another girl at school that gets the two of them and Marco in trouble with Chapman. Later, Ax finishes his beacon, but they still need to find a safe place to send the signal. They find a flying morph for Ax, a northern harrier and eventually head home. Marco then drops the bombshell on Jake. This will be the last mission he embarks on. There's way too much at stake right now and for the sake of his dad, he can't be another victim. Jake ultimately agrees, not wanting to pressure Marco into a war that he doesn't wish to fight in.
Everyone morphs bird and head to the nearest rock quarry so Ax can send his signal. The others morph their battle morphs (Marco: Gorilla, Cassie: Wolf, Rachel: Elephant, and Jake: Tiger) and wait for the bug fighter to land. They easily subdue the Hork-Bajir that exits the ship, and are ready to take out the Taxxon, but suddenly dracon beams begin to fire. Dozens of Hork-Bajir show up, surrounding the Animorphs. And, with them, of course, is Visser Three. He gloats about finally capturing the andalite bandits, but also seems annoyed as Visser One has arrived, and his capturing of the bandits could give him brownie points. The group are brought into the blade ship and brought into space where they see the giant mothership, the pool ship. A ship that looks like a three-legged bug with multiple tendrils. The Animorphs are then confronted by soldiers in red and soldiers in gold. And if Marco wasn't having a bad time already, his entire world comes crashing down on him as he sees Visser One. It's his mom. She's alive, and the host to the most powerful yeerk in the galaxy.
Marco is floored, but Jake, who recognized her as well, tells him to relax and play it cool. Visser One mocks Visser Three for his idiocy in nearly jeopardizing this invasion, and then leaves with her gold soldiers. Marco tells Jake to not tell the others about who Visser One really is as they get led to the ship's prison. Marco begins to question when it happened, how long was she under the control of Visser One, and that her disappearance was no accident. But he's not going to just go down without a fight. They begin to strategize morphing ant again, when suddenly gold soldier Hork-Bajir show up and tell them to head to the drop shaft and the escape pod left for them. It's a political strategy from Visser One to make Visser Three look bad. If his captives end up getting away, it'll make him look even more incompetent.
As they make it to the drop shaft, the red soldier Hork-Bajir, ones who work for Visser Three, begin to attack them. It's almost in a manner similar to the ant attack earlier in the book. But the kids make it into the shaft and find their way to the escape pod, demorphing with little time to spare. Marco tells Jake once again to not tell the others about who Visser One is. He promises though to one day save her. We end the book as Marco is at his mother's grave with his father. His father tells Marco that he's finally come to the realization that he's spent these last two years not being a great father. He's decided to try and go back to his old job as an engineer. The two bond as Marco thinks once again that someday he'll find his mother and someday, somehow, he'll save her.
The Predator is a rough book in all the right ways. As a character study of Marco, it does a great job in selling his mental issues. Having to balance this mission to save the earth that he never wanted to sign up for, with his constant fear of leaving his already grieving father with the possibility of a dead son. And, considering his multiple near-death experiences since becoming an animorph (both in this book and the whole dolphin incident last book), it's easy to see why he's ready to give it all up. And while you could say that's selfish considering the fate of the world, in Marco's case it's more than understandable. Hell, in this book alone he nearly dies twice while in two different morphs. The lobster incident was bad enough, but the ant morph is easily one of the more disturbing moments in the series bar none. Proving that Applegate isn't playing kid gloves with the morphs and the damage to the psyche of the kids afterwards. And trust me, the two big incidents here are still tame compared to some of the incidents involving the morphs coming up.
The reveal of Visser One as Marco's mom is well built up. You could maybe guess that's the direction they were going with how her disappearance was built up, but it still comes as a massive gut punch when the revelation is made. I also enjoyed her banter with Visser Three, making it clear that there's no love lost between the two. For Marco in particular, this is the band aid ripping moment. The moment that changes his perception on being an animorph. He now, more than ever, has a reason to fight, a reason to stay in this war. Even the rushed ending is fine as it also makes sense that Visser One is out to make Visser Three look bad. So it's forgiven that the big final fight scene is only relegated to a couple pages at most. In the end, The Predator is easily the best book so far in the series. It's intense, dark, incredibly depressing, and does a stellar job at building up the world of the book series. It doesn't waste much time, and keeps the intensity on high for some of it's freakier moments. It's what I want from animorphs and is definitely a must-read. Worthy of an A+.
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