I think the biggest trend of the late 90s that I couldn't get behind was Animorphs. In five short years there were 54 books plus an assortment of ten companion books. They featured kids caught up in an alien invasion of body-snatching parasites (animal bodies to be specific) who are granted the power to take the form and abilities of any animal they touch for two hours. I won't lie, I would have been all over this concept as a kid. But alas, I was in my college years and way too cool for toys and YA adventures (that wouldn't happen until after graduation). A television series was made and ran for two seasons from 1998-1999 on Nickelodeon. The associated Hasbro toyline shared a lot of aesthetics and engineering with the Beast Wars lines on the shelves at the time, so a decision was made to have the Animorphs line under the Transformers banner, despite having no continuity overlap. The toys are.. interesting. They are clunky and a bit awkward, but definitely have a quirky late-90s feel. Let's check out Rachel!
The toyline mostly features the human characters in mid-morph form, which can then transform into their full animal mode. Several figures have a fully-human face which can also be exposed.
Rachel has a feature where her mid-morph face can be raised like a visor up into her mane.
This is achieved with the big lever on the back of her head. Unfortunately the spring mechanism inside is designed very tightly and her human face can't be exposed without actively putting a lot of pressure on this lever. As soon as you release it, the mid-morph face snaps back down. (So excuse my hands in these next few photos).
Rachel comes with an orange Yeerk parasite and two lion claw gauntlets.
I kind of prefer Rachel's mid-morph form with the lion paw gauntlets on.
Time for a Comparison Pic!
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment