With Marco we close the "introductory" books. Like his fellow Animorphs, Marco has a stereotypical role he fills (whiny comedy relief) which is how we and the other kids see him but that now that we get to access his inner world, is subverted; he's the most sceptic and cynic of the bunch, the contrarian who has more to lose than to gain if he does fight this war that he went into solely because of his loyalty to his best friend and an alien who died for him, and the humor? He learned it from his mom and it's his very deliberate main defense mechanism— much like fearlessness becomes Rachel's.

Around this time Marco's had way too many close calls (and will continue to have them if memory serves right) and despite how much he cares for his friends (which is to mean Jake), it is family (his depressed dad who's already coping very badly from the loss of Marco's mom) who must take precedence and whom Marco has to pick. He has to pull out.

So, how do you give this type of character a reason to stay and fight instead? And not only that, but with renewed strength? No spoilers, but you corner him and you make it personal.

Just like the rest of the introduction books, is a phenomenal foundation for what's in store for him.

Here we have motive and characterization and in no time we'll get to see how his archetype and the contradictions within him come together to form his contrasts as a character. He's outwardy clowny, sarcastic and aloof but he's also analytic (we see hints of it in his inner thought process during the plan they execute), manipulative (as we'll later see!) and self defines as ruthless. 

Yet at the same time he puts all of that brutality he's capable of in service of his friends and family and that's something we already see in this book too. As mentioned before he's initially fighting for Jake and an alien he saw die for him (“And you're wrong, Rachel. That means plenty to me.” is his response when Rachel accuses him of not caring for the alien's sacrifice in book 4) and in fact we're introduced to him at a point in his life when he's being a caretaker to his own dad, a role he'll continue to fulfill one way or another because they sure as hell added "parentification" to his list of traumas.

(And put a pin on that because it's extremely relevant to understand the dubious choices he makes in later books.)

I also love that his contrarian nature contributes to the multiple philosophical debates these kids will have and that that same nature is depicted as an advantage to the group just like Cassie's kindness is:

It allows him to point out faults in the plans and err to caution even if that means he goes against the group, same as Cassie, but not punished for the individuality that shows— it helps that it reminds me of Eric from the Dungeons & Dragons tv series in that regard, so I'm going to assume that "not depicting dissident voices in a group as inherently wrong in children's media" was a conscious choice from the start when writing these books.

As for the audiobook: I'm deeply enjoying the audiobooks so far. Wish Marco's voice were higher in pitch but after listening to it a while I liked it.

The narration of Marco seeing Eva alive made me Cry with how emotional his voice got, so good job.

 

In conclusion, in this house we love Marco.

Highlights: The horror comedy that was the lobster morph, the straight up horror of the ant morph and Marco finding an ant still stuck to him afterwards, Rachel's first public outburst and Marco using his goofy persona for damage control, the Visser 1 reveal, and the confirmation that basically all these kids are having ptsd nightmares now.