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The Visitor graphic novel, published in October 2021, was adapted by Chris Grine and based on The Visitor.
Plot[]
Official Description[]
Rachel is still reeling from the news that Earth is secretly under attack by parasitic aliens, the Yeerks. Now she and her friends are the planet's only defense -- five kids who, purely by chance, stumbled onto a downed spacecraft and were given the power to morph into any animals they touch.
The team’s best lead is their assistant principal, Mr. Chapman, who is the human host to a high-ranking Yeerk official. It’s not much, but Rachel’s always been a daredevil, and she volunteers to infiltrate Chapman’s home.
Rachel is tough. She’s fearless. But what she finds inside may be more than even she can handle.
Plot Summary[]
The Animorphs are all out together flying in the bird-of-prey morphs that they have acquired. Jake is a peregrine falcon, Rachel is a bald eagle, and Cassie and Marco are both ospreys. Tobias helps Rachel get the hang of flying and everyone enjoys the experience. Suddenly, something passes through them. Cassie is able to see that its two guys in the woods with a rifle. Using their human intelligence with their raptor morphs, they're able to dodge the bullets, then Rachel come up with an idea: They fly out of range of the shooters and get far enough away and enter into a steep dive towards the trees banking and zooming through them until they come up to a clearing where the two guys were, scanning the skies, looking for those birds, not knowing what will happen until it was too late. Rachel snatches the rifle, while Tobias rips off his ponytail, and the group retreats, though it was a struggle to gain altitude with the additional weight of the rifle. She disposes of the rifle about a mile out in the ocean.
They return to an abandoned church and demorph in the tower, agreeing not to try staying in morph for more than one and a half hours. They climb down a fallen tree and discuss how it was to be birds, before Marco suggests they use the morphing to become famous in movies, which the others debate.
While walking home from their little flying adventure, they decide that they need to make their next move against the Yeerks, as when they entered the pool they lost, and Jake tells them the entrance is now gone. Rachel suggests finding an entrance by following Tom, but Jake refuses, believing if the Yeerks think Tom is compromised, they may kill him. He proposes instead using Chapman, their assistant principal, who is a Controller. Jake asks Rachel to try to get to him through his daughter Melissa, who is an old friend of hers, which Rachel eventually agrees to.
The next day, at gymnastics class, Rachel attempts to talk to Melissa, but she is unresponsive, and refuses to hang out afterward. On her way home, in the rain, Rachel passes by the two guys who shot at them earlier, and one of them attempts to flirt with her. When she refuses, he becomes persistent, chasing after her. She runs into an alley, where she morphs partway to elephant in the darkness and scares him off. Demorphed, she walks out of the alley and encounters Melissa and her father, who insist on giving her a ride home. When driving her home, they question her about the man who ran out, but she brushes it off. After dropping her off, Melissa notices her destroyed shoes, but she plays it off as nothing.
That night, she invites Jake, Cassie and Marco over, and they discuss how to follow Chapman. Since Melissa is distant, they propose morphing small animals to spy instead. Rachel remembers Melissa's pet cat Fluffer McKitty, and the Animorphs decide that Rachel will morph Fluffer in order to infiltrate Chapman's house to find out more information.
The next night, the entire group goes to Chapman's house. Tobias finds Fluffer, but he manages to escape up a tree. Tobias brings Rachel a shrew to acquire and morph in order to lure him down so she can then acquire it. Once in shrew morph she panics when the cat attacks her, but the others eventually catch Fluffer. Rachel demorphs and acquires the cat, but is exhausted, and they decide to go inside Chapman's house at another time.
That night, Rachel has a nightmare about a shrew wanting to eat maggots. She wakes up screaming, and throws up, before being found by Jordan. She brushes it off as nothing, and promises that they can tell each other anything.
The next day, at school, Jake notices Rachel looking anxious, and realizes what it's about. He tells her he understands, remembering what it was like to be a lizard, and tells her she should be able to handle the cat morph. They notice Melissa walk by, and Rachel attempts to talk to her again, though Melissa still acts cold toward her. After she leaves, Chapman finds her and notices her anxiety, but she brushes it off as a nightmare.
Two nights later, the group returns to Chapman's house, and Rachel morphs into the cat after he leaves. After a moment trying to control it, she gets into the house. She finds Chapman in the living room, and when his watch starts beeping he walks down to the basement. She follows him into the basement, losing thought-speak with Tobias as she does. In the secret room, she discovers that he communicates directly with Visser Three through holographic technology, and he addresses himself as Iniss 226. The visser demands that he find the "Andalite bandits" and spots her. After finding out from Chapman what a cat is, he is briefly impressed by the cat's lack of fear, and orders Chapman to kill her because she might be an Andalite. Rachel doesn't react, and Chapman reasons with Visser Three to allow Rachel to escape shaken, as killing her would upset Melissa and may damage his reputation. Visser Three then implies that Melissa is a problem that needs to be dealt with, and when Chapman protests, the visser morphs into a Vanarx and threatens to suck him out of Chapman's ear and eat him, showing him a hologram of this happening to another Yeerk, before ending the call.
Upstairs, Mrs. Chapman asks what the visser's orders were, revealing she is also a Controller. He tells her what happened, and expresses disgust for the visser. Melissa walks in and asks for help with her homework, but both her parents refuse, sending her back up to her room. Rachel follows, and finds her crying on her bed. Trying to comfort her, she finds out Melissa has pulled away from her friends because she believes her parents — both Controllers — don't love her anymore. Tobias urges her to leave, but she stays until Melissa falls asleep before escaping. Outside, she demorphs and tells the others that Chapman has a way to communicate with Visser Three, who really wants to catch them, and is not giving up the fight.
The next day, Jake tells Rachel that they will meet at the church tower after school. At the tower, during stormy weather, they plan their next move, with Marco reiterating that he cannot die, as his father would be alone if that happened. Rachel convinces them to let her infiltrate Chapman's house again, using the excuse that they can find out the location of the Kandrona. Jake is reluctant to let her go in alone, and she jokes that he may go in as a flea on her back. He agrees to let her spy on Chapman one more time.
Later, the group, minus Jake, goes to Chapman's house again. Rachel morphs Fluffer again, and Cassie strokes her head before she enters. Tobias reveals to her that he knows she is doing this to help Melissa, but she ignores his protests and enters the house. She again follows Chapman to the secret room, where Jake reveals himself, through thought-speak, to have morphed a flea and be hiding on her back. After telling her Tobias told them she was hiding something, she hides and tells him where they are. Chapman begins the call, and tells the visser about his progress, but the visser is only concerned with the "Andalite bandits", and frightens Chapman into stumbling backward and revealing Rachel. Visser Three is now sure that she is an Andalite, and orders Chapman to bring Rachel to him. He also tells Chapman to bring Melissa so that she can be infested because she is a security risk to Yeerks; it was her cat that the "Andalite" used. Rachel tries to fight, impressing Visser Three again, but Chapman eventually subdues her by threatening her with a Dracon beam. When Mrs. Chapman enters, he tells her what is happening and has her bring the cage used to take Fluffer to the vet. They place Rachel (and Jake, still a flea) in the cage, but as Chapman is about to leave, he and his wife rebel against their Yeerks, causing their Yeerks to momentarily lose control of the host-bodies and fight to take it back, but their Yeerks regain control. Realizing that all Chapman has to do is attack while in the presence of others to make the invasion difficult for them, Chapman's Yeerk opts not to take Melissa, planning to explain the circumstances face to face with the Visser. As he is about to leave, Melissa comes downstairs and asks why they are taking Fluffer. Chapman walks out without responding, and Rachel quickly yells for Tobias to bring the real Fluffer back. He does, confusing Melissa. Chapman tells her that the cat in the cage is a stray that he is taking to the shelter. She asks why he didn't tell her, and he claims he didn't hear her. He gets in his car and drives off.
Chapman takes Rachel and Jake to the abandoned construction site. Along the way, Rachel tells Jake what is happening, and that they are running out of morphing time. When she realizes where they are, she forces him to leave, scratching herself until she agrees to jump. The Blade Ship and two Bug Fighters land, and Visser Three and a squadron of Hork-Bajir and Taxxons emerge. Visser Three, upon seeing Rachel, notes the cat's similarity to the tiger, and after taunting her, asks where Melissa is. Iniss 226 explains what happened, and that rebellion is a sign of weakness, and asks to allow his host to address the visser directly, which Visser Three allows. Chapman reminds the visser that after his wife was infested, he willingly became a Controller on the condition that the Yeerks stay away from Melissa, and if they were to violate that contract, he would make life as hard as he could for the Yeerk in his head. He gives control back to Iniss 226, who confirms this, and that his wife also rebelled. Since Chapman is in a position of some influence at the school and is regularly meeting with parents, this would be very disastrous, and Visser Three grudgingly gives in. Chapman leaves, leaving Rachel with the Yeerks. As she is taken into the Blade ship, Jake reveals he didn't abandon her. As she tells them they have fifteen and ten minutes left, one of the earth-movers starts up and slowly heads toward the Blade ship. Jake reveals the other Animorphs had a plan to rescue them. Hearing that it will take two minutes to fly away, Visser Three kills the Taxxon informing him, and allows the others, minus two pilots, to eat it, before telling the Hork-Bajir to destroy the earthmover. While the Yeerks are distracted, Jake jumps out and demorphs back into human, and then morphs into his tiger morph to face the Visser.
A Dracon beam incinerates the earthmover, destroying it, but a second earthmover starts up. Rachel demorphs her hand partway, and unlocks her cage, before getting out. When Visser Three sees her escaping, Jake attacks him. Rachel morphs her hand back into a paw and flees, pursued by some of the Hork-Bajir, which Jake attacks. He warns her that Visser Three is morphing, when suddenly she hears giant steps and the concrete is torn apart. Visser Three has morphed into a giant rock beast with three legs and a human-sized head. He begins tearing up the construction site, attempting to catch Rachel, accidentally killing one of his Hork-Bajir and allowing Jake to escape. He almost catches Rachel when the second earthmover destroys a Bug fighter, allowing Rachel to run along the top of a wall. Visser Three sweeps his huge hand toward Rachel, but she jumps, heading toward a rusted, twisted metal covered ground when she is caught by Tobias, who carries her away. They fly towards the trees where Tobias drops Rachel and as she falls, she morphs back to human. On the ground, she asks about the others. Tobias reports Marco was injured, but they all made it.
A few days later, at the church tower, Rachel explains to the others that she left an anonymous note to Melissa, telling her her father loves her more than she will ever know, despite not being able to show it. They reflect on their survival, and decide to keep fighting until the Andalites return.
Appearing[]
Protagonists:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Visser Three
- Hedrick Chapman
- Iniss 226 (Chapman's Yeerk)
- Mrs. Chapman
- Various Hork-Bajir, Taxxon and human-Controllers
Other Characters:
- Fluffer McKitty
- Naomi
- Jordan
- Chester
- Sara (Mentioned Only)
- Homer (Mentioned Only)
- Eva (Mentioned Only)
- Peter (Mentioned Only)
- Tom (Mentioned Only)
Locations:
Items:
- Bug fighter
- Blade ship
- Dracon beams
- Kandrona (Mentioned Only)
Major/Highlighted Events[]
- The Animorphs acquire their bird-of-prey morphs.
- While walking home in the evening, Rachel is accosted by a teenager who won't take no for an answer when asking for her number, although she manages to scare him off by partially morphing into an African elephant.
- It is revealed that Chapman became a voluntary host in order to spare his daughter from infestation. While Mrs. Chapman initially gave herself in to the Yeerks as a voluntary host, she eventually rebelled against her captor and agreed to become voluntary once more to keep her daughter free.
- The Council of Thirteen and the Yeerk homeworld are mentioned for the first time.
Notable Differences from Original Novel[]
- In the book, Chester and his friend are older males who drink beer while shooting at the Animorphs in bird morph. Rachel then steals Chester's rifle while Marco steals the beer his friend was drinking. In the graphic novel, the two are younger teenagers who are drinking soda. The graphic novel also shows Chester's ponytail being ripped off, while in the book, his head was merely scratched.
- The original book had an older man attempt to sexually assault the thirteen year old Rachel, who then chased her when she refused to get in his car. When Rachel morphs to scare him off and recounts this story to the other Animorphs, Jake and Marco berate her for exposing her abilities. The graphic novel instead changes it so that Chester is the one approaching Rachel while also eliminating the attempt at sexual assault as well as some of the victim blaming from Jake and Marco. According to Chris Grine, he made the change as he had a twelve year old daughter and found the sexual predator idea unsavory.[1]
- Jake and Marco's morphing outfits do not include shirts, whereas they did in the book series (though Marco puts a shirt on almost immediately after demorphing).
- In the book, Rachel states that Melissa Chapman received Fluffer McKitty as a present for her twelfth birthday, claiming it was a few years ago, which was a continuity error. In the graphic novel, Rachel doesn't specify Melissa's age.
- In the book, after Rachel acquires Fluffer, Cassie mentions that she has four morphs: an elephant, a bald eagle, a shrew and a cat, claiming that it was the most out of any of them. This is incorrect, because by this time, Jake also has four morphs, a dog, a lizard, a tiger and a peregrine falcon. The graphic novel uses the reprint's line where Cassie instead says that Rachel has four morphs just like Jake.
- Rachel's sister Jordan is depicted as having blond hair. However, in the novels, Rachel is the only one of Naomi's children to be blond, having inherited that from her father Dan, while her two sisters have Naomi's brown hair.
Trivia[]
- Rachel signs her note to Melissa with the "A" from the TV series' logo.
- When Rachel runs away from Chester into an alley, she runs past a sign which says "Applegrant Bookshop", a reference to K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant, the co-creators and co-writers of the series.
Goofs/Inconsistencies[]
- On page 9, Chester's friend (the one with the red shirt that says "GOOD" on it) says "I got real scared and spilled my soda all over my good shirt." His shirt has a visible liquid stain on it, partially covering the word. On page 10, this stain is missing.
- The last panel on page 114 shows Rachel fully demorphed, but the first panel on the next page shows her with cat ears.