The Mighty Max cartoon had a strong first season of 13 episodes. The headwriter for season 1 was Mark Zaslove who has commented that he wanted to do a modern version of Jonny Quest, but where the kid wasn’t going to be stupid and would run away, as long as he was noble. Apparently he wasn’t given too many restrictions which is perhaps why there are so many offscreen deaths. Here is an episode by episode guide featuring a small review of the episode followed by fun tidbits. Then we have a section of what characters from the cartoon could’ve been figures and how accurate the episodes were to the Mighty Max playsets.
Episode 1 A Bellwether in One’s Cap
It sets things up, the voices are good. Origin is different from the toyline. We get introduced to Virgil and Norman. Max travels around the world of course he’s at each spot for like a minute. Portals are created through his cap but he has to walk through the specific spot. Max gets the role of the chosen one or MIghty one, don’t like that aspect but the fate as transcribed through the scrolls that have never been wrong is fun enough. Skullmaster gets run over by an excavator tank and then sent falling off a cliff from a lava river to a lava lake. I don’t know how he would survive that.
Tidbits::
-Max has a Socrate’s Statue.
-Max’s house is full of ancient artifacts.
-He has rube goldberg home alone style mechanisms.
-Max’s basement has a hidden passage.
-Not a chicken but a Fowl actually.
-Max visited Mongolia, Egypt, India and Australia.
-One thing I was left wondering, there is an Egyptian word for mini-mart?
Figure Ideas: Rocksoldiers had a slightly different design but not a specifically desired one.
Playset Accuracy: Based on Trapped in Skull Mountain we do see plenty of the gimmicks of the playset like the bridge and camouflaged Rock Monster. There’s 3 of them here and look a bit different. Warmonger is here but he has Lava Beasts as grunts which isn’t on the playset but that’s explained in later episodes as to why. Not all the gimmicks of the playset are shown but we get enough to be an accurate representation. Skullmaster obviously looks different but he would be redesigned in the toyline later. Of course in the playset it’s more of an end game scenario and here it’s the first episode. Nonetheless SKullmaster seems defeated in the episode like in the comic.
The Brain Suckers Cometh!
Bea makes her first appearance, might know Virgil already.. Aliens are going to crash land on Earth. Max/Virgil/Norman wear the alien costumes armor ala A New Hope when they aboard the ship. Aliens sound robotic and look like Xenomorphs and apparently eat brains. They remind me of NME of Ultraforce. Ernie is a fun nerd character, wish we had seen him in another episode as he had nice chemisry with Max. He ends up helping Max destroy the space ship.
Tidbits:
-The educational part in the end mentioning General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics? Little kids minds blown, no way they got that..
-…and Max doesn’t explain what it next time like he says he will.
-The Aliens seem to be inspired by the movie “Alien” however if they are animal like creatures in level of intelligence how did they build a space ship?
-And why are they using Floppy discs if they’re so advanced?
-Max goes into deep space, a jungle and Kansas.
Figure Ideas: Ernie? He could’ve been a Character. Bea Figure (definitely), Armor wearing Max/Virgil/Norman would’ve been cool. Cartoon accurate Aliens? they look very similar but it could be..
Playset Accuracy: Based on Terminates Wolfship 7. Blue aliens, more robot like. They get on the space ship to stop the aliens. Space ship looks a bit different. Aliens look sligtly different. The part in the space ship works as the playset. DIfferent in how they get rid of them
Day of the Cyclops
Max is on vacation with his mom and finds Norman & Virgil in Turkey where Max and Norman get arrested. All this while Virgil and Max’s Mom try to find Max’s cap. For some reason there’s an ogre type monster in the prison. Unsure why there are torturers in the jail. The cyclops is apparently dead and was a giant. Why were they sent to prison for a stolen cap?
Tidbits: -Max’s Mum isn’t introduced but apparently already knows about Max’s powers and knows Virgil and Norman.
-No one thinks its weird that Virgil a walking owl creature talks?
-The cyclops’ eye and the ogre got nasty deaths
-The Tomb with spikes didn’t kill anyone when shut?
-The guards don’t question any o the events that they witnessed
-They forget to give a conclusion to the second plot, I guess Virgil and Max’ Mum just took the cap and came back and left the kid without his bike?
-The gang visits Instanbul and Serengeti plains.
-Can the eye eat Max or what was it going to do?
Figure Ideas: Max’s Mom. A must have. The torturer is slightly different take, so a cartoon accurate Torak the Torturer. Same with the eye being more realistic looking/painted differently..
Playset Accuracy: Based on Outwits Cyclops. The prison sewer is a bit more ellaborate than the playset in a way but at the same time it does include most of the gimmicks the playset has, the episode just expands much more on it. The skull of the cyclops appears in the episode.
Snakes and Laddies
Max is in a school trip at a museum. He is probing Jiffy according to him. Bea appears jeaous of Jiffy and has attitude she’s a cool character. Max accidentally transports himself to Egypt in a tempe. Bea appears to know everything about the caps powers. Human sized snakes in cloaks chase Jiffy because Max gave her the Ankh of power so Max and Bea go to Egypt to rescue her. Jiffy is a fun character and wish we would’ve seen her in another episode. Venom appears in the episode and gets a living cobra statue which Max defeats.
This episode was solid.
Tidbits:
-No Virgil or Norman but they aren’t missed
-We get Jiffy and Bea instead. Jiffy’s first time and never appears again. Bea finally gets a real role rather than a cameo.
-Felix appears for the first time.
-Bea and Feelix seem to already know about Max’s power
-I guess many things happen off screen where things are explained to other characters
-Max visits Giza, Paris, Africa.
Figure Ideas: Bea Figure (definitely), Jiffy Figure, Felix figure. human sized snakes (in cloaks/no cloaks). cartoon accurate Venom?, Apophis the fire spirit. The giant cobra statue?
Playset Accuracy:Based on Conquers the Palace of Poison and they go to a temple, I don’t think they follow the playset a ot but the basic idea is all there. No scorpion though.
The Mother of All Adventures
Max and his mum are in Haiti, and his mum knows about Zombies. Apparently if some bug slug attaches to the back of humans they become zombies. They defeat them all but the vase Max’s mum took home had those slug parasites and they attach to everyone in the neighberhood. They go to Africa to find a way to make things right with Virgil and Norman.
Tidbits:
-Max’s mum is always fun
-Max visits Haiti and Africa
-Max knows of Ozzy Osbourne
-Why does Max’s mum give him a voodoo doll?
-The Zombies are the more original type of zombies where they’re people controlled under a spell instead of the living dead kind
Figure Ideas: Haiti Zombie? Shaman? pajama wearing Max? Bathrobe Max’s mom? Max’s house full of all those antiques. Cartoon accurate Zomboid.
Playset Accuracy:Based on Neutralises Zomboid. The horror headlooks like a zombie but the story and actual playset isn’t about zombies. The villain is Zomboid which is a brain like parasite and another giant bug parasite that both want to eat Max. They aren’t in some weird place but Haiti and they just itnerpreted the slugs as the bug from the horror head since they do refer to them as parasites. Virgil does tell Max he needs to stop Zomboid, zomboid looks different than the playset counterpart.
Let Sleeping Dragons Lie!
Skullmasters pretends to be Loki so he can be released by Ravendark. Ravendark transforms into a crow if he leaves the Doom Dragon cave (well his insides). Max, Virgil and Norman go to stop Ravendark but can’t so the Doom Dragon awakens and attacks them. Ravendark realizes Skullmaster tricked him. Skullmaster wasn’t needed, Ravendark could’ve been a good enough villain.
This was a pretty enjoyable episode, Virgil and Norman are a lot more interesting than usual and Max also does a lot more things on his own. Either that happened or I’m getting more used to how this show works and I’m enjoying it more because of that. Ravendark seemed to fit all the qualities to be a bad guy of his own free will but instead they made him into someone who was tricked into it, but it works pretty well and they give him an off screen death. That was indeed dark at least for a Saturday morning cartoon.
Tidbits:
-Ravendark is the last of the viking sorcerers.
-Norman fought and even wrote a song for the Doom Dragon.
-Norman is / was Thor.
-Apparently Doom Dragon was asleep for 10,000 years
-Norman is called Thonderer? Lancelot, Little John by Doom Dragon and The Hurler
-The shopping list includes normal groceries but Max’s mum lets Max choose the cereal he wants.
-Max visits Norway
-Odin is real in this universe
Figure Ideas: Cartoon accurate Ravendark as an old wizard with horns? Norman as Thor with viking hat and hammer. Cartoon accurate Doom Dragon
Playset Accuracy:Based on Slays the Doom Dragon. The Doom Dragon cave is making a reference to the playset being a dragon’s head. Doom Dragon is purple, much bigger and has wings. Besides using the characters, it’s not really a great representation.
Norman’s Conquest
Some researchers accidentally wake up Spike who has been waiting to kill Norman for the last 10,000 years. He is chasing Norman through out the episode and Max/Norman/Virgil escape. Spike has super human strength. Norman tells the story of his father and Spike fighting 10,000 years ago and dying at the hans of Spike. Spike gets stabbed by twigs. Norman fights Spike and with the help of Max giving Norman the axe, he is able to avenge his father’s death.
Tidbits:
-Earnie has a non-speaking cameo in the class.
-Max enters the girls bathroom.
-No explanation to how Spike survives or hwy he’s immortal.
-Max visits Norman’s home which I’m gessing it’s somewhere in the Netherlands and England. The rocky mountains which could’ve been Canada, Alaska to New Mexico.
Figure Ideas: Cartoon accurate Spike? Kid Norman! Norman’s father!
Playset Accuracy:Based on Hammers Ax Man. The Ax man now named Spike is a lot more cartoony and friendly looking. He’s more of a barbarian warrior than a slasher murderer and he isn’t green like the figure. IN fact Spike doesnt even use the axe, it’s Norman’s father’s Axe. Because of this the episode is nothing like the horror head.
Rumble in the Jungle
Max’s mum gets captured in an expedition so Max Virgil and Norman go rescue her. They find Gorilla’s that are capturing humans like in Planet of the Apes. I expected Gorilla City to be more like the DC Comics version but ok. They find Max’s mom, get captured and run away. They convince the enslaved humans to fight back and an uprising begins. There are a lot of offscreen deaths and casualties shown. When things seem over the Ape King stops it and the General fights Max in a ritual challenge and Max defeats him by sending him through a portal to a desert and the Ape King agrees to treat the tribe people as equals.
Tidbits:
-Max’s mum is a real archeologist, always going places
-Max visits Rom and the Congo
-Ape City has Aztec like pyramids
-Roman style civilization
-They leave in a lost valley
Figure Ideas: General Gorilla, Ape King, Gorila Soldiers, Tribes people?
Playset Accuracy:Based on Tangles With the Ape King. The episode is nothing like the playset except that it’s set in a jungle and there’s apes involved. The playset has just one giant gorilla and while the native seems to be there to eat Mighty Max as a cannibal the comic of the story does portray them as prisoners in a way of the giant ape. So while I guess you can argue the comic of the playset has some similar ideas the episode ‘s pretty much its own thing not featuring anything from the playset.
Bring Me the Head of Mighty Max
Skull Master calls on zombie souls from Atlantis to kill Max, he escapes with Norman and Virgil. Virgil tells the story of Atlantis and how Skullmaster tricked them to put their souls in the crystal. With that army he conquered the Earth until the original Cap Bearer named Maximus tricked Skullmaster to enter the center of the world. They keep fleeing. Virgil takes the cap to try to destroy it, they fight the soulless zombies until Max tricks them to go to a portal to the mariana trench, stopping them for months until he can stop Skullmaster.
Tidbits:
-Max mentions that he saved the world from Skull master the week before, Bea might’ve been involved. This event is not in an episode unless it was a reference to the episode Let Sleeping Dragons Lie.
-we haven’t really seen much of Skullmaster, odd since he’s the main villain. This isn’t your typical I need to get out” episode but a full on attack. builds up to the finale.
-Max also mooned the teacher’s lounge
-Max travels to…india offscreen since he had a rupee perhaps? Many unspecified places like the beach that is gazillion miles from home, a snowy place, some middle eastern place among others. But he does travel to the Andes Mountains
-I wonder why skullmaster didn’t use this before.
-Not specified to be atlantis but the backstory makes it seem like it is.
Figure Ideas: Bathing Suit Max/Bea/Felix? Atlantis Zombies! Max with a jacket. Maximus the original cap bearer. Virgil with Max’s hat.
Playset Accuracy:Based on no playset. Though SKull Mountain is indeed featured. They visit many places, no real place to make a playset out of this episode. Or ones that could be made appealing
Less Than 20,000 Squid Heads Under the Sea
A “Kraken” episode where it begins with a giant squid taking down a ship. Max along Norman and Virgil transport becuase of a threat and they find an Oil Tycoon J. Oliver Penderoil and they hitch a ride in his submarine to find here the oil tankers are. The Kraken attacks thems o they escape and find a city full of a Cthulu like squid peope race. The squid comes and they have to fight it and they defeat it with the help of the squid people.
Tidbits:
-Max plays football
-Max wears heart boxers
-Max visits Scotland, middle of the ocean, the deep sea, the Squid People City
Figure Ideas: Squid People, J. Oliver Penderoil?, giant squid, cartoon accurate Kalamarus?,
Playset Accuracy:Based on Caught by the Man-Eater. There was supposed to be a Squid Doom Zone but it was rejected because it would be too similar to the Shark Doom Zone. J. Oliver has a submarine I guess that represents the ship from the Doom zone and there’s a big shark. Not quite the same since Kalamarus is a good guy here but ome elements are represented and the Doom Zone doesn’t have much going for it.
Werewolves of Dunneglen
We begin with a horror like segment that is scarier than anything Tales of the Cryptkeeper ever did. Max goes to Scotland to see why Virgil/Norman are imprisoned. There’s a werewolf causing chaos and Max is trying to do something about it. He discovers that Professor MacDougal is evil and wants to be immortal and Cameron is the victim even if he’s a were wolf. THe twist is McDougal is a werecerberus. Which is a three headed werewolf. A really fresh take on a werewolf story with a nice mistery.
Tidbits:
-First time we see Thor
-Max constantly makes references to saving the world each week, is he breaking the fourth wall or is that actually what’s happening? Does that mean its about 3 months of adventures in season 1?
-Max visits Scotland
Figure Ideas: Max with Thor on his shoulder, Cameron? Professor MacDougal?, Cartoon Accurate threeheaded werewolf. Regular werewolf.
Playset Accuracy:Based on Hounds Werewolf. The adventure goes through a lot of towns but they do go to a castle where there are a bunch of fun gimmicks that sadly the plaset doesn’t have, this could’ve made a Doom Zone but in general the playset is accurate in the small part that it is. THe were wolves are definitely different though.
Out in the Cold
Something attacks a ship that sounds like a Kaiju monster. It’s snowing in the summer and Virgil tells Max there’s something happening. Some Ice aliens are behind it and are trying to make a ne ice age. They can also shape-shift as whoever they capture. The aliens are killed in a pretty gruesome wwway and all is good.
Tidbits:
-It’s the summer and Max isn’t in school
-Max sleeps in his M XL shirt
-Max visits the Aleutian Islands in Alaska
-The guards use real guns
-THe Aliens have ice powers
Figure Ideas: Guards? Cartoon acccurate Ice liens?
Playset Accuracy:Based on Liquidates the Ice Alien. Max does visit their space ship but it looks nothing like the playset, though they are in a inter eather setting most of the time hich is somewhat similar to the playset but in general its only the name and concept that they too even if they are indeed inside a space ship so halfay at least.
The Maxnificant Sevento get
The end game is coming, Max keeps having visions of being defeated so Virgil suggests finding heroes to even up the playing field. they first go to Copenhagen for Beowulf who is now a failed pro-wrestler and Max is able to convince him. Then they go for Yona-Ya-In in North America and Hanuman in South Asia. Finally Mujaji in Africa. Max has second thoughts but he decides to lead the team as the Mighty One to fulfill his prophecy. A lot was accomplished for this to be a one parter, which it really should’ve been two parts if we go by the original script. The crystal si destroyed and Max escapes with Virgil and Norman while the rest sacrifice themselves.
Tidbits:
-Skullmaster in general always says kill a lot which is refreshing for a cartoon
-The Magnificent Seven are pretty cool, all of them
-Tragic death but it does make the episode better
-Max visits Denmark, Nepal, Africa
Figure Ideas: Beowulf, Hanuman, Yona-Ya-In, Mujaji, Cartoon accurate: Skeleturtle, Giant crab, Double-Headed Dragon
Playset Accuracy:Based on Trapped in Skull Mountain again. We see some of the enemies from the playset we hadn’t seen which is nice.
Final thoughts:
Figure overdue: Bea, Max’s mum]
Cartoon Accurate figures: (Not super necessary but would be nice)
Visits: Max visits Giza, Paris a lot as well as a generic “Africa” without indicating where exactly in Africa.
-I like how Virgil always leaves his messages randomly in specific places
-Very violent and off sceen deaths