Plot
The series follows Max, an adventurous preteen boy who receives a package in the mail. The package contains a small statue of a fowl, inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. The translation reveals a message that reads: "You have been chosen to be the cap-bearer. Go to the mini-mart and wait for a sign, Mighty Max." Shocked by the message, Max drops the statue, shattering it and revealing a red baseball cap emblazoned with a yellow "M", which he puts on.
Upon arriving at the mini-mart, he is chased by a lava-monster sent by Skullmaster, a megalomaniacal demon who lives within the earth and has the power to create evil minions. As Max races away, the cap activates a vortex that transports him instantly from his current location (somewhere in the United States), to the Mongolian desert, where Max is met by Virgil, a nearly omniscient Lemurian, whose appearance is that of an anthropomorphic "fowl" (a running gag in the series is that Max refers to Virgil as a "chicken" to which the Lemurian replies "Fowl, actually."). Virgil explains that Max's reception of the cap was prophesied c. 3000 BC. Max, Virgil, and Norman, his Viking bodyguard (he is three times larger than Max), travel together around the world, defending Earth against the minions of Skullmaster, who is responsible for the downfall of both the Lemurians and the people of Atlantis. Norman is supposedly immortal and has improvised being various legends, including Sir Lancelot, Thor, Samson, and Hercules, as first talked about in episode 5, "Let Sleeping Dragons Lie." Norman finds Thor's hammer and helm and uses them throughout the episode. When Max first sees him he asks, "You were Thor!?" and Virgil explains that to maintain the Cosmic Balance they had to call in outside help.
Most plot-driving episodes involve Skullmaster or one of his demons, but in many episodes, Max is required to intervene to stop an independent villain. While all episodes involve travel across Earth, one involves time travel, and the portal can even extend into the astral plane as seen in the episode "Souls of Talon".
While generally lighthearted and comical, the show's violence and descriptions of violent acts were considered graphic by some viewers. Many episodes began with a prologue of a person being killed by the episode's menace; while nothing graphic is shown, it was more grown up than most shows aimed at children.
The show's dark series finale featured Max, Norman, and Virgil pitted against Skullmaster and their previously defeated foes. Both Norman and Virgil are killed, leaving Max as the only one to defeat Skullmaster, who is about to gain ultimate power. In the final struggle, Max is unable to defeat Skullmaster, and instead of allowing him to conquer the world uses the cap to send time backwards to the events of the first episode, creating a time paradox. At first, he doesn't remember anything and experiences déjà vu, but after he reads Virgil's modified letter, he recalls everything, and decides to set it right in order to defeat the Skullmaster.
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Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)