Line #21 NightmareFuel/MightyMax


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7	Max fought some really creepy monsters for a children's show... Or any show really.
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9	'''WARNING:''' Spoilers are unmarked.
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11	* Special mention has to go to Spike from "Norman's Conquest." An ImplacableMan with a face full of twigs (which we later learn he SHOVED INTO HIS OWN FACE to prove how tough he was) whose voice is a constant taunting cackle and who cheerfully threatens to [[WouldHurtAChild eat the heart of a child]]. He's so dangerous [[TheDreaded even Norman is terrified of him]], especially since [[YouKilledMyFather he killed Norman's father]] when he was a child and swore to kill him 10,000 years ago, never forgetting his promise.
12	** The bone-chilling music that plays when he's chasing Norman just makes things even worse.
13	** Making things worse, Spike gets a DisneyVillainDeath at the end of his only appearance... but, given his displayed toughness through the episode, and the fact that he survived the last time he fell off that cliff, it's logical in hindsight that he actually ''survived'' and is still out there, plotting revenge.
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15	* The two-part finale. Special mention goes to Norman's death. Imagine as a kid you grew attached to the badass guardian throughout the series, but you see him not only lose to a GiantSpider (in fact, the same one from "Along Came Arachnoid") but also you get to see him slowly get eaten by the spider while Norman desperately tries to escape.
16	** There's also the FridgeHorror that Max will experience all the dangers he went through every time till he successfully defeats Skullmaster.
17	*** In addition, who remembers the previous loop? Virgil does, but he has some magic. Max does, but he was at the cause and the Mighty One. Since Virgil remembers, so we can rule out that it's just the Mighty One. Skullmaster has magic and was at the center of the spell that reversed time (i.e., even Skullmaster might remember the past attempt).
18	*** Considering Max is the one who instigated the time jump, it's likely that he, either consciously or subconsciously, chose who would remember the previous timeline. If this is the case, it's unlikely he would have chosen Skullmaster as one of those to be in the know. If not...uh-oh.
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20	* From "Fly By Night," there's just something about the line "The sun nourishes all things, '''even evil'''" that is far more scary and badass than the vampire who said it had any right to be.
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22	* Corpus from "The Missing Linked" is a BlobMonster EldritchAbomination that collects whatever it's fed. The first one Max encounters eats metal. Not so bad, but the second one [[YourSoulIsMine absorbs souls]]. You can see its victims outlined in its ''skin''. At the beginning of the episode, you can even see [[AndIMustScream the trapped people wailing in agony inside the beast]], including the little boy it just captured.
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24	* One of the few highlights of the tie-in video game was the [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mighty_max_game_over1.JPG soul-chilling portrait of Skullmaster]] that appears on the GameOver screen.
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26	* "Bring Me the Head of Mighty Max," where [[OurZombiesAreDifferent the soulless denizens of an ancient city]] chase down Max, muttering incomprehensibly in a guttural whisper due to their half-dead lungs being filled with water. By and far one of the most intense episodes in the series, especially when Virgil recounts [[HeroicSacrifice what happened to the last Mighty One]]. Max can't run, he can't hide, and [[SternChase the soulless people will not stop]] until they have Max's head on a platter for Skullmaster.
27	** We learn the previous Mighty One jumped off a cliff with Skullmaster, falling into a portal that led to Skull Mountain. Max is about to repeat a similair stunt, but then it turns out that he grabbed Norman's sword, jammed it into the cliff wall as a handhold, opened a portal, and dumped them at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, where it will take years for them to return.
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29	* [[BodyHorror What happens]] to Dr. Stanley Kirby in "Along Came Arachnoid." We can actually see him become more and more spider-like over the course of the episode.
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31	* [[MadScientist Dr. [=MacDougal=]]] in "The Werewolves of Dunneglen." It's hard to tell which is scarier: The werewolves being shackled while [=MacDougal=]'s machines drain the blood out of them, the nightmarish wolf-like '''thing''' that [=MacDougal=] transforms into (which has three heads and four arms), or the speech she gives right before transforming, where she alludes to Max and Cameron as "breakfast."
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33	* During "Blood of the Dragon," Skullmaster gives a tribe of island natives a potion that contains dragon blood. Said potion causes the natives to [[PainfulTransformation shift]] [[BodyHorror agonizingly into]] [[LizardFolk horrific lizard monsters]] that pretty much lose all sense of themselves. To make matters worse, one of the natives only drinks ''some'' of the potion, leaving him completely aware of who he is but trapped halfway between normal and lizard-man.
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35	* One episode had Max and Virgil about to undergo a proper Ancient Egyptian mummification process. Virgil casually mentions that the Egyptians used hooks to pull one's brain from out of the nostrils as two hooks on chains descend from the ceiling.
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37	* Essentially every episode opens with somebody being killed, and sometimes in very unsettling ways.
38	** "Snakes and Laddies," the episode involving the evil mummy Venom and his minions, opens with one of Venom's [[HumanSacrifice sacrifices]]; we see a boy chained to an altar, misshapen figures hissing and bowing all around (we'll later learn they're ''giant snakes in robes'') and, then, as the moonlight touches the amulet, we hear this horrific ''sizzling'' sound that almost, but not quite, drowns out his anguished screams...
39	** "The Mother of All Adventures," the episode involving zombie parasites and their gigantic "mother," has a surprisingly creepy opening as blank-eyed, shuffling figures start loping through a village, grabbing every last person they can.
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41	* "The Mommy's Hand" deals with people's hands dragging them across the city so they can be chopped off (Isis is desperately looking for a replacement part for Osiris). We get to see a victim struggle against his own hand as he is dragged across town.
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43	* Talon, the giant skull who sucks people's souls out of their bodies and eats them.
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45	* Freako the Clown from "Clown Without Pity," a deranged freak who turns children into deformed monsters because he has an incredibly large inferiority complex due to being born looking like a freakish clown which forced him to flee towards the carnival and wants to turn everyone into monsters as freakish as him as {{revenge}}. Starting with children he lures to his carnival.
46	** Freako turns Virgil and Norman into freaks early on in the episode after drugging them with cotton candy. We eventually learn that Freako uses magical funhouse mirrors to warp people into monsters and, in one of the most nightmarish moments of the show, he demonstrates this by dropping a mirror directly in front of Max. Although he initially attempts to avert his eyes, Max can't help but look into the mirror, and as he gazes into it, he is transformed into the hunchbacked, big-nosed, goblin-like creature reflecting back at him.
47	** Thus episode was terrifying enough with Freako and his mutants, but there's one part that may be overlooked. After Max leaves Norman and Virgil, he encounters this creepy fat lady who is then never seen again or given any backstory. She just ''exists''. Not only that, when Max asks her about the whereabouts of the children who visited the carnival, she laughs at Max's ignorance and implies that they were either [[ImAHumanitarian eaten by some of Freako's mutants or by the fat lady herself]] before [[LaughingMad laughing madly]].
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49	* Lockjar, the spirit of violence, commits a murder so horrendous that we don't see anything. We just have Norman's word that we don't see what he did. Considering that this series rarely backed away from showing mutations or violence, this really leaves an imprint.
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51	* In the episode "Max vs. Max," spend even a little bit of time thinking about what would have happened to Maximilian if Max hadn't stopped him from escaping with Skullmaster at the end of the episode. Best-case scenario for the kid is becoming a mindless [[LizardFolk lizard-person]]; worst-case, Skullmaster would probably just kill him, possibly in some horrible way. The kid has no idea just how lucky he got there.
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53	* In "The Cyberskull Virus", Morlen Kurt, a jilted computer programmer whose Dementoid game program was stolen by a MegaCorp technology company, illegally hacks into the company and accidentally turns himself, using an advanced computer chip, into Cyberskull. He becomes powerful enough to [[RealityWarper manipulate and reprogram reality itself]] to the point of [[AGodAmI declaring himself a god]] and altering the world with ease by entering Earth's computer network. He comes off as horrifying as Jobe Smith from ''Film/TheLawnmowerMan'' if his apotheosis into an insane digital god took full effect. If not for Max's own skill at video games, the entire Earth would have been overtaken by Cyberskull.
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55	* In "Fuath and Beggora", a crazed cult descended from group of exiled deranged druids that worships the EldritchAbomination known as Fuath, whom is prophesied to roam and dominate the earth as an indestructible entity. As revenge for their banishment, they have been sacrificing generations of strangers and countrymen to hasten his awakening by tossing them into a fire pit in Fuath's mouth. It's basically Ireland's own take on [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu]].

Context NightmareFuel / MightyMax