Martin Mystery (2003-2006) is a French/Canadian animated series based on the Italian comic book "Martin Mystere", animated by the studio that brought youTotally Spies!.The series revolves around typical teens Martin Mystery, his step-sister Diana Lombard and their pal Java the Caveman, as they're sent on various missions by a secret organization known as "The Center" to investigate paranormal activity around the world.
Artifact of Doom: One such example is the cursed medallion which results in a Brainwashed and Crazy stint for Martin, Java and the teacher in "Pirates Of Doom" not to mention the numerous other Artifacts of Doom throughout the series.
Bald Women: In the episode "The Lost Tribe," Diana loses all her hair after a hair dye job goes wrong and is mistaken by a group of underground creatures as their long lost queen. She stays bald for the entire episode.
Baleful Polymorph: Occasionally, the main characters and/or a bunch of random characters will be transformed into an animal.. They all turn back at the end, obviously.
Beware the Nice Ones: Before becoming the harmless alien we know, Billy was a ruthless gladiator that went about destroying planets after he annihilated them. He returned to this stage once and boy was it a battle.
The Blank: One episode features a face-stealing doppelganger.
Body Snatcher / Grand Theft Me: Most of the heroes fall victim to this at some point but special mention goes to Martin himself who seems to get possessed more frequently.
Brainwashed and Crazy: Martin in "The Vampire Returns", due to getting his soul sucked out by the vampire, as well as (along with Java and the teacher) in "Pirates of Doom" as a result of the cursed medallion.
Coincidental Accidental Disguise: Diana resembled the queen of an ancient race called Alpha-Omega due to two things: One, she was trying out a hair dye that caused her hair to fall out and leave a stain on her balding head, and MOM just so happened to toss her a tooth necklace (she stated it was everyone would pay attention to it instead of her head.)
Combo Platter Powers: Octavia Paine's super-monster is a synthesis of the world's most powerful monster, the end result is a creature that nearly destroyed The Center, which also resulted in the one-time use of the U-Watch's laser-firing function, which just bounced off its skin. Too bad it inherited all of those monster's weaknesses
Cute Monster Girl: In the season three finale, Diana gets mutated into a very cute lizard-girl. It helps that she is wearing a a black-red skin-tight suit which is shown to have underwater high-heel jet shoes and mask, so it is more of a high-tech suit. Those two combined make her look unusually cute in a strange way. Martin even jokingly compliments that she's only a mini-mutant because her eyes changed and she has a tail.
Christmas Episode: Featuring a wish-granting snow globe that created a pocket dimension containing a Christmas-themed village... whose inhabitants, including things like the trees, reindeer and snowmen, were actually monsters.
Dark and Troubled Past: Billy used to be a Space Pirate Warlord called Ganthar, who makes the Metroid Space Pirates (sans Ridley) look like amateurs, conquering and strip-mining planets until they were completely barren, before moving on to another unfortunate planet. But all the violence became too much for him, and he fled to Earth as the Roswell Incident alien, and does a complete Heel Face Turn, and a complete personality 180, resulting in the Billy we know.
Disproportionate Retribution: Octavia Paine created the super-creature as revenge for M.O.M firing her for not measuring up to standards.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Martin is commonly one of these, nearly always putting aside his self-absorbed, childish self, in order to confront whatever monster is on the scene. As soon as the mission is over, he's back to his normal behaviour. Arguably, his annoying behaviour can become a fusion of a Keet and Jerkass, as shown with his antics in the season three finale, which pushed Diana to do a Face Heel Turn and join a rival organization. The betrayal is repaired by the end of the two-part episode, but Martin's lack of empathy seems to still remain at the end.
Living Shadow: Borack the Faceless One is the ruler of a realm composed completely of shadow, and is one of three characters in the entire show that got a two-part episode. Also an Eldritch Abomination, as he pulled the entire population into the shadow world, and if he had succeeded in claiming Earth, they would have all turned into shadows themselves.
Made of Iron: Martin and Java have survived situations of where a normal person could of been sent to a hospital.
Magic Skirt: An upper body variant. In the episode where Martin and Diana hang out with their dad they're hung upside down, and Diana's t-shirt slides down but only enough to show off her navel.
Million to One Chance: As seen in The Vampire Returns, Martin shares a very rare gene with Simone's original lover, and shares his looks also.
"Return Of The Beasts" . A mad paleontologist (yes, really) uses a huge geode to create dinosaurs and send them to rampage through the city for no apparent reason. At the end, Martin tricks one to melt the geode with its acid spit (really, dinosaurs do that), which causes every dinosaur to spontaneously melt into sludge. And is when you consider that the same paleontologist created Java through the same process, yet he remains intact and joins the gang permanently. (It's a flashback episode.)
Not Blood Siblings: Martin and Diana. It doesn't make their (albeit, rare) Ship Tease moments any less Squicky. It should be noted that in the comics Diana and Martin were lovers, not siblings.
Every episode, they will go to the Center to have a briefing with MOM. MOM will be working on something. And Martin will be curious. And it will be destroyed.
Parental Favoritism: Gerard tries, but it always comes off as him liking Diana more than Martin, though he's arguably a science person, compared to Martin's enthusiasm with the paranormal, (and tendency not to do well at school), which actually matches perfectly with Diana's rational views, and high marks. But he's not above accepting the paranormal with sufficient proof, since before he finds out about The Center, he's practically hit in the face by it twice, each time Martin saves him, earning his father's respect.
Weaksauce Weakness: The fungus monsters weakness is salt. One has to wonder what he's doing in Utah if that's the case.
What the Hell, Hero?: Even if she wasn't called out on it (Martin was more upset about her snagging yet another monster from him), she was quite sadistic in detonating what looked like a nitro-glycerin explosive in a cave. Underwater. In catacombs. Which collapsed the catacombs right on top of Martin and Billy. Probably because they were underwater in the first place, they survived.
Yank the Dog's Chain: Martin finds a girl who is pretty much a perfect match for him in the two-parter with the shadow people. She leaves him one episode later under pretty flimsy circumstances.
0 reviews