Greg responds...

Uh, no, I rarely have website info. And I'm not sure what you mean? Subtitles, like close-captioning? Or episode titles?

If it's the latter, here's a primer, I guess...

SPOILER WARNING

#1 Strangers. The Pilot. Max Steel (aka Josh McGrath) is in Berlin when his partner Rachel Leeds and the entire Reichstag conference disappears. Max (with the help of 'Berto Martinez) helps Rachel and the others escape from freelance mercenary L'Étranger.

#2 Sacrifices. Josh's foster-father and boss Jefferson Smith is kidnapped by Psycho (aka Smiley), John Dread's right hand cyborg.

#3 Shadows. Paris is suffering from mysterious blackouts, as is Max, who's also flashing back to his origin.

#4 Sportsmen. Josh quits the Del Oro Extreme, but when mysterious lightning threatens the Triple Threat competition, Max Steel is forced to enter the contest.

#5 Seraphim. N-Tek agents Max Steel and Sophia Skarsgaard infiltrate the Cyberdragon organization in order to recover a stolen computer disk and keep it out of the hands of Dragonelle and Dread.

#6 Spear-Carriers. Team Steel gets a new mobile base of operations, but it's stolen with 'Berto trapped inside.

#7 Snow-Blind. Josh and his friends Laura Chen and Pete Costas vacation in Aspen, while Dread and Psycho plot to use the Bio-Link to kidnap Max and destroy Del Oro Bay.

#8 Sharks. Max and Rachel are on a tense undersea plutonium salvage mission aboard the N-Tek sub shark. But they have competition from L'Étranger. Plus Josh has to come to terms with his mother's death.

#9 Sabres. Max and Jake Nez attempt to salvage N-Tek's orbiting space station. But Psycho and Vitriol have other ideas.

#10 Sphinxes. Max, 'Berto and Rachel travel to Egypt to uncover Dragonelle and Dread's latest plot against world peace.

#11 Swashbucklers. Spring Break for Josh and Laura translates into a little pirate adventure for Max Steel. This one has Earthquakes.

#12 Scions. This one has volcanos. Plus a flashback adventure with Josh's biological father, Big Jim McGrath.

#13 Shattered. The final (for the season) showdown between N-Tek and Dread. Del Oro Bay. New York. Munich. Explosions. Fungus. And practically the entire cast. This one's got it all.

(It sort of embarrasses me that I'm so facile at the above.)

Greg responds...

Actually, his features in #9 shouldn't be ANY different from the first episodes.

NETTER DIGITAL animated episodes 1-4 and 9.

FOUNDATION IMAGING animated episodes 5-8 and 10-13.

That's why the characters look slightly different in some episodes.

Greg responds...

Yes, you're wrong.

Psycho has Dread Minions. Male and female. You haven't been paying very close attention if you didn't notice that. Even their voices are male and female.

In the pilot, L'Étranger was working for Dread and also used male and female Dread Minions.

In "Sharks" (the submarine episode), L'Étranger was no longer working for Dread. And indeed, in this one episode only, he used ONLY female "SIRENS". This is the only episode in the entire first season, where that was the case. (In some later episodes, FOUNDATION erred and used the Sirens interchangably with female DREAD MINIONS, but there were always Male Dread Minions about -- in Dread episodes that is. Chang, Breamer and Carreras each had their own troops.)

As for why, I just thought that the romantic L'Étranger would want to surround himself with women.

Greg responds...

I'm glad you liked it. At some point I completely lost track of when and where they were airing which episodes. It may be that after they decided not to bring me back for the second season (but before they told me) they sort of kept me out of the loop for obvious reasons.

Greg responds...

Actually, you can't put all the blame for the episode ordering problems on the Network. Netter Digital did not deliver all the episodes on time. Certain episodes that weren't already in the works with Netter were pulled away and given to Foundation. Than other episodes wound up being pulled away. This resulted, just as an example, in episode #6 being the last out of the thirteen to be completed. WB couldn't air it in order unless they were prepared to air months of reruns with no new episodes until May. They obviously were not prepared to do that.

Now there may be times where Networks, including the WB, DO chose to air episodes out of order. But this isn't exactly one of those times. Not really.

Greg responds...

Well, I can only comment on what my plans would have been. I have no involvement in the second season. No idea what they have in mind. They certainly haven't asked me what I had planned, so there's no way they can know. So what I right here may not reflect the series as it ends up. But...

1. N-Tek was founded by Marco Nathanson as a response to the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympic Games. It is an anti-terrorist organization chartered by the United Nations.

2. That's the only real objective.

3. Only as a sporting goods company.

4. N-Tek is more international in scope than any specific nation's intelligence agency. It's only motivation is to save lives. No politics involved.

Greg responds...

Yes.

Greg responds...

Yeah, Dread is very Xanatosian (or rather both of them are quite Eiling-esque). I was bothered by that for awhile. Like I wasn't being original. But the truth is I had plans for Dread that would have clearly set him apart from Xanatos. (Plans that I won't be executing now.) And at any rate, I agree with you. That's the kind of villain I like. One I can respect.

And it's Josh McGrath, by the way, not McGuire.

Greg responds...

1. I doubt I slipped a garg reference into EVERY episode of Max. For starters, you want those things to be fairly organic. If they're forced they're not funny, even to those in the know. They're just labored. And besides, for those not in the know they'd stick out like a soar thumb.

But trust me, there are a number of Garg references, though to be fair, the one you cite above is really a Monty Python reference common to both shows.

The fun thing was slipping garg in-jokes into our English dubbing of 3x3 Eyes. Once both volumes are out on video and dvd, I'm gonna hold a contest here to see who can find the most garg references in that one. Some slap you in the face and are pretty funny. Some are much more subtle.

2. Two different companies worked on Max Steel. The first was Netter Digital. They did episodes 1-4 and 9. That's "Strangers", "Sacrifices", "Shadows", "Sportsmen" and "Sabres". Then Netter and Sony had a parting of the ways. And Foundation Imaging, which did the bulk of the Roughneck/Starship Troopers episodes took over for 5-8 ("Seraphim", "Spear-Carriers", "Snow-Blind" and "Sharks") and 10-13 ("Sphinxes", "Swashbucklers", "Scions" and "Shattered").

But I'm afraid I can't agree with your glowing assesment of the CGI. Generally, I think Starship Troopers is MUCH stronger.

Greg responds...

Hey, Stephen, hope to see you right back.

I've never read Planet X. Frankly, it sounds awful. I can't think of two universes less suitable for crossover than Trek and X-Men. As for whether I'd consider it... the answer is maybe. First, I'd love the chance just to be doing garg stuff sans crossovers. (I've got enough ideas to crossover on my own, including New Olympians, Bad Guys, Pendragon, etc.) Then it would depend on what universe exactly we were trying to cross with. Some might be good fits. Some would not. Then the method of crossover would matter too.

As for Max Steel, it sounds like that's where Mattel got access to the name. Nothing else similar. And I'd never heard of it.