This article is about hypothetical native inhabitants of the planet Mars. For other uses, see Martian (disambiguation).
Sculpture of a Wellsian Martian Tripod in the town of Woking.
As an adjective, the term "martian" is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars. However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of life there at present. Some scientists have theorized that there is meteorite evidence of fossilised microbes.[1][2]
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History of the concept
The planet Mars
The idea of intelligent Martians was popularized by Percival Lowell[3] and in fiction, especially by Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter (Barsoom) Series, H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Despite the observation by Alfred Wallace that Mars' atmosphere was too thin to support an Earth-like ecology, various depictions of a Martian civilization were popular throughout the 20th century. The first pictures of Mars returned by space probes dashed hopes of contacting Martians, although dubious claims of past Martian civilizations have continued into the twenty-first century (see Cydonia for one such claim).
The real Martians
Because of the prevalence of stories containing Martians, the idea of the Martian was for much of the 20th century the default identity of extraterrestrial characters in popular culture. If Mars is colonized in the future by humans, the generations descended from the settlers may well be called Martians. Some members of the Mars Society, an organization devoted to such colonization, semi-humorously describe themselves as "Martians in exile". It has been suggested by scientists that life on Earth actually originated on Mars and that life arrived on Earth via a comet (see Panspermia).
Martians in fiction
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The Martian was a favorite character of classical science fiction; he was frequently found away from his home planet, often invading Earth, but sometimes simply a lonely character representing alienness from his surroundings. Martians, other than human beings transplanted to Mars, became rare in fiction after the visit of the space probe Mariner 4 to Mars, except in exercises of deliberate nostalgia - more frequently in genres such as comics and animation than in written literature.
Literary Martians
- The War of the Worlds (1898) by H. G. Wells. The Martians are an ancient, advanced race with a tentacled, cephalopod-like appearance. They cultivate a "red weed", which is what was giving Mars its red color. They invade Earth with huge tripedal "fighting machines" armed with "heat rays" and "black smoke" (a kind of poison gas), against which human armies of the time are helpless. They conquer London and much of England (and possibly other countries as well), use human beings as a source of nourishment, but are ultimately overcome by terrestrial microbes.
- There were many "additions" to the Wells novel, for example Sherlock Holmes War of the Worlds which describes the adventures of Holmes and Watson in Martian-occupied London. Kevin Anderson edited the anthology "War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches" which describes the events of the Martian invasion as experienced in France, Italy, Russia, India, China, Texas, Alaska, Equatorial Africa and other locations.
- Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a series of books depicting his character John Carter on Mars. In his novels, he refers to Mars as Barsoom.
- Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, a vast future history published in 1930 and spanning billions of years, includes a long and carefully worked-out account of several Martian invasions of Earth over a period of tens of thousands of years. Stapledon's Martians - sentient cloudlets composed of countless microscopic particles and capable of drifting across interplanetary space - are completely different from Wells', yet the book shows his influence and follows the general scheme of a drying and dying Mars and of Martians seeking the warmer and wetter Earth. Much later in the book, the humans themselves flee the dying Earth, invade and colonise Venus and exterminate its native intelligent species.
- C. S. Lewis wrote, in Out of the Silent Planet, about three humans visiting Mars, and there meeting two different kinds of native intelligent creatures, sorns and hrossa, as well as hunting hnakra and meeting the Oyarsa, or eldil in charge of this planet, called Malacandra in the Old Solar language.
- Raymond Z. Gallun's Seeds of the Dusk, published in 1938, shows the influence of both Wells and Stapledon, but with a special original twist. In the far future, Earth is invaded by sentient plants from Mars, whose specialty is to make use of planets in their "dusk" - i.e., still liveable but nearing their end. (These plants had actually originated on Ganymede, in the distant past, went on to Mars, continued after long aeons to Earth, and would continue on to Venus when Earth had died too). In this case the invasion is successful and it is the Itorloo, distant descendants of Mankind, who are exterminated by a plague microbe artificially produced by the invaders. But the Itorloo had been an arrogant race, extremely cruel to sentient bird and rodent races which shared the Earth of their time, while the new plant dominant species leaves these alone - so that the reader is left to conclude that on balance, the change might be for the better.
- In four stories by Eric Frank Russell published in the early 1940s and collected in the classic Men Martians and Machines, humans together with very likable Martians are shipmates who go out together into interstellar space, and guard each other's back while encountering various other aliens. Not accidentally, Russell's humans included blacks as well as whites - quite unusual for the time. The book can be credited with starting the SF sub-genre of spaceships with a mixed human and non-human crew, which was to reach great popularity with Star Trek. Russell's martians are chess-loving octopoids, with tentacles extending down and out from a central head with large eyes. They can survive in Earth-normal air, but prefer to don low-pressure helmets for comfort. Read today, their description is amusingly similar to that of Kang & Kodos in The Simpsons.
- Ray Bradbury's short story The Concrete Mixer (1949) inverts the idea of a Martian invasion: the invaders are welcomed with open arms, and fall victim to a not overtly hostile but nonetheless deadly alien culture -- that of Earth.
- John Wyndham dealt with Martians in two short stories, Time to Rest (1949) and Dumb Martian (1952).
Cover of the Spanish version of the book Martians, Go Home
- Fredric Brown wrote Martians, Go Home (1955), a spoof of Wells' Martian invasion concept.
- Many "invasion of Earth" stories owe much to Wells, even when their invaders come from elsewhere in the cosmos. The derivation is especially clear in John Christopher's trilogy The Tripods (1967-1968), depicting boys born on an alien-occupied Earth and dedicating themselves to overthrowing the cruel invaders - who, like Wells' Martians, move about in huge three-legged machines, towering high above the countryside.
- Robert A. Heinlein repeatedly used Martians (usually, human beings born and bred on Mars) as characters in his novels and short stories, including:
- Red Planet (novel) (1949). Humans have colonized Mars along the model of the British East India Company; two prep-school students discover a Company plot to suppress the colonists, and enlist the native Martians' help. This novel shows one of the last and most detailed visions of the pre-spaceflight Mars of 1880-1950.
- Double Star (1956). The issue of giving Martians the vote becomes a central issue in Earth politics, and the hero eventually overcomes both his own deep-rooted anti-Martian prejudice and the entrenched political power of the bigots, and helps enfranchise the downtrodden Martians (publication of this book coincided with the early Civil Rights Movement of the Blacks in the US South).
- Stranger in a Strange Land (1961). An Earthman raised on Mars returns to Earth and creates chaos. Concerned with philosophical and religious subjects.
- Podkayne of Mars (1963). Takes place in space and on Venus, but the main characters originate from a Mars that has been colonized by humans and is an important player in Solar System diplomacy.
Film, television, and radio Martians
Monument commemorating where the martians "landed" in Van Ness Park, New York
- The October 30, 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. This broadcast was the cause of much confusion when it was aired, with people believing an actual Martian invasion was taking place
- Looney Tunes – Included the cartoon character Marvin the Martian (1948-), a comic foil to Warner Bros. mainstays Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in several animated shorts.
- Red Planet Mars (1952) - Scientist Peter Graves contacts Martians by radio, they respond by preaching Christianity and thus Communism is defeated.
- Invaders from Mars (1953) – A film, remade in 1986.
- Quatermass and the Pit (1958-9) - A British television serial in which a crashed spacecraft is discovered in London, which reveals that humanity on Earth is the result of experiments by a Martian civilisation, now long dead. It was remade as a film in 1967.
- My Favorite Martian (1963-1966) – A television comedy series and film.
- Doctor Who -Includes a race native to the planet Mars known as the Ice Warriors
- Captain Scarlet (1967-1968) – The Martians at war with Earth are the Mysterons — an invisible race of superbeings hell-bent on revenge after an unprovoked attack on their Martian city by Captain Black, a Spectrum agent investigating strange alien signals.
- Spaced Invaders (1990) – A sci-fi comedy in which dim-witted Martians attempt to invade a small Illinois town during a re-broadcast of Orson Welles 1938 "War of the Worlds".
- Biker Mice from Mars (1993-1995) – A cartoon series about three Martian Mice who crash-land on Earth after their ship is attacked by their enemies, the fish-like Plutarkians. The Mice --leader Throttle, gentle-giant Modo, and wild-mouse Vinnie-- decide to remain on Earth to fight the Plutarkian Lawerence Limburger, who threatens Chicago.
- Mars Attacks! (1996), – A satirical film directed by Tim Burton, based on the equally satirical, unpunctuated Topps trading card series Mars Attacks (1962); see below in other media). Unlike ordinary martians, they have to wear glass-like containers to breathe on Earth (they take in nitrogen, not oxygen). In the boxing match in the end, the glass is very fragile (as seen when Byron punched the martian and it broke). Actually (since they don't know boxing), they learned from Byron's technique to beat up their master (according to the events, their master went out to fight Byron first but did not punch or even hit Byron because it, too, did not know the boxing rules such as punches and the boxing stance). In the end, even when Byron was fighting millions of martians, he punched and broke their containers one-by-one (despite more than one martian is punching him).
- Martian Child (film) (2007), -A child,named Dennis, who is abandoned by his parents, thinks he is a martian. He is adopted and the man who adopted him goes through the woes of making the child "come back to Earth"".
Martians in comics
- In the DC Comics universe, the Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz) (1955) is a superhero and member of the Justice League. In at least some variations, he is believed to be the last of his race. Other DC creations include Miss Martian and the White Martians.
- In the future world of Marvel Comics' Killraven (1973-), the Martian Masters who orchestrated the invasion in The War of the Worlds returned to Earth a century later and conquered it; they were overthrown by rebels led by the psychic human Jonathan Raven, alias Killraven.
- Mark Starks' Martian is a superhero graphic novel published in 2006. "Martian" is an intergalactic cop who patrols the galaxy with his female Earthling partner, Terra.
- Mr. Martian of Big Bang Comics is an exile from Mars.
- Martians are also rarely-seen protagonists in the web-comic It's Walky. In IW, Martians have left their dying world, denied themselves the opportinity to invade Earth, and founded a galactic-wide empire. They return to take vengeance on Humanity when the few martians on Earth are killed in an elaborate set-up by an alternate dimensions Human refugees.
- One of the central themes in Irregular Webcomic! features a small group of Martians, represented by Lego figurines.
- A Martian dragon appears in the fiction-within-a-fiction story "The Heterodyne Boys and the Dragon from Mars", from the steampunk webcomic Girl Genius.
Martians in video games
- LucasArts' 1988 graphic adventure game Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders deals with Martians looking to make everybody on Earth totally stupid with a device that nulls brainwaves. It's hidden in the face on Mars.
- In the video game Destroy All Humans! (2005), it is mentioned that the Martians were wiped out by the Furons, and in the sequel you wipe out their allies "the Blisk".
- In the video game Radical Dreamers, the main villain appears as a giant, lime-green, Martian octopus in one scenario. Other references to Mars are made throughout this scenario.
- In the Metal Slug series, the Mars People are very similar to the ones described by H.G. Wells and are constantly trying to conquer Earth. They also make fun of science fiction movies and strange phenomenon.
- In the turned-based tactics game X-COM: UFO Defense the alien invaders use Mars as a base of operations in which to launch UFO attacks on Earth.
- LucasArts/Konami video game: "zombies ate my neighbors" in some levels appear martians as big Green Brained humanoids carrying a Bubble Gun also a Martian Space Ship appear; several Levels have names of 80's B-movies like: "Martians GO Home!", "The Day of the earth ran away", "Martians need Cheerleadears"
Martians in other media
- The 1962 trading card series Mars Attacks (no exclamation point, unlike the 1996 film based on it) depicts an invasion of Earth by hideous, skeletal Martians. The exaggerated, satirical violence of the series made it a cult favorite.
- The Misfits have various songs related to Martians.
- The Red Hot Chili Peppers have a song entitled "Death of a Martian"
