Martin Mertens

Martin Mertens (or Martin the Human) is Finn's biological father. Billy calls him "Dad the Human," similar to Finn's title "Finn the Human."

History
Finn's father was intended to be revealed in "The Lich," as seen in unused storyboard scenes. He was a warrior who was unintentionally trapped in the Crystal Citadel, a prison that is difficult to enter and nearly impossible to escape.

In "Billy's Bucket List," he was officially revealed, albeit briefly. Billy explains to Finn that his human father is trapped in the Crystal Citadel, now renamed the "Citadel." The episode cuts to a brief scene that shows a silhouette of a man trapped in a crystal aboard a massive space station.

In "Escape from the Citadel," he is finally revealed, but has no clear memory of his son, Finn, or why he deserted him. He runs away from the problems at the Citadel as the Lich spreads his evil. He ultimately causes Finn's arm to be removed, as he tries to escape the Citadel while Finn is holding on to the escaping portal, causing Finn's grass sword to take over and remove itself and part of Finn's arm.

In "Astral Plane," it is revealed Martin found a spaceship after the events of "Escape from the Citadel" and was going to crash on Mars. Grob Gob Glob Grod mistook his ship for the Catalyst Comet and sacrificed himself by flying at the comet and sending it on a course for Earth instead of Mars.

In "The Visitor," he is seen to be living with a bunch of villagers and manipulating them to believe in a tree spirit in order to help him build his escape pod. The craft is named 'The Minnie'; possibly the name of Finns biological Mother. Finn is angered with him by the end of the episode for treating the villagers so badly. Finn then pulls a switch on Martin's now fixed escape pod that sends Martin flying into the air, without the roof of the pod closed fully to keep him inside.

In "On the Lam" Martin has made his way to a new planet, once again getting himself imprisoned for betting on "lard-fights." He escaped with a Koala Person who took him to his home with many Koala People. Martin, disliking the food, offered to go to the outside world and get them some real food. This was most likely a lie however, since Martin sold their Space Moth and went to a bar. Martin named the Koala Person, Martin 2 and kept him as a pet. Martin and Martin 2 were recognized by the guards who attempted to capture "the rebel leader." Martin believed this to be him, and attempted to distract the guards away from Martin 2. When it was revealed that Martin 2 was the one they were looking for however, Martin abandoned him, regained the Space Moth and fled the planet.

In "The Comet" after Finn and Jake followed Orgalorg into space in Princess Bubblegum's spaceship, Finn was left floating in space. He was singing a song while Martin found him. Martin almost flaked and didn't save him but he did. Martin need to help Finn stop Orgalorg. Finn spoke to the Catalyst Comet that was going to hit Earth. The Comet gave Finn the option to start a new form of life. Finn declined the offer, but Martin took it up instead. Finn was initially upset with his father for trying to leave him once more but Martin told him, "No answer I give you will be satisfying." and, after being asked why he always runs from everything by Finn, "You burn enough bridges, the only direction to move is forward." Finn accepted that he could never change Martin, and Martin took off with the Comet and said goodbye to Finn. It is unknown if Martin is now a new life form or was brought to a new dimension.

Appearance
Martin is a chubby man with a long, dark blond beard, mustache and a mostly bald head, with the exception of a single, curling hair at the top, making him resemble his Farmworld version. In "Escape from the Citadel," he wears a red leotard-type outfit with red spiked shoulders. He has red boots that almost go up to his knees. In "The Visitor," his leotard has been somehow torn, leaving just enough to cover his lower body and his chest is left bare. He also wears a green military-like jacket and his hair in a loose ponytail.

Personality
Unlike Finn's selfless and moral personality, Martin is revealed to be an incredibly selfish, lazy, ignorant exploitative and narcissistic individual who barely acknowledges his son's presence unless it benefits him. From the moment he is freed, he is focused solely on saving himself, more shocked at the opportunity of escape than meeting his biological son, Finn. The extremity of his selfishness is shown when he does not even have a reason for abandoning Finn (suggesting he simply left his own baby son to die in the woods without any remorse) he simply says he doesn't remember, even attempting to shift the blame to Finn by saying "maybe YOU left ME," revealing just how immensely immature Martin is.

Martin is also a very emotionally barren person. He has absolutely no empathy and does not seem to understand how his actions affect others, such as treating Finn's emotional attempts to bond with little more than irritation and ingratitude. He then proceeds to manipulate Finn into fixing his leg by baiting him with paternal affection. Once his leg is fixed, he once again abandons Finn, completely unconcerned that Finn loses his arm in a desperate attempt to stop him. He also showed a total lack of sympathy for one of the collapsing Citadel Guardians. Finn at one point reflects that maybe Martin "isn't a dad, but a kid in a dad's body." Further evidence of this is shown in Martin's later appearances, his childishness suggested in his obliviousness to the total cruelty of some of his actions, such as trying to hug Finn right after lying to him about losing his arm, or getting Finn into a leglock right after telling him he never came back for him after leaving him in the forest.

However, like Finn, he is shown to be very persuasive, as he was able to convince the other escaped convicts to make him their leader. Martin does this using the same falsely charming smile and wink he used to get Finn to help fix his leg, emphasizing that, to Martin, others are just interchangeable assets to be exploited or manipulated for his own survival or gain and his son is no exception.

In "The Visitor," the Martin's manipulative and utterly insensitive nature is further explored. When calling Finn up into the tree that he has been living in since the crash, he seemingly has lost an arm, but after ensuring that Finn has 'gotten over' the arm losing incident, he reveals that he still has his arm, meaning that he was not only aware Finn lost his arm, but was deliberately mirroring it to gain Finn's sympathy so that his son would not try to to attack him out of revenge. This innate cruel streak in Martin is also signified when he is eating a birds egg, and spits out feathers, implying he was casually eating a hatchling.

Also in "The Visitor," Martin confirms that he is, in fact, Finn's father, and reveals that at that point, he had a personality similar to Finn's, as he defended Finn from the sea creatures trying to eat him. At some point, he was given a choice, and he couldn't bring Finn along; though he always intended to go back for Finn, he never did. However, it is unclear if this is actually true, as the previous flashback of Martin colliding with a tree was revealed to be a lie, and also Martin heroically defending baby Finn seems out of character for the selfish, disappointing man who was utterly indifferent to ripping his own son's arm off during his prison escape. The story also appears to be rather improvised.

In "The Visitor," Martin avoids speaking about Finn's mother, claiming it "stresses him out," suggesting that whatever truly happened left Martin somewhat traumatized, unless it was simply a way to avoid telling the truth.

Issue about parenthood
Meeting Finn Mertens' birth father is a situation the boy can’t deal with by swinging his sword at a "bad guy," so this issue keeps him unable to move forward. When Finn finds out that The Citadel is a prison, he naively assumes that Martin is the warden, and Finn’s reluctance to draw negative conclusions about his absent parent sets him up for major disappointment when both meet.

Martin appears to be a darkly comic subversion of most absent parent storylines seen in cartoons or even anime; when the child is finally reunited with the parent, they often find out the parent left or abandoned them unwillingly in order to protect them from something or in the service of some greater cause. Martin, however, does not have a reason for abandoning Finn, and probably did it simply because he could not be bothered to raise him. This created both sadness and hatred in Finn, an issue that was shown in the episode "The Tower."

In "On the Lam," it is suggested that he was on the run from something when he originally had Finn as a baby and that he was forced to abandon him in order to save his own life. This shows that Martin does have a sense of heroism and protecting his son, but is overshadowed by his cowardly, crooked nature which makes it seem like abandonment for the sake of self-preservation.

Major appearances

 * "Finn the Human" (Farmworld Martin, Unofficial Debut)
 * "Escape from the Citadel"
 * "The Visitor"
 * "On the Lam"
 * "The Comet"

Minor appearances

 * "Jake the Dog" (Farmworld Martin)
 * "Astral Plane"
 * "Hoots"
 * Crossover" (Farmworld Martin)

Mentioned or pictured

 * "Billy's Bucket List" (Official Debut)
 * "Wake Up"
 * "The Tower" (hallucination)
 * "Breezy"
 * "The Pajama War"
 * "Jermaine"
 * "Be Sweet"
 * "Preboot"

Abilities

 * He is very resistant to pain, like his son, Finn. When he is shot by a laser from a Citadel Guardian in his leg (causing it to melt his flesh, only shows bone), he says, "It's okay. It's okay."
 * He is also talented at climbing and swimming, as he was able to climb a long vein and swim through the molten center of the Citadel.
 * Like his son, Finn, he is incredibly persuasive, convincing the ancients (Demons that have committed cosmic crimes) to make him their leader.

Trivia

 * Martin originally was supposed to appear in "The Lich" after Billy told Finn about him; however, the postmortem spirit of Billy eventually tells Finn about Martin's existence in "Billy's Bucket List."
 * As seen in the original storyboard of the episode "The Lich" in the scene 118/panel C, it's possible to read in the description of the holographic animation about Billy's hands pulling Martin to the Crystal Citadel, presuming that Billy knows about Finn's dad because he was the one who put him in the Crystal Citadel.
 * Jake is shown to dislike Martin, referring to him as a "loser."
 * Martin's beard looks similar to the elderly Finn's beard in "Puhoy."
 * Martin's final words before disappearing into the void were "Hey, what about air?" implying that he cannot survive in space like the ancients and may have possibly died upon entering the void. This was confirmed to be false at the end of "Astral Plane."
 * Since his first appearance, Finn was shown to hate Martin, even attempting to take his arm as revenge for losing his own in "The Tower," though Finn still refers to Martin as his "dad," but in an unfriendly way.
 * However, Finn no longer despises Martin, but doesn't necessarily like him either. He now calls him 'Martin' more often than 'dad.'
 * In "The Comet," he states that he can't keep track of time consistently as he "doesn't have a star to revolve around," implying that he spends more time outside of Earth than he does on it.
 * As this moment has been waited for a long time, some fans were disappointed by how much of a jerk Finn's father is but Jeremy Shada says, he is content about this because it makes the show seem more realistic.
 * In the episode entitled 'Don't Look' it can be noted that Finn's monster form resembles the physical traits associated with his father, indicating that Finn potentially associated the negative traits mentioned in the episode with that of Martin's attributes.

Cultural references

 * Martin's red leotard is likely a reference to Sean Connery's various ridiculous and revealing red outfits in the 1974 science fiction film Zardoz.