Sons of Mars

Production code:

1008-093

Airdate:

July 23, 2012

Credits

Episodes
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"Sons of Mars" is the fifteenth episode in the fourth season of Adventure Time. It's the ninety-third episode overall.

Synopsis

When Grob Gob Glob Grod comes to arrest Magic Man for his crimes, he switches bodies with Jake to escape his trials.

Plot

The episode starts with The Magic Man taunting the Stag and notices a star falling from the sky. He transforms the deer into a telescope to be able to see the star, revealed to be his older brothers, Grob Gob Glob Grod. Grob Gob Glob Grod, intending to capture the Magic Man, activates a device that drains the Magic Man's magic juice in an attempt to slow him down. As Finn and Jake walk beside a train track, while carrying broken parts of a robot for an unknown reason, Magic Man slams into them, knocking them to the ground. As Grob Gob Glob Grod closes in, Magic Man turns Jake into a duplicate of himself, and disguises himself as Jake. Grob Gob Glob Grod confronts Jake (disguised as the Magic Man) and takes him to Mars.

Finn is enraged at the Magic Man for framing Jake and demands that he should help him save Jake. Magic Man refuses to help him, explaining that his powers will remain in a drained state until Jake is executed on Mars. Finn attacks him, causing the Magic Man to change his mind and take Finn back to his house. Magic Man shows Finn around the trash of his house in order to find a way to reach Jake, though he tells Finn he will be unable to use it. Finn find a picture of the Magic Man with a woman and tosses it aside. Magic Man then takes Finn downstairs to find the Martian transporter. Despite the Magic Man's claims of the transporter's inoperable status, Finn thinks of Jake and is then teleported to Mars, just outside of the Martian city. Finn attempts to get into the dome where Jake (mistaken for Magic Man) is being accused of Magic Man's crimes against Mars. The King of Mars (Abraham Lincoln) gives him two choices of death (one by total annihilation, and the other by being turned into space dust), but is interrupted by Finn who attacks Grob Gob Glob Grod. Finn's attack causes Lincoln to drop his wand on top of Jake, killing him. Finn is shocked at what happened and criticizes Lincoln for not listening to Jake. Lincoln feels guilty, so he confronts Death and offers him a dirty penny for Jake's soul, but Death chuckles and rejects the penny. Lincoln is forced to sacrifice his immortality to save Jake. After Jake is resurrected, Finn and Jake teleport back to Earth and attack the Magic Man. Finn then notices a Tiny Manticore in a bottle calling him a coward, so Finn breaks the bottle and sets the manticore free. The manticore flies off and scoffs Finn's help, but begins a wholehearted speech once he's farther away:

"I am the true coward. Hiding from sincere expressions like a vampire in the nude who hides from the light. Thank you, brave hero. I was freed from bottle jail, but my new prison is shame. My new prison is shame!"

His shouting causes Finn to ask what he was saying, to which Jake repeats the manticore's last sentence to Finn.

Characters

Music

Memory song

Trivia

This is Abraham Lincoln's first time on the show to be seen talking since the "Animated Short," and he is also the King of Mars.
The penny Lincoln offers to Death had dirt on it, covering the G and O of the word "God" and the last two numbers of the year the penny was made, the corner of what looks to be a 1 is seen poking out of the smudge of dirt.
- The Penny has a D on it just below the date indicating that it was minted in Denver, Colorado. It was minted sometime between 2000 and 2099 as the last two numbers are covered by dirt.
Death's rejection of the penny implies that Lincoln has made a deal with him before.
The Magic Man is shown to have been in a relationship that ended somehow. The promo art shows that his partner died by a fall from a cliff.
Originally, Ghost Princess was set to appear in the episode, but was written out of the storyboard according to Jesse Moynihan.^[2]
When Death takes Abraham Lincoln's immortality a gunshot can be heard, it may be a reference of how he was assassinated.
The dome on Mars has Mars' astrological symbol ( ♂ ) written all over it.
The scene where Grob Gob Glob Grod enters the Land of Ooo's atmosphere is reminiscent of the first page of Forming, a comic made by Jesse Moynihan.
Finn blamed Jake's death on the King of Mars even though it was technically his fault, and the King of Mars agreed that he made a mistake.
Abraham Lincoln mentions Olympus Mons (latin for Mount Olympus), which is the largest volcano in the solar system, located on Mars.

Cultural references

The rover depicted in the title card resembles NASA's Mars Exploration Rover, as the engraved tablet is a reference to the Pioneer plaque.
When Abraham Lincoln sacrifices his immortality to Death as a price for Jake's life, a gunshot can be heard. This references the actual death of Lincoln by his assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
- The original storyboard itself features Death transporting Lincoln back to Ford's Theater in order to take away that immortality.
Coin offering is similar to how the dead were transported through the Styx River in the underworld in Greek Mythology.
After Abraham Lincoln is gone, where he was sitting turned into a statue that resembles the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., USA.
The colored animated perspective behind Lincoln's head is a reference to similar shots in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The trial of Magic Man on Mars is similar to the trial of the three Kryptonian prisoners by Jor-El at the start of the 1978 Superman film, including the opening of a dome into space for the prisoner to take their fate.

Episode connections

The Magic Man returns to cause more chaos in this episode for the first time since his debut in "Freak City."
The character, Death, returns in this episode for the first time since his debut in "Death in Bloom."
The Stag returns in this episode, in a brief scene, for the first time since his debut in "No One Can Hear You."
The food traveling in space is an allusion to "Too Young" and the prologue of "The Other Tarts."
This is the first episode for any of the Adventure Time characters to physically leave The Land of Ooo.
When Jake dies, Grob Gob Glob Grod says that Jake was prophesied to meet them. This could be a reference to "The New Frontier" with Jake's croak dream with the Banana Man in Space.
When Abraham Lincoln offers for Jake to have his consciousness spread throughout the universe, Jake showed that he was happy with this option just as Jake told Finn he was fine with a similar style of death in "The New Frontier."

Errors

Finn blamed Jake's death on the King of Mars even though it was technically his fault, and the King of Mars agreed that he made a mistake.
When Finn and Jake are seen on the Martian transporter, ready to leave Mars, Abraham Lincoln can be seen in the Space Dome alive.
When Finn and Jake punch Magic Man, it appears he was by a tree, but when Finn releases the Tiny Manticore, it shows Magic man by a wall.

Storyline analysis

The King of Mars explains that Magic Man first changed when he went to Olympus Mons with Margles. Later in the episode, Magic Man reveals that Margles is the woman he was standing with in the picture.
Finn and Grob Gob Glob Grob were both able to make noises in space, however this is impossible. In addition, Finn was breathing in space when he was being transported to Mars. It is unknown if the beam caused from the transporter made these possible.
Grob Gob Glob Grob was shown to quickly be able to travel from Mars to Earth, so they could have went there to get water during the period of time where Magic Man turned all the water on Mars into hair.
The tablet seen on the title card shows seven images connected by lines. The first image is a representation of the solar system with only the first five planets. There is a line drawn between Mars and an image of Magic Man and one between Earth and an image of Finn using the martian transporter. Under Magic Man and Finn is Jake meditating. To the right of Jake is the King of Mars. To the left of Jake is Grob Gob Glob Grod. The one on the bottom seems to be a hand, though this may be inaccurate.
After seeing Jake in his true (dog) form, Grob Gob Glob Grod says, "Look. It's the dog. The one you were prophesied to meet," implying that there is a prophecy involving The King of Mars and Jake.