Mars in fiction

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Fictional representations of Mars have been popular for over a century. Interest in Mars has been stimulated by the planet's dramatic red color, by early scientific speculations that its surface conditions might be capable of supporting life, and by the possibility that Mars could be colonized by humans in the future.

1 Novels and short stories
2 Film and television
3 Comics
4 Computer and video games
5 Role-playing games
6 Wargames
7 Olympus Mons in Fiction
8 Other media
9 See also

[edit] Novels and short stories

[edit] Pre-Mariner Mars fiction

Before the Mariner 4 spacecraft arrived at Mars in July 1965 and dispelled some of the more exotic theories about the planet, the conventional image of Mars was shaped by the observations of the astronomers Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell. Schiaparelli observed what he took to be linear features on the face of Mars, which he thought might be water channels. However, since the Italian for channels is canali, English translations tended to render the word as "canals", a word that implies artificial construction. Lowell's books on Mars expanded on this notion of Martian canals, and a standard model of Mars as a drying, cooling, dying world was established. It was frequently speculated that ancient Martian civilizations had constructed irrigation works that spanned the planet in an attempt at saving their dying world. This concept originated a large number of science fiction scenarios.

[edit] Belligerent Martians

Some science fiction of this era concerned the attempts by the Martian race(s) to conquer the desirable warmer, wetter world of Earth:

The War of the Worlds (1898) by H. G. Wells. The Martians are an ancient, advanced race with a tentacled, squid-like appearance. They produce a "red weed", which is what was giving Mars its red color. They invade Earth, in 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, conquer London and much of England (and possibly other countries as well), use human beings as food, but are overcome by terrestrial microbes.
There were many "additions" to the Wells novel, for example Garrett P. Serviss' Edison's Conquest of Mars (an Edisonade) and Sherlock Holmes War of the Worlds which describes the adventures of Holmes and Watson in Martian-occupied London, and Jean de La Hire's Le Mystère des XV (1911) in which his hero the Nyctalope helps a group of fifteen Earth scientists establidsh a permanent settlement on Mars. Kevin Anderson edited the anthology "War of the Worlds: Global Dispaches" which describes the events of the Martian invasion as experienced in France, Italy, Russia, India, China, Texas, Alaska, Equatorial Africa and other locations.
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.
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.
Fredric Brown. wrote Martians, Go Home (1955), a spoof of Wells' Martian invasion concept. Another Brown book, What Mad Universe (1949) depicts an Alternative History where humans discovered anti-gravity in 1903 and launched a war to conquer Mars, which is inhabited by creatures with a culture equal to that of Earth but militarily inferior. The Martians are decimated and finally accept human colonization. H.G. Wells writes a book denouncing the war and conquest of Mars as an act of unjustified aggression. Later, Martians are drawn into Earth's war with Arcturus. In one scene, the book quotes a headline in the New York Times: "Arcs Attack Mars, Kapi destroyed" and the text mentions that Kapi was established in 1939, the fourth and smallest of seven Earth colonies, and that all of its 840 colonists were killed in the attack.
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.

[edit] Less-belligerent Martians

Other writers preferred to explore an exotic Mars, peopled by less threatening alien peoples:

Doctor Omega, by Arnould Galopin, published in 1906, portrayed a crew of explorers from Earth visiting a Mars inhabited by reptilian mermen, savage dwarf-like beings with long, tentacled arms, bat-men and a race of civilized macrocephalic gnomes.
Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis, also published in 1938, was written as a conscious answer and antithesis to both Wells and Stapledon. The first book of Lewis's Space Trilogy, a rare example of theological science fiction, it features a philologist named Ransom who arrives by accident on Mars (called Malacandra by the natives). At first fearful of being killed in a barbaric rite by the monstrous Martians which he imagines, Ransom eventually discovers three highly sympathetic, intelligent Martian species, completely different from each other but living in harmony, complementing each other and extremely hospitable and generous to their human guest. As in the other books, Lewis' Mars is a dying world; in fact, large parts of it are already dead, and various species - such as an intelligent winged species - have become extinct. At the end of the book, it is disclosed that the Martians' ancestors had possessed the technology to build spaceships and invade Earth, but the righteous Martians voluntarily renounced that possibility and stoically resigned themseveles to eventually dying out with their drying and cooling native planet.
Eric Frank Russell had a completely different antidote to the malevolent Martian stereotype. In four stories 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.
A Princess of Mars and another 10 Mars stories (1912-1943) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. These stories feature earthman John Carter and other protagonists on a Mars (called Barsoom by the natives) that is stocked with princesses, exotic animals, energy weapons and swords. Burroughs has had many imitators (starting with Otis Adelbert Kline) and inspired many nostalgic references.
Gullivar of Mars (1905) by Edwin Lester Linden Arnold, a less-well known precursor to A Princess of Mars which featured Gullivar Jones travelling to Mars on a magic carpet and interacting with the slothful but innocent Hithers and the brutish but honorable Thithers.

A 1927 Soviet poster advertising the 1924 movie Aelita: Queen of Mars, based on the novel by Aleksey Tolstoy.

Aelita (1922) by A.N. Tolstoy. One of the first Soviet science fiction novels. It describes a Soviet expedition to Mars headed by the engineer Los. On Mars, Los falls in love with the beautiful Aelita, daughter of the Martian Supreme Ruler, while Los' companion is trying to organise a communist revolution which is supposed to bring happiness and progress to the ancient and stagnating civilisation. Source for the 1924 movie Aelita.
The Northwest Smith stories (1933-1936) by C. L. Moore. Most of these stories take place on a Mars populated by intelligent, humanoid Martians - and other things.
A Martian Odyssey (1934) by Stanley G. Weinbaum. A Martian named Tweel(one of several species encountered) is depicted as a sympathetic, intelligent being who thinks as well as or better than a human, but in a convincingly alien manner (a rare feat at any time, but especially striking for pulp science fiction of that era). The short story was included in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Weinbaum also wrote a sequel called "Valley of Dreams".
Vulthoom (1935) by Clark Ashton Smith. A Cthulhu Mythos story, in which Mars is the home of the Aihai people and Yog-Sothoth's son Vulthoom dwells in the Martian cavern of Ravornos.
The Secret of Sinharat, People of the Talisman and another eleven stories published between 1940 and 1964 by Leigh Brackett. These planetary romances describe a desert Mars populated by barbarian warriors and citizens of decadent city-states, coming into explosive contact with Terran civilization. Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon (1953) shows an oceanic Mars of the distant past, and comes close to pure fantasy.

Robert A. Heinlein repeatedly used Mars as a setting for his novels and short stories, including:
- The Green Hills of Earth (1947). The space poet Rhysling cries out against fellow-humans who had torn down "the slender, fairy-like towers" of the native Martians and replaced them with ugly factories which pollute the Martian canals.
- Red Planet (1949). Young adult novel. Includes some very intelligent Martians similar to those mentioned in Stranger in a Strange Land (see below), who help human colonists free themselves of tyrannicial Earth authorities.
- The Rolling Stones (1952). Mars has a major role in the rather amusing and carefree adventures of a space-roving family.
- 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.

The Martian Chronicles (1950) by Ray Bradbury. Features human-like Martians with copper-colored skin, human emotions, and telepathic abilities. They have an advanced culture, but the human explorers are greeted with incomprehension and eventually the Martian civilisation is accidentally destroyed by human disease. Bradbury wrote many other short stories set on Mars.
David Starr, Space Ranger (1952) by Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French. A juvenile novel set in the distant future whose title character discovers an unsuspected Martian civilization deep beneath the Red Planet's surface.
Our Coming World (1950) by AC Michaud is a self-published utopian vision of a Mars that starts with the abduction of a B29 bomber crew. The Martians are humanoid, with many different colors, and can fly under their own power. These technically advanced Martians live an average of 300 years and have perfected a germ-free, socialist civilization that stresses communal living, centralized supply chains (think Bellamy's Looking Backward). A tour of Mars is interspersed with jeremiads against a morally decayed post-war Earth civilization.
A World's Revival (Hebrew: תבל בתחיתה Tevel Be-Thiatah) (1955) by Tzvi Livneh[1]. Takes place some 500 years in the future. This story describes an expedition from a Utopian Socialist Earth arriving at a Mars which is divided between two oppressive, warring empires. The Earth people eventually succeed in fomenting a Martian revolution and overthrowing both empires. The Earth expedition is headed by an Israeli scientist while a leading role among the revolutionaries is played by the "Yunodins", members of a dispersed and persecuted minority explicitly described as "The Jews of Mars". Livneh may have been influenced by Aelita; his story also involves interplanetary love.
Omnilingual (1957) by H. Beam Piper. Short story in which archaeologists excavating the remains of a humanoid Martian civilization find an entire library, but lack a Rosetta Stone.
A Rose for Ecclesiastes (1963) by Roger Zelazny. One of the last stories of this type, describing an Earth poet's study of Martian language and literature. The story is deliberately written as an elegiac farewell to the old conception of Mars, complete with canals and an ancient, dying Martian race, as "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" (1965) was his farewell to the Venus of earlier science fiction.
John Wyndham dealt with Martians in two short stories, Time to Rest and Dumb Martian, and a comparatively realistic Mars landing, without any Martians, appears in The Outward Urge.

[edit] Uninhabited Mars

Other writers wrote about human colonization of Mars without referring to alien life.

The Martian Way (1952) by Isaac Asimov. Arrogant Earth people look down their nose at the Mars colonists, who barely survive by salvaging "space junk", yet this way of life is what fits the Marsmen for further space exploration, reaching Saturn first and eventually (Asimov implies) leading the way to the stars.
In Seetee Ship(1949) and Seetee Shock (1950) by Jack Williamson, Mars is colonised by European Fascists and Neo-Nazis, and its main holiday is "Hitler Day", celebration of which often entails bloody riots. The Fascist Mars is one of the main powers contending for control of the mineral wealth of the Asteroid Belt.

[edit] Post-Mariner Mars fiction

Beginning in 1965, the Mariner and Viking space probes revealed that the canals were an illusion, and that the Martian environment is extremely hostile to life. The canals and ancient civilizations had to be abandoned.

Authors soon began writing stories based on the new Mars (frequently treating it as a desert planet). Most of these works feature humans struggling to tame the planet, and some of them refer to terraforming (using technology to transform a planet's environment).

In Philip K. Dick's fiction, Mars is an almost empty, dry land, with isolated communities and individuals, most of whom do not want to be there. (The Days of Perky Pat (1963), Martian Time Slip (1964), The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965)). The characters in these stories could be in small communities in the Arizona desert, but placing them on Mars emphasises their isolation, both from one another and from Earth.
In Larry Niven's harsh Known Space universe, Mars is a backwater bypassed by humans in their rush to the mineral wealth of the Asteroid Belt. A single attempt to colonise Mars ended disastrously, due to the combination of violent conflict between the would-be colonists and a confrontation with the native Martians —a shadowy race spending most of their time swimming under the surface of the Martian dust, and to whom water is a deadly poison. They are neither able nor interested in going into space, and humans are not really interested in Mars, so there seems no reason for conflict. Still, in the book Protector (1973), the Martians are brutally exterminated by a large water asteroid deliberately hurled at the planet, raising the water content in the atmosphere to a degree deadly to them. The perpetrator was Brennan, a human who had turned into a Pak Protector —a creature completely devoted to protecting its descendants, or sometimes his entire species, and is unreasonably xenophobic towards anybody else. This act of interplanetary genocide in effect ties Niven's Mars with the older Wells/Stapledon tradition. Some of these martians are thought to have survived on the Ringworld, however.

In Man Plus (1976) by Frederik Pohl, an astronaut is cyborged into a form capable of living on Mars.
Desolation Road (1988) by Ian McDonald is a magic-realist science fiction novel set on a planet that's never explicitly named (though the name "Ares" makes frequent appearances in various contexts) but is clearly meant to be a terraformed Mars. The length of the Martian year is whimsically implied through characters' ages (for example, young people come of age at 10), and a 24-month year is implied using month names such as "Julaugust" and "Novodecember."
One way of getting around the disappointing results of space probes to Mars and Venus is to postulate alternative realities in which these planets have different physical conditions. In Harry Turtledove's alternative history story A World Of Difference (1990), the fourth planet of our solar system - named Minerva instead of Mars - is larger, nearer to Earth and has conditions congenial to the existence of life, including intelligent creatures with their well-defined biology and culture (and wars with each other). Until the 1970's this makes no substantial difference to human history, beyond some minor differences in myths. But when a Viking space probe sends back the picture of an alien creature swinging a stick, a joint US/USSR mission is sent in a hurry to explore the planet, and things develop fast from there.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, 1992-1996) is concerned with a centuries-long program of terraforming the planet. His Icehenge also features a Mars in process of terraforming.
Mars (1992), and Return to Mars (1999) by Ben Bova from the Grand Tour series.
Moving Mars (1993) by Greg Bear depicts a colonised Mars gradually seeking independence from the control of Earth.
Red Dust (1993) by Paul J. McAuley takes place against a backdrop of a failing attempt at terraforming Mars by the Chinese.
The Martian Race (1999) by Gregory Benford
Mars Crossing (2000) by Geoffrey A. Landis, about a stranded expedition.
First Landing (2002) by Robert Zubrin
Mars Underground by William K. Hartmann
Red Genesis by S.C. Sykes, about a rebellion by human colonists.

A common theme, particularly among American writers, is that of a Martian colony fighting for independence from Earth. It appeared already in the aforementioned Red Planet of Heinlein and is a major plot element in Greg Bear's Moving Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, and S.C. Sykes' books. It is also part of the plot of the movie Total Recall and the television series Babylon 5. Many video games also use this concept, such as the Red Faction and Zone of the Enders series.

Some recent Martian fiction retains the ideas of the older phase.

The Heritage Trilogy (1998–2000) and The Legacy Trilogy (2003–), by Ian Douglas depicts the Cydonia region of Mars as home to ancient alien ruins where mummified early humans are found in 2040.
Mars is the scene of the last of three recent space operas by John Barnes: In the Hall of the Martian King (2003). Barnes also sets one of the two Meme Wars novels on Mars: The Sky So Big and Black (2002).
In the Perry Rhodan series, Mars is the site of an ancient gateway to the "negative side" of the universe. Through this gateway, the planet becomes infested with death crystals whose life-destroying radiation threatens to spread to the Earth.

[edit] Pre-Mariner nostalgia

Several post-Mariner works are homages to the older phase of Mars fiction.

Philip José Farmer's World of Tiers series (1965-1993) contains a nostalgic and ironic reminder of the Barsoom stories. Kickaha, the series' adventurer protagonist, asks his friend The Creator of Universes to create for him a Barsoom. The latter agrees only to make an empty world, since "It would go too far for me to create all these fabulous creatures only for you to amuse yourself by running your sword through them". Kickaha visits from time to time the empty Barsoom, complete with beautiful palaces in which nobody ever lived, but goes away frustrated.
Some Sword and planet series, such as Michael Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars trilogy (1965) and Lin Carter's Mysteries of Mars (1973-1984) are deliberately anachronistic homages to earlier visions of Mars, particularly Burroughs'.
In one of Robert A. Heinlein's last novels, The Number of the Beast (1980), the heroes flee Earth in a car capable of flight in six dimensions and find several parallel versions of Mars, one which had been colonised by the British and another which is an improbable combination of Burroughs' fabulous Barsoom with the home planet of the vicious Martians whose invasion of Earth was described by Wells.
The title Larry Niven's Rainbow Mars (1999) alludes to Robinson's three-colored Mars trilogy, and the plot concerns a time machine that is used to visit ancient Mars. The only problem is that time travel is impossible, and the machine actually travels back to a fictitious Mars. The protagonist meets a wide variety of different Martians, including most of those from the pre-Mariner novels listed above.

[edit] Other stories

Ananke by Stanisław Lem (a story in More Tales of Pirx the Pilot)
Outpost Mars by "Cyril Judd" (C.M. Kornbluth and Judith Merril)
No Man Friday by Rex Gordon
The Sands of Mars (1951) by Arthur C. Clarke involves a reporter who makes the long voyage to a desert Mars to write about the human colonists and along the way discovers there is life on Mars after all.
Voyage by Stephen Baxter
Birth of Fire by Jerry Pournelle is the story of a troubled youth transported to Mars as a convict laborer who becomes involved with a rebellion by independent farmers and tradesmen who want to terraform Mars and break the stranglehold by the corporations and domed cities sponsored by Earth governments.
In Police Your Planet by Lester Del Rey a disgraced, embittered Earth cop is exiled to a Mars that has been thoroughly corrupted by domed city life -- he who controls the air machinery makes the rules. The local police and city government are utterly corrupt, Chicago style. At first he tries to fit in, then his contact with other downtrodden outsiders renews his old idealism.
In the dystopian Draka alternate history of S. M. Stirling, Mars is colonised by the harsh Draka who create on it a slave society. To control their slaves there, they breed a special kind of artificial horrendous beast, the ghouloon, out of baboons.
Larklight, a story by Phillip Reeve is set in the 1700's, where Mars is inhabited by an elvin race, which formerly commanded great space empires. Humans are thought to be their descendants. They are describe as purple haired and russet skinned. Mars and most other planets have a breathable atmosphere for humanity in Larklight.
Mars appears in a number of Caitlín R. Kiernan's dystopian science fiction stories. The Dry Salvages mentions Mars colonists and Martian paleontology. "Bradbury Weather" is set entirely on a colonized Mars where a plague has made the planet uninhabitable by men, so that only women populate Mars, living alongside an ancient parasitic organism (perhaps also alien to Mars) referred to as "the Fenrir" and "the Wolf." Kiernan has set another story, "Excerpt from Memoirs of a Martian Demirep" on this same version of Mars. A portion of her story "Zero Summer" is set on Mars' moon Phobos.

[edit] Film and television

[edit] Set on Mars

The Angry Red Planet (1959) – A low-budget horror/science fiction film.
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) – A pastiche of the classic Daniel Defoe novel.
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) – Known as one of the worst movies ever made.
Thunderbirds Are GO (1966) - followed the first manned mission to Mars aboard the Zero X. This is a notable depiction, which displays a pre-exploration idea of how Mars would look - rocky and desert-like. The crew encounter "rock snakes", which can live without water.
Total Recall (1990) – Loosely based upon a Philip K. Dick short story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." The protagonist must journey to Mars in order to uncover his past. Mars is shown as being previously inhabited by an ancient race of aliens who created a machine for producing a breathable atmosphere on the planet.
Armitage III (1994) – An anime by Hiroyuki Ochi.
Mission to Mars (2000) – A science fiction thriller adventure about a rescue mission of the first manned mission to Mars, which encountered a catastrophic and mysterious disaster.
Red Planet (2000) – A group of astronauts try to make Mars suitable for human life. No relation to the Robert A. Heinlein novel of the same title.
Ghosts of Mars (2001) – Director John Carpenter uses the planet as a science fiction setting for a remake of his earlier Assault on Precinct 13.
Avenger (2003) – a post-apocalyptic anime series. Mars is presented as a the only planet colonized before the destruction of Earth and hence, the only humanity's hope to survive. However, after the Earth's Moon has been drawn by Mars' gravitation to become its third natural satellite, several catastrophic events rendered the planet practically uninhabitable.
Doom (2005) – Loosely based on the third installment of the Doom computer game series, a group of Marines are sent to the red planet via an ancient Martian portal called the Ark to deal with an outbreak of a mutagenic virus.
Tom and Jerry Blast Off to Mars (2005) - Tom and Jerry unintentionally discover that we are not alone in the universe when they stow away on a rocket headed for Mars. Martians are depicted as small (Jerry-sized), green, with tentacles for "hair", and wearing various red-and-white uniforms.

[edit] Martians on Earth or elsewhere

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.
My Favorite Martian (1963-1966) – A television comedy series and film.
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).

[edit] Minor references to Mars in film and television

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.
Space Patrol (1962 TV series)
- The Buried Spaceship - 'Operation Ice Cube' is put into action when Marla suggests moving ice through space as a solution to a drought problem on Mars. Galasphere 347 is sent to assist but develops a fault in the Meson Power Unit forcing the craft to land for repairs...
- The Wandering Asteroid - The Space Patrol crew accept a dangerous mission to destroy an asteroid deflected from its orbit by a cometary collision and heading directly for the Martian capital Wotan.
- Husky becomes invisible - When Dart is sent to Mars to find the eggs of the Aba bird to help find a cure for a condition known as the "floats", he calls on Professor Zeller who has discovered that his new star-measuring apparatus can make objects disappear.
- The Forgers - Colonel Raeburn is baffled by a sudden influx of forged currency. Whilst investigating what appears to be a disease killing the vegetation on Mars. Dart and Husky stumble across the source of the forgeries...
Doctor Who – Mars is the homeworld of the Ice Warriors, a recurring adversary during the first three Doctors' eras. In Pyramids of Mars the Fourth Doctor defeats Sutekh, last of the Osirians, who had been imprisoned for his crimes beneath a Martian pyramid.
Star Trek and spinoffs – Some starships are assembled at Utopia Planitia region on Mars, particularly the Galaxy class starships featured in Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the Star Trek: Enterprise episodes Demons and Terra Prime it is revealed that Mars is in the process of being terraformed by use of the Verteron array which redirects comets to crashland on the planet's surface.
seaQuest DSV - the episode "Better Than Martians" deals with the first manned mission to Mars returning to Earth, but, encountering difficulty upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere and splashing into the ocean, leaving seaQuest to find the capsule before an unfriendly foreign confederation can.
The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982-1983), episode "Bye Bye, Mars" – The SDF-1 Macross spaceship makes a landing on the planet to resupply. There we learn that its chief operator Misa Hayase's fiancee, Riber Fruhling, was killed during a UN Spacy evacuation of Mars Base Salla during the U.N. Wars. The Macross has to fight its way off of Mars after being trapped there by an alien Zentradi attack.
Genesis Climber Mospeada (1983-1984) (anime series) – The main character, Stick Bernard, is a Martian colonist and a soldier in the Mars Base Military.
Exosquad (1993-1995) – Mars was one of the three Homeworlds and the industrial center of the Solar System before the war between Terrans and Neosapiens. During the war, the Neosapiens made it their stronghold.
Babylon 5 (1993-1998) – Mars is a human colony seeking independence from the Earth Alliance. Several of the major characters have close links to Mars and, alongside Centauri Prime and the White Star fleet, Mars is the most common setting for action other than the Babylon 5 space station itself.
Martian Successor Nadesico (1996) – An anime series and manga by Kia Asamiya.
Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999) (Japanese television anime) – Numerous episodes with background depictions of Mars, and the 2001 theatrical movie release Cowboy Bebop : Tengoku No Tobira takes place entirely on Mars during Halloween.
Futurama (1999-2003) – By the year 3000, Mars has been completely terraformed to make it habitable for humans - the native Martian aliens are forced to live in specially designated areas, in a parody of the treatment of Native Americans. Amy Wong's parents own half of the planet, and it features its own university.
Invader Zim (2001-2002) – In one episode, Zim finds that Mars is a giant spaceship and attempts to roll it over Earth in order to wipe out all human life.
The Rei Hino character in the Sailor Moon metaseries transforms into Sailor Mars, the Soldier of Fire and Passion.

[edit] 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.
In the future world of Marvel Comics' Killraven, 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.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen takes place in a world where characters from various literary sources interact. A scene taking place on Mars features the Hithers from Gullivar of Mars, the Green Martians from Barsoom, and the Séroni from Out of the Silent Planet, with references to Kane of Old Mars. In the world of The League, the Martians from War of the Worlds are not originally from Mars, but were invading aliens who moved on to try to conquer Earth.
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.
Partyers from Mars is a Martian ally of Megaton Man.
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.

[edit] Computer and video games

The first-person shooter Red Faction tells the story of a Martian mining colony that leads a revolt to take control of the autocratic government.
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.
The computer game Elite 2 starts on Mars in one scenario.
In the video game Destroy All Humans! (2005), the Martians were wiped out by the Furons, and in its sequel, Destroy All Humans! 2 (2006), the Martians come back, but they are known as the Blisk.
In the 1993 video game Doom, game events took place on military bases on both of Mars's moons, Phobos and Deimos. The 2004 sequel Doom 3 is set on Mars itself.
In the "Golden Sun" role-playing game series for the Game Boy Advance, Mars is the ruling planet for fire-based Psynergy and Djinn.
Mars is the setting for Worlds of Ultima II: Martian Dreams RPG by Origin Systems released in 1991. The heroic Avatar travels first to the year 1887, then on to Mars to rescue many of Earth's scientists, celebrities, and politicians stranded there by accident. The Avatar will uncover the secrets of a lost Martian civilization.
In the video game AirForce Delta Strike, the EDAF stablishes a base on Mars to use as a rally point to finish off the OCC's remaining forces.
Three levels of the computer game Descent are set in facilities on Mars. Level 8 is set in a processing station, while levels 9 and 10 are (appropriately) set in a military dig and military base.

[edit] Role-playing games

The role-playing game Space: 1889 features an alternate history in which a heroic Mars, complete with natives, is being colonized by the European empires of the 19th century.
In Palladium Games' post-apocalyptic role-playing game Rifts, the Martian canals are mystical ley lines, magical tunnels of energy that create portals through space, time and dimension wherever they cross. In Palladium's After The Bomb Sourcebook 6: Mutants in Orbit, there is a section pertaining to Rifts that also says that there were several points where the ley lines create dimensional pockets (similar to the Bermuda Triangle) in which full-fledged jungles grow within the borders of three nearby Rifts.
In the role-playing game Transhuman Space, Mars is in the process of being terraformed, while several million people live in colonies. China, the first nation to land on Mars and the leader of the most extensive colonies, has built a space elevator on Mars to speed colonization.

[edit] Wargames

The wargame Sky Galleons of Mars is set in the same alternate history as Space:1889.
In the tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000, Mars is a vast, heavily colonised 'Forge World,' home to the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Tech-Priests of Mars. They are the engineers and technicians of the Imperium, who create most of the Imperium's more advanced weaponry. The planet is almost as well defended as the Holy planet Terra itself and home to those who worship the 'Machine God.'

[edit] Olympus Mons in Fiction

As the largest known mountain, and thus one of the most notable features on any planet in the solar system, Olympus Mons is paid particular attention to in science fiction.

The novel "A double shadow" written in 1978 by poet Frederick Turner tells a martian mythology with gods living on the top of Olympus Mons (called Nix Olympica) and intervening in human affairs. In this book, the writing of the mythology is a penance that a poet chooses to inflict to himself for the death of a fellow crew member on a martian terraforming site.
In the graphic novel Scarlet Traces - the Great Game, Olympus Mons is the main base of the British Mars Expeditionary Force. Scarlet Traces is intended as a sequel to H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and centres on a counter-invasion of Mars, beginning about 1908 and continuing over the next three decades.
In the animated television series Exosquad, Olympus Mons was the location of the headquarters of the main villain Phaeton, as well as containing a breeding facility for the artificial Neosapiens. The mountain was destroyed during an attack on the facility by Able Squad at the climax of the first season of the show. The mountain is inaccurately depicted as a tall, narrow spire, though it is possible that much of its structure has been stripped away by mining.
In Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy Olympus Mons features as the site of an annual festival. In his companion book The Martians, the escarpment is the scene of an epic multi-pitched rock climb.
In Dan Simmons's Ilium series, Olympus Mons has become the Mount Olympos of Greek myth, home of beings playing the roles of the various Greek gods.
In Bud Sparhawk's Olympus Mons (Analog, 1998) the mountain is the setting for a 21st century downhill race.
In the 2000 AD series The V.C.s Olympus Mons' crater is covered by a massive dome to retain an atmosphere as the main settlement on the planet.
In the Futurama episode "Where the Buggalo Roam", the crew visits Amy's family on Mars Day. Some cattle rustlers capture all of the Wong family's buggalo. So Kif, trying to impress Amy's parents, promises to find the buggalo. Fry, Bender, and Leela go with him on a cattle drive to lure the rustlers out. To get the rustlers to see them, they camp near the top of Olympus Mons.
In the Mobile Suit Gundam F90 manga, Olympus Mons is where Principality of Zeon remnants called the Oldsmobile Army construct their base of operations. Included is an enormous cannon capable of firing shots at Earth.
In the Watchmen comic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Dr. Manhattan character tours Mars and visits Olympus Mons, admiring its features.
In the GURPS Transhuman Space roleplaying game source book about Mars, In The Well, they have placed a University town, "Nix Olympia" and a ski resort "Zeus Tourist Resort" on Olympus Mons.

[edit] Other media

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
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 pop song "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie (which isn't really about life on Mars).
The cult American rock band the Pixies have an album track on their 1991 album Trompe le Monde named Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons, on an album filled with references to space, aliens and other 'out of this world' subjects.
Rock band The Flaming Lips perform the song Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia) on their 2002 release Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. The song won the 2002 Grammy for Best Instrumental Rock Performance.
The Misfits have various songs related to Martians.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers have a song entitled "Death of a Martian"
In the second verse of the hit song Rocket Man, Elton John sings "Mars is not the kind of place to raise your kids/In fact it's cold as hell/And there's no one there to raise them/If you did".

[edit] See also

v • d • e Astronomical locations in fiction
Solar System	Mercury · Venus · Earth (Moon) · Mars (moons) · Jupiter (moons) · Saturn (Titan • other moons) · Uranus · Neptune Ceres · Asteroids · Pluto · Outer planets · Comets
Other systems	Aldebaran · Alpha Centauri · Altair · Betelgeuse · Deneb · Epsilon Eridani · Rigel · Sirius · Tau Ceti · Vega · Nebulae · Galaxies

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Categories: Mars in fiction | Planets in fiction