Max Evans (1999)

Max Evans
Biographical Information
Born	March 15th, 1983
Title(s)	Member of The Royal Four
Physical Information
Species	Hybrid
Gender	Male
Hair Color	Black
Eye Color	Brown
Skin Color	White
Familial Information
Spouse	Liz Parker
Children	Zan Evans
Adoptive Parents	Phillip Evans & Diane Evans
Siblings	Isabel Evans
Powers and Abilities
Alien Powers	Leptokinesis Force Field Projection Healing Telekinesis Connecting
Affiliation
Occupation	UFO Center
Loyalty	The Pod Squad
Appearances
Season One to Season Three	Main Character
Status
	Resurrected
Portrayed By
Adult Max	Jason Behr
Young Max	Daniel Hansen

"Liz Parker, will you marry me?"

―Max to Liz in Graduation

Maxwell "Max" Evans, also known as the former King Zan of Antar, is an alien-hybrid and part of The Royal Four. Max is the brother of Isabel Evans, Michael Guerin's best friend and the husband of Liz Parker. He also has a son, Zan, through Tess Harding. 

History

Previous Existence

Template:Section Rewrite Finished In Max's previous existence,before becoming Max Evans. Max was Zan King of Antar. Michael was his second in command and Tess was his wife. During Zan's existence, Vilandra, Isabel's former self, betray Zan, by siding with Kivar his enemy but later on in season 3 Michael remembers that kivar had said to her nobody would get hurt but he had lied. This cost the lives of most of the antarians, including The Royal Four.

Early Life

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The ship carrying the biological clones, Max, Isabel, Michael and Tessa crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. The army took the alien craft and took it to study. The four clones are saved by a US Air Force pilot and hidden from sight in a new ship, hidden in the center of a rock formation. Although, the clones do not emerge until forty years later in 1989. However, only Max, Isabel and Michael leave the ship together, disguised as human children. The three are left with no memories of their former loves on Antar, nor does the fourt., Tessa, whom did not emerge with the other three. Instead, she is rescued by an Anatarian, who wants something from her. Max and Isabel are found wondering together and are both adopted by a couple of lawyers, The Evans. Leaving Michael alone and without a family.

Powers and Abilities

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• Leptokinesis - The ability to manipulate the molecular structure.
• Healing  - The ability to restore somebody to full health, this ability is uniqe to Max
• Force Field - The ability to project a green shield to protect ones self, this ability is unique to Max
• Soul Projection - The ability to project ones soul from their body, this ability is unique to Max

Season One

Viewers first see Max watching Liz work as a waitress while eating at the Crashdown Café, which belongs to Liz's parents. Fellow waitress Maria DeLuca is the one who points out Max's infatuation to Liz. Liz then witnesses an argument between two customers and is accidentally shot. Max rushes to her side and heals the wound simply by placing his hand over it, bringing her back to life. Liz later discovers a silver hand print on her stomach, a mystery she becomes determined to solve. During a biology class experiment, Liz sneaks a sample of Max's saliva and examines it under a microscope, discovering that Max's cells look nothing like human cells. She confronts Max, who then admits that he, his sister Isabel, and their friend Michael are aliens whose spaceship crashed at Roswell in 1947. By telling her, Max breaks the ultimate taboo that he, Isabel, and Michael have kept their whole lives. Liz becomes the first human to know the secret of the "Pod Squad". Overwhelmed by the secret, she asks Max why he'd risked everything to heal her. Max replies, "Because it was you." This sets the tone for the series: Max will break any rule (including his own) for Liz.In order to gain her trust, Max creates a connection with her so she can see into his soul. Liz experiences all his inner feelings, especially the love Max has for her. After seeing Max's true character, Liz makes the decision to protect Max and his friends. Liz also begins to feel very drawn to Max in return, despite her current relationship with the sheriff's son Kyle Valenti. Liz confides in Maria about Max and the others, a transgression Max forgives. As the season progresses, Max and Liz's relationship and their struggles with his secret take center stage. Liz later begs Max to use his healing powers to help save her aged grandmother, Claudia. Max reveals that he can not stop a natural death, but does help her have a final conversation with Claudia. Her grandmother's insights give Liz the clarity needed to break up with Kyle and pursue a relationship with Max. The hybrids' search for answers about their own existence is a recurring theme of the show. Max comes to the conclusion that there is a fourth alien on Earth after he gets a job at the local UFO center. There he discovers that the silver hand print that Max had left on Liz had been spotted on a number of murder victims in the 1950s. During a Roswell crash convention, Max is nearly killed by an alien hunter named Hubble. Hubble is intent on revenge because an alien killed his wife and unborn child. Sheriff Jim Valenti saves Max's life.

he three hybrids and their romantic partners are portrayed as chaste throughout the first season. However, sexual themes are explored. In the episode "Sexual Healing", repressed passion explodes between Max and Liz. Liz finds that when they kiss, she gets flashbacks of Max's past. They later find an orb from his planet thanks to these visions. Tess Harding arrives mid-season. At first, they suspect she is a shape-shifting murderous alien named Nasedo. After Max has hallucinations about her, he confronts Tess. It is revealed that she is an alien-human hybrid like them. Nasedo is actually Tess' father figure. Nasedo is both a murderer and their protector, a conundrum that leaves the Pod Squad undecided about what to do. Nacedo then kidnaps Liz by shifting into the image of Max, leaving the true Max with a clear mandate to save Liz and terminate Nasedo. In the effort, Max is abducted by a special branch of the FBI headed by the elusive Special Agent Pierce. Max is tortured for information but rescued by Nasedo and Michael before he reveals anything significant. In turn, they manage to kidnap Pierce. In the subsequent confusion, gunfire erupts and the sheriff inadvertently shoots his son, Kyle. Michael kills Pierce while Max saves Kyle using the same method that he had used on Liz at the start of the season. Thankful, Sheriff Valenti gives Max his word that he will protect him, Isabel and Michael.It is the ship hidden in the caves that eventually is the key to the hybrids' history. An image of Max and Isabel's mother comes up and tells them that they are the clones of the Royal Four of their home world Antar. Tess and Max were married, Isabel was his sister and a promised spouse of Michael, who was Max's second in command. Upon hearing this Liz runs away as she realizes that his destiny and responsibility are far bigger than her. He loves her and is reluctant to let her go but she says that there is too much in their way and leaves.

Season Two

Max looking at Liz Parker (2x02)

The second season of the series finds Max as "reluctant king". The others now awkwardly defer to him, except for Michael who still acts out and does things his own way. At the beginning of season two, Max's relationship with Liz is awkward. He still loves her and declares to her that he will keep fighting for her and will never give up on them. His role as the leader also proves to be an obstacle as he finds out about power he never knew he had and the responsibility that comes with that power. But he is rocked when Nasedo is murdered and before dying he proclaims that one of their worst enemies has arrived in Roswell: the skins. Worried by this, he and the gang agree to sit tight. They target Liz's new boss, Congresswoman Whitaker, who had a relationship with Special Agent Pierce, and do some reconnaissance on her. It is later revealed that the Congresswoman was in fact a Skin.It is around this time that Max tries to resurrect his relationship with Liz, but she rejects his advances. He only gives up on her when he catches Liz in bed with Kyle Valenti, believing that they had been together. The truth is that it's all a setup created by Liz when the future version of Max comes back from the future saying that she had to make his present self stop loving her because their love will be the cause of the end of the world. Future Max and Future Liz sacrificed their love in order to make Tess stay in Roswell (in their timeline she left after Max and Liz cemented their relationship), because she is obsessed with Max and she would stay only if Max will give her a chance. However, for most of season two Max and Tess are only friends. He tries to be friends with Liz, though he never stops loving her even if he does not know the truth about Kyle. But when their friend Alex dies and his friendship with Liz is compromised by her research for Alex's alien killer that Max cannot accept, he has his first personal crisis about who he really is, losing his balance. When Tess starts helping him to remember his past, Max is confused about himself. He starts acting out of character, making his friends dislike him, especially Liz and Isabel. Thanks to Tess' influence he starts to think that maybe he's just too blind to accept the truth: his life is not real and Tess is right. When he realizes that he has really lost everything, especially Liz, he sleeps with Tess. She is the only one with him and seems to know the answers that he is unable to find. Because it was his destiny to love her, he tries to feel something for her  even though the two of them are essentially strangers to each other. The day after their night together he realizes his mistake because tess has betrayed them and he is unable to love her no matter whether his previous self (Zan) had feelings for her or not but it's too late for him when Tess tells him that she's pregnant with his son and she does want to keep the baby no matter what. Max takes responsibility, staying with her because a part of him still feels for her but he. At the end of the season, Tess mindwarps him into believing that the baby is sick and he cannot survive in the earth's atmosphere so they are forced to return back to Antar in order to save him. Thanks to the alien destiny book that Alex translated before dying, Max and his friends find the way to return home using the Granlith. Soon, Liz, Maria and Kyle discover that Tess killed Alex. Max confronts her and he realizes that the pregnancy was all a setup in order to force him and the other aliens to return home. Nacedo made a deal with Kivar 40 years before: Tess had to get pregnant by Max's heir and then deliver Max, Michael and Isabel to Kivar who would have killed them, finally deleting the royal family. Suddennly max kicks in from zan Angry, he wants to kill her but stops, realizing that she is still carrying his son. He lets her go to Antar to save the baby whom he still thinks would not survive on Earth.He regroups with Liz and the others on the mountainside. Max tells Liz that in his life he was wrong about many things but not loving her. They embrace and the season ends with Max saying that he must save his son.

Season Three

Desperate to bring his son to Earth, Max digs through Tess's belongings and discovers evidence that leads him to a secret government facility that holds the reconstructed ship that brought him and the others to Roswell. The ship is located underneath a convenience store in Utah. Having rekindled his relationship with Liz, the two of them hatch a plot. They stage a robbery, Liz holding up the store with a gun, while Max goes underneath the store to find the ship. He does not have the time to figure out how to work it, however, before they are captured by the police. Although the charges against Max and Liz are dismissed due to deft legal work by his father, the latter demands to know his reasons for robbing the store, and Max, not wanting to get his father mixed up in the alien affairs, leaves the house to stay with Michael. Subsequently, Liz's parents forbid her to see Max again, and the two of them are forced to carry on their relationship in secret.Max continues the search for his son. He discovers that there was a second alien protector sent in the ship with them who abandoned his responsibilities for a life as a Hollywood producer and currently goes by the name Cal Langley. Langley, who tried to interfere with Max's search of his son, killed an actor who played a role in the episode "Busted" in order to obstruct Max and Liz's plan and ultimately resulted on their arrest. When Max realizes this, Langley threatens his life again, trying to make him return home (roswell). Langley's reasons for this behavior are rooted in his desire to be human even though he does not have human DNA and cannot even feel things or be hurt by fire. Therefore he fears Max, who can make him alien again but cannot kill him because he was made to protect him. After discovering that his protector is genetically programmed to obey his direct orders, Max forces Langley to help him into finding the ship again and use it in order to leave Earth, regardless of Langley's advice about the ship that it is too damaged to work. Ultimately when they finally try to use the ship it doesn't work and does not even leave its hangar. After the accident, Max takes Langley to his home to help him and because he feels guilty for what happened. Langley tells him that even though he is genetically Max's protector, he will always hate him.However, after Max's apologies, he finally understands that the boy is just desperate, and he wants to save his baby but doesn't know what to do. Langley then tells Max what and who he would have lost if the ship had really worked and the boy understands it when the logic is back to him and he devastatingly realize that he almost lose everything especially Liz to whom he come back to as soon as he can. Kal's first and last advice to Max is "The more you embrace our alien side... The more you're gonna lose" With the failure of his plan, Max gives up hope of finding his son until the episode "Samuel Rising", in which an autistic kid, Samuel (who never talked), calls him "daddy". Max starts to think that maybe his son is using Samuel in order to contact him so he goes to the kid trying to be friends with him and at the same time using what happened in order to help the kid too. However, he realizes that Samuel isn't his son and the reason of why he talked with him and "liked" him at first sight lies on how Max is special and "different" like him and he thought that maybe Max could have help him to communicate with his parents and tell them that he loved them even if he couldn't tell it like the other kids. So, Max, with Isabel's help who create a shared dream with Samuel and his parents, gives to Samuel what he wanted. What happened makes Max realize that Liz is his family and even if he will really find his son this will not change. So he tells her at the end of the episode when they finally go at the ice skating together like he promised Liz at the beginning. Later in the season, Liz begins developing alien powers of her own, evidently as a side effect of Max healing her over two years ago. She's sick and it seems that she could die. Max tries to find a solution and he's willing to contact even the FBI if it's necessary, but nothing seems to help her and it gets worse. When trying to heal her with the healing stones she explodes crying, telling him that he always hurts her like when he slept with Tess. Max realizes that even if she's stressed by what is happening to her, she really feels this way. When he tries to talk with her about it Liz decides to take a break from Roswell in order to understand who she is and what she wants. Max tells her that he loves her trying to make her understand that he will be there when she wants and he isn't angry with her for what she said. But, ultimately, Liz goes to a boarding school in Vermont after sending him a letter when she tells him that she does love him too but she has to go. Back in Roswell, someone kills Michael's friend, Monk, at the Meta-Chem Corporation where they worked together. Later Michael finds that someone at Meta-Chem is tracking him and most likely they discovered that he's an alien and they killed Monk for this reason. With Valenti's help, Michael tries to discover the truth but someone kidnaps Valenti. Max, Michael and Isabel go to Meta-Chem in order to free him. Max is the one who finds him and he discovers that someone at Meta-Chem, lead by their leader Meris, was tracking Michael because they thought that he was the healer alien. Meris wants Max to heal her old husband. When Max tries to explain to her that he can't heal people who're dying for natural reasons, Meris blackmails him using Valenti's life, and Max is forced to try the heal. However, something goes wrong in the healing process and instead of healing Meris' husband Max gives his life to the old man. Max becomes the old one, and when the healing process ends a circle of fire emits from Max's body. The fire comes back to him and the room catches on fire. Valenti tries to help Max but it's too late; when he reaches out to touch him Max turns into dust. At the same time in Vermont, Liz suddenly awakes feeling Max's death deep inside of her and knows that he's dead without a doubt. But Max isn't really dead. His soul is still inside Meris' husband, Clayton. Clayton assumes Max's body like if they switched their previous forms. At first, he is happy of the change for the better, but while he's kissing his wife he's hit by strong flashes of Max and Liz together from Max's soul, and he rolls over, agonized. At this point, he realizes that Max is still inside him, and he believes that the only way he can get rid of Max is to kill Liz. Clayton goes to the Vermont, but when he sees her he realizes that Max's connection to the girl is stronger than he thought.Later, when Clayton tries to kill Liz, Max takes control over his body in order to tell Liz to kill him. Liz doesn't want to hurt or kill Max, but he yells at her saying that she must do it otherwise Clayton will kill her so she must kill them both in order to save herself. However, Clayton takes the control again and while he's trying to kill Liz they both fall from the window to the ground of the school. While they're falling Max takes control over Clayton again and both him and Liz get flashes of their life and all the people they love. All Max sees are his memories with Liz and how she's his whole life so he sacrifices his life in order to save hers. He reaches out to project an energy field to break her fall without using one for himself. Then, even as Liz is cushioned in the protective green energy, Max falls to the ground without a protection. After a moment, the energy field blinks out and Liz drops down, falling closer to Max, them both lying still. Later, Liz wakes up and touching Max she realize that he's dead.She tenderly caresses his face with her hands and bends over him in order to give him her last kiss. A single tear falls onto his cheek and a glow of white energy passes across his face. It begins to transform, taking on Clayton's original features, then fading back into Max's until he wakes up staring into her tearful eyes. Max tells her that she brought him back from death. Liz tells him that now they're even and they return to Roswell. In Roswell, Max, Liz and their friends are still facing Max's death and "resurrection" when Michael, after Max's death, gets the royal seal of Antar and becomes the king/leader. Michael can't handle this change and he starts to act recklessly. He becomes dangerous and the group tries to find a solution. Eventually, Max takes the seal from him and returns to be the rightful king again even if he never liked this role. Michael finally understands how Max was right about being the king and how it's not a funny game to play. Later, when a ship seems to crash in Roswell, Max and Michael help a girl and her father who were trapped by the government. Shortly afterward they discover that the crashed ship was Tess coming back to Earth, carrying Max's son with her. Calling him Zan, after his father, she says that Kivar betrayed her and their deal, and he rejected him as the heir of Antar because he is fully human, so she had to escape from the planet and return to Earth in order to save her son. However, Max discovers that Tess, in order to force him to leave earth, mindwarped him about the baby, later on the end of season 2 when he thought that he was dying Tess' also says she has a side of the story but nobody listens to her secretly her side was that if she could get her son on the throne she would had saved an entire species she needed to bring Max Michael and Isabel so kavair would'nt find out her true intentions and she would have made an agreement with Kavair to spare Max Michael and Isabel . Tess' arrival, however, has sparked government action because in order to protect her son she killed a whole military base. So, in the end of the episode, to ward them away from her son, she sacrifices herself, blowing up the military base and dying in the process and she asks Liz for help. Before dying she confesses to Liz that Max always loved only her and every time they were together she always got flashes of her from him. However, what happened only proves to resurrect the Special Unit to look for the aliens, and realizing someone will always be after him, Max gives Zan up for adoption, for his own safety. Shortly after that, Liz starts to receive visions of the future while she's touching people. When she and Max are making out she gets one of her visions and she sees how the Special Unit will kill them at their own high school graduation. Not able to harm the Special Unit again, the group agrees to flee Roswell separately. Max gives up his throne because they're a group and their lives are in danger, he can't make all the decisions anymore and after all, he never really considered himself as the king nor the leader and they all have the right to choose what they want to do with their life. Later, Max proposes to Liz and she accepts because they can't leave Roswell without each other no matter if they could die. However, at the high school graduation ceremony Max tries to sacrifice himself by taking FBI attention only on him in order to free the others but Michael saves him at last minute. After what happened the group makes the decision to leave Roswell all together and not separately like they established before. Max, Liz, Michael, Maria, Isabel and Kyle then depart from Roswell into a van and Max makes the decision to use his powers in order to help people. One of last scenes of the series shows Liz's father reading his daughter's journal where she wrote him a letter and told him about her wedding with Max and who he really was.At the end of the series, Max and Liz get married in a small chapel in the desert and get back in the van, continuing their trek throughout the country with their friends. One of the older cast members, Jason Behr was already 26 when Roswell premiered.  Behr wasn’t a stranger to the WB network at the time, having had guest-starring roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 7th Heaven, and Dawson’s Creek.  (The WB was known for recycling talent.)[1]

After Roswell, Jason found work in movies, with roles in The Grudge, Skinwalkers, and D-War.  He continues to work in both television and movies, with one of his more recent projects being a TV movie called Company Man opposite Castle‘s Stana Katic.

Although my 15-year-old self loved Max, I always found the other characters more compelling.  I will give a shout-out to Behr because he’s from Minneapolis, which is totally awesome. (The picture on the right is Behr with his wife, actress KaDee Strickland.)