When Max moves to a new town, he discovers he can release a powerful energy called Turbo Energy (That just so happens to be the substance a villain is looking for). He is then found by his Uncle Ferrus, who is part of a secret program, who tells Max his father Jim and a person named Miles Dredd also worked there before their passings from an explosion in the lab. The last thing Max's dad worked on was an old machine, but it doesn't work anymore. But then Max reactivates it with his Turbo Energy, and the alien known as Steel morphs with Max, now allowing him to access his alter ego, Max Steel. Meanwhile the villain's minion sends out a fire elementor to capture Max, and the episode ends with Max being thrown off a cliff by him.
16 year old Maxwell "Max" McGrath is thrown into a new life after moving with his mother to the small city of Copper Canyon. There he meets new friends, bullies, and super-villains hunting him for his TURBO energy.
Max must now join N-TECH, a secret organization his late father Jim McGrath started, to defeat Trans-Human Industries from taking over the galaxy with their sinister leader Miles Dredd. Max's powers are hidden and regulated with the aid of his Ultra-Link friend Steel, who is a project of his father, to prevent Max from going critical and Steel transforms into Max's multiple armors for whatever terrain battle is present.
Along the way, with the aid of N-TEK led by Max's uncle Ferrus, both will uncover the mystery behind many of Steel's lost memories and what really happened to Max's dad.