Dr. Valencia Martinez

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**Dr. Valencia Martinez** is a vet (pet doctor) and Maximum Ride's mother. She worked on the avian-human recombinant project, giving the egg that would soon become Max to be studied, but was shut out of the project once the embryo was viable. She also is the founder of the CSM, and years before Max's birth, was working to combat the H8E virus.

## History

### *The Angel Experiment*

#### Meeting Max

When Max, Fang and Nudge are flying over Arizona on their way to the School in California, Max spots a girl being bullied by some bigger boys. Telling Fang and Nudge that she'll meet them back in a little bit near Lake Mead, she flies down to help.

The girl, about thirteen, thanks Max and runs when Max tells her to as she distracts the boys and they start to mess with her, too. Since Max is stronger than a grown man, she easily defeats the boys, but isn't able to run away before one of them pulls out a gun. Max is shot in the shoulder and a wing is grazed by the bullet when she was hiding from the boys in the forest.

Max eventually finds a house, and sees the same girl that she helped letting out a dog. After debating, she lets the girl see her. When the girl realizes her rescuer is wounded, Max and the girl enter her house, where the girl, Ella Martinez, leads Max to her mother. Ella's mother is Dr. Martinez, who happens to be a vet. Max decides to let her help her, and shows her her wing. This is the first time a non-Flock member or whitecoat has seen her wings. At first sight, she may or may not know that Max is her daughter.

As Max is healing, she becomes friends with the Martinez duo and learns how to make homemade chocolate chip cookies, which soon become her favorite food, a taste that she can savor and enjoy so much that she wants to remember how to teach the Flock someday. Dr. Martinez becomes Max's ideal picture for a motherly figure.

To help see what is wrong with Max's shot shoulder, Dr. Martinez takes Max to her Veterinary Hospital to get an X-ray. In this X-ray, Max and Dr. Martinez find out that Max has minor muscle damage to her shoulder and wing. They also find out that Max has a tiny microchip implanted in her arm. Max wishes to have the chip removed immediately, but Dr. Martinez refuses at the time because it is unsafe, and the chip was probably implanted when Max was a small child.

 File:Goodbye.jpg

When Max heals and prepares to return to the Flock, she feels sad to leave them and wonders if she'll ever see them again. She thinks that Dr. Martinez would be the perfect mom.

### *Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports*

In book 3, Martinez and Max meet again, Max having recognized her house. In addition to reuniting with her mother, Dr. Martinez meets Fang for the first time. She, in this meeting, attempts (and succeeds) at removing the chip via microsurgery, but ultimately results in the temporary immobility of Max's left arm. This is solved after the Flock's visit to the School, but alas Dr. Martinez was mortified that she couldn't fix it.

The morning of Max and Fang's departure, Fang goes into Martinez's office to look for a paper clip, but instead finds a book on recombinant-DNA theory, a book on birds, and a picture of the Gasman. This makes the two of them worry for their safety. The evidence is later explained to Max in the Itexicon dungeon by Jeb Batchelder, who tells Max of her parents—being him and Dr. Martinez. Dr. Martinez later helps Max and the Flock many times in the series.

### *The Final Warning*

The Flock is currently staying at Dr. Martinez's house; however, after a bomb is planted there, they move to a motel.

### *MAX*

Following the trip to Antarctica, Dr. Martinez and her colleagues create the CSM and spread awareness about the environment. Out of loyalty to her mother, Max agrees to have the Flock participate in airshows and draw attention to the CSM's efforts. The CSM also provides food and shelter for the Flock.

Later, a distraught Ella calls the Flock to tell them that her mother went missing at the airport between flights. She is starved and tortured with electric shocks, while her captors try to coerce her to sign a form and appear on camera denouncing the CSM. They claim to have Max in custody. However, Dr. Martinez laughs and tells them that in that case they have her sympathy, before being shocked into unconsciousness by an M-Geek. The Flock finds her trapped in an underwater dome. They rescue her and she recovers in a safe location.

### *FANG*

Total mentions that he and Akila visited with Dr. Martinez, presumably at her job as a veterinarian, and that he counseled patients.

Jeb returns, and Max guesses that her mother told him where to find them, as Dr. Martinez for some reason still trusts Jeb. Jeb mentions that Dr. Martinez is planning for another CSM mission.

After the Flock is poisoned, Dr. Martinez arrives to help and is waiting to greet Max and Fang when they arrive. She is good about not reacting to the sick Flock members' appearances. Soon afterwards, Angel leaves and Fang goes after her. Max starts to go into shock; Nudge runs to get Dr. Martinez, who comforts her and asks what she plans to do.

Dr. Martinez is also responsible for training Akila to walk down the aisle at her wedding.

### *ANGEL*

After Fang's departure, Max becomes depressed, causing Nudge to call Dr. Martinez for help. Dr. Martinez begins teaching Nudge to bake cookies.

Despite Max's warnings about Jeb, Dr. Martinez agrees to go with him and Dr. Hans Gunther-Hagen to the school for Gen77 kids, although she refuses to consider Hans' plan for Max and Dylan to breed. When the plane crashes, Jeb and Dr. Martinez are saved, while Gunther-Hagen goes missing. However, after Max and Dylan return from searching for him, Dr. Martinez acts strange, looks empty-eyed, and doesn't seem to care about anything Max says, acting more concerned with watching TV.

Jeb and Dr. Martinez later drive off from the house without any sign as to where they're going. Beginning with Gazzy, the Flock expresses their feelings that something is suspicious and they may not be able to trust Dr. Martinez. Max is hurt by this, though Angel tells her that her mother does love her. The plan is still to search for them, while leaving the deprogrammed Ella with her Tia Cita.

### *Nevermore*

Both Jeb and Dr. Martinez are among the whitecoats experimenting on Angel.

Later, after Fang is badly injured, Dr. Martinez arrives in a helicopter to take the Flock to Paradise. She patches Fang up and explains to Max that, like Iggy and Ella, she was brainwashed. She fell under Jeb's spell as a result of trusting him, but when he left, she regained her sense. She acts ashamed and repentant towards Angel, and Angel telepathically confirms that she's changed. She agrees with Max's plan to bring Jeb to Paradise as well, saying that “He’s a sick man, but not an evil one.”

The island is part of a project that she and Nino Pierpont have been working on for more than fifteen years, in preparation for the release of the H8E virus. At some previous point, Dr. Martinez rescued Ella from the 99 Percenters and sent her to the island. While the Flock settles in, she explains the H8E virus to Max and Fang. Though this is how she expects the world to end, the real problem ends up being the meteor strike. The Martinez family takes shelter in the underground caves just before the meteor hits, and Angel can tap into their thoughts afterwards, indicating that they are safe.

### *Maximum Ride Forever*

Though Max holds out hope that her mother and sister survived, Rizal later confirms that they both drowned when water levels rose inside the caves beneath Paradise.

Dr. Martinez was part of the plan for Russia to nuke the meteor, and was shocked when this did not happen. The Remedy later reveals that she actually did "most of the work" in preparing the way for his master plan, by starting "The Psychic Initiative" to study Angel, and then falling for his suggestion that they keep the meteor a secret to prevent panic.

## Trivia

 File:Max and dr martinez.png
* Jeb and Dr. Martinez came together to give genetic material and create Max; however, they are not married.
* The identity of Ella's (her daughter's) father is unknown. Similarly, the mother of Ari is unknown.
* Eventually, Max starts calling Dr. Martinez "Mom."
	+ Max also finds it weird seeing her trusting Jeb.
* She took a course in college with Dr. Brigid Dwyer.
* In *ANGEL*, all the adults, including Dr. Martinez, disappear without a trace.
* It is revealed in Nevermore that she was brainwashed by Jeb, but Angel assures Max that she is "a good guy".
* She is very sensitive about the safety of the entire Flock.
	+ An example of this is shown in *The Final Warning*; after a pizza-shaped bomb exploded inside one of their temporary homes, she was afterwards described as "totally freaked out and kept patting everyone down for broken bones."

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