"Max Steel" is a superhero-origin story about a 16-year-old named Max McGrath (Ben Winchell) whose body inexplicably starts to generate massive energy bursts that he can't control. After he meets Steel, a techno-organic extraterrestrial, the duo forms a symbiotic relationship that harnesses their combined energies.

Max and his mother (Maria Bello) have moved back to a small town called Copper Canyon, the same municipality where Max's scientist father died mysteriously shortly after he was born. Taking on a mentoring role is Dr. Miles Edwards (Andy Garcia), who Hendler describes as "one of the keys for Max to unlock and figure out what the heck is up with his powers and what happened to his dad."