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Maxx's birth birthspirit.org | Phonak MAXX PowerMAXX bayareahearingcenter.com | Maxx RT P3DRT power-pedic.com | Body Maxx In The Media bodymaxx.com |
The Maxx is an American comic book and animation character created by Sam Kieth and published originally monthly by Image Comics and now collected in trade paperback collections from DC Comic's Wildstorm imprint. The comic book spawned an animated series that aired on the MTV network. The first appearance of The Maxx was in Comico Primer #5 published in 1982 under the story "Max The Hare".[1][2][3] The series follows the adventures of the titular hero in the real world and in an alternate reality, referred to as The Outback. In the real world the Maxx is a vagrant while in the Outback he is the protector of the Jungle Queen. The Jungle Queen is similar to the Maxx in that she also exists in the real world as Julie Winters, a freelance social worker who often bails the Maxx out of jail. While the Maxx is aware of the Outback, Julie is not, though it is integral to the story of both the Maxx and Julie.
[edit] Plot summaryOne day, after Julie stops her car to help a man in the street, she is beaten, raped, and left to die. To cope, she hides in what is referred to as her 'Outback' (a primeval landscape situated entirely in her subconscious, where she has control). In The Outback, she becomes "The Leopard Queen", an all-powerful goddess. She spends so much time dwelling in her Outback that the real world and The Outback gradually become unstable. One night, she accidentally hits a homeless man with her car. Remembering what happened the last time she stopped to help someone, she covers the unconscious body with trash, but in doing so she unintentionally opens a link to the Outback. After Julie leaves, a lampshade in the trash (which had brushed the Outback) expands over the man's body, becoming a mask that costumes him and links him to Julie. The series begins three years later, and the reader is not initially aware of the deep interconnections between the characters; they are slowly revealed over the course of the series. The homeless man does not remember anything about himself, only that Julie is important to him somehow. He doesn't even know his own name (he now calls himself The Maxx) or what he looks like under his mask. Mr. Gone, a serial killer and rapist with a telepathic link to Julie and extensive knowledge of and access to people's various Outbacks, starts phoning Julie. She thinks he is merely an obscene phone caller, and ignores him. Eventually, The Maxx gets in Gone's way by "protecting" Julie, so Gone tries to kill him. The Maxx fights him in both The Outback and the real world. In the meantime, Julie leaves Maxx and wanders the countryside, sleeping with any man she meets. Eventually, Mr. Gone makes Julie see the truth about her past, and reveals to her how The Maxx came to be. A twist is revealed by Gone to a secondary character who is killed: the fact that Gone first met Julie when she was a child. She knew him as "uncle Artie", a friend of her father's. Gone's tall tales about a visit to Australia helped shape Julie's outback. As Julie begins healing herself and The Outback, the series follows Sarah, a depressed teenager whose mother sends her to Julie for counseling. Sarah is often in conflict with her mother, who disciplines her so she won't grow up to be like her father, eventually revealed to be none other than Mr. Gone. After the conclusion of the first storyline, the action leaps forward from 1995 (the then-present) to the year 2005. Julie and Dave (the former Maxx) having vanished, the action focuses on Sara (as she now spells her name) and a giant, murderous yellow slug from her Outback, Iago. Iago has a list of people to kill, and it turns out that Julie and Sara are both on it. Sara is hounded by a homeless man named Norbert whom she soon realizes is her Maxx. Sara has constant confrontations with Mr. Gone, who is repentant of his past crimes. Nevertheless, he is visited by three special agents intent on taking him in, but he turns them into bugs. Later, after finally reading a diary he leaves for her that reveals his tragic life and origin story, Sara eventually feels sympathy for and a connection to her father. She also begins developing a strange power that she may be inheriting from Mr. Gone. Julie and Dave return to the story after Julie is attacked by Iago and loses some fingers. It turns out that Julie abandoned her son, Mark, to keep him safe from Iago. She tries to have Dave tell Mark that she's dead so he'll stop asking around for her, but Mark doesn't believe him. Sara, Dave, Norbert, Mark, and Mr. Gone band together to rescue Julie from Iago, who snatches Julie into Sara's outback. Norbert cuts Iago open, apparently defeating him, but Julie has already escaped. Norbert and Iago are never heard from again. Mr. Gone soon reveals that time is unraveling for the group, which now includes Glorie, one of Mr. Gone's past victims who now has a friendly relationship with him. Gone returns Dave's Maxx power to him. Sara returns as a giant isz/pink fairy/football (depending on who's looking at her). Mark has an odd dream about eccentric kidnappers. Each member of the group begins to disappear from reality to be reborn in another. Before Gone can disappear, the three agents from before (now humanoid but with bug heads) return and kill him, as he expected. Mark is the last to disappear. In Julie's outback, Gone is reunited with Sara, who is now a child again. The Maxx considers attacking Gone, but the Jungle Queen says to leave him be, because even evil deserves a place to rest. In the new reality, Gone is a school teacher and Dave is a janitor at his school. Julie and Mark are still mother and son, but seem to live in better conditions. All the principal characters now lead completely different lives, yet retain a small part of their connection to the Outback and to each other. [edit] MaxxMaxx's abilities aren't hugely fantastic like many other heroes. Besides his bulging muscles, large size and sight into the Outback, Maxx's only real weapons against his enemies are his two large claws. Maxx sometimes glues his hands shut, making his claws unusable and making him mostly defenseless. Luckily, this does not happen too often. Maxx's most frequent enemy, The Isz, are for the most part easily pummeled away by him, but he more than often is overwhelmed by their massive numbers. During his battles with more full sized enemies, Maxx usually has more of a struggle. Personality wise, Maxx is somewhat odd. Maxx has an annoying habit of saying his inner monologues aloud, leading to people paying even more attention to him. Maxx is fond of Pez, Cheers, and Saturday morning cartoons (in particular, The Crappon in the Hat, which Julie deems the worst idea for a show ever). Although not particularly intelligent, Maxx is not as stupid as his hulking appearance would suggest, often being intellectually on par with any hero he teams up with. Maxx is also a powerful feminist, often complaining when something is even remotely sexist. This contrasts Julie who thinks that women on a whole are weak and are themselves responsible for any prejudice they face. This goes to the point where Julie is annoyed that Maxx tries to comfort her after she escapes from Mr. Gone. [edit] Spirit animalsOne of the dominant concepts of The Maxx is that every human being has a spirit animal, which is linked to the person during a pivotal moment in their life. Julie's spirit animal is a rabbit. When she was very young, Julie rescued an injured rabbit that lay in the road in front of her house (as seen in The Maxx #10). Julie later witnessed her mother bludgeoning the rabbit to death with a shovel to put it out of its misery. This traumatic event linked the rabbit to Julie's subconscious. Julie projects the rabbit onto Dave as she tries to take care of him like the rabbit she was unable to save. Maxx, who is linked to Julie and her spirit animal worries that, if he removes his mask, she will find the head of a rabbit beneath it. Sarah's spirit animal is a horse. In the latter half of the series, this spirit animal manifests itself as Norbert, a homeless man Sarah takes pity on. [edit] IszThe main creatures that inhabit The Outback are white Isz. White Isz are herbivores, but can eat most other Outback creatures, as most if not all the creatures in Julie's Outback are actually plants. When white Isz are brought from The Outback into the real world they become black Isz. Black Isz are carnivores and cannibalistic. They are stronger, faster, and have sharper teeth than white Isz. Black Isz assume different appearances depending on the clothes they're wearing. In this matter, intention counts more than disguise skills. If an Isz is dressed as an old lady, it appears as an old lady to anyone who doesn't know what it really is. All Isz are eyeless. In the latter part of the series, Sara's Isz appear as pink, flying, eyeless fairies that explode if not kept in water. [edit] AllusionsCalvin & Hobbes -- One issue of The Maxx contains a single image of a character highly resembling Calvin, viewed from behind, holding a stuffed animal highly reminiscent of Hobbes. The child refers to his toy as an ocelot named Nietzsche. The Sandman -- One issue contains two posters of the character 'Death' from the comic book series by Neil Gaiman. The narrator mockingly describes death as "...cold and ugly, not some hot chick..." Keith was the first artist on the Sandman series. T. S. Eliot's poem, "The Hollow Men" -- Mr. Gone, in episode 4 of the animated series, describes death as without "a bang, or a whimper." [edit] List of trade paperbacks
Other issues include The Maxx #1/2, and a Gen¹³/The Maxx crossover. [edit] CameosThe Maxx has made cameo appearances in the graphic novel Popbot (which Keith co-wrote), issue #1 of the independent comic Armature, the Sonic the Hedgehog comic Sonic Super Special #7 Sonic/Image Crossover; the four issue limited series Altered Image, the Image mini series Blood Wolf (1995) and The Savage Dragon #28 (collected in Savage Dragon Vol. 7: A Talk With God). He also briefly appears in the series Mars Attacks The Image Universe. He appears on a TV screen on the Frostbite version of the cover to DV8 #1. A Maxx story also appeared in Gay Comics. [edit] MerchandiseMcFarlane Toys released a Maxx figure (packaged with Isz figures) as part of its Spawn line. Shocker Toys has released one The Maxx mini action figure as well as a larger, fully articulated 8 inch figure for their Indie Spotlight line of figures. An adventure for the obscure Heroes & Heroines role-playing game was released using The Maxx characters and setting. [edit] TV series
The comic book series was adapted into an animated series as part of the MTV program Oddities. It covered Darker Image #1, The Maxx #1/2, and issues #1-11 of the regular series, depicting the introduction of Julie, the original Maxx, Mr. Gone, and, later, Sarah. The series included few of the revelations of the characters' origins, however, and did not describe the interconnections between them. The animation frequently changes styles. In one scene, characters may be rendered in detail but in the next, they may be simplified and cartoonish. Often this is done to show a change in perspective. CGI and even live-action are sometimes integrated in with the hand-drawn animation. Critics such as Richard Matthes have noted how much of the animation is based directly on panels from the comic.[4] A VHS tape was released in 1996 as part of the "MTV Oddities" line as the "original series" combining 12 of the episodes into a single "feature length" film. However, it is incomplete due to the absence of episode 8 (possibly due to time limitation of the VHS format). The entire series was released on VHS in the U.K. under MTV's "Press Play" range. In 2009, MTV.com released all 13 episodes on their website for public viewing. The complete series was released on December 17, 2009 exclusively as a DVD-R title available just in Amazon.com, as a "CreateSpace" program of "Burn-On-Demand" DVDs. The 2-disc set includes all 13 episodes plus interviews with creator Sam Kieth & director Gregg Vanzo, and audio commentary on all episodes. [edit] Voice actors
[edit] MTV Crossover
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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