The Maxx
Encyclopedia
The Maxx is an American comic book
series 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
, which stars a character of the same name, spawned an animated series that aired on the MTV
network. The first appearance of The Maxx was in Primer #5, published by Comico Comics
.
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, a "homeless man living in a box", while in the Outback he is the powerful 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 both of their stories.
, 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, assisted by the Isz, the Outback's main predators. The Maxx fights him in both The Outback and the real world.
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: 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 Mr. Gone.
s her, before finally leaving her 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 Jungle 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.
from her Outback. 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. He is visited by three special agents intent on arresting him, but he turns them into insects. Later, after reading a diary he leaves for her that reveals his tragic 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 a few 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 will stop seeking her out, but Mark doesn't believe him. Sara, Dave, Mark, Mr. Gone and Norbert band together to rescue Julie from Iago, who kidnaps her and takes her 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 being whom differently people perceive as a giant Isz, pink fairy or football. Mark has an odd dream about eccentric kidnappers. Each member of the group begins to disappear from reality to be reborn in another. Before Mr. Gone can disappear, the three agents who previously tried to arrest him, who now appear as humanoid beings with insect bug heads, return and kill him, as he expected. Mark is the last to disappear.
In Julie's outback, Mr. Gone is reunited with Sara, who is now a child again. The Maxx considers attacking him, but the Jungle Queen says to leave him be, because even evil deserves a place to rest.
In the new reality, Mr. Gone is a professor 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.
, 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 a dying 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 trauma
tic 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 she takes pity on.
black Isz when brought into the real world. They are stronger, faster, and have sharper teeth than white Isz. However in one instance, a single White Isz was able to cross over into the real world unchanged when there was a small punctured hole in an alley wall that directly connected both realities. The Black Isz proceeded to torture their less aggressive kin after its initial mission had been completed, showing the completely opposite degrees of aggression the two types exhibit. The Black Isz can assume different appearances depending on the clothes they wear, and their intent. If an Isz is dressed as an elderly woman, it appears as such to anyone who does not know already that it is an Isz. In the latter part of the series, Sara's Isz appear as pink, flying, eyeless fairie
s that explode if not kept in water.
:
Other issues include The Maxx #½, and a Gen¹³/The Maxx crossover.
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.
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.
The show was released once on VHS, though missing an episode, then later in 2009 it became available to stream on MTV.com though only to American audiences. On December 17th, 2009, The Maxx became available on DVD exclusively through Amazon.com's CreateSpace "Manufacture-on-Demand" program which contains every episode of the television show and also includes audio commentary on each episode plus interviews with Creator Sam Kieth & Director Gregg Vanzo.
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.
was released using The Maxx characters and setting.
American comic book
An American comic book is a small magazine originating in the United States and containing a narrative in the form of comics. Since 1975 the dimensions have standardized at 6 5/8" x 10 ¼" , down from 6 ¾" x 10 ¼" in the Silver Age, although larger formats appeared in the past...
series created by Sam Kieth
Sam Kieth
Sam Kieth is a New York Times best-selling American comic book writer and illustrator, best known as the creator of The Maxx and Zero Girl.-Comics career:...
and published originally monthly by Image Comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
and now collected in trade paperback collections from DC Comic's Wildstorm
Wildstorm
WildStorm Productions, or simply WildStorm, published American comic books. Originally an independent company established by Jim Lee and further expanded upon in subsequent years by other creators, WildStorm became a publishing imprint of DC Comics in 1999...
imprint. The comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
, which stars a character of the same name, spawned an animated series that aired on the MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
network. The first appearance of The Maxx was in Primer #5, published by Comico Comics
Comico Comics
Comico: The Comic Company was an American comic book publisher, headquartered in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Its best-known comics include the Robotech adaptations, the Jonny Quest continuation written by co-creator Doug Wildey, and Matt Wagner's Mage: The Hero Discovered and Grendel...
.
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, a "homeless man living in a box", while in the Outback he is the powerful 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 both of their stories.
Main story arc
Mr. GoneMister Gone
Mr. Gone is a fictional character in Sam Kieth and William Messner-Loebs' comic book series The Maxx.-Character overview:Mr. Gone is shrouded in mystery, and his history and identity are never fully revealed until very late in the series...
, a serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
and rapist
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
with a telepathic
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
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, assisted by the Isz, the Outback's main predators. The Maxx fights him in both The Outback and the real world.
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: 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
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
helped shape Julie's Outback. As Julie begins healing herself and The Outback, the series follows Sarah, a depressed
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
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 Mr. Gone.
Backstory
The backstories of several characters are revealed midway through the series. While in college, Julie stops her car to help a man in the street who beats and rapeRape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
s her, before finally leaving her to die. To cope
Coping (psychology)
Coping has been defined in psychological terms by Susan Folkman and Richard Lazarus as "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing" or "exceeding the resources of the person".Coping is thus expending...
, she hides in what is referred to as her 'Outback' (a primeval landscape situated entirely in her subconscious
Subconscious
The term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a definition-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings....
, where she has control). In The Outback, she becomes "The Jungle 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.
Second storyline
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 Iago, a giant, murderous banana slugBanana slug
Banana slug is a common name for three species of air-breathing land slug in the genus Ariolimax. These slugs are often yellow in color and are sometimes spotted with brown like a ripe banana....
from her Outback. 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. He is visited by three special agents intent on arresting him, but he turns them into insects. Later, after reading a diary he leaves for her that reveals his tragic origin story
Origin story
In comic book terminology, an origin story is an account or back-story revealing how a character or team gained their superpowers and/or the circumstances under which they became superheroes or supervillains....
, 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 a few 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 will stop seeking her out, but Mark doesn't believe him. Sara, Dave, Mark, Mr. Gone and Norbert band together to rescue Julie from Iago, who kidnaps her and takes her 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 being whom differently people perceive as a giant Isz, pink fairy or football. Mark has an odd dream about eccentric kidnappers. Each member of the group begins to disappear from reality to be reborn in another. Before Mr. Gone can disappear, the three agents who previously tried to arrest him, who now appear as humanoid beings with insect bug heads, return and kill him, as he expected. Mark is the last to disappear.
In Julie's outback, Mr. Gone is reunited with Sara, who is now a child again. The Maxx considers attacking him, but the Jungle Queen says to leave him be, because even evil deserves a place to rest.
In the new reality, Mr. Gone is a professor 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.
Spirit animals
One of the dominant concepts of The Maxx is that every human being has a spirit animalTotem
A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...
, 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 a dying 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 trauma
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...
tic 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 she takes pity on.
Isz
The main inhabitants of The Outback, this Isz are small, eyeless beings with egg-shaped bodies, arms and legs, about as large as housecats. The omnivorous white Isz of the Outback become cannibalisticCannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
black Isz when brought into the real world. They are stronger, faster, and have sharper teeth than white Isz. However in one instance, a single White Isz was able to cross over into the real world unchanged when there was a small punctured hole in an alley wall that directly connected both realities. The Black Isz proceeded to torture their less aggressive kin after its initial mission had been completed, showing the completely opposite degrees of aggression the two types exhibit. The Black Isz can assume different appearances depending on the clothes they wear, and their intent. If an Isz is dressed as an elderly woman, it appears as such to anyone who does not know already that it is an Isz. In the latter part of the series, Sara's Isz appear as pink, flying, eyeless fairie
Fairy
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
s that explode if not kept in water.
Collected editions
The comics have been collected into a number of trade paperbacksTrade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
:
- The Maxx Book 1: Issues #1–6, ISBN 1-4012-0124-5
- The Maxx Book 2: Issues #7–13, Darker Image #1 ISBN 1-4012-0280-2
- The Maxx Book 3: Issues #14–20 ISBN 1-4012-0298-5
- The Maxx Book 4: Issues #21–27 ISBN 1-4012-0613-1
- The Maxx Book 5: Issues #28–35 ISBN 1-4012-0621-2
- The Maxx Book 6: Collects the spin-off series Friends of Maxx ISBN 1-4012-0946-7
Other issues include The Maxx #½, and a Gen¹³/The Maxx crossover.
Cameos
The Maxx has made cameo appearances in the graphic novel Popbot (which Kieth 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 seriesLimited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....
Altered Image, the Image mini series Blood Wolf (1995) and The Savage Dragon
Savage Dragon
Savage Dragon is an ongoing American comic book series created by Erik Larsen, published by Image Comics and taking place in the Image Universe. The comic features the adventures of a superheroic police officer named the 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
DV8
DV8 is a comic book published by Wildstorm. The series revolves around the lives of a group of Gen-Active people , initially living in New York under the supervision of Ivana Baiul, who sends them on life-threatening black ops assignments.-Publication history:The series lasted 32 issues, and was a...
#1. A Maxx story also appeared in Gay Comics.
TV series
The comic book series was adapted into an animated series as part of the MTVMTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
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
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
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.
The show was released once on VHS, though missing an episode, then later in 2009 it became available to stream on MTV.com though only to American audiences. On December 17th, 2009, The Maxx became available on DVD exclusively through Amazon.com's CreateSpace "Manufacture-on-Demand" program which contains every episode of the television show and also includes audio commentary on each episode plus interviews with Creator Sam Kieth & Director Gregg Vanzo.
Voice actors
- Michael Haley as The Maxx
- Glynnis TalkenGlynnis Talken CampbellGlynnis Talken Campbell is a romance author, composer, musician and voiceover artist, and is married to bass guitarist Richard Campbell. Glynnis Campbell studied music at California State University, Chico...
as Julie, Gloriee - Amy Danles as Sarah/Sara
- Barry StiglerBarry StiglerBarry Stigler was an American voice actor. In his anime voice work, he often used the pseudonym Gil Starberry, which is an anagram of his name. Little is known about his personal life, including his cause of death....
as Mr. Gone
Action figures
McFarlane ToysMcFarlane Toys
McFarlane Toys, a subsidiary of Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc., is a company started by Todd McFarlane that makes highly detailed models of characters from movies, comics, musicians, video games, and sport figures...
released a Maxx figure (packaged with Isz figures) as part of its Spawn
Spawn (comics)
Spawn is a fictional comic book superhero who appears in a monthly comic book of the same name published by Image Comics. Created by writer/artist Todd McFarlane, Spawn first appeared in Spawn #1...
line. Shocker Toys
Shocker Toys
Shocker Toys is a company that manufactures limited release toys and collectible products based on comic book and cartoon characters, as well as original creations. Founded in 1998, the company is currently run by Geoff Beckett Jr. and Lance Buttiglieri, and is based in Ridgewood, New...
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.
Role-playing game
An adventure for the obscure & Heroines role-playing gameRole-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
was released using The Maxx characters and setting.