The Thirteenth Floor (comic strip)
Encyclopedia
The Thirteenth Floor was a story originally published in the British
horror
comic
Scream!
from March 24, 1984, and also in Eagle
when Scream! was absorbed into it. It was written by "Ian Holland", a combined pseudonym of Alan Grant and John Wagner
, and drawn by José Ortiz
.
Originally, The Thirteenth Floor had a horror
theme, like other Scream! strips. It was set in a tower block
called Maxwell Tower, controlled by an experimental sentient
computer
called Max.
reminiscent of the HAL 9000
; programmed to love and protect his tenants, he could remorselessly kill anyone who threatened or even just annoyed them. In effect Max was a psychopath with no empathy towards anyone who was not a tenant.
Maxwell Tower had been built without a thirteenth floor
(going straight from 12 to 14) for reasons of superstition
; however due to a faulty Integrated Functions (I.F.) module, Max had the inexplicable ability to 'create' a 13th floor of his own, containing anything he desired, accessible from the building's lifts. Whilst he could produce any range of idyllic, surreal or mundane environments, Max seemed to have a personal taste for the horrific. In this sense The Thirteenth Floor seemed to be inspired by the Eagle strip The House of Daemon
.
The 13th floor originally appeared to be a virtual reality
, similar to the Holodeck
concept in Star Trek
which it preceded - for example, when a burglar shot a zombie
with his gun, the lift's walls became riddled with bullet holes. However, later in the story the 13th floor was portrayed as somehow as an extension of Max himself - not only were lifts empty when people were 'on' the 13th Floor, if Max was switched off, they were 'lost'.
Max used his 13th floor to punish and torture anybody he felt deserved such treatment - often creating such fear and distress that they suffered a fatal heart attack
or were driven insane. Typically, Max would notice a burglar, vandal or con-man through one of the many viewscreens, lure them into the lift, and take them to the 13th floor. Often their experience would contain subtle irony; for example a con-man claiming to be a pest controller would be chased by giant rats, or incompetent repairmen would be stuck in a burning facsimile of Maxwell Tower, in which all the doors and windows were jammed.
As the story progressed, Max's 'controller' Jerry Knight and local police became suspicious, so Max hypnotized a resident named Bert Runch and directed him to dispose of their corpses. After Jerry discovered the 13th Floor, Max hypnotised Jerry (for reasons including gaining Jerry’s tolerance of the 13th Floor’s continued existence), effectively reversing the role of controller and controlled. A local policeman, Sgt Ingram, discovered Max's actions and shut Max down. At this point Runch was on the 13th Floor and disappeared along with the floor. Jerry then switched Max back on and assisted in imprisoning Ingram on the 13th Floor before Ingram could tell anyone of the 13th Floor’s secrets.
The 13th Floor was finally discovered by others in Ingram's police department and Max was de-activated (losing Ingram who was 'inside' him), re-programmed and installed to run Pringles Department Store. However, the computer's new controller, Gwyn, inadvertently triggered a backup mechanism, re-activating Max's sentience, and before long he had deliberately burnt out his I.F. module and re-created the 13th Floor, this time accessible via the top of an escalator
. Jerry never again appeared in the story after Max's move from Maxwell Tower.
By this point, the strip had been running in Eagle for some time, and the horror theme had been dropped in favour of more generic action-oriented stories. Max's character had been humanised, and he now saw anybody as a potential Pringle's customer, and thus a 'tenant' deserving of his care, rather than of punishment. Max uncovered secret activity by MI5
within the store, and programmed to be a patriotic computer, offered the 13th floor's services to MI5
for purposes such as interrogation, and even created a pocket-size version of himself, Minimax, to go on spy
missions accompanied by the (hypnotized) local MI5 director, Auberon Hedges.
Max eventually became homesick and used his government contacts to arrange a return to Maxwell Tower, where he yet again resumed punishing people he felt harmed his tenants. Eventually, many of the building's tenants suffered a wave of madness resulting from paint fumes in the building affecting their minds and took to setting the block on fire, resulting in the block burning down and the strip ending. Max was afterwards supposedly installed in the King's Reach Tower
headquarters of the Eagle comic. He was then portrayed as the comic's editor, with few 13th floor references, until the comic's relaunch in 1990.
In 2007 Hibernia Books in Ireland published a collection of the first 11 episodes of Max's adventures, the first appearance of Max since Eagle ceased publication.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
comic
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
Scream!
Scream!
Scream! was a British weekly comic anthology with a horror theme, running from March 24, 1984 until 30 June 1984, published by IPC Magazines....
from March 24, 1984, and also in Eagle
Eagle (comic)
Eagle was a seminal British children's comic, first published from 1950 to 1969, and then in a relaunched format from 1982 to 1994. It was founded by Marcus Morris, an Anglican vicar from Lancashire. Morris edited a parish magazine called The Anvil, but felt that the church was not communicating...
when Scream! was absorbed into it. It was written by "Ian Holland", a combined pseudonym of Alan Grant and John Wagner
John Wagner
John Wagner is a comics writer who was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 and moved to Scotland as a boy. Alongside Pat Mills, Wagner was responsible for revitalising British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has continued to be a leading light in British comics ever since.He is best known for his work on...
, and drawn by José Ortiz
José Ortiz (comics)
José Ortiz Moya is a Spanish comics artist, best known for several collaborations with Antonio Segura, such as the series Hombre.-Biography:...
.
Originally, The Thirteenth Floor had a horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
theme, like other Scream! strips. It was set in a tower block
Tower block
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, office tower, apartment block, or block of flats, is a tall building or structure used as a residential and/or office building...
called Maxwell Tower, controlled by an experimental sentient
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
called Max.
Plot
Max himself narrated the strip, and as befitting a computerised custodian of hundreds of people, was quite chatty and light-hearted. However, he was also portrayed as having a programming flawSoftware bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
reminiscent of the HAL 9000
HAL 9000
HAL 9000 is the antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction Space Odyssey saga. HAL is an artificial intelligence that interacts with the astronaut crew of the Discovery One spacecraft, usually represented as a red television-camera eye found throughout the ship...
; programmed to love and protect his tenants, he could remorselessly kill anyone who threatened or even just annoyed them. In effect Max was a psychopath with no empathy towards anyone who was not a tenant.
Maxwell Tower had been built without a thirteenth floor
Thirteenth floor
Thirteenth floor is a designation of a level of a multi-level building that is often omitted in countries where the number is considered unlucky...
(going straight from 12 to 14) for reasons of superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
; however due to a faulty Integrated Functions (I.F.) module, Max had the inexplicable ability to 'create' a 13th floor of his own, containing anything he desired, accessible from the building's lifts. Whilst he could produce any range of idyllic, surreal or mundane environments, Max seemed to have a personal taste for the horrific. In this sense The Thirteenth Floor seemed to be inspired by the Eagle strip The House of Daemon
The House of Daemon
The House of Daemon was a comic strip published in the British comic book Eagle, from issue 25 to issue 47 . It was written by Alan Grant and John Wagner, and drawn by José Ortiz....
.
The 13th floor originally appeared to be a virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
, similar to the Holodeck
Holodeck
A holodeck, in the fictional Star Trek universe, is a simulated reality facility located on starships and starbases. The first use of a "holodeck" by that name in the Star Trek universe was in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint", although a conceptually...
concept in Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
which it preceded - for example, when a burglar shot a zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
with his gun, the lift's walls became riddled with bullet holes. However, later in the story the 13th floor was portrayed as somehow as an extension of Max himself - not only were lifts empty when people were 'on' the 13th Floor, if Max was switched off, they were 'lost'.
Max used his 13th floor to punish and torture anybody he felt deserved such treatment - often creating such fear and distress that they suffered a fatal heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
or were driven insane. Typically, Max would notice a burglar, vandal or con-man through one of the many viewscreens, lure them into the lift, and take them to the 13th floor. Often their experience would contain subtle irony; for example a con-man claiming to be a pest controller would be chased by giant rats, or incompetent repairmen would be stuck in a burning facsimile of Maxwell Tower, in which all the doors and windows were jammed.
As the story progressed, Max's 'controller' Jerry Knight and local police became suspicious, so Max hypnotized a resident named Bert Runch and directed him to dispose of their corpses. After Jerry discovered the 13th Floor, Max hypnotised Jerry (for reasons including gaining Jerry’s tolerance of the 13th Floor’s continued existence), effectively reversing the role of controller and controlled. A local policeman, Sgt Ingram, discovered Max's actions and shut Max down. At this point Runch was on the 13th Floor and disappeared along with the floor. Jerry then switched Max back on and assisted in imprisoning Ingram on the 13th Floor before Ingram could tell anyone of the 13th Floor’s secrets.
The 13th Floor was finally discovered by others in Ingram's police department and Max was de-activated (losing Ingram who was 'inside' him), re-programmed and installed to run Pringles Department Store. However, the computer's new controller, Gwyn, inadvertently triggered a backup mechanism, re-activating Max's sentience, and before long he had deliberately burnt out his I.F. module and re-created the 13th Floor, this time accessible via the top of an escalator
Escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase – a conveyor transport device for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.Escalators are used around the...
. Jerry never again appeared in the story after Max's move from Maxwell Tower.
By this point, the strip had been running in Eagle for some time, and the horror theme had been dropped in favour of more generic action-oriented stories. Max's character had been humanised, and he now saw anybody as a potential Pringle's customer, and thus a 'tenant' deserving of his care, rather than of punishment. Max uncovered secret activity by MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
within the store, and programmed to be a patriotic computer, offered the 13th floor's services to MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
for purposes such as interrogation, and even created a pocket-size version of himself, Minimax, to go on spy
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
missions accompanied by the (hypnotized) local MI5 director, Auberon Hedges.
Max eventually became homesick and used his government contacts to arrange a return to Maxwell Tower, where he yet again resumed punishing people he felt harmed his tenants. Eventually, many of the building's tenants suffered a wave of madness resulting from paint fumes in the building affecting their minds and took to setting the block on fire, resulting in the block burning down and the strip ending. Max was afterwards supposedly installed in the King's Reach Tower
King's Reach Tower
King's Reach Tower is a high-rise office building in Stamford Street, Southwark, London.It is a thirty-one storey structure high and was completed in 1972. It was designed by the renowned architect Sir Richard Seifert and built by John Laing Construction Limited. There are plans for a complete...
headquarters of the Eagle comic. He was then portrayed as the comic's editor, with few 13th floor references, until the comic's relaunch in 1990.
In 2007 Hibernia Books in Ireland published a collection of the first 11 episodes of Max's adventures, the first appearance of Max since Eagle ceased publication.