News > FEATURED: The Maxx -- The Only Thing MTV Never Screwed Up
May 29, 2007
Written by Richard Matthes
MTV has a history of ruining television shows. The Real World, in its first few incarnations, was an amazing keyhole view into the lives of 20-somethings. Then, after years of being a cultural phenomenon, MTV downgraded it to “how many blurred asses and boobs can we see in 30 minutes?” MTV’s The State, an absurdist’s wet dream of a sketch comedy show, only lasted from 1993-1995 before being cancelled in its prime. Beavis and Butthead a show that, for all its faults, was able to capture the zeitgeist of teenagers in the Nirvana age, was ruined by the network after a child said they made him start a fire.
But The Maxx survived. It chugged along as part of MTV’s Oddities alongside The Head. The Maxx was a Sam Keith creation, originally penned as a comic for Image, the character The Maxx having been introduced in Darker Image #1. The Maxx is a purple-clad homeless man roughly the size of a VW Bug who happens to be a superhero. He protects Julie Winters, a social worker who he believes to be the Jungle Queen in another world known as “The Outback.” He has a psychic connection to her subconscious, and as such he will do anything to protect her. He is protecting her from Mr. Gone, a deviant psychopath who does his best to torment her physically as well as mentally. Also in the story is Sarah, who is Mr. Gone’s daughter. The comic deals with emotional repression, abandonment, and how to overcome past tragedies. The MTV version focuses on the first 11 issues of the comic book, and it plays those issues out over a 13-episode run, though one of those episodes is mostly a recap to get the audience up to speed.
The Intro to The Maxx:
The cartoon version of The Maxx follows the comics’ art almost line-for-line. Instead of attempting to cartoon-ify the dark tone of the comic books, the producers made the wise decision to use animation that is nearly identical to the panels within the Image comics. In addition, the animators did as little animating as possible. They don’t insert motion just to show that they can; instead, they hold on to shots, using movement only when absolutely necessary. Had they decided to go in a different direction, the cartoon would have turned out horribly. One has to imagine Sin City in Technicolor to understand how horrible things would have been had they tried to fully animate the show instead of basically copying the comics panel-for-panel.
The voice talent is also surprisingly good. The Maxx himself has a gruff voice, just as you’d picture him. Julie is somewhat sexy but also slightly ditzy, with a dash of skank thrown in for good measure. Sarah is the archetypal teenager, a voice that is hesitant, afraid of what she is becoming, but also defiant. Mr. Gone’s voice is the one that must be singled out for praise, however, because he plays the role with such a sickening smarminess that he is nearly charming in a devilish way. Since his narration is a key to understanding the story, it is of utmost importance that Mr. Gone’s voice be able to carry the show.
MTV’s version of The Maxx follows the plot of the comics so faithfully that you could watch the entire series and not have missed anything in books 1-11. While it did not always move sequentially—for example, The Maxx .5 is featured in episode 6, and the Darker Image preview is in another—it hits every major plot point. MTV’s version is able to draw all of the anger, betrayal, pain and repression from the comics and portray that in a way that is faithful to Keith’s vision. While it never explains that Julie was raped by Mr. Gone, or that she hit Maxx with her car (as it shouldn’t, since these are post-book 11 events), it does give a good idea of the emotional intensity that exists between the characters. It shows how much Julie and Maxx care for each other, and how that love serves as a bond that has to be severed in order to allow growth for either of them.
The one thing that is different between the comics and the MTV series, though, is the ending. If you haven’t seen the series and want to watch it, you might not want to read this. The final episode shows Julie leaving town in an attempt to heal herself. This is, of course, just like the books. But this dehiscence serves to break the spell that Julie has over Maxx, and in doing so he is able to again find himself as a separate entity outside of Julie. He loses his mask, takes off his purple suit, and becomes a regular guy again: he’s no longer a superhero. He is able to go to his own Outback, a place that exists only for him. This closure had to occur, presumably, because MTV only ordered 13 episodes. But I don’t fault them for it, because it is ultimately an ending that fits within the plot and thematic architecture that Keith has built. The Maxx is nothing without Julie until Julie leaves him; at that point, he is again allowed to be his own person, since he’s no longer psychically connected to her subconscious.
It’s sad that MTV has gone from a network that promoted artistically-challenging fringe shows to the home of The Real World-Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno. Or whatever the hell it’s called. Whereas MTV used to do things like show Aeon Flux as part of Liquid Television, it has now moved on to promoting only what is already popular. It doesn’t set trends anymore, it allows the trends to dictate what’s on the network. For one moment, though, back in the mid-90s, it was able to make something great without screwing it up.
The Maxx is not out on DVD yet, and given MTV’s recent history in amazing broadcasting choices, it probably won’t be out for a while. Now, you would surely NEVER be able to find it on Dailymotion. That couldn’t happen. And there aren’t any torrents of it, either. Especially not on demonoid. So, I guess we’ll have to wait for Viacom to stop suing Youtube for long enough to put a special edition DVD set together and sell it to us for 50 bucks.
