The Maxx, Issue #1
Story/Pencils/Inks: Sam Keith
Dialogue: Bill Messner-Loebs
Finishes: Jim Sinclair
Lettering: Mike Heisler
Color: Steve Oliff, Reuben Rude & Olyoptics
Logo: Chance Wolfe

Yesterday there was a really bad hail storm at my house. I’m a new homeowner so this was probably the first hail storm that has ever even remotely concerned me because if something happens, it’s my problem; not my mom’s problem, not my landlord’s problem, but my own. As such, I decided to watch my neighbor’s roof to make sure the wind and hail wasn’t ripping off any shingles. I figured if their house was fine, mine was probably fine too.

As I was watching the wind I saw my neighbor’s dog walking around in their back yard, hail beating down around her. Now, this particular dog lives across the street and I don’t know what her back yard looks like because of how the houses are situated. The only thing I could see was her black body cowered in a corner of the fence and I couldn’t tell if there was a dog house around or not. All I could tell was that she was alone, in a hail storm. Her owners were gone and she was all alone.

But what did I do? Did I call the humane society? No. Did I go check on her after the hail dissipated? No. I merely felt bad when I looked at my own dogs who were safe and warm and wrestling with each other. I can’t tell you why I didn’t do anything. Maybe I was just lazy. Maybe it was because I’d gone home from work early that day due to a bad migraine. I don’t know why I chose inaction. But I did.

“Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.” This quote is from the movie Boondock Saints, which if you’ve never seen it, you need to. This movie basically describes my own actions (or lack thereof). In the movie, good guys murder bad guys merely for the principle of it. I have to say, I feel ashamed of myself because I could’ve helped an innocent but I didn’t. And today, when I was reading the first issue of The Maxx, I started to wish I was a little more like the Maxx and a little less like me.

Besides his awesome, creepy mask, the Maxx is everything every good person wants to be…A badass homeless guy who kicks evil-doers’ asses and who can even get away with wearing a purple and yellow costume. Okay, maybe not every good person wants to specifically be homeless or purple, but every good, decent person should want to stand up against evil and do what’s right, right?

Now, the Maxx specifically tries to help out women who are about to be preyed upon by filthy, evil rapists. And while I sometimes object to the clichéd scenario of a dainty woman needing desperately to be saved by the shining, brawny hero-man, I’ll let that go for now. But only because the Maxx is so damn cool. I mean, if I’m going to be a little crazy, a little homeless (can you be a little homeless?) and believe that my dreamworld is actually overlapping into my real world…then hell yes, I’d be the Maxx.

Sadly, I’m no psuedo-superhero. I’m not even a hero. Next month, I’m marrying an Iraq war vet and to me, he’s a real hero. He was brave in the face of uncertainty and that’s something I am simply incapable of. Do I think he would’ve called the humane society if he’d been the one watching the hail yesterday instead of me? I don’t know. But I know that I was a coward. I don’t think it was intentional, I think I just had a migraine and didn’t want to deal with anything, let alone getting my neighbors pissed at me for calling the dog catcher.

Still, I didn’t do my duty as a responsible, dog-loving person. But it’s not like I’m the only one not acting responsibly. I look at the media, at the politicians slathered across our TVs each night like some kind of propaganda-cheese-spread. Some of them may be good people and I’d like to think that’s true so I’ll keep telling myself it is. But mostly, I wish the Maxx would come and make some sense of it all. I wish he could fuck up all the cheating spouses, and stick his huge, yellow claws into a few pimps. Unfortunately though, like his subconscious world, he’s just a figment of the imagination. He’s just a comic book character with impeccable principles.