"Toys, gentlemen. Toys are the essence of your mission today. Today being sometime in, let's say 1985, that sounds about right, it's 1985 and you have to come up with a new toy line. A new BOY toy line. For obvious, Joe-related reasons we can't do soldiers. Superheroes, they're all spoken for. Animal fantasy hero people? Yeah, somebody's doing those already. Vehicles that transform into things, again, somebody beat us to that punch. Since this leaves us with basically nothing, what we're going to have to do is to somehow combine super heroes, soldiers, vehicles, and animals into some sort of far out fantasy scenario that will (a) provide children with hours of creative, wonder-packed play value and (b) not get us sued. And of course (c) have a comic book tie in. So let's see what you've got!"


Here we have it, the fruit of their intellectual labor, from Marvel's short-lived children's Star series. Why didn't this absolute confusing nightmare catch on with children? Because it's an absolute confusing nightmare. Animax was a toy line from Schaper, best known for Cooties - the toy, not the infestation - and Tobor, which is "robot" spelled backwards. Schaper isn't known for Animax because Animax, which looks like what happens when a kid overdoses on cough syrup and passes out on a pile of Superman comics while watching the killer truck movie "Maximum Overdrive," completely failed to have any impact whatsoever upon the toy merchandising, retailing, purchasing and with-playing environment of the nation. And for that we can only thank the impeccable taste of the American public, which is not a sentence one normally can write.

but anyway! Let's see where this weird animal-devil-hot rod ride is going.


These are the Days Of The Animax, days where Motor Mutants ambush Animax, which also appear to be mutants, I am not going to lie. What else do you call a lion with a giant V-8 engine embedded in its back? Abomination? Crime against nature? Repellent mockery of creation itself? All those things?


These hideous mutants, all S. Clay Wilson-inspired beasts driving their own animal-automotive hybrids, are, let's remember, characters from a children's toy line that was meant to be displayed in the aisles of malls and shopping centers, so that America's parents could say "there is no way in hell I will ever have these things in our home." Let's keep this in mind.


My goal in life is to drive a vehicle that's some sort of rhino-monster truck while wearing a helmet shaped like a rhino, so that my entire identity will be focused entirely upon my rhino-ness


He's bad. Real bad. As is everything else here. All bad.


Peoplopolis (pronounced "pee-o-plop-olis") is defended by the Archie McPhee Animal-Head Mask Champions. I mean, exciting toy heroes your children will love!


Now that Max Action, yes his name is Max Action, well, Max Action is dead and that means all of humanity is doomed, because humanity put its survival into the hands of one single person and now we're thinking maybe humanity should have known this was a bad idea, maybe humanity earned this one.


Sure, it's a touching moment as the mortally wounded and physically impossible lion-headed V-8 funny car/hot rod weeps lion/V-8 tears over the body of his psychically linked human master, before it shuffles off to the Dragway Of Doom which is where all Animax beasts go when they die, it's just unbearable sadness here for the Schaper executives, watching their yearly bonus vanish before their eyes.


You know, when you sit down with kids and watch them and their wonderful imaginations at play, one thing you never see is a scene where the dead body of their hero is placed in the cargo hold of an elephant-headed semi-truck.


The terrifying world of the future will be filled with mutant marauders, death, destruction, havoc, tragedy, and fantastically well-maintained limited access highways!


Here's a helpful tip for creators - forestall obvious insults by including those insults in your character's names. Sure, he's gross! He's supposed to be gross! His name is Gross Out!


"Road Runt, Take Your Path Piggy," a self-help guide for those among us who find ourselves journeying down life's highways, in spite of our height-challenged status.


Meanwhile in the great city of Pee Oh Plop Olis, things like height restrictions, shadow legislation, and traffic safety guardrails and barriers are a thing of the past!


When I die, bury me at the Museum Of Transportation which hopefully is located near an old oak tree. So it'll rhyme.


It's just appalling to see how our Animax hero people are so ignorant of basic courtesy that they don't even know enough to remove their giant tiger-head helmets when speaking to ladies. I guess this really is a wild, lawless future!


How best to deal with the threat of the motor mutants who cross over from the "Niteside" which is accessed by use of the bridge which spans the "Chasm Of Doom" and is also near the "Rest Stop Of Horror" and the "Toll Booth Of Exact Change?" I dunno guys, it's one bridge, maybe blow it up, boom, problem solved.


Anything I can say about the fast and furious fighting of Rhino Rammer is going to be overshadowed by their nipple chains, which I just noticed. Put some giant nipple chains on your elephant-head heroes there Schaper, that's a sure-fire recipe for success


Time to clear the museum, which used to be just for transportation and is now the Max Action Corpse Display and World-Building Exposition Dump Archive. And yes! That girl's name is "Heater." It is not a typo!


Notice how when Mom is asked if she knows the origin of the Animax, she doesn't say yes or no, she's all I'LL DIE BEFORE I TELL. It's OK to just say you don't know, all right?


Like so many other ultimate tests and culmination of lifetime plans, this ends with somebody being naked and passed out cold.


What good is a clone if he doesn't have the mind of Max Action, the heroic leader of the Animax who we first see being murdered because he fell into a trap? I dunno. Maybe there are better minds out there, I'm just saying.


The sanctity of Peoplopolis has been desecrated by Motor Mutants who seek to steal the body of Max Factor - I mean, Max Power... no, Max ACTION, they want to steal his body and dump it into what I can only assume is some extremely specific and important dust.


How much of Max's brain information will be left to transfer over to the clone brain? Well, let's see, that's eight or ten hours of zero blood flow to the cranium, I'm thinking you might need to start over from zero. Then again I don't have a machine that goes SHRRRAAKKKKKKKKT


What's going on here? Two Max Actions? Two Maxes Action? Max Two Actions?


The start of a fascinating philosophical conversation about the nature of being itself is interrupted by Motor Mutants, a surprisingly common problem for many of our greatest philosophers!


Those Motor Mutants have come to throw some nets, grab some girls, and look for corpses. Just another fun weekend in the city!


It's great to see this reference to Professor Sthrok Klachtt, who was influential in developing techniques in dissociating long-chain polymers with applications of heat or light into free radicals. Kind of a deep cut there, comic!


Heater Delight, meet Lion Laser. Lion Laser, meet Heater Delight.


There's only one way to convince everyone that the Max Action clone is the real Action Max Action, and that's Jungle Max, the lion-headed nitro-burning funny car that is even at this very moment heading for the Dragway Of Doom which is just beyond the Dirt Track Of Degradation, which you reach via the Freeway Of Fear, take the Exit Of Enragement and hang a left onto the Offramp Of Obscurity, you know, it's past where the Dunkin' Donuts Of Disaster is, next to where the Waffle House Of Wickedness used to be, before they tore it down to build the... okay, I'll stop now.


You know for sure that a girl is interested in you when she gives you her mother's special high grade animal/motor vehicle fuel and sealant.


Oh good, the city of Pee-plop-itis has distant early warning sensors that can detect any approaching Motor Mutant Maniacs, except when they can't, for reasons of plot.


Yeah guys, maybe the amazing walls of your astonishing city are less than useless because they have these giant open gates that are open all the time until somebody happens to remember to close them.


This is the part where the toy-etic nature of this property is highlighted as the narrative attempts to somehow emulate the play activity these toys are meant to be utilized for. As opposed to how kids actually play with toys, which can involve everything from big piles of backyard dirt, to Dad's tools, tennis rackets, and somebody's forgotten cigarette lighter.


Note from Schaper executives - please ensure your exciting action adventure Animax comic features the very important "opening door" sequence so integral to the Animax play philosophy.


Finally a comic book gives readers what they really want, which is two animal-masked men riding a tiger-truck that's being catapulted over an invading army of pig-hog machine-beasts.


Why is it that Max Action has the clone body with the new brain, but that Heater here, who is ostensibly a normal human person, happens to be the one with the "recent head injury" speech cadence?


Gun it, you scum, it's time to bring the darkness and the storm to the final splash page of this issue, which delivers the stunning shock ending twist reveal that this was written by comics pro Walt Simonson, the guy who... Yeah, he did turn Thor into a frog once. So there's that. Was the power of Walt and the nipple-chains of our Animax heroes enough to turn Schaper into the roaring lion-truck of the toy industry? No sir. Schaper got sold to Tyco, more or less concurrently with the release of the Animax line. One of the first things Tyco did was to send Max Action and Jungle Max and Heater straight to the Dragway Of Doom/animal shelter/junkyard. Schaper's Cooties are still being made by Milton Bradley, but the only place you'll find Max Action is in a toy collector's eBay auction, or right here, at Stupid Comics!

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