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| “ | Look, Maxx, that freak nearly killed us. And just because you imagine you have a rabbit's head in the Outback is certainly no reason to fear you might actually have one here. It's so classic, Maxx. You see yourself as some jungle avenger because in your real life you're powerless. And I can't blame you. We all need some place to go away to; some place we can be who we should have been instead of who we are; some safe place where we can escape reality. Hide. I know there are things to hide from. | „ |
| ~ Julie counseling The Maxx |
Julie Winters is the deuteragonist in the comic book series and the MTV animated series The Maxx. She is a kind, troubled freelance social worker who looks out for the Maxx, whom she believes to be a mentally ill homeless man. She is unaware that in The Outback, an alternate dimension that resembles prehistoric Australia, The Maxx is a powerful warrior, and she is The Leopard Queen, an Amazonian warrior goddess.
In the animated series, she is voiced by Glynnis Talken.
Character evolution[]
Julie tries to come to terms with her past
The series reveals that Julie has always been able to see and enter the Outback, but is unaware that it is real. As a child, she had her first experience with death and trauma when she found a rabbit that had been hit by a car and took it home with her. The mortally injured animal scratched at the floor with its wounded leg, waking her parents. When her weak-willed father could not deal with the situation, her mother put the rabbit out of its misery with a shovel.
She also has a connection to the series' main villain, Mr. Gone, a serial rapist with supernatural powers; as a child, she knew him as "Uncle Artie," a friend of her father's who knew that both she and her mother could see into the Outback.
Years later, as a college student, Julie was beaten, raped, and left for dead by a hitchhiker she picked up. The trauma drove Julie deep inside of herself, and she unconsciously enters the Outback to become the Leopard Queen - a fearless, invincible warrior - as a way of numbing her pain.
One night, on her way home from work, Julie accidently hit a man with her car. In shock, Julie dragged him into an alley and hid his body under a pile of garbage and debris. This act caused her psyche to create a schism in reality, with a portal to Julie's spirit realm opening up in the alley. As Julie's "spirit animal" from her Outback attempted to cross over into the physical world to help her, it merged with the man in the alley. A lampshade over his head became a mask, and the man emerged as the Maxx.
The Maxx is completely unaware of his life before Julie, and has no memory of the incident that had occurred in the alley. Maxx believes himself to be a superhero and feels compelled to seek out Julie and protect her. Julie, of course, fails to recognize the giant, purple masked man as the individual she had run over that rainy night, and also feels drawn to help him in her capacity as a social worker; bailing him out of jail on numerous occasions and often giving him a place to stay for the night.
History[]
Maxx and Julie
At the same time, a serial rapist calling himself Mr. Gone begins victimizing women in the city. Julie receives phone calls from Gone, with him bragging about his crimes and informing Julie that he is coming for her. Julie dismissed the calls as a prank or the delusions of a mentally ill client (an occupational hazard for someone in her position), and initially fails to take him seriously. Gone, an accomplished sorcerer with extraordinary powers, is well aware of Julie's outback and Maxx's place in that realm, and clashed with The Maxx. Mr. Gone narrowly escapes his encounter with Maxx and, aided by a herd of Isz, the Outback's main predators and his personal servants, kidnaps Julie from her apartment.
Mr. Gone takes Julie to his lair, an abandoned rubber factory, and binds her to the wall. Julie regains consciousness and found herself dressed in revealing lingerie, with Gone gloating over her. Julie maintains her composure and keeps Gone talking while she formulates a plan of escape. Julie finds the jagged tooth of one of Gone's Isz laying on the floor beside her. She keeps Gone distracted and begins to saw through the leather straps that bind her. Mr. Gone attempts to inform Julie about her spiritual Outback, the reasons for its existence, and the true nature of the Maxx. Before Gone can reveal the whole truth, Julie breaks free, and uses the jagged tooth to cut off his head.
After that incident, Julie attempts to return to a normal life. She takes a day vacation to the lake with Glorie, a long-time friend and the mother of Sarah, a depressed teenager Julie counsels. It begins to rain and Julie and Glorie seeks refuge in Glorie's car. The vehicle would not start and the called a tow truck. Unfortunately, the truck was driven by a novice driver who backed up to the car with the tow bar too high and the winch goes through the car's windshield. Julie is knocked unconscious and has a vision of what she recognizes to be the Outback realm that Maxx had described to her. After that Julie discovers that her dreams and those of Maxx have begun to merge, with both experiencing adventures in the Outback spirit realm.
After one such shared experience, Julie returns to her apartment and notices a foul smell. After searching her home, Julie finds an odd package in the closet. The package had originally been discovered by Sarah and had spoken to her, claiming to be a bag of talking clay that could reveal the answers to all of her life's questions if she would just leave it in Julie's home. Sarah complied and, when Julie finally discovers the package, it is revealed to be the rotting, severed head of Mr. Gone, who is revealed to be Sarah's father, whom she believed had committed suicide when she was a small child. Mr. Gone attempts to get to Julie once again, but Maxx saves her. At the last moment, a white Isz under Mr. Gone's psychic control bursts into Julie's apartment and escapes with his head.
Julie decides that she had too many emotional issues of her own to be dealt with, and attempted to cut her ties with the Maxx. She told him goodbye and went on a cross country journey of self-discovery. Julie, under a great deal of stress from the recent issues with Gone and the past experiences she had blocked from her memory, creates an alternate persona named "Jill" who travels across the country, hooking up with random men, invariably stealing their cars in the night, and driving off to the next town to continue the cycle again.
After almost a year, Julie decides to return home to face her problems instead of running from them. A heavy session with her therapist is followed by a return to her old apartment building. There she finds Maxx and Sarah, incorrectly believing they had just had sex. They in turn are just as shocked to see that she is heavily pregnant.
Maxx feels betrayed by Julie for leaving, while Julie is angry at Maxx for passing judgement on her after her journey. They eventually reconcile, however. Sarah, having come into possession of a series of cassette tapes made for her by her father that revealed the truth about Julie and Maxx, attempts to help them set things right in this world and the spirit realm. By Sarah's suggestion, Maxx, or "Dave" as Sarah had began to call him, merges his consciousness with Julie's Outback realm and together, they travel to the place where everything began for them. After a journey that takes place in both the Outback and the physical world simultaneously, Julie and Maxx are able to learn the truth about what had happened, who and what Maxx and Dave really are. Julie is finally able to come to grips with everything that had taken place leading up to that time.
Julie gives birth to a son, Mark, and would, along with Dave, return to Sara's (as she had changed the spelling of her name) life 10 years later to help her face her father. Mr. Gone, having repented of his crimes and wanting a fresh start, uses his powers to open a dimensional wormhole that would allow him, Julie, Sarah, and Maxx to begin anew in different lives, with no memory of what had happened before. After saying their goodbyes, Julie and the Maxx enter the wormhole. Julie is reborn as an ordinary single mother to Mark, and finds herself becoming emotional at the sight of a plastic toy rabbit, a vestige of her connection to the Maxx.