Max is one of the two titular characters of the Sam & Max franchise.
Contents
Appearance
Max is a fuzzy white 3 foot tall "hyperkinetic rabbity thing". His appearance is generally cute and cuddly, but contrasted by his enormous sharp-toothed grin, which remains plastered on his melon-like head at almost all times. He has big feet and long ears that always stay upright, as well as a pair of glaring beady dark brown eyes.
Personality and Traits
Max retains few characteristics consistent with a rabbit, with permanently rigid ears set in an excited posture and a huge jaw normally stuck in a crazed grin. Unhinged, uninhibited and near psychotic, Max enjoys violence and tends to prefer the aggressive way of solving problems, seeing the world as little more than a vessel for his "pinball-like stream of consciousness". This creates a seeming disregard for self-preservation; Max will revel in dangerous situations with little impression that he understands the risks he faces. As a result, Max is usually enthusiastic to engage in any activity, including being used by Sam as a cable cutter or an impromptu bludgeon. Despite this, Max possesses a sharp mind and an observational nature, and enjoys interpreting new experiences in as unpredictable a manner as possible. However, Max has a distaste for long stories and occasionally loses focus during lengthy scenes of plot exposition; by his own admission, Max possesses a particularly short attention span. Despite his seemingly heartless personality, he believes strongly in protecting Sam. However, Max can still act violently towards his friend, stating that when he dies he will take Sam with him. Moreover, Max is extremely possessive of Sam and their status as partners and best friends.
Character Detail
Violent, impulsive and indulgent in the extreme, Max is the source of much of the franchise's unique humor. Max is an active member of the Freelance Police along with his long time partner and friend, Sam.
He often refers to himself as a lagomorph, though he also sometimes refers to himself as a rabbit. A rabbit is a type of lagomorph, so these are not mutually exclusive. He enjoys violence and prefers to solve problems aggressively. He has a slight distaste for the long stories, anecdotes, and sentences that Sam constantly spouts forth, often asking Sam and others not to use various words such as 'ensue' and 'acumen'. He shares Sam's enthusiasm in just about anything, especially if it involves large guns and trouble. He also has very poor hygiene, as he sometimes tastes his own belly button lint, and once had a large "suspicious growth" behind his ear. Sam has commented on his pungent bodily odors on more than one occasion. Both Sam and Max have also commented on the obscure fact that Max has a metal plate in his skull.
Max always carries a Luger around, and when asked where he keeps it usually responds with "None of your damn business.". He is fairly trigger-happy with it in the early comics, but this is rarely seen elsewhere. Like Sam, he's a lousy shot and never seen actually hitting anyone. Perhaps because of this, he prefers to get up close and simply leap at his foes and hurt them in whatever way he can come up with. This fails miserably about as often as it works; despite his boundless energy and love for violence, Max isn't particularly good at fighting.
His full name is either Maximilian (in Situation: Comedy and Abe Lincoln Must Die!) or Maxwell (Ruth calls him this in Christmas Bloody Christmas).
Although his eyes look the same color as most other characters (black slits), his is actually brown according to Sam.
As of Abe Lincoln Must Die!, Max is President of the United States of America. Between Beyond Time and Space and The Devil's Playhouse, Max was somehow re-elected.
In the end of Beyond the Alley of the Dolls, Max was transformed into a gigantic Elder God and began rampaging across New York. During the next episode, The City That Dares Not Sleep, a new side of Max was shown. He turned out to be capable of self-sacrifice, as shown when he told Sam and Papierwaite to help Sybil out of him so she could give birth rather than saving him. In the end, his Super-Ego removed the tumor causing his behavior while Sam, Sybil and Papierwaite escaped through Max's nose. Unfortunately, a nuclear-armed Maimtron flew into Max's chest. He saved New York by teleporting away. In the end, Momma Bosco attempted to clone Max to life using a sample of his snot, but the DNA was "too weird" for the cloning machines to process it. Fortunately, after the credits, when Sam went to Battery Park to mourn Max, the time-travelling elevator from Chariots of the Dogs appeared behind him with a Max from the past, alive and well, inside it. He explains that his Sam also transformed into a huge monster and had to be blown up. After a moment of awkward silence, Sam and Max, reunited, embark on their new adventures together with a few cases in mind.
An alternate ending has Sam rest his hat on the ledge when suddenly the Time Elevator appears and opens revealing nobody inside. Upon closer inspection inside it, Sam discovers the past Max beside him also inspecting it. Max reprises his role in the first ending explaining that Sam in his time gained powers but had to be destroyed. Max failed to hide his joy at the destruction despite his words, causing the awkwardness to resume. Sam and Max then decide to get to embark on their new adventures and enter the Time Elevator, but not without Sam picking up his hat, signifying that this isn't the end of the Freelance Police after all. (That's gladly for sure.)
Personality
Max is feisty, funny, fun-loving, silly, childish, soft, reckless, impatient, annoying at times, dim-witted, destructive, and violent.
Relationships
Sam
Sam has been Max's best friend ever since their childhood. They attended high school together and later became untrained policemen, though it is unclear precisely when. They are incredibly close and will become tangibly uncomfortable when separated for any reason, both willing to delve into great lengths to protect each other. Max is known for showing his affection towards Sam in the form of violence, but he harbors no ill will towards him. According to many sources, they are married. They also appear to have been married multiple times.
Darla "The Geek" Gugenheek
Max serves the same questionable father-figure role to the Geek as Sam does. They seem to get along fairly well, oftentimes with The Geek being the more responsible of the two. The Geek seems to care about both Sam and Max quite a lot for taking her in, despite having to clean up after them almost constantly.
Gary
Bosco
Max and Bosco seem to get along well enough, but it is apparent that Max enjoys pestering Bosco. He and Sam go out of their way on many occasions to increase Bosco's paranoia for their own amusement.
Sybil Pandemik
Much like his relationship with Bosco, Max is a (questionably) friendly acquaintance of Sybil's. He enjoys seeing what her latest career path is, and oftentimes humors her latest career services alongside Sam. Sybil has expressed that Max seems "a bit improbable" and once implied that he was Sam's imaginary friend.
Jimmy Two-Teeth
Much like Sam, Max seems to tolerate Jimmy Two-teeth for the most part. They allow him to share their residence, but aren't afraid to get violent with him when there's a disagreement or they need something from him (i.e. the office phone in [./https://samandmax.fandom.com/wiki/Culture_Shock Culture Shock], or Coins in [./https://samandmax.fandom.com/wiki/Reality_2.0 Reality 2.0])
Philo Pennyworth
As his short-term co-star on Midtown Cowboys, Max did not seem to get too well acquainted with the overall uptight chicken. Because of Pennyworth's generally standoffish behavior, Max took to poking fun at him instead. He refers to him as "Mr. Featherly" outside of the context of the TV show, purely to bother him.
Sal
Grandpa Stinky
Girl Stinky
Agent Superball
Momma Bosco
In Chariots of the Dogs, Sam and Max travel to the 1960's and met her. Momma Bosco furiously asks Max if he has a problem with women and he replies that girls are a "huge waste of time". It made Momma Bosco quickly fall in love with Max. Despite not sharing any sort of romantic feelings towards her, he does become good friends with her, and admires her for punching Stinky in the face. To get Momma Bosco to fall out of love with him, they had to go back in time and make Max love women. Later on, after questioning him, he says that it will wear off.
Flint Paper
Max obviously admires Flint Paper in both the comics and the Telltale series. Max sees Flint's violent nature as something to aspire to be. In some ways, Flint is like Max without Sam, in that he is very unhinged and has nobody to hold him back. Max likes looking over into Flint's office to see what he's doing and is often amazed by what he finds.
Likes
- Sam
- The Geek
- Agent Superball
- The color orange
- Glazed McGuffins
- Cartoons
- Anything fun
- Antidepressants
- Hugh Bliss (formally)
- Momma Bosco
- Smiling
- Pain (of others and himself)
- Shooting stuff
- Burning stuff
- Cracking Sam up
- Harassing Sam
- Violence
- The Rubber Pants Commandos
- Cheese
- Lucky Charms
- Rice Krinkles
- Buddy Hackett
- Highway Surfing
- Cute babies
- Movies
- His Luger
- Toys
Dislikes
- Not having an inventory
- Having his brain stolen
- Being alone
- Being separated from Sam
- Frowning
- Cheese from a pressurized can
- Clowns
- Messing up
- Renaissance reenactment participants
- Girls (only romantically so)
- Long tedious explanations or stories
- Sam's lame songs
- Vampires
- The DeSoto getting stolen
- Hugh Bliss
- Auntie Alice
- Jack-in-the-Boxes
- Cats/Kittens
- Wimps
- Swiss Cheese
- Ventriloquist dummies
- Country Music (As stated after being hit into the "Dunk the Beast" in Hit the Road)
- Banang! (because it was getting annoying to him)
- Being called "Hello Kitty"
Relationships
Family
- Max (husband)
- Max's father (father)
- Max's mother (mother)
- Maximus (great-grandfather) †
- Alice (aunt)
- Geek (friend/adoptive daughter)
Allies
- Sam - partner/best friend
- The Commissioner (affiliate)
- Geek (friend/adoptive daughter)
- Flint Paper (co-worker)
- Sybil Pandemik (friend)
- Bosco (acquaintance)
Enemies
- Hugh Bliss
- General Skun-ka'pe
- Specs
- Peepers
- Whizzer
Trivia
- Max's appearance is similar to that of a white rabbit. He calls himself a lagomorph, so whether or not he actually is a rabbit is something only Max knows.
- Max's resting expression is a Cheshire Cat-like grin.
- Max's mouth can disappear when he's surprised, confused, or pondering.
- A hat referred to as "Max's Severed Head" was a limited time promotional item in the game Team Fortress 2 and was given to TF2 players as a reward for purchasing The Devil's Playhouse on Steam before April 26th, 2010.
- The weapon "Lugermorph" (based on Max's iconic firearm) and the item "License to Maim" (a badge with the logo of the Freelance Police) were also reward items within Team Fortress 2, and could be earned by defeating Max in Poker Night at the Inventory.
- A crude model of Max appeared as an easter egg in the Star Wars: Dark Forces video game series.
