Respect: Maximus the Mad!

"Why, oh why? Why, Maximus? Why did you do it? Why do you keep doing it? After all, I was doing so well. Less creepy, less tacky... helpful, on occasion... why must I always be the knife to your back? The Cain to your Abel?

"Except... it wasn't my voice that broke Attilan over and over. I didn't choose to turn our sacred crystals into a mutant murder machine. And it wasn't me who killed mommy and daddy...

"Oh, yes. I went there, King Blackagar. That's what I do. What I must do. That's my job. I'm the fool who says what the king won't hear. The specter at the feast. The funhouse mirror. Lord of Misrule...

"But most of all? I am my brother's keeper.

"That's why."

Maximus Boltagon is the younger brother of Black Bolt and prince of the Inhumans of Attilan. Raised in the shadow of his immensely powerful brother, Maximus gew up deeply resentful of Black Bolt and desired the throne for himself, leading him to make several attempts to take control - some of which even worked, at least for a while. Immensely intelligent and possessing fearsome mental powers, Maximus tends to oscillate wildly between being a thorn in Black Bolt's side and a valuable (but unstable) asset. While his enormous technical acumen earned him the title Maximus the Maker among his people, most know him better by his true epithet - Maximus the Mad.

Hover over a feat for the source.

Source Key

Handbook Entries

• Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe vol. 1
• Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe vol. 2
• Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update
• Dark Reign Files

Physicals

While Inhuman base physicals are generally slightly above those of humans, Maximus prefers to leave the physical fighting to others. He has people for that. Nonetheless, he occasionally gets dragged into a scrap.

Strength

• Beats a man to death with his bare hands
• Kills an Alpha Primitive with a sword
• Impales a man with his own spear
• Fights some mercenaries with a staff (and a legion of Alpha Primitives)
• Ambushes and tears apart a H.E.R.B.I.E. robot to fashion a disguise
• Stabs Lineage with a fork, killing the head manifested on his stomach
• Draws blood slapping Black Bolt
• Draws blood slamming Woz's head against the floor
• Shoves two men off a cliff
• Kicks out a vent
• Holds onto his cell bars as the building around him is blown away
• Fights the Sidera Maris alongside the rest of Namor's Cabal

Durability

• Unhurt by Medusa cratering him into a spaceship wall
• Wrestles with and takes a punch from Black Bolt
• Backhanded by a pissed off Black Bolt
• Punched in the face by Black Bolt
• Smacked in the face by Seeker
• Survives a blast from an unknown assailant who turns out to be Ultron, although it does knock him out
• Sent flying by a blast when Annihilus' Nega-Rod is split
• Briefly upset when Crystal sets his foot on fire
• Bashes his head against a stone wall
• Medusa smacks his head into a wall
• Blasted by Black Bolt
• Takes a word from Black Bolt, although the Illuminati take most of the hit (he shows up fine a few pages later)
• Gets shot, has his hands obliterated by Black Bolt's voice, and is dropped off a cliff in the Himalayas. He survives this with no real explanation and eventually mentions having robot hands
  • His robot hands allow him to safely interact with dangerous materials
• Keeps his cool after losing an arm

Agility

• Ducks under some machinery thrown by Medusa's hair

The Mental Mastery of Maximus

Upon exposure to the Terrigen Mists, each Inhuman develops their own unique superpower or mutation, and in Maximus' case, it's mind control. Unfortunately for Maximus, a purely mental power does not always pair well with a mind as unstable as his, and how potent his powers are - or, indeed, if he can use them at all - can vary as wildly as his sanity.

• Control - Maximus' most basic trick is directly taking control of someone.

  • Orders two guards to let him leave then kill each other
  • Messes with Gorgon and Karnak's coordination before forcing them to fight each other
  • Makes a woman slap someone
  • Has Triton try to kill Karnak
  • Has Ronan the Accusor turn his hammer on himself, although Crystal snaps him out of it before he follows through
  • Takes control of Reader and makes him use his power
  • Forces the Unspoken, a former Inhuman king, into a marriage with a fish monster
  • Takes control of a supercharged Unspoken and forces him to vent his power into space, leaving him helpless
  • While the other members of the Inhuman Royal Family have some resistance to his powers, he can easily control all the other Inhumans in Attilan at once
  • Sics the forces of Attilan on Black Bolt and the Avengers, although Black Bolt's voice brings them back to their senses
  • Takes control of the NuHumans and turns them on the original Inhuman Royal Family
  • Takes control of the Universal Inhuman Court and their attendants
  • Controls a club full of people and has them threaten suicide to force the authorities to let him go
  • Takes control of Black Bolt and turns him on Gorgon
  • Took control of Black Bolt and is implied to have held him prisoner for months
  • Has Black Bolt attack two Inhumans, killing one
  • Throws Black Bolt off his game with a dramatic revelation, takes control, and has him switch places with him in prison
  • Controls Medusa and Carthus' minds to get himself released from prison
  • Has someone under his control fall asleep
  • He can give a target control of individual body parts while keeping them otherwise enthralled
  • Maximus has stated that his control eventually wears off if he gets too far away from a target

• Telepathy - Reading a mind or communicating with it directly, Maximus is known to dabble in both.

  • Appears to telepathically speak to Woz
  • Messes with Quicksilver's thoughts, provoking him into stealing the Terrigen Mists
  • Forcefully pulls the Wizard's plans from his mind
  • Can tell that Medusa encountered Black Bolt while on the Astral Plane
  • Identifies five people while blindfolded before they speak
  • Used this to speak for Black Bolt back when they still got along
  • Uses it to check if someone's lying
  • Reads the mind of a spider
  • Can communicate with Lockjaw although that might just be because Lockjaw's pretty smart.

• Perception - Maximus can mess with a target's perception, screwing with their senses and making them see things that aren't there.

  • Keeps Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and the Inhuman Royal Family busy fighting illusions while he escapes
  • Shows Fabian Cortez an illusion of his greatest fear to trick him into enhancing his powers
  • Prevents anyone from being able to see his hat, or any of the other things he's hiding. While it's initially unclear if Maximus is hiding things or just hallucinating, the stolen items all become visible once he escapes his cell, confirming that they're real

• Other - A collection of more general psychic stuff that Maximus doesn't do frequently enough to get their own sections.

  • Drives a Super Skrull insane
  • Wipes Black Bolt's mind from a different continent
  • Erases Spider-Man's memories of their first encounter
  • Jedi Mind Tricks a cop
  • After apparently dying a hero's death, he switches his mind with that of Black Bolt while his brother is too distracted to defend himself
    • Black Bolt was able to switch back by making contact
  • Stops a man's heart with a telepathic blast
  • Can leave fragments of his power in people's minds to take advantage of later, and has done so to a great many people at once
  • Traps an Inhuman inside his own body using his telepathy
  • Briefly freezes the Avengers and Inhuman Royal Family in place so he can flee
  • Stuns Medusa and several Alpha Primitives when lashing out with his powers
  • KO's Medusa with a mental attack
  • Amplifies the intelligence of three Alpha Primitives
  • Influences an Inhuman's Terrigenesis
    • While initially unclear, it's later shown that he's able to remove this influence mentally, which implies the original influence was done with his powers
  • He has mental barriers to keep out hostile mental attacks
  • With his powers briefly enhanced by Fabian Cortez, Maximus was capable of the following:
    • Knocked out Black Bolt with one mental blast
    • Drives every Inhuman in Attilan into a destructive riot
    • Controls an army of Alpha Primitives
  • Maximus had his powers permanently enhanced by Primagen, but we've not seen any results in practice

• Special Cases - There are a handful of individuals whose abilities have caused odd power interactions when engaging with Maximus.

  • Black Bolt has a specific resistance to his powers as a result of their parents' experiments. This is why Maximus typically has to catch him off guard, distract him, or amp himself in some way before he can control him
    • Keeping a furious Black Bolt under control takes up so much of his focus that he can't control anyone else
    • He can't take control of Black Bolt when he's focussed
  • Swain, another Inhuman with mental powers, cancels out his powers when entering his range
    • On the other hand, when he and Swain cooperate, they're able to take control of a city-sized computer and kill one of the godlike Progenitors
  • The first time Maximus encountered Spider-Man, his Spider-Sense caused a backlash that temporarily switched their personalities. Spidey was immediately overcome with both love and resentment of Black Bolt, while Maximus cursed his inability to get a decent haircut before making out with the nearest redhead and running off to get Aunt May's medication

The Magnificent Machinery of Maximus

Mental Tech

Maximus supplements his mental powers with machines built to do the same thing, allowing him to influence and control minds even when his powers aren't cooperating. They also help him overcome the resistance of those who might otherwise fend off his mental attacks, such as the Royal Family.

• Carries a hypno-gun he upgraded with Wakandan technology which is powerful enough to overcome Black Bolt's mental defences
• 'Hypno-Potions' that sapped the will of the Royal Family
• Takes control of Lockjaw by taping a 'Hypno-Stud' to his side
• His 'Unlimited Range Hypno-Gun', which he claims will allow him to control the entire Earth, and possibly beyond, though Crystal ensures he never gets to prove it
• Traps Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch and the Thing in a Hypnotic Field - a false cage that gives the mental suggestion that they're all trapped in an impenetrable cage, and thus ensures that they can't escape it, as they already believe it's impossible
  • They escape by simply ceasing to believe it's there
  • Tells Medusa that he's coated her hair in a chemical that renders her helpless which turns out to just be more of his hypnotic field tricks
  • While he's never seen using it on-panel, based on context this effect seems to be inflicted through a 'Nerve Ray' fitted to his scepter
• Fits robotic 'statues' with a mind-control ray that ensnares an entire city and the surrounding area
• Inflicts 'listlessness and pain' on the Royal Family - the Royal Family note that they've been suffering such for a while, and Black Bolt is visibly pained when he appears
• Controls Lockjaw and possibly Quicksilver - whie it's not entirely clear if Quicksilver is being controlled or just blackmailed, Franklin Richards implies that Maximus is influencing him at least in part
  • Medusa doubts he was really controlled, though Beast disagrees. Quicksilver himself implies that Maximus was messing with his head to some degree
• Forces Black Bolt to turn on his allies
• Reprograms Johnny Storm's mind with his Brain Transcendentalizer

Weapons

• Energy-Draining Ray - A wrist-mounted raygun that weaponises a substance created by an ancient Inhuman scientist.
  • One shot drains the Hulk of his strength, and another knocks him helplessly off a building
  • The unrestrained substance killed thousands when first unleashed
  • Maximus fears that releasing the substance from inside the gun might end the world
• Nerve Beam - A weapon designed simply to cause pain, with the hope of forcing Black Bolt to lose his composure and cry out
• Atmo-Gun - A weapon that spread vibrations around the planet with the intent of wiping out the human race. It failed, as he did not realise how close to Inhumans humans truly are, and so did not calibrate it correctly.
• Echo Tech - Technology that uses Black Bolt's voice. Ranges from personal arms and armour to a cosmic doomsday device. Smaller equipment is powered by Black Bolt's whispers contained within vibranium capacitors, while larger gear generally requires his direct involvement.
  • Standard gear - Outfitted the Inhuman forces with Echotech arms and armour
    • Standard Kree forces arms and armour are useless against it
    • Triton's squad uses them to tear through a Shi'ar crew
    • Triton uses them to blast Fang of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard into the ground
    • An Inhuman soldier uses an Echotech blaster to kill Nightside of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard
  • Echopacitor - A starship-level weapon fitted to Attilan itself that directs Black Bolt's voice to annihilate entire fleets
• Terrigen Bombs
  • First T-Bomb - The Inhuman's trump card in the war against the Shi'ar. An Echo-tech bomb designed to disperse weaponised Terrigen across the universe, turning all species into Inhumans
    • The bomb required Black Bolt to be inside to properly amplify his voice, meaning that a) it's a suicide weapon and b) Maximus can't activate it without Black Bolt
    • Vulcan tore into it to attack Black Bolt and Crystal neutralised the Terrigen payload before it could detonate, preventing it from operating as planned. Instead, Vulcan and Black Bolt's battle overloaded it, and its detonation tore a several-parsec-wide hole into another universe
  • Second T-Bomb - Detonated by Black Bolt in the midst of Thanos's attack on Attilan during Infinity. Spread Terrigen Mists across the globe, triggering a new wave of Terrigenesis
• Shoots down a flying Inhuman with a mounted cannon
• A weapon that fells Black Bolt off-panel and leaves him greatly weakened even when awakened
• A blaster that one-shots the Invisible Woman, the Thing, Scott Lang and Kristoff Vernard
• Drops three guards at once with a raygun, although he doubts it would work on Gorgon
• A massive energy weapon that holds back a Vox
• Constructs two nuclear ICBMs that the Inhuman Royal Family believe would have destroyed Attilan and successfully frames the Fantastic Four for sending them, although since Black Bolt is not a moron he immediately sends someone to check if Maximus is pulling something, which unravels the whole plan pretty quickly

Force-Fields and Barriers

Something of a specialty. Maximus generally ensures that he and whatever he's up to are at least well enough shielded to buy the time to respond to an attack.

• Negative Zone - An extremely durable barrier, first created by reversing the charge on his failed Atmo-Gun to seal away Attilan from the outside world. He has since recreated the barrier on more than once occasion, using them to wall off a section of his base and incorporating one into Attilan's defences. Has nothing to do with Annihilus' dimension of the same name, though he was stuck there for a while.
  • Karnak can't shatter it
  • The Negative Zone blocks teleportation
  • Black Bolt's voice destroys it
• His personal forcefield holds off Crystal's blasts
• A forcefield prison that contains Black Bolt, Gorgon, Triton and Karnak, although Black Bolt's voice destroys it
• Surrounds a base in a forcefield that briefly holds back the Hulk
• A barrier that holds off Cyclops and Black Bolt
• Personal tachyon field forcefields
• A field that's invisible until touched which vaporises the Wakandan soldier who touches it and also appears to conceal his heat signature

Robots

Being more of a mental threat than a physical one, Maximus often constructs mechanical minions to handle combat for him.

• Zorr - built to hold off the Fantastic Four in case they interfered with his usurption of Attilan (they did).

  • Successfully defeats Mr. Fantastic, the Human Torch, and the Thing
  • Sends the Thing flying with a punch
  • Fireproof asbestos-metallic armour
  • Takes a hit from the Thing
  • Rammed by the Human Torch
  • Too heavy for Thing to knock down
  • Rotates his hand fast enough to put out the flames of the Human Torch in his grip
  • Shoots paralytic fluid that takes down Reed Richards
  • Has a Hypnotic Inducer built in that slows down its opponents without their notice

• Omega - a robot powered by racism. No, really. Absorbs the guilt born of racial hatred between the Inhumans and their Alpha Primitive slave race to grow stronger. Maximus incited a race war to make him unstoppable.

  • Faces the Inhumans and Fantastic Four
  • Maximus somehow unleashed it by building a fake perpetual motion machine in his cell
  • Breaks through a stone wall
  • Sends the debris from a collapsed tunnel flying
  • Snatches the Human Torch out of midair
  • Battered by Quicksilver
  • No-sells a beating from the Thing then throws him through a wall
  • Omega seems specifically immune to attacks from the Inhumans, thanks to his ability to absorb Inhuman guilt and hatred.
    • Crystal's various elemental attacks only cause him to grow
    • Karnak's blows are useless
    • Black Bolt's voice only knocks him over momentarily
    • Weapons wielded by Inhumans are similarly ineffective
  • Maximus somehow got it in his head that it would be a good idea to install Ultron in this thing
  • Maximus later repaired it and set it on Gorgon, Crystal and Ronan
  • Swats Gorgon aside

• Costa-Salvadoran Statue - a robot disguised as a statue that broadcast mind-control rays. Intended to spread them across the Americas before Bruce Banner happened to wander into town.

  • Battles the Hulk
  • Maximus controls it with a small remote
  • Bursts through a stone wall
  • Blasts Hulk out of the air with a beam
  • Unphased by Hulk throwing a truck at it
  • Broadcasts a mind-control ray that ensnares an entire city and the surrounding area
    • According to Maximus it's enslaving not just the city but the entire country

• Chorus Sentries - Kree Sentry robots redesigned and rebuilt by Maximus to incorporate Echo Tech.

  • Tears through a metal wall
  • A squad of them incinerate a Cancerverse monster that was overpowering Gorgon, Crystal, Triton and Ronan
  • Destroy some Shi'ar warships
  • Tears into a Shi'ar ground vehicle and obliterates a crewman

• Others - Lesser machines and one-offs.

  • A remotely controlled robot disguised as a Kree scientist that succesfully blends in until electrical overload disables it
  • A bunch of human-sized drones that Ronan easily scraps
  • A squad of flying drones capable of taking on Wakandan special forces

Vehicles

Mostly for getaways. Occasionally for combat.

• His air-yacht
  • Turrets blast buildings to rubble
  • Triton claims it has 'enough firepower to rock a continent'
  • Forcefield lets it take a barrage from Attilan's defenses plus Black Bolt's electron attacks and still remain intact enough to escape
• Has his own battle mech
• When given his own factory, he creates another giant mech in three days
  • The mech bisects a kaiju with one hit from its Terrigen sword
  • Thrusters for big jumps
  • The mech is destroyed right after its first battle, when its Terrigen sword is absorbed by the Unspoken, an Inhuman who draws power from eating Terrigen, who immediately grows massive and rips it in half
• Maximus has a thing for hiding escape rockets in his bases.
  • One in Attilan
  • One in Costa Salvador
• Installed secret emergency elevators in Attilan in case he ever needed a quick escape
• He has an Inhuman centaur in his squad who'll serve as a getaway vehicle in a pinch

Misc

• A tractor beam that pulls Ultron's head from New York City to Attilan, which at that time is in the Himalayas
• His inter-dimensional viewer lets him see into other dimensions. He also remotely weakens a barrier in the dimension he's viewing to set Hulk and six Inhuman criminals free
• An interdimensional teleporter based on Lockjaw's abilities lets him retrieve Hulk and several Inhumans from a prison dimension
• Creates a portal to a dimension where sound is rendered without pitch so Black Bolt can speak normally
• A 'teleport tracker' that allows him to track down Medusa after she escapes via Lockjaw's teleportation
• Creates an anti-gravity 'kite'
• Equips Triton with circulators that let him survive out of water
• Hologram generator
  • Uses holograms to disguise himself as Black Bolt then disappear
  • Disguises himself as Black Bolt to tag along on a mission with the Royal Family
• A machine that supposedly makes food out of dust
• Modifies one of Zarrko the Tomorrow Man's time bombs into a time machine that sends Spider-Man and the Inhuman Royal Family to the 23rd century then brings them and the Avengers home again
• A microscopic drill that swiftly bores through Thane's amber construct
• After reading The Wizard's mind and noting a trap he'd left in equipment he made for Black Bolt, he modifies it to turn it against enemy forces instead
• Keeps a small collection of useful tools hidden inside his arm for emergencies

The Many Manipulations of Maximus

Even without his powers, Maximus is skilled at talking people around to doing what he wants. He actually prefers doing things this way over mind control, since it keeps things more interesting for him, though he drops it pretty quickly if it looks like he's actually in danger.

• Sows discord within the Inhuman Royal Family by revealing the secret of Black Bolt's voice
• Convinces the Hulk that, as fellow outcasts, they're friends
• In a later encounter he convinces the Hulk to side with him against the US Military
• Convinces Medusa she's hallucinating by using holograms to disguise himself as Black Bolt, then reveal himself as Maximus, then disappear
• Convinces Medusa to bring her child back to Attilan in the hope that it will eventually turn against Black Bolt
• Provoked the Silver Surfer into being hostile to Inhumans in general so he'd attack Attilan
• Tricks Medusa into unshackling his powers by trying to cure his madness as a test run for her son
• Convinces the Alpha Primitives to rebel (again)
• Convinces Black Bolt to use his voice on a complainer in the Kree court
• Drives a wedge between Medusa and Gorgon
• Outsmarts Supergiant with Lockjaw, leading to her death
• Convinces Lash to do his dirty work by telling him he'll get to screw over Medusa in the process
• Convinces Triton to work with him despite having just recently screwed him over
• Raises an army against God Emperor Doom in a matter of days by convincing people Doom is no god
• Cucks Black Bolt

The Menacing Madness of Maximus

Maximus's greatest weakness is undoubtedly his fractured sanity. His ephithet is well-earned - his madness is legitimate, debilitating, and can be genuinely tragic. That said, he was a prick before he went mad too, so as much as he likes to claim otherwise it's unlikely that his villainy is the direct result of his mental instability.

• Maximus' madness is the result of brain damage inflicted by Black Bolt's voice the first time it was unleashed - the same incident that killed their parents. Black Bolt obviously feels pretty guilty about it, which is probably why tends to be pretty lenient with Maximus
• When Black Bolt's antennae was zapped while Maximus had connected their minds, the shock is channeled directly into Maximus's brain, worsening his madness
• Upon being exposed to Primagen, the original material that Terrigen is an imperfect copy of, his powers expand and show him the entire 5000 year lifespan of his future self, Maximus the Mage. Time fuckery being what it is, it's implied Maximus has been seeing snippets of the past and future his entire life as a consequence of this, further driving his madness
  • Maximus claims that the experience with the Primagen cured his madness, but he still calls himself mad later, so who knows
• Sometimes he just forgets how to build anything
• Forgets the details of how his tech works
• On his worse days he hallucinates Black Bolt about to kill him
• Hallucinates Black Bolt shouting at him
• Hallucinates that his best friend is a demon and beats him to death
• Black Bolt's electron manipulation somehow calms him down
• He occasionally acts mad during his more lucid moments to throw off suspicion
• When Black Bolt's pissed at him he brings it up to avoid getting his ass kicked
• An Inhuman who can detect if someone's lying can't get anything useful out of him since Maximus believes all his delusions are real
• Sometimes nobody believes the crazy stuff that actually happens to him because it sounds as insane as the stuff he imagines

The Miscellaneous Minutae of Maximus

Look, not everything slots neatly into the other categories.

• Led the Alpha Primitives in rebellion against Ronan the Accusor and got banished to the Negative Zone for the trouble
• When Ronan trapped Maximus in a pocket universe that fed off his guilt, he laughs it off and is released pretty much immediately
• Notices someone invisible is trying to rob him
• Notices observers in the air ducts
• Rather than destroying them, Black Bolt keeps all of Maximus' confiscated inventions locked away, just in case. Maximus is very happy when he finally decides to bust them out
• Invents a new word for Reader to use his powers on
• He speaks Groot
• He's sorta friends with the alien shapeshifter that replaced Julius Caesar
• Started tagging along to Illuminati meetings during the Incursions
• Founding member of Namor's incarnation of the Cabal where he was involved in the destruction of multiple alternate Earths
• Ballsy enough to fuck around with Thanos and Namor
• Maximus, alongside the rest of the Cabal (and Miles Morales), survived the collapse of the multiverse and the creation of Battleworld under God Emperor Doom by riding it out in a life raft
• Maximus is perhaps the only person alive who knows how to create new Terrigen crystals
• Like his brother, Maximus was exposed to the Terrigen Mists while still in the womb
• Picks a lock to escape prison
• Locates the fault line that sank Atlantis
• He just really wants to be king of something
• 'If I'd done it' (he did)
• Easily finds a tracker upon being alerted to its presence
• Medusa had him secretly making terror attacks against the Kree to convince them they needed Inhuman leadership
• He's really good at 20 Questions
• Blew up Stark Tower
• His parents named him Maximus so he wouldn't feel inferior to his brother
• Has opinions on Crystal's many interspecies romances

"Mum's the word."