Maxie Zeus (DC animated universe)
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| Maxie Zeus
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| Denny O'Neil Don Newton |
Maximillian "Maxie" Zeus, a DC Comics supervillain and enemy of Batman, appeared in Batman: The Animated Series, played by Steve Susskind.
Contents |
[edit] Appearances
[edit] DC animated universe biography
In Batman: The Animated Series, Maximillian Zeus is a multimillionare shipping tycoon with underworld connections. After recovering from a serious financial crisis, Maxie went insane, developed a god complex, and started to believe that he was the Greek god Zeus, his girlfriend is the muse Clio and his Olympus themed building, known as The Olympus Building, the actual Mount Olympus.
In "Fire From Olympus", the only episode featuring him, Maxie stole a giant lightning cannon used, which he plans to use on "the mortals"(the Gotham City police and citizens) to remind them of his power.
When Batman arrives in his Batplane at his penthouse investigating the case, Maxie believes he is Hades, as no 'mortal' could reach "Mount Olympus" without his permission. After Clio gives Batman the evidence he needs to apprehend her boyfriend, the Dark Knight goes back to face Maxie, only this time climbing from the bottom of the building. In the way up, almos at the top floors, Maxie Zeus set him a series of traps fashioned after the twelve labours of Heracles, but Batman skips some getting directly to the penthouse, where he has to rescue Clio, who was about to be sacrificed along with a police blimp because of her betrayal.
After his defeat, Maxie Zeaus is sent to Arkham Asylum and confusing his fellow inmates Poison Ivy, Two-face and the Joker with Gods, he asumes he is "now" in the "real" Mount Olympus.
During the episode on a couple of occasions he seems to revert to normal, but the insanity always overpowered him. He was eventually taken down by Batman with help from Clio.
[edit] Quotes
- Maxie Zeus: Now this is truly Olympus! Surely it can be no other place. There's beautiful Demeter, goddess of the harvest!
(Sees Poison Ivy in his cell)
- Maxie Zeus: And double-faced Janus, lord of beginnings and endings!
(Sees Two-face in his cell)
- Maxie Zeus: And merry Hermes, the trickster of the gods!
(Sees the Joker in his cell. The Joker presses his face against the glass and smears his tongue on it)
- Maxie Zeus: Now, at last, mighty Zeus is home!
[edit] Design
Maxie Zeus' design completely breaks with his look in the comics. Instead of looking like Abraham Lincoln in a toge, he has a black haired bushy beard with mustache and built body like Greek God are usually portrait. His clothes are reduced exhibiting his muscles, an narcissistic behavior coherent with an egocentric deluded man with a god complex.
[edit] Clio
Clio is the concerned loving girlfriend and lawyer of Maxie Zeus. Beside their businesses with each other, they both have normal couple relationship in the past, but as Maxie's condition gets wost, the nature of their relationship changes, leaving the romance aside.
In Fire From Olympus, she is still in love with Zeus and sticks around longing the old times, but after learning the nature of his most recent business, she leaves for good. In their discussions it becomes notorius that they are living a different world each other and in it each one sees the other as a villain. In Maxie's deluded world she is a rebel muse betraying her god, while in hers, he is an insane man commiting each time more mounstrous crimes.
After Batman pays her a visit to get some information on Zeus, and when the villain learns about her betrayal, he decides to tie her to the cannon he is planning to use to destroy a Police blimp on order to make mortals aware of his powers. Maxie explains her that she will be "made a goddess" that way. However, Batman was able to defeat Maxie Zeus and rescue her.
Her name is a reference to Clio (or Kleio, in Greek: Κλειώ), the muse of history and disturbingly (in this context), a daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne. As Clio's figure in Maxie Zeus chess board, the original is often represented with a set of tablets and is also known as the Proclaimer.
[edit] Henchmen
Contrary to their boss' style, they rather dress in a normal fashion, making Maxie's insanity contrast even more.
[edit] The Olympus Building
The Olympus Building is the headquarter of Maximillian Zeus legal and illegal business. It stands among the tallest skyscrapers in Gotham City. The top floors house a museum of Greek mythology with statues of mythological creatures, hiding real creatures that emule them.
The penthouse, where Maxie Zeus lives, is fashioned as the Temple to Zeus (or himself as he believes). The whole building has a mixture of Art Deco style with Classical architecture but only the penthouse uses the proper auric scale (the rest is too stretched).[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The World's Finest, a site with a complete guide to the DC animated universe. It's the source of a great deal of the related images in Pop-Cult Guides.
- DCAUResource.com, a very well documented site when it comes to DC fictional biographies.
- The Animated Batman, an Unofficial Guide, a site with a complete guide to Bruce Timm's Batman. It's the source of a great deal of the related images in Pop-Cult Guides.
