While Immortan Joe’s cruelty toward his War Boys is a fitting illustration of the often callous disregard for infantry soldiers throughout the history of warfare, the pointed critique of brutality in the face of crippling mental illness seen in Wez’s backstory still deserves a place in the Mad Max universe. Instead, Immortan Joe is a villain because he has opted to take the cruelest excesses of war and codify them in a society that he rules with an iron fist, not only rejecting a chance to create a more peaceful world but choosing to actively endanger the lives of his War Boys and torture his "wives" with constant, lethal conflict. Put simply, Joe isn’t a villain because of his PTSD (after all, Max is a fellow sufferer, something Fury Road makes clear with his frequent flashbacks). In contrast, Immortan Joe’s toxic worldview is more clearly tied to the cruel treatment of subordinates that was normalized during his time in the army, and his brutal mistreatment of women, his followers, and the Citadel’s citizens is directly tied back to his abuse of military power. Related: Mad Max: What Happened to the Oceans (Did They Disappear?)
As such, depicting the character as a murderous villain, even in the heightened world of Mad Max, contributes to the dangerous misconception that PTSD sufferers are more likely to harm onlookers than themselves.
Like any war veteran, many of whom were conscripted against their will, Wez isn’t responsible for the effect of the war on his psyche. Wez is arguably unfairly villainized for the mental toll military service took on him.
#MAD MAX FURY ROAD CAST IMMORTAN JOE MOVIE#
Much like the homoeroticism of The Road Warrior’s villains, the PTSD angle seems somewhat tasteless in retrospect, although Miller’s movie intended to humanize the character with a backstory. Veteran director Miller’s second attempt to touch on themes of militarism was more focused than his first and offered a more effective and realistic depiction of militarism’s often dangerous relationship with societal breakdown.
#MAD MAX FURY ROAD CAST IMMORTAN JOE SERIES#
But he originally had a heartbreaking backstory that made sense of how his madness came about, and it’s one that ended up being used later in the series in a more famous Fury Road baddie whose backstory utilized the same theme in a more effective and focused manner. A henchman obsessed with hunting down Mel Gibson’s titular antihero, The Road Warrior’s Wez was a memorably creepy addition to the rogue’s gallery of villains featured throughout the Mad Max franchise. There’s one minor villain who ties the two franchise installments together, and his depiction illustrates Miller’s shifting view of militarism, madness, and the society (or lack thereof) found in Max’s cinematic universe. Related: Fury Road: Tom Hardy's Mad Max Backstory Explained (In Canon) Meanwhile, 2015’s Fury Road (which saw Tom Hardy make his Mad Max debut), touches on similar themes with its tale of a parched desert city run by a megalomaniacal overlord. The first sequel, 1981’s The Road Warrior, sees Max attempt to help a struggling desert-stranded community to avoid the wrath of an insane cult leader, and the movie looks at tribalism and its human cost in a world ravaged by precarity and division.
While the installments of the Mad Max series may vary in tone, the movies (all directed by Miller) are united in their focus on recurring themes. The tonal shift may be almost as extreme as different entries of the Evil Dead franchise, but despite changing styles and shifting story speeds, the Mad Max movies all address similar ideas. Wez was one of the more memorable villains in The Road Warrior, but what’s the secret connection between him and a later Mad Maxbaddie, Immortan Joe from Fury Road? Beginning in 1979 with George Miller’s sparse, critically acclaimed thriller Mad Max, the franchise of the same name has evolved over the years from a raw and realistic revenge thriller into a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action extravaganza.
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