According to film critic Justin Chang, Miller (a doctor by training) picked Max's last name as an homage to Carl von Rokitansky, a pathologist "who pioneered a method of examining organs at autopsies to determine the cause of death.

He reaches a breaking point when a gang of criminally insane bikers led by the "Toecutter" burn Max's partner Goose alive inside a borrowed ute.

Overwhelmed with grief and rage, he takes the MFP's Pursuit Special ("the last of the V8 Interceptors") and systematically pursues and kills each gang member responsible.

He runs out of petrol and seeks refuge with a human settlement manning a remote oil drilling station and refinery, which is besieged by Lord Humungus and his horde of marauding bikers.

However, Max develops a mutual respect for the settlers and bonds with an innocent child, who helps him partially rediscover his humanity.

He falls foul of Aunty Entity, Bartertown's dictator, and is exiled into the desert, where he is rescued by a tribe of children living in a wilderness oasis.

Max's journey to the Plains of Silence takes an unexpected turn when a group of War Boys run him off the road and steal his clothes, his supplies, his weapons, and his car before leaving him to rot in the desert sun.

Traversing the wasteland in search of his prized Interceptor, Max meets a hunchbacked mechanic named Chumbucket, an overzealous individual that's hell-bent on crafting the perfect vehicle, the Magnum Opus.

After giving Max hope of exacting vengeance on Scrotus, the two form an unlikely partnership and set out in the base of the Opus in search of food, water, allies, upgrades, and redemption in a world devoid of sanity.

Between the second and third films, after the destruction of the Pursuit Special, Max acquires a roll-cage equipped vehicle based on a pick-up truck and set up to be used as a camel-drawn wagon at need.

This leads Aunty Entity to choose him to kill Master Blaster in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, as he was the first to survive her "audition."

Max also displays a fair amount of mechanical and electronics ability, performing minor repairs on his own vehicle and rigging two to explode should someone tamper with them or his fuel tanks.

Entertainment Weekly ranked the character eleventh on its list of the top twenty "All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture" in April 2009.