Assigned to create Scream!, Barrie Tomlinson and Gil Page found themselves walking a tightrope over the horror level of the contents so they were not in violation of the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955, or ended up generating negative press attention like that suffered by Action in 1976.

At the time the pair contributed so many stories to IPC that managing editor John Sanders insisted they use pseudonyms for many of their scripts;[3][4] as such on "The Thirteenth Floor" they were credited as 'Ian Holland'.

In July 1987, IPC would consolidate its ongoing titles into the revived Fleetway Publications holding and sell them to Egmont Publishing;[8] Max would continue to host Eagle until it was cancelled in January 1994.

The new story was written by 2000 AD regular Guy Adams, who had asked to resurrect "The Thirteenth Floor" after being tapped for the special by Rebellion editor Keith Richardson, feeling "it's a brilliantly simple idea but so rich with possibilities, and Max is fascinating too - a kindly, benevolent mass murderer".

Veteran John Stokes illustrated the "realist" early pages of the new story, drawing on Ortiz for inspiration, with Frazer Irving (another 2000 AD regular, and a fan of the comic growing up) handling the virtual reality sequence.

Writer Adams was joined by the returning Stokes and Irving, with Henrik Sahlström, Tom Paterson, Abigail Harding, Vince Locke, Jimmy Broxton, V.V.

[19][20] Parallel to the specials, Rebellion also collected the entire original run of "The Thirteenth Floor" across three trade paperbacks under their Treasury of British Comics imprint, issued in 2018,[21] 2020[22] and 2021.

Max used the 13th floor to punish and torture anybody he felt deserved such treatment - often creating such fear and distress that they suffered a fatal heart attack or were driven insane.

Often their experience would contain subtle irony; for example a con-man claiming to be a pest controller would be chased by giant rats, or incompetent repairmen would be stuck in a burning facsimile of Maxwell Tower, in which all the doors and windows were jammed.

However, the computer's new controller Gwyn inadvertently triggered a backup mechanism, re-activating Max's sentience, and before long he had deliberately burnt out his I.F.

Max uncovered secret activity by MI5 within the store, and programmed to be a patriotic computer, offered the 13th floor's services to the intelligence agency for purposes such as interrogation, and even created a pocket-size version of himself, Minimax, to go on spy missions accompanied by the hypnotized local MI5 director, Auberon Hedges.

Max eventually became homesick and used his government contacts to arrange a return to Maxwell Tower, where he yet again resumed punishing people he felt harmed his tenants.

[6] Andy Oliver reviewed the first of the Rebellion collected editions for Broken Frontier, concluding the volume "underlines that the strip’s reputation as one of the better 1980s UK comics serials is well deserved".

[28] Ian Keogh of Slings & Arrows was also positive, praising "the elastic premise of The Thirteenth Floor, unpredictability and dark humour".