Popular Culture Review Vol. 3, No. 2, August 1992 | Page 54

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The Po£ular Culture Review

which is stolen almost immediately from him. He makes his way to
Bartertown (the likely place to find his camels), surviving only
because his pet monkey (stolen along with the camels and the one
wagon) has tossed food and water out of the wagon to Max as it rolls
off. Max, despite his surface surliness and professed desire for total
solitude, attracts to him the affection of the pure and simple
creatures-animals and children, the dog and the Ferel Kid in Road
Warrior, and now the monkey. He helps them, keeps them alive, and
they each in their turn save his life at some stage.
In Bartertown, Max is bribed with the promised return of his
camel train to do single combat in Thunderdome with "Blaster," the
brawn half of Master-Blaster. It is meant to be a fight to the death;
the chant, "two men enter, one man leaves," says it all. Max cannot
bring himself to kill Blaster when he has him at his mercy, for
Blaster, once his fearsome helmet is wrenched off by Max, is seen to
have the mind of a child. Max has broken the rule of Thunderdome,
however, and is ͕