It dawned on me that over the last year we might have picked up some new readers who have no idea who Max Powers is. PvP has over 12 years of comic strips to wade through, and since it’s been almost a year since Max appeared in PvP, it’s completely possible that a new reader would have no idea who he is.
Max Powers is an old college friend of Cole and Brent’s. He showed up in the early years of the strip as this rival for whom everything always went right. Max is handsome, has a similar business, and always comes out on top. Cole and Brent being kind of petty and imperfect find it easy to hate Max, and have for a while now.
In late 2008, Max finally confronted the boys on years of getting the cold shoulder from them and never truly being included. That storyline starts here. We didn’t see Max again except for once last year when he helped Robbie and Jase start their own business.
Since then, I haven’t drawn Max in the strip. I knew I wanted him to go through some kind of change, but I wasn’t sure how, so I kept putting it off. Then almost a year passed and I realized I never got around to addressing Max. He just disappeared from the strip completely. So I became determined to write him back into the strip and got my pad and pen.
When I sat down to write things out, I thought to myself, “Hey, maybe I didn’t put it off. Maybe this whole time Max has been out finding himself. I didn’t forget about him, he’s been off doing amazing things and now he’s kind of more at peace with himself and he can return as this more well-rounded and mysterious person. A little wiser and a little more engaging.”
So that’s who Max is. More to come, obviously.
