The Maxx - A fun retro 90s cartoon about a homeless schizo who thinks he's a superhero, featuring child abuse, r*pe, and Camille Paglia

Did anyone else ever watch this show? I originally saw random episodes, out of order, on late night MTV2 reruns when I was little and it lowkey traumatized me but I kept trying to find it again. It was way too adult a show for me to be watching. This was part of the "MTV Oddities" series and it only ran 13 short episodes and then disappeared almost entirely from the media universe. I've never met anyone else IRL who has seen it, and once or twice if I tried to explain it or describe it to somebody they'd react like it sounded fake. The whole series has this fever dream vibe about it, and if it weren't for the internet I might write it off as something I made up or misremembered.

I found this blog about it but it doesn't entirely do it justice:

Based on a comic, which I am definitely getting my hands on at the earliest opportunity, the cast of characters are all shapes and sizes and animated fluidly and in constantly changing styles. The show is totally surreal, half set in the shared subconscious of the main character Julie. Or maybe it's Maxx's subconscious? Or a collective subconscious? I think you get my point. The ‘real' world of the show is as grim as Mega-City One and haunted by Maxx's antagonist – a serial male feminist who seems to have a telepathic link to Julie's trauma fractured mind.

Throughout the show we explore how trauma in childhood and adulthood have caused Julie's psyche to fracture through the medium of ‘The Outback' an alternate reality that constitutes her subconscious and which seems to have trapped Maxx within itself illustrating their co-dependant relationship. It is a nuanced portrayal of how trauma can force us into self-destructive and risky behaviours and how ignoring and suppressing trauma can damage us unless we can find the strength to confront past events. Control is obviously important to her, both her own and others having control over their own lives as shown in her chosen profession and disdain for “professional victims” and this is a direct and realistic consequence of the lack of control she experienced through her “violation”.

The whole series is on the Internet Archive if you want to watch it. I haven't re-watched it to see how it stands up to my childhood nightmares, but I might do.