The Maxx is an American comic book series created by Sam Kieth in 1993 and originally published monthly until 1998 by Image Comics for 35 issues, before being collected in trade paperback by DC Comics' Wildstorm imprint. The first appearance of the character was in Darker Image #1 by Image Comics in March 1993. The comic book, starring an eponymous purple-skinned hero, spawned a 13-episode animated series on MTV that originally aired April–June 1995. Starting in November 2013 and ending in September 2016, the original series has been republished by IDW as The Maxx: Maxximized with new colors and improved scans of the original artwork by Sam Kieth and Jim Sinclair. In 2018, the Maxx featured in a five-issue crossover series with Batman, published by IDW.