Summary
- George Miller's epilogue to Fury Road shows Immortan Joe's son attempting to corrupt one of the Five Wives.
- The moment confirms that one of the Wives is considering overthrowing Furiosa and becoming a new dictator.
- The comic series emphasizes how Mad Max's world is caught in a destructive cycle - a better future is possible but unlikely.
Despite its seemingly happy ending, 2015's Furiosa's personal trilogy within the franchise. Fury Road is packed with villains, as Immortan Joe's sprawling empire introduces the Bullet Farmer, the People Eater, the Prime Imperator, the Organic Mechanic, and more. However, the villain set up by the movie's conclusion is actually a hero when fans first meet them.
Fury Road ends with the Citadel under the command of Furiosa, who dismantles Immortan Joe's fascistic theocracy and gives his hoarded water to the people who live in the Citadel's shadow. However, George Miller added an epilogue to this victory in Mad Max: Fury Road: Max, a comic which acts as an official prelude to the movie. As part of a framing device set after Fury Road, one of the historians known as the History Men observes a troubling sight: an unnamed woman at the controls of the Citadel, with Joe's son Corpus Colossus talking her around to once again restricting water.
The History Man warns that history is likely to repeat itself, warning "the cycle begins again." While he speculates that there may be a solution in trying to "understand and change our behaviors," the story sets up the idea that one of the Citadel's Wives - Capable, the Dag, Cheedo the Fragile and Toast the Knowing - will eventually become a warlord similar to Immortan Joe, corrupted by his nefarious son. Mad Max: Fury Road: Max comes from George Miller, Mark Sexton, Nico Lathouris, and Clem Robins.
Corpus Colossus is played by Quentin Kenihan in Mad Max: Fury Road, with the Five Wives portrayed by Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, Zoë Kravitz and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (whose character the Splendid Angharad dies during the events of the movie.
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While seeds from the Green Place - her legacy isn't assured. The potential for Immortan Joe's might-makes-right philosophy to return will always be there, embodied in his surviving son.
While Furiosa and 'the Wives' despise Immortan Joe, the comic has Corpus Colossus tempt the Citadel's new leadership with the threat posed by the outside world, arguing that giving water away looks like weakness. With a nearby lead mine (aka the Bullet Farm) and a former oil refinery (Gast Town) nearby, the Citadel is an immense prize to every other force trying to survive the post-apocalypse. And while it's an incredibly easy place to defend, it has been breached before - Immortan Joe established his legendary status by claiming it from its former inhabitants. With these considerations, Corpus Colossus' advice is persuasive and could even tempt those who suffered under Joe's regime.
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Mad Max is about dark cycles repeating, making the fall of the Citadel likely at some point in the wasteland's future...
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As both a prequel and brief sequel to Fury Road, Mad Max: Fury Road: Max focuses on cycles repeating. This is explicitly stated again and again through the narration, with the comic pointing out that "the mistakes of the past are repeated over and over, eating away our future." Likewise, Max is described as "trapped in a never-ending cycle of loss and revenge." Indeed, readers actually see this process play out.
Over the course of the comic, Max allies with Hope, whose daughter Glory has been stolen by the subterranean Buzzards. While Max is able to rescue her, the little girl and her mother are then killed by one of the Buzzards, who is subsequently murdered by Max. The moment recreates the murder of Max's wife and son by Toecutter in the original Mad Max movie, set just prior to the nuclear war that created the wasteland, and Glory even greets Max with the haunting comment, "You... came back."
2015's Mad Max videogame plays out a similar narrative to the comics - while Hope and Glory are killed by a different villain, the broad strokes remain the same and leave Max in the same place ahead of Fury Road.
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Mad Max's world was all but destroyed by greed and war, and these vices continue to dominate and define the wasteland. The companion comic Mad Max: Fury Road: Nux & Immortan Joe (from Miller, Nico Lathouris, Mark Sexton, Riccardo Burchielli, Leandro Fernandez, and Andrea Mutti) also reveals that Joe was originally Colonel Joe Moore, and was able to access followers and weapons from his army days, making the villain a literal continuation of the forces that destroyed the world.
Corpus Colossus' attempts to corrupt the Citadel's new leaders speaks to this theme, teasing that it's entirely possible the same flaws and obsessions will win out once again, and humanity will live out the same path to destruction. Keeping the identity of his target hidden is part of this message, as it doesn't matter exactly who is facing temptation in that moment - the larger question is whether humanity can ever outgrow its worst tendencies and evolve beyond seeing altruism as weakness, or whether it is doomed to suffering and destruction.
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Fans likely won't see the results of Corpus Colossus' efforts in the Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, where Anya Taylor-Joy will take over from Charlize Theron, playing a younger Furiosa during her battle with Chris Hemsworth's Warlord Dementus. However, it's possible that a third Furiosa-focused movie could explore one of the Wives becoming a new despot. This would actually work perfectly for the hero's story, with Fury Road depicting Furiosa's effort to save the Five Wives and return to the Green Place, Furiosa following her early alliance with Joe, and a potential third movie following her attempts to save the Citadel from insurrection. This narrative, following Furiosa's proximity and relationship to power, would be a powerful trilogy with a lot to say.
It would betray the series' vision to suggest that the story of the Citadel is a clear-cut happy ending - at most, it's the promise that a better world is possible, but only if humanity meaningfully changes.
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However, it's also impactful to leave the Citadel's story where Miller has so far - with the potential for a utopian rebirth tempered by the always-present threat of future corruption. Mad Max isn't a particularly hopeful franchise, and setting the nuclear war between the first and second movies (as the comic clarifies) really drives home the idea that the world is getting drastically and irrevocably worse. It would therefore betray the series' vision to suggest that the story of the Citadel is a clear-cut happy ending - at most, it's the promise that a better world is possible, but only if humanity meaningfully changes, leaving behind the self-centeredness, waste, violence, and misogyny that Immortan Joe embodies.
Miller's coda to Fury Road is a smart addition to the story, and one that complicates the movie's ending with the hint of more darkness to come. While Furiosa fans will welcome the way Corpus Colossus' actions establish a potential third movie starring Furiosa, his attempts to undermine Furiosa's rule also act as an effective epilogue to Mad Max: Fury Road, driving home the franchise's most important themes.
