PJ Maybe
Encyclopedia
Philip Janet Maybe is a fictional character in the 2000 AD
2000 AD (comic)
2000 AD is a weekly British science fiction-oriented comic. As a comics anthology it serialises a number of separate stories each issue and was first published by IPC Magazines in 1977, the first issue dated 26 February. IPC then shifted the title to its Fleetway comics subsidiary which was sold...

comic strip Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...

. He is a notorious serial killer, and most notably assumed the identity of Mayor Byron Ambrose, who he murdered.

Fictional character biography

The only child of the Maybe family and a relative of the wealthy Yess family (a family of trouser makers), he was a child genius
Child prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...

 and serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

. (His middle name is Janet because his parents wanted a girl.) He deliberately kept his high intelligence secret, by learning to spell badly and act stupidly, in order to avoid getting caught. He killed for the first time at age 12, by murdering a neighborhood couple who he chose at random from the phone book, as an experiment. He moved on to gradually killing members of the Yess family, setting things up so his father could assume control of the company. After being captured by Judge Dredd, he was sent to an asylum
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...

.

After Necropolis
Necropolis (Judge Dredd story)
Necropolis is a 26-part Judge Dredd epic by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, published in 1990 in 2000 AD progs 674–699. The story was the subject of extensive foreshadowing in the comic, beginning with The Dead Man , followed by "Tale of the Dead Man" , and finally three stories collectively...

, he escaped and fled back home (where he witnessed his parents' suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

). Shortly afterward, he was contacted by a family friend, Mrs Urchison. He killed both her and her only child, and used the family's face changing machine to alter his appearance to impersonate her son. After inheriting the family fortune and killing several more associates, he was apprehended by Dredd as he was escaping to Ciudad Barranquilla
Ciudad Barranquilla
Ciudad Barranquilla, also known as Banana City, is a huge fictional city covering much of Central America in the Judge Dredd comic book series. Its name comes from the real city of Barranquilla in Colombia, although it is generally placed around the Buenos Aires city in Argentina...

. By this time he had murdered 21 people before his eighteenth birthday.

Imprisoned for seven years in Iso-Block 666, he escaped again by drugging his psychiatrist
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 and another patient with a mind-altering drug, to convince both of them that the hapless patient was in fact PJ Maybe. Using the Second Robot War
The Doomsday Scenario
The Doomsday Scenario is the collective name of a series of Judge Dredd comic stories published in 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine in 1999...

 as cover, he left the Iso-Block and attempted to change his face into that of a billionaire
Billionaire
A billionaire, in countries that use the short scale number naming system, is a person who has a net worth of at least one billion units of a given currency, usually the United States dollar, Euro, or Pound sterling. Forbes magazine updates a complete list of U.S. dollar billionaires around the...

 named Gunga Dinsdale. Tricked by a back street merchant (who disfigured
Disfigurement
Disfigurement is the state of having one's appearance deeply and persistently harmed medically, as from a disease, birth defect, or wound.Disfigurement, whether caused by a benign or malignant condition, often leads to severe psychosocial problems such as negative body image; depression;...

 him), he killed a street judge
Judge (2000 AD)
Judge is a title held by several significant characters in the Judge Dredd series, which appears in the British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine...

 nearby and fled the city.

Once free, he stole the identity
Identity theft
Identity theft is a form of stealing another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name...

 of Pedro Julio Montez and faked his own death. Maybe had his heart removed and replaced with an artificial one, the real heart being given to Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...

 as proof of death. The heart went on display in the Black Museum
Black Museum
The Black Museum of Scotland Yard is a famed collection of criminal memorabilia kept at the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police in London, England. The museum came into existence sometime in 1874, although unofficially. It was housed at Scotland Yard, and grew from the collection of prisoners'...

 inside the Grand Hall of Justice
Grand Hall of Justice
The Grand Hall of Justice of Mega-City One is a fictional building in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD. It actually refers to three different buildings which existed at different times...

. He later went back to Mega-City One
Mega-City One
Mega-City One is a huge fictional city-state covering much of what is now the Eastern United States in the Judge Dredd comic book series. The exact boundaries of the city depend on which artist has drawn the story...

 to set up a lucrative business deal with the city. This was all subterfuge for his real plan: to kill six childhood tormentors for accusing him at age 6 of attempting to injure them (which he had done, but he felt that they should not have accused him anyway). After killing five of the six, he realised that Dredd might identify and protect the sixth, since Dredd now realised that Maybe was in fact alive. He therefore drugged a pilot and ordered him to crash into the sixth victim's apartment block, igniting an inferno that killed twenty thousand.

Shortly after his escape, several ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

s from Mega City One came to Ciudad Barranquilla with Dredd guarding them - a cover for the Judge's secret attempts to locate him. Maybe was prepared for this, and murdered four ambassadors to taunt Dredd. He then kidnapped doctor and millionaire philanthropist Byron Ambrose and switched Ambrose's heart for an artificial one. After having his own DNA records swapped with those of Ambrose by drugged judges, he then tricked Dredd into believing he was dead by letting Ambrose die in a fire, to be identified as Maybe from the DNA and the heart, while Maybe assumed his identity. Maybe also had Ambrose's real heart swapped for his own in the Black Museum, and ordered the drugged judges to kill themselves, to avoid any possibility of his plans being discovered. He returned to Mega-City One, already planning more killings.

Unfortunately the real Ambrose had been disowned by his wealthy Grandfather, who controlled the family fortune, and while Maybe was able to use the real Ambrose's reputation to gain influence in MC1 and be elected a councilor, the fortune he'd hope to obtain remained out of his reach.

In 2129 Maybe was elected Mayor of Mega-City One
Mayor of Mega-City One
Mayor of Mega-City One is a fictional office in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD. The most significant mayor to appear in the comic was serial killer PJ Maybe, in disguise as Byron Ambrose....

 running for the illiberal party after killing the incumbent mayor, running as a candidate in the ensuing election, and framing his opponent for the murder (and a string of other murders). With Maybe now in a place of power (though given the status of the mayor's office, not very much), his murders led Dredd to suspect that once again Maybe has cheated death. By Christmas, he began killing for fun again (starting with the deputy mayor), though at the same time he has proven to be a highly effective civic leader, even gaining Dredd's approval.

In early 2130, a biography of his life was published; Maybe planned to kill the author. A young boy named JP Buwick began emulating PJ Maybe's early killings after reading the biography (including signing the killings "PJ Mabey"), and Maybe became paranoid that his identity was known and he was being challenged. He tracked down Buwick but was beaten to the punch by Judge Beeny
Judge Beeny
Judge America Beeny is a fictional character in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine. She appeared as a cadet in most of her stories, graduating to full street judge in a story published in early 2008....

, who was investigating Buwick's murders. Instead he killed the biography author by the same method he had intended to kill Buwick with: drowning her in a PortaPool of jelly which was then allowed to set, and left for the judges to find.

In 2132 Chief Judge Sinfield
Judge Sinfield
Judge Martin Sinfield is a fictional supporting character and antagonist in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD, most notably in the story "Tour of Duty"...

 ordered Maybe to raise more revenue for the city, and threatened to undermine his re-election campaign if he did not comply. Maybe did not take kindly to these threats, and resolved to murder Sinfield instead.

To Maybe's extreme fury, two attempts involving infecting the Chief Judge with horrible (and normally fatal) diseases failed to kill Sinfield, and even worse inspired a wave of other people to attack the Chief Judge. Adamant that only he could kill the Chief Judge, Maybe stepped up his efforts, eventually sending a robot (disguised as former chief judge Hershey) to kill Sinfield. However Dredd destroyed the robot and saved Sinfield. Maybe's DNA was found on the remains of the robot, and because it matched Ambrose's DNA record, Maybe was arrested. Maybe successfully stood up to interrogation, but his true identity was finally discovered when Dredd compared his DNA to an old sample of Maybe's DNA from an archived evidence file pertaining to his earliest murders. When that DNA sample was found to match Ambrose's DNA record, instead of Maybe's, the record switch was found out, and Maybe finally confessed and was subsequently sentenced to death. The people were never informed of Ambrose's true identity, and they were told that the mayor had died of natural causes. Maybe later informed Dredd of his suspicions about Sinfield's drugging of Judge Francisco
Judge Francisco
Chief Judge Dan Francisco is a fictional supporting character in the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000 AD. He is chief judge of Mega-City One.-Fictional character biography:...

 and helped him uncover the truth. As a result, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, although Dredd stated that he personally voted for Maybe to be executed.

Maybe escaped the following year, and remains at large. Over the next few months he managed to marry a wealthy but old woman and also executed a daring plan to murder his successor as head of the illiberal party (and leading candidate to replace Maybe as Mayor), as well as other candidates in the election. This occurred under the very noses of the Judges, though Dredd did not blame the Judges involved very much, remembering all the times Maybe has given him the runaround.

Methods

  • His M.O.
    Modus operandi
    Modus operandi is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode of operation". The term is used to describe someone's habits or manner of working, their method of operating or functioning...

     usually involves face changing machines, drug
    Drug
    A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...

    s (mainly SLD 88 and SLD 89, which render people open to suggestion), and acting
    Acting
    Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....

    .

  • His personal assistant
    Personal assistant
    A personal assistant or personal aide is someone who assists in daily business or personal tasks. It is common in design to have a PDA, or personal design assistant....

    , accomplice and lover was a robot named Inga. PJ seemed to be in love with Inga, noting how much more reliable robots are than humans. She seemed to be the only thing he cares about, and while faking his death she was the only thing he retained, even though the almost unique robot could have led to people discovering his real identity. Inga occasionally killed people herself, and during Maybe's attempts to kill Sinfield she was happy to be allowed to participate. She was destroyed by Dredd while she was strangling the chief judge.

  • Even following successful escapes, Maybe is incapable of stopping his spree or changing his M.O. significantly. This has twice led to him being caught by Dredd after successful escapes, and PJ was twice forced to fake his own death to escape Dredd's trail. He also seems unable to remain away from Mega-City One. At one point he had successfully taken control of billions of credits in Ciudad Barranquilla and faked his death well enough to satisfy Dredd, only to return to his home city a few years later and engage in a spree of murders that led Dredd to learn of his continued existence, track him down and force Maybe to fake his own death again, costing him his money and nearly his life.

  • Maybe likes to "experiment" with his murders, for instance his creation of a robot device for use in his first murder. "Creative" killings like leaving copper skysurf pants for a skysurfer (who was then struck by lightning), drugging people into doing his killing for him, various unusual killings when he took revenge on a group of people who tormented him as a child (which made Dredd suspect his survival once again). Maybe rarely resorts to firearms, preferring his own methods of killing.

  • Maybe had proved extremly capable at escaping capture, or escaping custody on those occasions when Dredd captures him. While his first escape from a psycho cube occurred in the fortunate chaos of the "Necropolis" disaster, he nonetheless successfully hid himself, took control of a large fortune, and remained hidden and safe for almost two years. While he was then held for more than seven years in a high security Iso-cube he bided his time and finally escaped shortly after the Robot war of 2121. On the run for more than a decade he escaped close calls with Dredd twice, before finally being captured after the Sinfield assassination attempts of 2132. A year later he escaped and has since eluded a massive manhunt.

Stories

  • Judge Dredd
    Judge Dredd
    Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...

    : The Complete P.J. Maybe
    (192 pages, September 2006, ISBN 1904265960) collects:
    • "Bug" (by John Wagner
      John Wagner
      John Wagner is a comics writer who was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 and moved to Scotland as a boy. Alongside Pat Mills, Wagner was responsible for revitalising British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has continued to be a leading light in British comics ever since.He is best known for his work on...

       & Alan Grant (writers) and Liam Sharp
      Liam Sharp
      Liam Roger Sharp is a British comic book artist, writer and publisher.-Early life:Liam Sharp was born in Derby at St. Mary's Hospital to parents Roger and Linda Sharp. He has a younger sister, Kerry, and younger brother, Rien. He went to School at Brackensdale Junior then infants school, before...

       (artist), in 2000 AD #534, 1987
      1987 in comics
      - Year overall :* Independent publishers continue to enter the comics arena, including Amazing, CFW Enterprises, Imperial Comics, Matrix Graphic Series, New Comics Group, and Rebel Studios...

      )
    • "PJ Maybe, Age 13 " (by John Wagner and Liam Sharp, in 2000 AD #592-594, 1988
      1988 in comics
      -Events and publications:* Jack Binder, creator of the original Daredevil, dies at c. age 86.* Tarpé Mills, creator Miss Fury, dies at c. age 73....

      )
    • "The Further Adventures of PJ Maybe, Age 14" (by John Wagner and Liam Sharp, in 2000 AD #599, 1988)
    • "The Confeshuns of PJ Maybe" (by John Wagner and Liam Sharp, in 2000 AD #632-634, 1989
      1989 in comics
      -Year overall:* "Inferno" company-wide Marvel Comics crossover continues, involving the mutant titles The Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, The New Mutants, and Excalibur, as well as the X-Terminators limited series and various other Marvel titles...

      )
    • "Wot I Did During Necropolis" (by John Wagner and Anthony Williams
      Anthony Williams (comics)
      Anthony Williams is a Welsh comic book artist.-Biography:He broke into comics at Marvel UK, drawing for the series Action Force, The Real Ghostbusters and Transformers, among others...

      , in 2000 AD #707-709, 1990
      1990 in comics
      -Year overall:Days of Future Present, the sequel to Days of Future Past, appeared in the annuals of Fantastic Four, New Mutants, X-Factor and X-Men.-January:* Dinosaurs for Hire is cancelled by Eternity Comics with issue #9....

      )
    • "PJ & the Mock-Choc Factory" (by Garth Ennis
      Garth Ennis
      Garth Ennis is a Northern Irish comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series Preacher with artist Steve Dillon and his successful nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise...

       and Anthony Williams, in 2000 AD #820-822, 1993
      1993 in comics
      -January:* Doom Patrol #63: " The Empire of Chairs," Grant Morrison's final issue as Doom Patrol writer.-February:* Action Comics, with issue #686, suspends publication following "The Death of Superman."...

      )
    • "The All New Adventures of P. J. Maybe" (by John Wagner and Peter Doherty
      Peter Doherty (comics)
      Peter Doherty is a British comic book artist and colourist.-Biography:Doherty's work over a 15 year career has mainly been concentrated on the classic 2000 AD character Judge Dredd. He has illustrated several significant episodes of the strip...

      , in 2000 AD #1204, 2000
      2000 in comics
      -February:*Strange Adventures vol. 2, #4, final issue cover-dated February - January :* January 5: Goseki Kojima, co-creator of Lone Wolf and Cub, dies at age 71.* January 6: Mad magazine fixture Don Martin dies at age 68....

      )
    • "You're a Better Man Than I Am, Gunga Dinsdale" (by John Wagner and Ben Oliver
      Ben Oliver
      Ben Oliver is a British comics artist who has worked for 2000 AD on Judge Dredd as well as providing art for The Authority, The Losers, and Ultimate X-Men-Biography:...

      , in 2000 AD #1210, 2000)
    • "Bring Me the Heart of P. J. Maybe" (by John Wagner and Ben Oliver, in 2000 AD #1211, 2000)
    • "Six" (by John Wagner and Chris Weston
      Chris Weston
      Chris Weston is a British comics artist who has worked both in the US and UK comics industries.-Biography:Weston was born in January, 1969 in Rinteln, Germany, and lived in various countries as a child...

      , in Judge Dredd Megazine
      Judge Dredd Megazine
      Judge Dredd: The Megazine is a monthly British comic magazine, launched in October 1990. It is a sister publication to 2000 AD. Its name is a play on words, formed from "magazine" and Dredd's locale Mega-City One.-Content:...

      #221-222, 2004
      2004 in comics
      -February:*February 6: Marvel Enterprises and Electronic Arts announce a multi-year agreement in which EA will develop a new generation of fighting video games pitting Marvel superheroes against a new, original set of EA heroes....

      )
    • "The Monsterus Mashinashuns of P.J. Maybe" (by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra
      Carlos Ezquerra
      Carlos Sanchez Ezquerra , who has also worked under the alias L. John Silver, is a Spanish comics artist who works mainly in British comics and currently lives in Andorra...

      , in Judge Dredd Megazine #231-234, 2005
      2005 in comics
      - January :* January 3: Will Eisner, creator of The Spirit, dies at age 87.-April:*April 13:**DC Comics announces the discontinuation of its Humanoids and 2000 A.D. titles....

      )

  • Judge Dredd: The Henry Flint Collection (136 pages, April 2008, ISBN 1905437641) collects:
    • "The Gingerbread Man" (by John Wagner and Henry Flint
      Henry Flint
      Henry Flint is a British comic book artist who has worked mainly for British sci-fi comic 2000AD.-Biography:Flint has established a cult following for his hyper-detailed and wildly inventive work on series such as Judge Dredd, Zombo,,ABC Warriors, Shakara, Low Life and Aliens.A recent project was...

      , in Judge Dredd Megazine #261-263, 2007
      2007 in comics
      -January:*January 10: Superman & Batman vs. Aliens & Predator released.*January 24: The Boys is canceled with issue #6.-February:*February 2: Newsarama reports that The Boys has been picked up by Dynamite Entertainment....

      )

  • Tour of Duty: The Backlash (272 pages, September 2010, ISBN 9781907519239) collects:
    • "Emphatically Evil: The Life and Crimes of PJ Maybe" (by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil
      Colin MacNeil
      Colin MacNeil is a British comics artist, best known for his work on 2000 AD and in particular on Judge Dredd and other stories within his world like Shimura and Devlin Waugh....

      , in 2000AD #1569-1575)
    • "...Regrets" (by John Wagner and Nick Dyer
      Nick Dyer
      Nick Dyer is a Scottish cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm offbreak bowler. He played in five One-Day Internationals in May 1999 and participated in List A cricket between 1997 and 1999...

      , in 2000 AD #1577-1581, 2008)

  • Uncollected:
    • "What i Did For ChrissMas" (by John Wagner and Simon Fraser
      Simon Fraser (comics)
      Simon Fraser is a British comics artist and writer best known for his work on Nikolai Dante, a series he created with writer Robbie Morrison in 2000 AD.-Career:...

      , in Judge Dredd Megazine #266, 2008)

  • Tour of Duty: Mega-City Justice (June 2011, ISBN 9781907992391) collects:
    • "Tour of Duty
      Tour of Duty (Judge Dredd story)
      Tour of Duty is a Judge Dredd story published in British comic 2000 AD . It lasted for 46 episodes, 39 of which were written by John Wagner. It has the greatest number of episodes and pages of any Judge Dredd story...

      : The Talented Mayor Ambrose" (by John Wagner and John Higgins
      John Higgins (comics)
      John Higgins is an English comic book artist and writer. He did significant work for 2000 AD, and he has frequently worked with writer Alan Moore, most notably as colourist for Watchmen.-Biography:...

      , in 2000 AD #1674-1686, 2010)
    • "Tour of Duty: Mega-City Justice" (by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, in 2000 AD #1687-1693, 2010)

  • Uncollected:
    • "The Further Dasterdly Deeds of PJ Maybe" (by John Wagner and Colin MacNeill, in 2000 AD #1740-1742, 2011)
    • "Day of Chaos: Elusive" (by John Wagner and Henry Flint, in 2000 AD #1753-1758, 2011)

External links

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