Comic book The comic book tells the origins of Joe's rise to power. Originally
Colonel Joe Moore, the man who would become Immortan Joe was a highly celebrated soldier in the
Australian Army who in the early 21st century fought in the
water and
oil wars that helped bring on a global apocalypse. After the collapse of civilization, he and his men
deserted their posts and went into the
Outback, as most others did. They then became a brutal road gang, with Joe often taking the wives and daughters of rival gang members as his slaves. He also had an unnamed brother, who followed him. During one of his raids, a fat
cannibal about to be executed tells Joe of a massive
aquifer, nearly impossible to enter. Despite many casualties, Joe eventually manages to capture the aquifer, which would eventually become the Citadel. His followers acclaim him as "immortal," which is eventually adapted into the honorific "Immortan." While Joe is attempting to capture the aquifer, he sends out scouts who discover an abandoned oil refinery and a lead mine, which would eventually become Gastown and the Bullet Farm respectively. Joe puts his right-hand-man Major Kalashnikov in charge of the Bullet Farm; Kalashnikov becomes known as the Bullet Farmer. Joe also rewards the man who revealed the location of the Citadel with control of Gastown; that man becomes known as the People Eater. Though now in control of the Citadel, Joe begins to succumb to
radiation sickness.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Immortan Joe appears in
Furiosa, the
Fury Road prequel, when the warlord Dementus's Biker Horde lays siege to the Citadel. With the exception of Kalashnikov, his old crew of soldiers have either died or left, leaving Joe with a cult-like army of mostly young men known as the "War Boys", who worship Joe as a divine being who will bring their souls to Valhalla. He has also grown ill from the radioactivity in the wasteland, requiring a breathing apparatus to survive. Although Dementus encourages the War Boys to stage a coup, Joe succinctly demonstrates the foolishness of this plan by ordering a War Boy to commit a
suicide bombing in front of Dementus. The War Boys then attack the Biker Horde en masse, driving them from the Citadel. However, Joe is forced to negotiate with Dementus after the latter uses trickery to capture Gastown from Joe's brother, which produces the petrol that Joe uses to pump water from the Citadel's underground aquifer. After Dementus's retinue reveals that his prisoner
Furiosa does not have any birth defects, Joe buys Furiosa from Dementus, as well as Dementus's doctor, the Organic Mechanic. He tells the preteen Furiosa that when she comes of age, she may become one of his "wives." Locked in the private vault in which Joe imprisons his wives, Joe's son Rictus carries her out at night, intent on raping her, but she escapes him. Unable to flee the Citadel alone, she joins Joe's army under a false identity and rises up the ranks. Years later, Joe resolves to attack Gastown, as Dementus's mismanagement has led it to near-ruin. He sends the War Rig to pick up weapons and ammunition from his ally, the Bullet Farmer. However, Dementus ambushes the War Rig, and Furiosa is the only survivor. When Furiosa arrives back at the Citadel, Joe's war council is debating how to respond to black smoke billowing from Gastown. Furiosa, who is familiar with Dementus's style of warfare from her time as his prisoner, recognizes that the smoke is a ruse and that Dementus wants Joe to launch an all-out attack on Gastown so that he can make a sneak attack on the undefended Citadel. Joe agrees with Furiosa. The War Boys fool Dementus into thinking that they are headed for Gastown. Meanwhile, Joe successfully ambushes the unsuspecting Dementus on his way to the Citadel, allowing the War Boys to gain the upper hand in Joe's 40-day war with the Biker Horde. After the War Boys defeat the Horde, Furiosa captures the fleeing Dementus, and Joe promotes her to Imperator.
Video game Joe does not directly appear in the game, but the game introduces a band of War Boys led by his son Scabrous Scrotus. In the game, Scrotus is depicted as the third leader of Gastown (after Immortan Joe's brother and Dementus); Joe refused to let Scrotus inherit the Citadel due to the latter's insanity. When Max lodges a chainsaw in Scrotus's head at the beginning of the game, Scrotus becomes hell-bent on taking Max down. He is killed at the end of the game, opening the way for the People Eater (Joe's military strategist in
Furiosa) to take over Gastown.
Mad Max: Fury Road By
Fury Road, Immortan Joe is the wasteland's most powerful warlord, with allies firmly in charge of both Gastown and the Bullet Farm. However, Joe's health has worsened even more, with him requiring servants to even get up. He has no healthy heir and only five remaining wives: Toast "the Knowing", Capable, the Dag, Cheedo "the Fragile", and his favorite, "the Splendid" Angharad. (
Furiosa shows that Joe's policy is to discard his wives after three failed attempts at breeding a healthy heir.) Two of these wives – Angharad and the Dag – are pregnant with potential heirs. At the beginning of the film, Joe dispatches the War Rig (commanded by Imperator Furiosa) on a seemingly routine supply run to Gastown and the Bullet Farm. Although his forces have captured
Max Rockatansky, he is unaware of Max's significance. However, when he sees that Furiosa has veered off course, Joe checks his private vault and realizes that the Five Wives have escaped in the War Rig. Enraged and desperate, Joe takes every able-bodied War Boy in the Citadel with him in pursuit. He also commands Gastown and the Bullet Farm to send their own armies to help. In the chaos of the pursuit, Max escapes; with nowhere else to go, he agrees to help Furiosa. Joe nearly catches the War Rig in a narrow canyon, but each time the War Boys attempt to shoot Furiosa, Angharad climbs to the outside of the War Rig to act as a human shield, knowing that Joe will not risk injuring his unborn baby. During one of these encounters, Angharad trips and falls into the path of Joe's monster truck, which runs her over, killing both Angharad and the fetus. A
C-section reveals that the baby was physically perfect, which enrages Joe even further. Joe stops his army in the desert while he ponders his next move. To his great surprise, he sees that the War Rig has turned around and is heading back to the Citadel, as Furiosa's original destination can no longer support human life. In an ironic echo of the
Furiosa film's Gastown ruse, Joe realizes that he has left the Citadel undefended. He nonetheless manages to overtake the War Rig with his personal vehicle, the Gigahorse. However, Furiosa boards the Gigahorse and uses a harpoon to rip off Joe's breathing mask, tearing Joe's jaw apart and killing him. Furiosa's war party commandeers the Gigahorse and ditches the War Rig in the canyon where Angharad died, preventing the rest of Joe's army from pursuing them. Furiosa returns unhindered to the Citadel, where Max presents Joe's corpse to the locals, who celebrate his death. Having lost their "savior", the remaining War Boys reluctantly surrender the Citadel to Furiosa, ending Joe's regime and dynasty for good. ==Reception==