The Last Man on Earth is Not Alone

"To understand who he was you have to go back to another time."
-Prologue, The Road Warrior

The Hero

Poised between the forces of the Civilized and the Barbarians is The Hero. All of the Post-Apocalyptic films focus on a hero outside either of these groups. The Hero is alone in the world, the last of his kind, neither one of the Civilized nor of the Barbarians. Each Hero possesses a talisman, something which marks him as the Last Hero and with which he will save the Civilized from the Barbarians. He is an individual who cares for a community that he is incapable of joining. One group seeks to rebuild, the other to destroy, and the Hero is left to wander, trying to find the balance between the two groups.

The Hero is often presented as the Last Hero, in movies with titles The Omega Man and The Ultimate Warrior. He is a man who knew a life before the disaster. Max was a highway cop, or "bronze," before his wife and son were killed and he banished himself to The Wasteland. Dr. Neville strove to find a vaccine for the plague, using himself as a test subject and becoming the only one immune. Both men survive the disaster because of their previous occupations. They are the last heroes of the old worlds and the first heroes of the Post-Apocalyptic worlds. The theme of the Last Hero runs self-consciously the entire Mad Max Trilogy. In Mad Max, Max's superior, Fife, tells Max "They say people don't believe in heroes anymore, well damn them. You and me, Max, we're gonna give them back their heroes." Fife is trying to convince Max not to quit the force, which he eventually does after the death of his family at the hands of the Toe Cutter and his Deviant gang. Although Max is one of those who does not believe in heroes anymore, he will become just that in The Road Warrior by driving the decoy tanker to allow the civilized tribe to escape from the refinery. Max becomes a hero to The Feral Kid who, after escaping to Sanctuary, matures into a leader and a hero for this new age. The group of children abandoned in the Wasteland mistake Max for their God and hero, Captain Walker, in Beyond Thunderdome. The plane crash that brought their parents to the desert was piloted by this Captain Walker, who saved his passengers from the fate of the old civilization by landing them far from the war-ravaged city. These children have raised Captain Walker, a hero of the old world, to a mythic level. When they rescue Max, banished from Bartertown by the Wheel, he takes on the responsibilities of Captain Walker and leads the children to Sydney where they will attempt to rebuild. Although Max begins his association with the children in the guise of the last of the old world heroes, he rescues them as the first of the new world heroes. In the film's coda, when Savannah Nix "does the tell," the tribe has incorporated the stories of Captain Walker and of Max into their legacy.

Max may be the strongest example of the Last Hero, but Dr. Neville also straddles the divide as a hero of both the pre- and post-disaster worlds. During the last days of the pre-disaster world, Neville feverishly searches for the vaccine that will defeat the germ warfare-spawned plague. While transporting an experimental strain of the vaccine, both Neville and his pilot succumb to the plague. In a desperate last effort, Neville injects himself with the unproven vaccine. He becomes immune to the plague and devises a way to save those who have not fallen prey to the plague's effects. He is the Omega Man, the last hero left alive; he is able to stop Matthias and his Family to allow a small, protected group to escape to the Sanctuary with the vaccine, making him the first hero of the next epoch. Through a time-travel plotline, The Planet of the Apes' astronaut Taylor becomes the last man alive from before the disaster, and at the same time the savior of the enslaved humans.

Being of the old world, the Hero brings with him a talisman and skills from his time to the Post-Apocalyptic world. These talismans are what enable them to survive and what mark them as heroes. The heroes of Damnation Alley escape their destroyed shelter in the top-secret, high-tech survival tank. In it, they are able to make their way across the country to Albany, the origin point of a mysterious radio signal. This LandMaster gives them mobility and protection when all forms of transportation are useless. The truck is decidedly an object of the old world that brings with it the ability to survive in the new one. Without the LandMaster, the Heroes would be stuck in the Oasis of the military base with dwindling supplies, the structure of which has been damaged by an accident. Max gains his talisman in Mad Max when he is given the "last of the great V-8's" as a bribe to keep him on the force. The V-8 Interceptor serves him well by making him fast enough to survive in the "white line nightmare." This valuable car is not only a coveted vehicle but also marks Max as a former "bronze," and therefore a threat to the Barbarians. Max's abilities behind the wheel are what enable him to survive in the Wasteland and save the Civilized in The Road Warrior. Although others can drive, they are no match for Max's ability and courage on the road, especially against Max's Interceptor. The talisman and skills complement one another and enable the hero to rise above all other survivors. Other heroes, like Dr. Neville, internalize their talismans. Neville's blood carries in it the antibodies needed to defeat the plague; after a series of transfusions of his blood, the recipients begin producing their own antibodies. Neville carries in his veins his talisman from the old world. Neville's medical skills created his talisman, the vaccine, and in passing it on he rescues the Civilized, even though he himself cannot be saved. After his final battle with the Family, he passes on a bottle of his blood, with which a small band of survivors will fortify their own against the plague.

Although the Hero fights to rescue the Civilized, he is not one of them. Likewise he shows some of the same characteristics as the Barbarians, but again he is not one of them. The Hero strikes a balance between the violence of the Barbarians and the hopefulness of the Civilized. The Hero is an individual. He is taking care of himself first and foremost when he is introduced. Astronaut Taylor is neither one of the mute human slaves nor one of the apes in The Planet of the Apes. He poses as a mute human to temporarily escape prosecution, and fights for the life of slave girl, Nova, but in most respects he is more like the ape Barbarians. It is interesting to note that the apes do not take the role of the Civilized even though they have developed a civilization. Their brutality and stubborn refusal to believe in the potential abilities of humans makes them barbarians to the human hero, Taylor. In the end Taylor takes Nova with him, but cannot dwell in either the society of the apes or that of the humans. He sets out into the Wastelands only to discover the horrible truth of the planet of the apes; he has been home on earth all along. Carson of The Ultimate Warrior is able to stand alone and unguarded in the middle of the city where none of the Civilized dare go unless protected by the strength of the group. Without a group to belong to, the Hero has no place to belong to and must move on or die. In fact, Dr. Neville's refusal to move on kills him at the end of The Omega Man. Neville stubbornly lives in the same apartment he dwelled in before the disaster simply because he considers it is home and his right. In fighting the Family, Neville shows the same unrelenting viciousness that they do, but he also has a great deal of compassion for the few surviving young people that have proven able to hold out against the plague for a longer period of time. Neville is not one of the surviving Civilized because he is too old and is truly immune to the plague, but he is not one of the Family because he has not been mutated by the plague either. He is too self-serving and stubborn to join a community except as a leader. Neville fights and destroys the Family so that the Civilized can escape the city in peace, but in the fight he gives up his own life and is unable to join the Civilized in their flight to Sanctuary.

His own resemblance to the Barbarians is not always a comfortable realization for the hero. Max does admit that he fears becoming one of the Barbarians in Mad Max. He tells Fife, "I'm scared, Fife … I'm beginning to enjoy it … Any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, y'know? A terminal crazy." Although the Hero is introduced as an individual he develops an affinity for the community of the Civilized. In The Road Warrior, after losing his Interceptor, Max risks his own life by demanding to drive the tanker for the Civilized, not knowing that it to be a decoy gambit. He is not one of the Civilized, but he fights the final battle on their side. The other members of the Civilized on the decoy mission are all killed in moments of hesitation or distraction over the well-being of the other Civilized. The Warrior Woman leaves her armored position to help the Mechanic when he catches fire and she is killed. Similarly Pappagallo loses focus and is impaled when he tries to rescue the Feral Kid. Max and the Feral Kid are only able to survive by exhibiting the brutal selfishness that a true warrior must possess. His belief in community contradicts his selfish instincts. Max is left alone in the Wasteland. He is too compassionate for the Barbarians and too savage for the Civilized. Max is one of the best examples of this character dichotomy, which robs him of his ability to belong. The Hero exists solely to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the Civilized. Like the knight-errant or the ronin, the Post-Apocalyptic Action Hero is destined to wander the Wasteland, setting wrongs right until he is no longer needed. Or like the drifting Western Hero of My Darling Clementine and The Searchers, the Post-Apocalyptic Hero, if he survives the adventure, must return to the Wasteland as he is too untamed to live with the Civilized and not savage enough to exist along side the Barbarians.

The Post-Apocalyptic Action Film not only preaches Science Fiction's cautionary tale of misused technology, but also expresses a wish that humanity have the ability to survive without much of the technology that it has come to rely on. Whether it is the pre-computer controlled cars of Mad Max or the simple medical knowledge of blood transfusion in The Omega Man, the technology that survives is basic and mechanical, with the primitive clarity of simple machines and common knowledge; not the inhuman uncertainty of electronics and computers. As the Western is the Post-Industrial America Genesis tale, the Post-Apocalyptic Action Film is the new Armageddon. This new interpretation of how it all will end comes complete with demons, saviors and salvation. No longer fought in the spiritual arenas, these battles take place in a corporeal world after the disaster. The new man-made apocalypse comes from our new technologically driven society and the shared fears that have come with it. These stories have captured audiences because, like Matthias and his Family, they too seek a world where technology improves the future more than threatens it. Even with that fear in mind the genre embodies an optimism that humanity will endure through the strength of community and the power of the individual.