Mad Max Fury Road: The History Men Explained

At the close of Mad Max: Fury Road the movie quotes the first of the “History Men,” a detail that prompted many fans to wonder who these figures are and what they do. The world of Mad Max is a murky, complex one that even franchise fans sometimes struggle to figure out. Thanks to the relentless pace of the movies and their surprisingly complicated, layered backstory, the Mad Max universe is one of the more difficult blockbuster series to decipher.

For example, many viewers watching Mad Max: Fury Road for the first time may reasonably wonder who the little girl Max hallucinates in the opening scene is, or who the “first History Man” quoted at the close of the movie is. Neither of these questions is answered at any point in Fury Road’s mile-a-minute action, with the sequel never slowing down to explain itself before the credits roll. However, some digging into supplementary Mad Max reading materials sheds a little light on this mystery.

The first of the History Men is quoted at the end of Mad Max: Fury Road despite the movie never explaining who they are onscreen. In the universe of Mad Max, the History Men are a group of historians who preserve the knowledge of the past by any means necessary and disseminate it among the population, with their most recognizable and defining method of spreading stories being tattooing historical records on their bodies. According to Mad Max: Fury Road’s tie-in comics, the History Men came into existence after Furiosa and Max’s triumphant takedown of Immortan Joe’s regime and the group found an early antecedent in the heavily tattooed Miss Giddy, who taught Immortan Joe’s captive wives and Furiosa history via her body art.

The reason that the History Men and Miss Giddy’s illustrative body art is so important in the series is that they both underline the need to retell history to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Fury Road’s fascist villain Immortan Joe is depicted as a zealot who discourages his followers from questioning him or looking into the past, and knowledge of history is a valuable commodity that can stop the citizens of Mad Max’s post-apocalyptic wasteland setting from falling under another despot’s rhetorical spell. Of course, only time will tell whether the History Men are successful in warning the populace against repeating the mistakes that led to Immortan Joe’s rise to power.

After all, series creator George Miller noted that Furiosa has the potential to become a bloodthirsty ruler, not unlike Joe, and warned that Max’s bleak world left no room for idolizing its heroes. Max, Furiosa, and the rest of the franchise’s characters are flawed people, as proven by Aunt Entity’s moral ambiguity in Beyond Thunderdome. While the second movie in the franchise, The Road Warrior, may have cut Lord Humungus’ sympathetic connection to Max’s past, the History Men’s attempts to ensure that the violence of Fury Road is not repeated by the next generation proves that Mad Max’s universe is one of murky morality.

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Cathal Gunning
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Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

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