Max Dire

Max Dire was a detective for the Los Angeles police department. He was married to a woman named Anna and his partner was the late Jim Sheldon. Max distinguished himself for his involvement in the Club O hostage situation and was a Medal of Valor recipient for 1993. His strong moral code and dedication to duty made him a prime recruit for Adam Garou's special police detachment known as the Pack.

L.A. Shoot-Out
In 1993, detectives Max Dire and Jim Sheldon responded to a hostage situation at a night club called Club O. The hostages had the entranceways blockaded and were demanding an airplane to take them out of the city. Dire and Sheldon accessed the building via the air ducts, but the gunmen heard their approach and Sheldon was shot repeatedly. Upon hearing his partner being shot, Detective Dire descended from the air ducts and took the hostages down single-handedly. Jim survived but was in a coma. Max received the Medal of Valor, but had great difficulty coming to grips with the experience. His guilt weighed heavily upon him and even began to affect his marriage. His wife, Anna, and he sought counseling.

It wasn't long before Jim Sheldon came out of his coma. Though Max didn't know it at the time, Jim owed his recovery to a mysterious benefactor who injected him with a special werewolf serum while he was in the hospital. Jim returned to work as if nothing had happened.

Shortly thereafter, Max and Jim were at a donut shop when Jim noticed a car load of thugs ready to gun down some pedestrians. Jim was the first to respond and Max backed him up, diving in front of the criminals, guns blazing. He watched in shock as his partner emerged from an explosion without a scratch.

The experience did little to improve Max's state of mind or his marriage. Returning home, he found a voicemail indicating that his wife had gone to stay with her mother in Houston.

Adam Garou
Max received a telephone call from a detective named Adam Garou. Garou told him that he was in charge of Officer Crisis Counseling and would like to sit down with him. Max met Garou in his office and was disturbed by how much the man seemed to know about his personal life. Garou arranged for Max to meet him at his home for a sit-down session with other veteran officers who have suffered gravely in the line of duty.

That evening, Max went to the Blue Night bar - a drinking establishment patroned primarily by cops. While Max and his friends were playing pool, Jim Sheldon walked in. He told Max that he was "retiring", then took his service revolver, placed it inside his mouth and shot himself. This, coupled with everything else, shook Max to his core. He decided to take Adam up on his offer.

The Pack
Max came to Adam's lavish, penthouse suite. Garou introduced him to other police officers who had suffered greatly in the line of duty. Among them included Casey Spencer, Ramón Pérez, Doug Crane and a woman named Liza. Adam told him that this special group, called the Pack, served as an unofficial task force for the L.A.P.D. They endorsed a rabid dedication towards cleaning up the streets that Max perceived as being nothing more than brutal vigilantism. Adam invited Max to accompany them on a mission and Max reluctantly agreed; if for no other reason, than to determine the true nature of Adam's motivations. Adam brought Max and the Pack to the river across from the warehouse where a crime lord named Teague was conducting his operations. The Pack members injected themselves with a strange, yellow serum that enhanced their physical attributes. Leaving Max behind, the Pack swam across the river to confront Teague's forces. Max viewed the spectacle through a pair of night goggles and was shocked to watch Adam's recruits tear into the drug dealers with savage ferocity. Although he was yet to understand what was going on, he knew that there was more to these individuals other than just being secret super-cops.

The following day, Max attended the wedding ceremony of Pack member Ramón Pérez. He, as well as the other guests, were shocked when Ramón spontaneously declared that he no longer wished to get married. He watched him as Pérez angrily left the ceremony and realized that joining with Garou meant severing all other social ties.

Max went to Jim Sheldon’s home to consult with his partner’s former fiancée, Helen. While perusing Jim’s workshop, he found evidence to suggest that Jim had melted down his lucky silver dollar and forged it into a bullet. He then went to the county morgue where he asked to inspect Jim’s corpse. He had the coroner (affectionately known as Bobmeister), withdraw the bullet from Sheldon’s head whereupon he discovered that it was made of silver.

Determined to find some answers to his many questions, he then went to Adam’s penthouse where he was greeted by Casey Spencer. Casey tried to get Max to take Adam’s serum, but Max politely declined. She then seduced him and after a bout of passionate love-making, asked him again. Again, Max declined. Casey then shot him point blank in the chest in the middle of Adam’s living room. She injected him with the serum and Max instantly healed. She apologized for forcing him into this situation, but knew that this was the only way she could get Max to become a member of the Pack.

Although angry, Max came to appreciate the adrenalin rush that came with taking the injections. Casey and he went on a private mission where they raided one of Teague’s “ice houses”. Fueled by the serum, Max’s body bulked up and he grew fangs and claws that extended from his knuckles. They tore into the gangsters with both bullet and claw, leaving none of them alive.

A few night later, several of Max's cop buddies threw him a surprise party celebrating his 30th birthday. Even his wife, Anna, had returned from Houston to be with him. Max was still reeling from the roller coaster effects of the serum, and everyone could see that he was acting differently.

Adam and the Pack came into the club to formally initiate Max into the group. When they left the bar however, several of Teague’s henchmen sought revenge against them by blowing up their van. Everyone survived the explosion, and they repaid Teague’s hospitality by slaughtering his thugs and air-dropping them through the skylight of his home.

The truth about Adam
It was at this time, that Max began to realize that Adam was more than just the leader of a task force and the engineer of a special "wonder vitamin". He learned that Adam was a werewolf and had spent decades setting up packs throughout major cities across the country. Whenever he "cleaned" a city however, he always killed his own crew before moving on to the next.

Max went to confront Adam and warn the other Pack members about their leader's inevitable betrayal. He managed to convince Doug Crane to sever his ties with Adam, but Adam responded by killing Crane in front of all the other team members. Max and Casey escaped Adam’s wrath by leaping from his penthouse window to the street below.

Max soon learned that Adam intended on assassinating Teague. He acquired weapons made of silver and went down to the docks to stop him. Max and Adam squared off against one another and he shot Garou in the chest with a silver bullet. Unfortunately, this was the night of a full lunar eclipse. During such events, a werewolf is completely invulnerable, even to silver. Adam shifted into his full werewolf form and Max and he began fighting one another.

Max tried to escape by climbing a cargo crate suspended from a crane, but Garou leapt after him and the two continued punching and clawing at one another. Max withdrew a needle filled with silver nitrate and stabbed it into Adam’s neck. Fortunately for Max, the eclipse was now passing and Garou was vulnerable to silver again. The chemicals poisoned his bloodstream, forcing him to resume human form. He pleaded with Max to not let his legacy die with him. He asked him to lie down in his blood and absorb his power so that he might carry on his work. With the silver nitrate coursing through his system, Adam Garou finally died.

Three Years Later
Max made peace with himself and his relationship with Anna improved. They relocated to Denver, Colorado where Max still worked as a cop. Having honored Garou’s wishes, Max continued to use the werewolf serum to fight crime.

Abilities
Max Dire was a pseudo-werewolf and not a true werewolf. As such, he could not shapeshift into a full, half-man/half-woman form like Adam Garou. Instead, his overall physique increased in size and heartiness. He grew a set of claws that protruded not from his fingertips, but rather from his knuckles. He also developed sharpened canine teeth. Although he still felt pain, he could not be injured through coventional weaponry. So long as he continued to inject himself with Adam's formula, he could instantly heal from nearly any injury. The only thing that could harm Max was direct exposure to silver. Even touching something made of silver caused him severe pain. During a full lunar eclipse, Max was virtually invincible and not even silver could harm him.