May contain spoilers: "Max Lobo" is the pen name of Max Glenreed, a good-natured Vietnam veteran, former cop, journalist, novelist, and jailbird. As a journalist, Max wrote a regular column for the Village Tribune. He also wrote a novel about the Vietnam war called Seven Hundred and Thirty Days in Saigon. When we first meet Max in the manga, he is jailed for punching a cop. However, considering his cozy relationship with Charlie, Antonio, and even the prison guards, there is a strong suggestion that Max is keeping himself in jail as long as he wants. He practically brags that he could get out at any time; however, staying locked up seems to be serving the purpose of good old-fashioned investigative journalism.
Ever since the Vietnam war, Max has been hot on the trail of "Banana Fish," and has secretly been collecting notes and research for years. In Vietnam, his close friend Griffin Callenreese took some illicit drugs and went on bad trip, going on a shooting rampage and killing fellow members of his unit; it was Max, ultimately, who shot Griff's legs out from underneath him and stopped the carnage. Max had to abandon Griffin to the "nut house" in Saigon, although after the end of the war, he spent years searching for Griffin's whereabouts. To this day, Max is haunted by the memory of Griffin. Later on in the story, this guilt drives him to protect Ash from danger, despite the antagonistic relationship that Ash initially forces him into.
Max provides a lot of comic relief in the story. He sometimes acts as a fool, sometimes as an idiot savant. He loves his son and his ex-wife, Jessica, even though he is deathly afraid of Jessica's temper.
In an interview, Akimi Yoshida said that Max's character design was based on actor Harrison Ford.
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