Quick lore!

Once just a guardian robot, Maxilos has been taken over by an evil intelligence determined to destroy the Toa Mahri. He is aided by his energy hound, Spinax, his twin-bladed black fire sword and his shoulder-mounted Cordak revolving blaster.

Quick lore!

I was amazed by the boxed set designs in 2007 across the board. While preceding years of "Titans" (boxed sets of large, articulated characters that became the norm starting in 2004) had really only one stand-out design, the Mahri Nui summer wave blessed us with Hydraxon, Karzahni, and this guy, Maxilos. Even before I learned that the Maxilos robot had been possessed by the spirit of Makuta, I found the machine menacing and fascinating. Not since the days of the Boxor and Exo-Toa had I been so entranced. I had to have it!

The problem was that this was the summer before I left for college. My family was taking me on an extended trip out of the country, and most of my finances I saved up needed to go to my college living expenses. Even obtaining the Toa Mahri was going to be a drawn-out affair. Somehow, though I rustled up the $30 I needed by summer's end and snagged this large set. Unfortunately, that left me no time to build it, so it has remained sealed in my collection ever since.

I really do intend to remedy that. Two years ago, I finally opened and built Brutaka, the first ever set I bought in my senior year of high school with the intention of opening it "later". I think I plan to do the same with Maxilos and Spinax as soon as I clear some more space in the BIONICLE sector of my room.

Apparently, Maxilos-type robots were guards in the Pit, the underwater prison for the universe's most vile criminals. With the Great Cataclysm, the Pit was breached and many of the criminals got out into the mutagenic waters surrounding the Pit. Unaffected, the Maxilos robot went to work hunting down runners, assisting the jailer Hydraxon and his pet energy hound, Spinax. At some point, the essence of the Makuta, released from its vat on the island of Voya Nui above, entered and possessed this Maxilos robot as part of his final scheme to take over the Matoran Universe. Knowing that the Toa Inika-turned-Mahri would soon arrive to claim the Mask of Life, Makuta-as-Maxilos waited and pretended to be nothing more than a drone.

Fortune favored Makuta, and in time, one Toa Matoro was imprisoned by Hydraxon. Alone, Makuta began entreating Matoro, revealing his true nature to goad the Toa into escape and rejoining the other Toa Mahri. Makuta knew (or at least strongly suspected) Matoro was necessary to reclaiming the Mask of Life and saving Mata Nui from total death . It was a big gamble, since the Barraki running free in the Pit also wanted the mask and had armies to do their bidding to reclaim it. Plus, the Mask was a countdown to doom. As its color faded, so too did Mata Nui's lifeforce. When it went black, Mata Nui would be dead. And all of Makuta's schemes would come to naught.

Even when this happened, the Toa Mahri did not give up. Matoro took the mask below the seabed into the huge expanse known as the Core below, right before the island of Voya Nui collapsed on top, sealing him inside. The armies of the Barraki, which fought not just the Toa Mahri but also Makuta-as-Maxilos as well, were bewildered when the Mahri suddenly disappeared. With no mask, only the broken pieces of Maxilos stood as a testament to their violence. But Makuta was long gone by that point. His essence had moved on again, to the final place where he would finally see his Grand Plan completed.

Oh boy we got a twofer today. In fact, I'm gonna make it a threefer!

Hyrdaxon was a powerful member of the Order of Mata Nui, highly trained in many forms of combat. After training the Toa Mata he was assigned as Jailer of The Pit. The Pit was a high security prison, that you could only enter or exit through teleportation, that was used to house the most deadly and dangerous threats to the Matoran Universe.

Energy Hounds were popular pets, or it would be better to say tools, of the Order of Mata Nui. They were powerful wolf-like beasts that could lock onto beings unique energy signatures, able to track their "scent" anywhere within the Universe. One such Energy Hound was Spinax, who served Hydraxon.

Maxilos were a series of fully robotic beings built by the Order of Mata Nui to guard key locations. Twice the size of a Toa, these hulking machines had shoulder mounted Cordak Blasters that let them rapid fire missiles at foes. They also carried Twin-Bladed Black Fire Swords that could channel their internal energies into blasts of dark flame. Many Maxilos were placed under Hydraxon's stewardship to guard The Pit.

During the Great Cataclysm The Pit was massively damaged. Its roof caved-in letting mutagenic waters from the ocean of Aqua Magna above flood the chamber. Many of the prisoners, alongside Spinax, were mutated by the black waters and gained the ability to breath underwater, at the cost of not being able to breathe air. Hydraxon was killed in the chaos.

Many years later the Mask of Life was brought to the waters around The Pit, leading to more chaos. Strap in folks.

Makuta Teridax, still presumed dead from his fight with Takanuva, used his ability to posses soulless vessels and suits of armor to take over a Maxilos robot.

A Matoran named Dekar tried to destroy the Mask of Life. As punishment it, as it usually does, cursed him. It transformed him into a replica of the long dead Hydraxon, memories and all.

This Dekar-Hydraxon set about recapturing the many escaped and fish-like former prisoners and repairing the pit, however the remnants of Dekar within him still feared the Mask of Life and wanted to find and destroy it. He entrusted his Spinax hound the Maxilos possessed by Makuta (or rather, Makuta possessed the one who had been caring for Spinax, and Hydraxon said it was fine if he kept using it) to help recapture prisoners.

But Makuta had other plans. One of the first prisoners Hydraxon managed to "recapture" wasn't an escaped convict at all. It was Toa Matoro, the hero destined to use the Mask of Life and save the Great Spirit. Makuta decided to toy with the Toa and freed him to go on an adventure.

Makuta had a grand plan to recreate the Nui Stone, a powerful artifact that could steal the power of Toa. It had been destroyed long ago and its shards embedded inside Tuyet, a Toa who violated the Code by trying to use the Nui Stone and murdering those who caught on. On the way Matoro and "Maxilos" managed to best both Karzahni and Pridak in combat.

The most interesting part of this adventure was the ways Makuta toyed with Matoro. As a test of his worth, the Mask of Life had given Matoro the Kanohi Tryna, the Mask of Reanimation, a mask considered immoral by Toa for how it abused and desecrated the dead, turning them into zombie husks that serve the wearer. Makuta first convinced Matoro to raise an entire army of sealife, and later the much more sickening task of reanimated Tuyet, who's husk followed along, the shards of the Nui Stone within her corpse needed as much as the mental anguish and exhaustion it would cause Matoro keeping her "alive" for hours on end.

Through other adventures we won't get into, Makuta Icarax recovered the Staff of Artakha, a legendary artifact that could repair or fix nearly any item. Icarax begrudgingly handed the Staff over to Teridax/Maxilos, who started on repairing the Nui Stone.

Before he could finish he was attacked by Brutaka, who was (again long story) a disgraced Order of Mata Nui member trying to reclaim his honor. Brutaka won the fight, and the staff, by

Before he could finish he was attacked by Brutaka, who was (again long story) a disgraced Order of Mata Nui member trying to reclaim his honor. Brutaka won the fight, and the staff, by informing Makuta that Hydraxon was closing in on the Mask of Life with the intent to destroy it. Maxilos fled and got to Hydraxon just in time.

During this confrontation Maktua let loose his powers, and Hydraxon realized this "Maxilos" was not one of his guards. But, as luck would have it, Maxilos was not the true master of the Spinax Hound, Hydraxon sicced the dog on its mechanical wielder. Matoro came upon the fight scene, and froze Maktua/Maxilos to prevent him from interfering further. Makuta was impressed with the Toa's anger, but the ice did not hold him long.

Back in the fight Makuta used his power of Rahi Control to seize Spinax's mind. In pain and anguish, he forced the dog to attack it's true master to keep him from destroying the Mask. Matoro fled with the Mask of Life, unaware that Makuta had let him leave.

During the final confrontation of the 2007 story, where Matoro rushed to use the Mask of Life and save the Great Spirit, Maxilos revealed his true identity to the Barraki (the main antagonists of that year.) You see, the Barraki were basically sent to The Pit by Maktua in the first place. Makuta had defeated the six and planned to execute them long ago, but the Order intervened and sent them to prison instead. Makuta intended to make good on his original plan for the lot.

But the fight did not go in Makuta's favor. With the combined might of their armies the Barraki destroyed the Maxilos robot, forcing Makuta's essence to flee. But the dark lord did buy Matoro just enough time to use the Mask of Life, for purposes more nefarious than they may sound.

As for Hydraxon and Spinax they survived the fray and successfully recaptured (or killed, oops) all the escaped prisoners. They also intended to repair the Maxilos Makuta had commandeered, but were unsuccessful. As a part of Journey's End and Mata Nui's attempts at creating a happily ever after, everyone in The Pit was given the power to breathe both water and air, letting Hydraxon and Spinax explore the world again!

@DavidSkyroller said:
"Yet again, the mask Makuta "wants" is already part of his armor x2, albeit in a different color."

That always amused me.

"Spinax, eject!" - Makuta Teridax

In all seriousness, I'm impressed that the Maxilos figure actually has shoulder joints, something that I don't recall prior BIONICLE Titan/Warrior scale sets having. (The steps to assemble these are on pages 18-19.)

I am reminded of how painful it is to assemble multi-joint connections like those in BrickLink Studio, as they require some really complicated mathematical equations to get the angles right. It's the one roadblock I face whenever I try to make BIONICLE MOCs in that program, and I hope one day, it'd be easier to connect multiple joints at once in BrickLink Studio.

I always found it fascinating that the Maxilos robots had a face shaped like the Hau. Was that ever addressed in the fiction?

There's a reason why this set is regularly named as one the best sets Bionicle has ever produced. Points of articulation never seen before (or after), impressive size, unique sidekick, lore importance, the attention to details (this set is basically a callback to 8593, another all-time favorite), as well as the inclusion of a recolored unique mask all contribute to the fact this is a very much beloved outing of the franchise. Alongside 8734, they have set the golden standard for titan builds.

One of the best sets ever made. I'm surprised the product picture is such poor quality.

One of the best. The shoulders are so posable it can shrug! This is achieved by using Throwbot arms and pistons (the kind also used on titan legs) to give it more range of motion. The result is a bit wonky to play with, but the result is great!

Other cool features are the design of Spinax, the huge sword staff, the shoulder-mounted cordak blaster. And overal a very mechanicallooking design fit for a robot (this Maxilos is one of the few Bionicle sets depicting a full robot, not a biomechanical creature).
As stated above by someone else, the color scheme and design is also a direct homage to 8583 Makuta because this is the first appearance of the character since 2003 (2004 if you count the combiner Ultimate Dume, which was also released as a set). Just add a Kraahkan mask and it will look very familiar.

My only gripe is that the chain is short. But that's quite easy to solve.

Maybe the best Bionicle set ever?
He's so darn cool.

Would you believe I was just glancing through the comments on the old RSotD post for Makuta last night? What a coincidence for a more recent body inhabited by the same character to come around the very next day?

Can't do much more than reiterate what others have said: by far one of the best sets Bionicle ever produced! I remember just how revolutionary it was back in the day that he could physically shrug because of the way his shoulders were articulated, which was unheard of for an official set at the time: every previous set's shoulder motion had been limited to gear-based rotation or a single ball joint. Plus, he towered over most other sets, cutting a very menacing figure.

Also he had a cute dog! ...for certain definitions of "cute", at least xD

The only thing I less liked, which has nothing to do with the set itself, is that when not being possessed by Makuta, Maxilos is very much a non-character. I get that the robot essentially had to be an empty shell for Makuta to be able to inhabit it, but I'd have preferred for someone whose set was so impressive to have had a personality apart from that as well. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, of course, but... just a preference on my part ^^

I think these two must have been the only Bionicle set I ever bought from Amazon. I preferred to buy in person for new sets, or else second-hand off eBay, so while I made other purchases from that site it was never my go-to for Lego. However for my birthday that year, a family friend gave me an amazon voucher.

...of £25. The exact price of this set. It was just too fitting; so I spent it to get this guy right away, and he did not disappoint!