After more than a year of delays, it’s finally time to celebrate the release of the next DCEU tentpole film that is Wonder Woman 1984. The movie isn’t looking to push the boundaries of the DCEU’s story, but will still bring in characters that mainstream fans haven’t seen before.
Maxwell Lord is one of the significant new introductions, one who won’t be familiar to audiences that have only followed the film series. His name isn't unknown to comic book fans, though, as Lord has been a constant antagonist in this form of media. Still, comic book readers should brush up on their knowledge while DCEU fans need to check out the most important things about this character.
10 He Was A Leading Figure For Justice League International
For the most part, Maxwell Lord has been established as a constant link to the Justice League rather than to Wonder Woman. In fact, his first appearance was in 1987’s Justice League #1. Lord’s role was as the benefactor of the league and then took this further.
He was the one who established the Justice League International, which took on worldwide cases as opposed to being limited to America. Around this time, though, the Justice League International had a more comedic tone, so Maxwell Lord’s influence wasn’t highlighted as much. His future in the DCEU might resolve some questions about this version's Justice League's exploits.
9 He Saw His Father Take His Life
It’s essential for Wonder Woman 1984 to include key details from the comics, and it’s an important part of Maxwell Lord’s characterization of his father being a good man who happened to be embroiled in a company that did very bad things.
Maxwell Lord III was head of Chimtech Consortium and had made it his mission to do good in the world, only to take his own life when he found out his company was creating products that could create cancer. Maxwell Lord IV, his then-teenage son, found his father upon his demise, setting him on the path to do good but in all the wrong ways.
8 His Initial Plans For The Justice League Were Benevolent But Controlled By A.I.
Lord had taken control of the Justice League after it became leaderless following the Crisis on Infinite Earths scenario. While his plans were initially meant to do good, Lord came under the influence of a villainous A.I. that corrupted him into twisting the Justice League toward world dominance.
Due to the change in writers, the A.I. in question has been retconned, initially being a creation of Metron before this changing to the Kilg%re program. Another retcon in Justice League: Generation Lost #20 made it appear as if Lord might have had sinister intentions on his own as well.
7 He Grew To Despise Humans After His Mother's Death
The death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday is a very popular story that was even adapted in the DCEU in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In the comics, collateral damage happened when Mongul conducted an invasion, resulting in Maxwell Lord’s mother’s death.
This event caused him to shun all metahumans in general, as Lord figured that their battles did more harm than good as people would get caught in between and lose their lives. By the events of Identity Crisis #1, his faith in metahumans was completely dissolved.
6 He Died And Became A Cyborg
At one point, Maxwell Lord developed a tumor and passed away, only for Kil%re to activate its full control on Lord’s mind and uploaded him into Lord Havok, which was of the Extremist’s robots. This was later retconned when Lord’s backstory was also changed.
During the arc where he was Lord Havok, Lord’s body resembled that of a cyborg, before it gradually came to appear as he once did. The cyborg version of Maxwell Lord didn’t take an active role, though, with his most noteworthy move at the time being taking of the Arcana, a secret society.
5 He Received Powers From A Gene Bomb
The Dominators are an alien race who believe that the metahumans of Earth should be eliminated for the threat they pose. As such, they conducted an assault on Earth which paved the way for the Invasion! arc. The ending of this angle saw a Dominator deploy a Gene Bomb, which was supposed to finish metahumans’ power but its reversal ended up empowering many.
Maxwell Lord was one of these people, as he developed powers of mind control. This was done by telepathically influencing anyone he wanted to do his bidding. Lord eventually gained extreme control of these abilities, to the point where he could control Superman. One of the DCEU's mistakes has been to avoid empowering villains too much, so Lord's abilities are something that could be adapted.
4 His Use Of The Brother Eye To Turn Humans Into Cyborgs
One of the frequent questions asked about Wonder Woman is the extent to her contributions to the Justice League, and the faction had once been brought to its knees by Maxwell Lord. Countdown to Infinite Crisis had again changed Lord’s backstory to make him a villain who had used the Justice League International for power.
Here, he used Batman’s satellite known as the Brother Eye and twisted its specifications to turn it from a metahumans surveillance system to a weapon that infected people with a nano-virus and turned them into cyborgs that would use the Brother Eye’s surveillance to hunt metahumans.
3 He Was Killed By Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman has made a number of good and bad decisions in her time, and the case of her taking Maxwell Lord’s life is a bit of both. When his powers became out of control, he controlled Superman to make him believe Batman and Wonder Woman were threats and attack them.
In Wonder Woman (vol. 2) # 219, when Lord remained defiant that he wouldn’t stop this trickery since he wanted to expose metahumans’ threat, Wonder Woman killed him to put an end to his villainy. Unfortunately, the Brother Eye broadcasted this to the world without context, effectively ruining the perception around Wonder Woman for a long time.
2 He Once Made The World Forget His Existence
After another resurrection in the Brightest Days arc, Lord becomes more focused than ever in pushing the powers of his mental manipulation. This ended up causing a worldwide search for his arrest, with Justice League: Generation Lost showing Lord on the run.
He was able to get away from his crimes by means of using his powers on a much larger level by using a device to control the minds of everyone in the world to forget he ever existed. This did work as intended, but he failed to wipe the minds of his Justice League teammates of who he was.
1 There Are Multiple Incarnations Of Maxwell Lord
It’s probably not possible to recap the most major important plot points without mentioning that Maxwell Lord doesn’t have just the one continuity. Along with the many retcons his characterization has experienced, there have been alternate versions as well.
While The New 52 rebooted Max Lord entirely, he was still in the same universe. On the other hand, different Max Lords can be found in Earth One, Amalgam Comics, Elsewords, and Countdown where he is known as a US army entrepreneur, Lord Maxwell Hodge, a nineteenth-century baron, and the female Maxine Lord, in each respective universe.
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