Maxwell Lord
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Maxwell Lord is a fictional character in the DC Comics universe. A shrewd and powerful businessman, he was very influential in the formation of Justice League International.
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[edit] Character history
Initially, Lord worked behind the scenes to establish the League, while under the control of a villainous computer created by Metron (a later retcon would say that this was actually the villainous computer program Kilgore, which had taken over Metron's machine). The computer wanted Max to set up a worldwide peacekeeping organisation, as part of its plan to dominate the world.
Lord's ruthlessness at this time was illustrated when he set up a disturbed would-be terrorist as a villain for the League to defeat, resulting in the man's death. (The would-be terrorist believed he had a bomb connected to his heartbeat, but in fact, Max had disconnected it.) Later, however, he rebelled against the computer and (seemingly) destroyed it.
[edit] Amoral businessman
Once free of the computer's influence, Lord was portrayed as an amoral businessman, but not a real villain. During the time that Giffen and DeMatteis were writing the Justice League the character was shown struggling with his conscience and developing heroic qualities, though he would remain a con-artist; however, more recent changes to his character by different writers seem to contradict these previous characterizations.
[edit] Newfound power
Originally a normal human, Lord was one of many on Earth gifted with super-powers during the Invasion crossover, when a Gene Bomb was exploded by alien invaders. This bomb activated the latent metagene present in a small percentage of Earthlings. Lord gained the ability to control the minds of others, albeit at great difficulty.
After he was shot and placed in a coma, at the start of the 15-part JLAmerica/JLEurope crossover Breakdowns, Dreamslayer, a supervillain who, with the aid of the Extremists, a team of robotic servants, had once destroyed all life on their planet, took over Lord's body and "supercharged" this power, allowing him to control thousands of minds at once. Using Lord's body and power, he caused the JLI to lose its charter, and almost forced them to disband. Finally however, while it forced the JLI to battle itself, the mortally-wounded Silver Sorceress managed to contain Dreamslayer and held it within her mind as she died, taking it with her, and while Lord was freed, his power was burnt out.
[edit] Cyborg
Later, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and seemingly died. The Kilg%re, however, had been waiting patiently for the right moment to reactivate its control of Lord and downloaded his consciousness into a duplicate of one of the Extremist robots, Lord Havok. In this form he spent some time testing the League, for unknown reasons. He also took control of the secret organisation known as the Illuminati.
His cyborg body later came to resemble his original human form. Recently, he pulled together several former JLI members, including L-Ron, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold and Fire as the "Super Buddies," advertised as "Heroes the common man could call."
[edit] Infinite Crisis
The 2005 80-page one-shot Countdown to Infinite Crisis revealed that Lord was no longer a cyborg and, apparently, a criminal mastermind who spent years running the JLI gathering sensitive information about the world's superheroes, whom he considered a threat to the planet. At the same time, he sabotaged JLI efforts in order to render the superhero team as ineffectual as possible. At the end of the prologue special issue, he shoots and kills one-time JLI member Blue Beetle when the hero discovers Lord's secret and refuses his offer to join him.
During this time, Lord was given control of Batman's Brother Eye project (created to monitor all superhuman contact; Batman had grown paranoid when discovering the JLA had mindwiped him; see Identity Crisis) by Alexander Luthor, Jr. (the god-like son of Lex Luthor from an alternate earth), taking it over and creating an army of cyborgs called OMACs (humans infected with a virus that transformed them into the OMACs) programmed to hunt down and kill all superhumans.
He also used his powers to influence Superman's mind, causing him to brutally beat up Batman and attack Wonder Woman, believing them to be his old enemies (ie Brainiac, Darkseid, Ruin, and Doomsday). This is significant because he was never before shown to actually be able to cause full blown hallucinations through his minor psionic powers. After barely escaping from Superman, Wonder Woman confronted Lord and bound him in her lasso of truth; telling him to tell her how to free Superman; Lord tells her she has to kill him, and she snaps his neck. In response, Brother Eye cast the footage of Wonder Woman executing Lord all over the world, destroying her reputation and her friendship with Batman and Superman (who rejected her despite the fact that she saved their lives).
[edit] Criticism
How Lord recovered his original human body and received a different variation of his telepathic powers has not been revealed, and fans have criticized this reboot of the character, especially after interviews where prominent DC comics administrators revealed they knew about the continuity problems but decided to ignore them (see next paragraph). In-story, it is possible to explain the various continuity errors as one of the side-effects of Superboy Prime "punching" the universe and changing history (see Continuity changes during Infinite Crisis for more details); this may also explain his character change from hero to villain, as might influence by Alexander Luthor and/or the Psycho-Pirate. While it is was probably the writer's intent to suggest that Lord's previous 'heroic behavior' was simply a part he played to ingratiate himself with the heroes before his intended plan of betrayal, this is contradicted by his various thought-bubbles over the years.
At the "Crisis Counseling" panel at WizardWorld: Chicago, Dan DiDio explained DC's reasoning in using Lord's character in Infinite Crisis. After going through several possible characters who could be the "new leader for the offshoot of Checkmate", Maxwell Lord was suggested. Many of the editors thought that the idea made sense, as Lord had been shown to have a mean streak and to have killed previously. The idea was dropped due to the continuity errors, such as him being a cyborg, but they went back to it later after deciding none of the other possible characters were suitable. "We thought about that aspect of the story [where Maxwell was turned into a cyborg] some more," DiDio explained. "And then asked, 'Did anyone read it?' No. 'Did anyone like the idea?' No. So we moved ahead with Max as being a human, and having been a human, and not letting that small part of the past stand in the way of this story. We wanted what was best for Countdown, and for us, that meant that Max had to be a human."[1]
[edit] Other media
Lord has appeared on an episode of Justice League Unlimited as the money manager and PR person who took care of the Ultimen. He was voiced by Tim Matheson.
