Maxwell Lord

Maxwell Lord IV is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Justice League #1 (May 1987) and was created by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire. He is a powerful businessman. Maxwell Lord was important in the formation of the Justice League International in the DC Universe. He is mainly seen as a villain to Wonder Woman.

Fictional character biography

Maxwell Lord IV is the son of Maxwell Lord III, a successful businessman and head of the Chimtech Consortium. Maxwell III set out to be a good example for his son by striving to always do what was right. When Maxwell IV was 16, he came home to find his father dead to an apparent suicide. His father had discovered that his company had produced a highly carcinogenic product, and couldn't bear to live with the guilt and shame that came with the realization. Maxwell's mother was convinced that her husband's death was the result of a conspiracy from the executives in his company who were unwilling to let his regrets tamper with their power. This led to her telling impressionable Maxwell to distrust figures of higher authority. This instilled a hatred towards powerful people in Max and made him believe that he must have control over all of them. Maxwell spent the next years training to be more ruthless and powerful than his father was, methodically enacting his revenge against the Chimtech administration board members, but was unable to prevent Lex Luthor from acquiring his former property and adding it to the already immense Lexcorp. By observing how Lex earned profits by arming and employing hostile metahumans, Maxwell and his mother decided to bend the rules for themselves, cajoling instead heroic metahumans  to give Maxwell Lord a better edge. Thus, he sparked the plans to bring the Justice League, leaderless and broken after the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, under his exclusive control.

Powers and abilities

In his original depictions, Maxwell Lord had no abilities, but later became a metahuman as a result of the Dominators' invasion of Earth. Lord's powers allow him to telepathically influence people's minds, typically in the form of pushing a subconscious suggestion to others.

In other media

Maxwell Lord appeared in an episode of Smallville played by Gil Bellows. He was also in the first season of the television series Supergirl played by Peter Facinelli. The character made his movie debut in Wonder Woman 1984, played by Pedro Pascal. He will be played by Sean Gunn in the DC Universe (DCU) franchise.