« Lord was always sort of a nebulous, self-serving hard ass » said Keith Giffen (RIP) in a CBR interview twenty years ago. He’s talking about Maxwell Lord, power broker, master manipulator, cyborg for a time, spy and full-blown villain.
The Maxwell Lord appearing in the pages of DC Comics today is not the same man readers encountered when he made his first appearance almost 40 years ago in Justice League #1 (May 1987). His origins were rewritten post-Flashpoint to better align with his modern characterization. Once an amoral power broker, Lord has since become a more straightforward villain.
With a new version of Maxwell Lord set to appear in the upcoming Superman movie this summer, we take a look back at Maxwell Lord’s history, and how the character has changed over time.
Maxwell Lord, The Businessman Behind the Justice League
When editor Andy Helfer and writer Keith Giffen worked to create a new version of the Justice League in the late 1980s, they couldn’t use Superman or Wonder Woman and needed to find a reason for the team’s particular roster. Enter Maxwell Lord. As Helfer explained in the foreword to Justice League: A New Beginning trade paperback, “Mystery Max is the driving force behind the group – somehow, he enlists an assortment of heroes to form a new Justice League. How he does it, no one is quite certain. Characters themselves don’t know what they’re doing in the group. Connections are crossed, mistakes are made, characters enter and leave – and only one thing is certain: Max did it.”
Co-created by Helfer, Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire, Maxwell Lord was introduced as a powerful businessman and an ally of the Justice League. No one would call him a hero, but he wasn’t a villain either. He was a con artist, a manipulator, a man who sometimes wrestled with his conscience but still had some redeeming qualities. Mostly, he was the League’s manager, acting as an authority figure and power broker.
Lord found himself in this position thanks to Kilg%re, an electro-mechano-organic intelligence. Originally an enemy of The Flash, Kilg%re believed that manipulating and controlling world peace would assure its own survival. It recruited Maxwell Lord as its physical agent, using him as a means to an end. Lord himself admitted that part of his motivation for accepting the arrangement was his own thirst for power.
Though Maxwell Lord was manipulated by Kilg%re for a time, the businessman proved to be a skilled negotiator and a man with extensive connections. While introduced as an ordinary human, he discovered his telepathic talent in the aftermath of the Invasion! crossover, and his powers has increased over time.
Maxwell Lord, Master Manipulator and Villain
But how did Maxwell Lord become the villain that he is today? After Giffen/DeMatteis departed from Justice League, Lord became (for a completely forgettable time) a cybernetic avatar in Extreme Justice (1995). While some reinterpretation is business as usual in the Comic Book World, Maxwell Lord’s characterization made a complete 180 later, in the pages of Countdown to Infinite Crisis.
Maxwell Lord was reintroduced as a ruthless figure who had seized control of the Checkmate intelligence organization. According to then-executive editor Dan Didio, the team at DC Comics saw Lord as the most obvious choice for the role, as he had “been shown to have a mean streak and to have killed previously” (Newsrama).
Maxwell Lord, once morally ambiguous but still on the side of the good guy, took a villainous turn when he murdered former JLI member Blue Beetle (Ted Kord). From that moment on, Maxwell Lord’s past and motivations were reframed and rewritten to fit this modern characterization. Like Amanda Waller today, Maxwell Lord became one of those figures who suddenly saw metahumans as the greatest threat to humanity and was convinced they needed to be controlled or eliminated. His master plan escalated to one of the most famous moments in his history: being killed by Wonder Woman in a broadcast seen worldwide (Wonder Woman #219).
Of course, in true comic book fashion, death was not the end for Maxwell Lord. He was resurrected in Blackest Night (2009) and returned post-Flashpoint with a revised history that consolidated his villainous turn.
Essential Maxwell Lord Comics
For a quick look at Maxwell Lord’s history, DC Comics has released a trade collecting important issues highlighting his character’s evolution. While it provides a solid selection, some stories may lack full context.
- Wonder Woman: The Many Lives of Maxwell Lord
Collects Justice League #1 (1987), Justice League International #12, Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1, The Omac Project #2, Wonder Woman #219, Justice League: Generation Lost #20, and Justice League #12 (2017).
To explore in more depth Maxwell Lord’s history in DC Comics, we invite you to check our selection of comics featuring the character. You can naturally start by his first appearance in Justice League and his subsequent actions as manager of the team in Giffen/DeMatteis’ JLI run, known to be a sitcom-like version of the Justice League, collected in Omnibus:
- Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 1
Collects Justice League #1-6, Justice League International #7-25, Justice League America #26-30, Justice League Annual #1, Justice League International Annual #2-3, Justice League Europe #1-6 and Suicide Squad #13. - Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 2
Collects Justice League America #31-50, Justice League Europe #7-25, Justice League America Annual #4, Justice League Europe Annual #1, Justice League Quarterly #1, and Justice League International Special #1. - Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 3
Collects Justice League America #51-60, Secret Origins #33-35, Justice League America Annual #5, Green Lantern #18, Justice League Quarterly #2-5, JLA 80-Page Giant #1, Formerly Known As The Justice League #1-6, JLA: Classified #4-9, Justice League Europe #26-36, DC Retroactive: JLA–The ’90s #1, Justice League Europe Annual #2, and Justice League International Special #2.
If you prefer to discover the modern characterization of Lord, you can simply start with his introduction as the mastermind behind Checkmate and complete this reading with his appearances in Geoff Johns’s run on Booster Gold that expand on his role during this period.
- The OMAC Project
Collects The OMAC Project #1–6, Countdown to Infinite Crisis, and Wonder Woman #219. - Booster Gold #6, #8-9
Collected in Booster Gold: The Complete 2007 Series Book One - Booster Gold #33
Written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, with more ties to the Justice League International title.
For a better grasp of Max’s modern characterization, check out his role in Justice League: Generation Lost, a limited series set during Brightest Day by Keith Giffen and Judd Winick. It retcons Max’s origins, giving him his psychic powers from childhood, inherited from an abusive father, and recontextualizes his past to match his modern characterization. It does a good job of making his villain turn more solid and credible.
- Justice League: Generation Lost Vol. 1
Collects Justice League: Generation Lost #1-12. - Justice League: Generation Lost Vol. 2
Collects Justice League: Generation Lost #13-24.
Since then, the character has appeared in Justice League vs. Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman: Lords & Liars. To simply reconnect right now with the character, you can find Max in the new New Gods title, part of DC All In!
This article is part of our series inspired by the release of the new Superman movie. Be sure to check out our other articles, including a reading order dedicated to Hawkgirl Kendra Saunders, a spotlight on Krypto the superdog, and a focus on Metamorpho, DC Comics’s Element Man.