Maxwell Lord

Maxwell Lord IV is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. He is a shrewd and powerful businessman who was very influential in the formation of the Justice League International in DC Comics.

Publication history

Before the League

As a youngster, Maxwell Lord had a fairly sheltered life. His father, Albert Lord, used to be a successful business man, head of the Chimtech consortium until he discovered that poor research led his company to mass-produce a highly carcinogenic product. So, when Maxwell was only sixteen, his father committed suicide out of shame and guilt.

Maxwell Lord's mother was never truly convinced of this turn of events, instilling into her son the hatred against every figure of higher authority that eventually led him to his fall from grace, convinced that even Albert's suicide was a conspiracy from the higher ups in his company who were unwilling to let his regrets tamper with their power.

Maxwell Lord 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.