Gather round ladies and gentlemen. I’m going to tell you the true story of Max Lord, king of the Supervillans.
Before I go further, I want to put a spoiler warning here. If you intend to read the Infinite Crisis comics at some point, this is a huge spoiler. Don't read.
So, Max Lord was a two-bit car salesman. His father killed himself because the family business produced a product that ended up being a carcinogen and killed a lot of people. His mother used her reputation to manipulate superheroes and villains alike to keep the family afloat. This affected Max’s opinion of costume superheroes to the point that he decided he was going to infiltrate the JLI and bring them down.
He was granted telepathic powers by a Gene Bomb during Invasion!
He secretly killed Ted Kord, the Blue Beetle. He takes over an organization know as Checkmate and steals control of one of Batman’s spy satellites.
But this is all just backstory.
He uses his telepathic powers to take over Superman’s mind.
Read that again.
He took over SUPERMAN.
While entranced, Superman beat Batman to within an inch of his life. When the Justice League confronts Superman and figures out it's Lord controlling him, they plan to imprison Superman. But Lord makes Superman think that the League members are the ones being controlled. He disables the entire league in seconds except Wonder Woman.
Few members of the League who can go toe to toe with Superman. Wonder Woman is left to singlehandedly fight him. He nearly kills her.
Wonder Woman is immune to Max’s influence because her abilities are from the “gods” or something like that.
So anyway, The Man of Steel and the Amazon Princess pound the shit out of each other. They destroy the ground around them. Max laughs and says he’s proven that the Justice League is dangerous and shouldn’t be trusted.
Wonder Woman is barely able to cause enough of a beatdown to distract Superman so she can get to Max Lord and wrap him in the lasso of truth.
She demands he let Superman go. Max refuses.
Superman is coming.
Max says he won’t stop. He will use Superman to destroy the world and kill everyone he deems a threat.
He has won. He’s destroyed the Justice League and show superheroes to be the real threat to society. He’s done what no other supervillain can do. He’s defeated Superman. Turned him into a helpless pawn.
Superman lands. For a moment, Max Lord lets him see reality. Wonder Woman demands Max tell her how to stop him. How to make him let Superman go.
Kill Me.
He’s wrapped in the lasso of truth. Superman is there and Max has control.
Wonder Woman makes a choice.
She snaps Max Lords neck.
Superman is devastated. He blames her.
When the dust settles, so does Batman and the rest of the League asks her to leave.
She made an impossible choice. But the League doesn’t kill without cause.
Max Lord did that.
He took over Superman’s brain and imploded the Justice League.
Lex Luthor. The Joker. Braniac. Zod.
It pales in comparison.
Despite his death, he accomplished his goal. The Justice League was splintered. Superman and Batman are barely able to come to terms with Wonder Woman in time to defeat OMAC in Infinite Crisis.
That is the story of why Max Lord is one of the greatest supervillains of all time.
None of this is meant to be a direct critique of the WW84 movie, but one of my biggest problems with it, was that at the end, Max Lord was redeemed. I’ve never seen Max Lord as redeemable.
He was a bad guy that had to die. Because he wouldn’t stop.
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