Brightest Day Profiles: Maxwell Lord
“LIVE”. With that one word the Blackest Night ended and the next phase of the DC Universe, the Brightest Day, began. On a gatefold spread in the final issue of Blackest night, we saw twelve resurrections; some were surprising, some were expected– all could have major importance on the immediate and long term future of the DCU.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks I’m going to focus on the lesser known characters in this 12 person line up; those that have a confusing (read: fun) history, or to me, have some interesting story potential.
This week we start of with everyone’s favorite Beetle stomper: Maxwell Lord.
Lord was a key player in the re-formation of the Justice League after the Detroit-era and post-Legends event. Throughout his early days he was shown to be someone who worked behind the scenes for his own gain through con-artistry. While not explicitly bad, he wasn’t explicitly heroic either.
During the Invasion event, Lord (like many others in the DCU) discovered he had the meta-gene. In this case, it was revealed that with much difficulty, he could control minds. At the time it was always assumed that, while often shady, Lord was one of the good guys. It even appeared that his story-arc would be about him gradually becoming a ‘good guy’. This all changed abruptly with Infinite Crisis.
Acting in the ‘interest’ of humanity, Lord, now head of Checkmate, would start the OMAC project and use his powers to influence Superman to do his work. During the Sacrifice story arc, in order to free Superman from his control, Wonder Woman publicly kills Lord.
The return of Lord can serve a couple of purposes, the biggest giving Wonder Woman a key human antagonist. Many believe that the killing of Lord, while a defining point for Wonder Woman, also ruined the character and put a black mark on her record that she’d never recover from. Having him interact with Wonder Woman can can lead to a story arc with the key theme being redemption. She can be placed in a similar situation with Max, but this time find a non-lethal solution.
I can also see Lord continuing his work from before he got side-tracked by being, well, dead. Characters like Sam Lane in the Superman titles have been operating very similar to Lord, by working under the mission of ‘humanity first’. Despite the DCU entering the Brightest Day age, there will still be an undercurrent of fearing the heroes. Look no further then the events of New Krypton and the JLA Rise and Fall arc for proof of this. Maxwell, being shown in the past as a great manipulator, can surely use the footage of his death (while staying hidden) to help put gas on the fire of anti-meta hysteria.
By having Lord heavily involved with such ‘humanity first’ movements, there can be stories that will put him in direct conflict with Checkmate, and other groups headed by another character who would be a great foil for Lord: Amanda Waller.
The most important thing here is that the return of Maxwell Lord signifies the chance for some heroes to be tempted by revenge (Booster Gold and the rest of the Justice League International era of heroes who felt betrayed by Max) while giving others a chance for redemption, like the aforementioned Wonder Woman scenario. Still, others a will gain new threat that can operate on a global level. If you really think about it, many of the DC villains interact with only one or two heroes and few interact with the entire DCU. Even Lex Luthor, who is global in scale, only really stays within his own Superman silo.
The villains that are being showcased here are what’s going to help define the Brightest Day era. Those who are tied to some of the truly darkest moments effecting the entire DC history (like Maxwell Lord) can be used to confront and place the heroes in globally challenging roles, where they (the heroes) will have little choice but to shine brighter on a larger scale.
Update: In Brightest Day #0, Lord is seen for only one panel… experimenting on himself until he bleeds out of his eyes and mouth and falls unconscious into a tub of ice. Okay… looks like Max is up to his old mysteriously devious self. Can’t wait to see where this goes… and what he’s turning himself into.
