Information on the upcoming sequel Wonder Woman 1984 has been fairly scarce after the cast was announced, with only a few images hitting the internet. Most of these glimpses have come from director Patty Jenkins, who revealed our first look at Kristen Wiig's character, Wonder Woman's new armor, and a tease of Pedro Pascal's unknown character.
Jenkins recently revealed that Pascal's character is actually Max Lord, who has a long history in the DC universe, and a dark past with Wonder Woman in particular. So today we are going to take a look at a few things you should know about Max Lord before he hits the big screen in Wonder Woman 1984.
CREATED JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL
When Kieth Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis took over Justice League in the '80s, they reformed the team with new members and introduced the character of Max Lord, who would work behind the scenes to help set up the League before taking a more active role when the League went worldwide and he formed Justice League International.
However, Lord's motives were called in to question early when it was revealed that he had hired an unstable supervillain to stage an attack to make his new League look good. That attack resulted in the suicide of the villain who believed he had a bomb strapped to him, though Lord had removed the firing pin. Not a good start, Max.
CONTROLLED BY AN EVIL A.I.
Over the course of Max's time with the League, his backstory as a rich kid turned richer businessman was given a dark twist when it was revealed that Lord had been heavily influenced by alien technology. While this was originally an artificial intelligence created by Metron, it was later retconned as the Flash's alien tech villain Kilg%re.
Kilg%re had pushed Max toward creating the League for its own plans for global domination, though Max was eventually able to regain control when he destroyed the computer terminal that Kilg%re had been using. However, that wouldn't be the last Max would hear from Kilg%re.
HAS MENTAL ABILITIES
During the "Invasion" event from the '80s, the Earth was under attack by a coalition of alien species led by the ruthless Dominators, whose goal was to stop the threat of metahumans coming from Earth that continued to affect the larger universe from huge events like Crisis on Infinite Earths.
While the DC heroes were successful in repelling the invasion, the Dominators still managed to detonate a Gene Bomb that had a variety of effects which included removing some heroes powers, enhancing others abilities, putting some heroes in comas, and in the case of Maxwell Lord, activating his latent metagene which gave him limited mind control ability.
WAS REBORN AS LORD HAVOK
Unfortunately, those abilities resulted in Lord developing a brain tumor even though he rarely used his abilities after receiving them. Lord would eventually die from the tumor, though his death would signal the return of Kilg%re, who had been waiting for this moment.
Kilg%re would transfer Lord's mind into the body of the robotic duplicate of the multiversal villain known as Lord Havok, leader of the Extremists. As Lord Havok, Max would begin putting the League through a series of tests for an unknown reason. Lord's time as Lord Havok would be somewhat forgotten about as he would soon return to his human form.
BLACK KING OF CHECKMATE
Lord would put together a few more superhero groups with old allies in the JLI, but following the destruction of Coast City during The Death and Return of Superman, Lord would lose his mother in a series of events that would begin to damage Lord's trust in the metahuman community.
He would leave his work with the superheroes to join the secret organization known as Checkmate as its Black King, and promptly murder the other leaders of the organization. Lord would then retask its resources to the OMAC Project and set his sights on the metahuman community, all the while operating mostly in secret.
KILLED BLUE BEETLE
Of course, Lord couldn't stay working in secret for long, and he was soon discovered by Ted Kord/Blue Beetle, who had been investigating Lord's new Checkmate. Blue Beetle was captured and Lord revealed his plans to monitor and police the superhuman community and even offered Beetle a place working with the new Checkmate.
When Blue Beetle refused, Max Lord moved from occasionally misguided hero to full-blown villain when he shot hos old friend Ted Kord through the head, killing him. Blue Beetle's murder and Lord's actions would lead to the events of Infinite Crisis, though these events have been altered by the multiple reboots the DCU has seen since they occurred.
TOOK OVER BROTHER EYE
Another event that contributed to Infinite Crisis was Max's takeover of Batman's Brother Eye satellite, which was created to monitor Earth's metahumans. Brother Eye would prove to be an essential part of Max Lord's OMAC Project and one of Batman's biggest regrets in his pre-Flashpoint history.
The OMAC's were human sleeper agents who had been implanted with nanotechnology that could observe the environment and take over the body completely to form an OMAC unit when needed, which became the main army used against the heroes during the Infinite Crisis, though Max would not be in the picture for the event.
KILLED BY WONDER WOMAN
Following the murder of Blue Beetle and during Lord's manipulations of Brother Eye and the OMAC Project, Lord also set about turning the Justice League against itself as a distraction. To do this he used his mental abilities to take control of Superman and force him to viciously beat Batman.
When the League discovered Lord's involvement, Superman again attacked the heroes, which resulted in a battle with Wonder Woman as she confronted Lord about his involvement. Threatened with Lord's unbreakable control of Superman, Diana made a warrior's decision and snapped Lord's neck, killing him and breaking his hold over Superman, which was broadcast across the world.
MINDWIPED THE WHOLE WORLD
Max Lord didn't stay dead for long, as he was returned to life during the Blackest Night/Brightest Day events, though he was still the same old Max, as he quickly revealed. Upon his return, Max created a device to amplify his abilities, which included a stream of blood transfusions as his abilities took a physical toll on his body and usually caused him to bleed heavily.
While the device still severely injured him, it allowed him to reach almost every mind on the planet and erase their knowledge of him and his past criminal activities. There were a few heroes who retained their memories of Max Lord like Booster Gold and Captain Atom, who formed a team to hold him accountable for his past actions.
CONTROLLED THE JUSTICE LEAGUE
Following the New 52 Reboot and the Rebirth reboot of the reboot (DC's had a weird few years), Maxwell Lord returned in the pages of Justice League vs. Suicide Squad with his own team of forgotten villains. Lord attempted to again boost his abilities using the mystical Heart of Darkness to take control of the Justice League and used them to bring peace and order to the world.
However, it was soon revealed that Lord was under the influence of the entity known as Eclipso, and was really using the League to create chaos. He was freed from Eclipso's influence and imprisoned in a device that included blood thinners, restricting the use of his abilities.