There was a time not long ago when the publishers at DC decided they needed to make Wonder Woman a more “edgy” character, and in order to do this, they had her literally break the neck of a villain she had tied up in the lasso of truth. That villain was the famous Maxwell Lord, and, having now been brought back to life and rebooted, he will be teaming up with Diana in Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh’s Wonder Woman coming this October in issues #764 and #765 and perhaps beyond! This is the same Maxwell Lord who will be portrayed by Game of Thrones actor Pedro Pascal in the upcoming film Wonder Woman 1984. And the duo is going to Miami.
For those not in the know, Maxwell Lord is a surprisingly frequent villain of Wonder Woman and the Justice League who is best known in modern times for killing the Blue Beetle, Ted Cord with a bullet to the eye in the seminal event kicking off the crossover Infinite Crisis. A supposedly baseline human character whose villainous motivations revolved around his desire to police and control what he views as self-proclaimed super-powered vigilantes, Lord was later revealed to have psychic abilities which he used to mind control Superman into attacking Diana. After he revealed that the only way to break the hold was to kill him, she obliged.
And now, after a resurrection and a reboot, Lord and Diana are teaming up to hunt down Lord’s stolen psychic weapons in none other than Miami, Florida. Lord, being the CEO of Lord Industries, will be presumably acting on behalf of Amanda Waller and the US Government (having been recruited into “Task Force XI”), so should be considered largely reformed and working in the interest of his company.
Then again, the last time he claimed to be working to help the heroes, he took Batman’s mass surveillance system “Brother Eye” and used it to try to eradicate the Justice League. Lord’s duplicity is one of his most portrayed attributes throughout the multi-universe continuum, and so it’s unlikely this duo will stay intact. Also, according to solicitations, the two then go from ‘80s-tinged Miami to the rogue nation of Zandia, where Wonder Woman’s invisible jet is shot down and the pair are forced to contend with rival factions of supervillains now armed with Lord’s mind-controlling weapons. Sounds like fun.
Wonder Woman #764 and #765 go on sale October 13th and October 27th wherever comic books are sold.