Maxwell Lord (Supergirl)

"Human, alien, super... If you go up against me, you will lose!"

- Maxwell Lord Maxwell Lord is a major antagonist in the first season of Supergirl. He is portrayed as a tech genius and tycoon who owns his own company, Lord Technologies. Just like anyone else in National City, Lord has taken a shine to Supergirl and has now made it his life's mission to uncover her secret identity.

He is portrayed by Peter Facinelli.

History
Maxwell Lord is at first seen giving an interview after Supergirl accidentally made a container ship spill its oil into the bay while trying to save it from a fire. Lord, who has pledged a cleanup fond, claims that Superman's arrival in Metropolis quadrupled the city's maintenance budgets and that National City does not need these kind of problems as well.

At Lord Technologies, Lord and a team of scientists plan a SuperTrain for National City. While planning, he is kidnapped from his laboratory by Reactron, who needs a nuclear physicist to repair the core from his suit. Reactron at first intends to take one of Lord's workers with him but Lord volunteers. At Reactron's headquarter in a scrapyard outside the city, Lord is saved by Supergirl. He later attends Cat Grant's party for the special issue of CatCo Worldwide Media's monthly magazine, dancing with Cat Grant and trying to find out how she got an exclusive interview with Supergirl. However, Grant reveals nothing. When Reactron crashes the party Lord is once again saved by Supergirl.

Testing Supergirl's abilities
At one point, Kara realizes that she is followed by a drone while flying through National City. She pursues and takes down the drone. Later, she saves people from a crumbling building which has been destroyed by a bomb.

As the technology from the drone is from Lord Tech, DEO agents Hank Henshaw and Alex Danvers pose as FBI agents and meet Lord. Lord reveals that he knows nothing of a drone and that the building blown up by the bomb belongs to him. To protect Lord, Henshaw leaves Alex with Lord. While at Lord Tech, security calls Lord and Alex down to level 3 where a bomb was found. The building is evacuated but Lord remains, intending to defuse the bomb himself. Alex stays with him. Eventually, Lord cuts a wire and it initially seems that the bomb is defused but seconds later the countdown goes down even faster, with only a minute remaining. To save the building and their lives, Alex calls her cousin Supergirl who arrives at Lord Tech. Lord hands the bomb to her, revealing that the Bomb would destroy the entire city should it blow up. Kara flies towards the ocean to save the city from the blast. Although she is affected by the bomb, the city is saved.

At the launch of Lords super train, Lord meets the son of Cat Grant, whom Kara was supposed to be babysitting. He and the boy enter the train, which is targeted by Ethan Knox, a former employee of Lord Tech. Once the DEO finds out that Knox was the one to blow up Lord's building and realize that Knox is at the launch site, Supergirl enters the driving train. In there, she tells Maxwell Lord to bring the civilians as far away from the bomb as possible while she uses her ray vision to locate Knox. She eventually locates Knox, who does not seem mad but sad and who claims that he did everything for his daughter. Meanwhile, the DEO locates another of Knox' bombs at the airport. The DEO evacuates the airport and defuses the bomb. At the train, Kara uses her laser ray to separate Knox' compartment from the rest of the train. Knox's department drives on and is eventually blown up by the bomb.

During an interview Lord gives later, Kara realizes that Lord was the one who hired Knox to blow up the building and the train in exchange for lifelong medical treatment for his daughter. Lord would have been able to deactivate the bombs with a kill switch should Supergirl not have been able to stop them. With this knowledge Supergirl faces Lord at his apartment and while Knox doesn't confess he claims that the man responsible would have done these things to test Supergirl. The drone was to test her speed, the bombs to measure her strength and also that there would have been another bomb which would have tested her speed. He also reveals that it is quite interesting that Kara chose to save hundreds on the train instead of thousands at the airport, deducing that there was someone on the train Kara cared about and that this person was the key to uncover her identity. Although Kara is not able to directly link Lord to the crime, she claims that she will be watching him and that things weren't over yet. While she flies off, Lord claims that he agrees and that the fun is yet beginning.

A few weeks later, Lord helps the D.E.O. to take down the rogue military combat android Red Tornado. Although initially refusing to help, he contacts Agent Danvers and reveals to her that Red Tornado is not sentient, but still controlled by its creator Dr. Morrow.

When an earthquake hits National City, Lord is one of the first ones to go out to help the people. While doing so, he is interviewed and rants about Supergirl (who is not able to help because the fight against Red Tornado temporarily drained her powers).

Investigated by Supergirl and the D.E.O.
Lord Tech is eventually attacked by Astra's men led by Non. They are confronted by Maxwell Lord who uses a futuristic gun to shoot one of them in the face, melting his entire head. Non demands to know whether Lord is a champion of earth and then easily defeats him. However, the arrival of D.E.O. agents prevents Non from killing Lord and he merely lunges Lord away to assist his men in fighting the D.E.O.. After Non's men are defeated and Non has fled, Lord forbids the D.E.O. from remaining to search for clues, preferring to handle things himself. In an interview, he later claims that the chaos at Lord Tech was created by a malfunction, completely concealing the attack of the Kryptonians. This makes James Olsen suspicious and he visits Lord Tech to find out what Lord is hiding. He finds out that Lord is planning a move against the Kryptonians, including Kara, and decides to break into Lord Tech at night to find out details. However, while infiltrating the facility he is knocked out by one of Lord's security guards on Lord's orders.

James is then strapped to a chair in the facility's basement. Lord enters the room and demands to know who helped James infiltrate Lord Tech. When James refuses to talk, Lord beats him up. However, he then allows Lord to leave after telling him that no matter whether alien or human, who goes against Maxwell Lord will lose. After finding out what Lord did to James, Kara furiously plans to set out and kill him, seeing him as evil. However, James and Winn manage to calm her down. Nonetheless Kara decides to find out what Lord's plans are and to expose him. The same time at Lord Tech, Maxwell Lord is told by one of his scientists that the "test subject" he requested was found.

To find out what Lord is up to and to draw him out of his lab, Alex agrees to a date with Lord. While Lord is out, Henshaw uses his shape-shift powers to take Lord's shape. Inside Lord Tech, he finds a young woman, the test subject that was brought to Lord earlier, as well as the analysis of Red Tornado technology. He is however captured on camera and the footage is later shown to Lord, who is surprised to see that someone who looked like himself broke into the building.

By a camera he secretly attached to Alex's handbag during their dinner, Lord finds out that Supergirl is Alex's sister.

Creating his own Supergirl
Over the course of weeks, Lord manages not only to awaken his test subject from her coma, but also scientifically changes her appearance to make her look like Supergirl. By using DNA of Supergirl from the Red Tornado arm Alex at one point showed him, he also manages to give the woman the same powers as Supergirl. Now having his own Supergirl at his disposal, he grooms her into seeing the real Supergirl as a threat which must be eliminated. During an accident in which Supergirl saves a group of civilians, she is attacked by Lord's Supergirl. After realizing that Supergirl is saving the people, the fake Supergirl, named Bizarro by the media, returns to Lord, claiming that Supergirl is not evil as Lord claimed. Lord convinces her that sometimes, things that seem to be good are in truth very bad.

Alex later confronts Lord in his office. Although, again, only hypothetically admitting that he's responsible he hints that she is aware of Alex' relationship to Supergirl and threatens that things would get very ugly should she continue to go down that path. While Alex leaves the room, he claims that Bizarro exists to protect him and the city from Supergirl and states that the "best girl" would eventually win. During another fight with Kara, Bizarro is shot by fire Kryptonite bullets from the D.E.O.. The Kryptonite somehow degrades her and disfigures her face. After loudly exclaiming her hate for Kara, she flies off again. She returns to Lord, who tells her that Supergirl made her a monster and, would he be in her place, that he'd kill everyone Supergirl loves.

After Bizarro sets off again, Lord is visited in his office by Alex and two D.E.O. agents who arrest him. When he threatens to expose to the world that Kara is Supergirl should Alex not release him, she slams his head onto the table before taking him with her. Lord is brought to the D.E.O. and imprisoned in one of their cells. When Kara visits him, claiming that he will never hurt anyone again, Lord asks whether she means people like her foster mother Eliza, revealing that he knows where Eliza lives.

D.E.O. Prisoner
After Kara has been attacked by a parasitic plant, Alex thinks that Lord is responsible and when he claims not to know anything about it, beats him up in his cell. She is stopped by Henshaw and furiously leaves the room. However, they are later forced to employ Lord's help to create a device which allows Alex to enter Kara's virtual reality.

Personality
Maxwell Lord thanks Supergirl is a criminal and from an invading army trying to rule over earth. Lord is power hungry and also into high tech. He is similar to Lex Luthor, both of them have hatred of Superman and wants to kill them. He is like a mob kingpin you do not want to trust with your life. Just like Lex Luthor, he thinks of himself as a humantarian, but he isn't. He is just another power-hungry psychopath.

Similar Villains

 * Lex Luthor
 * Lionel Luthor (Smallville)
 * Joker (Batman)
 * Green Goblin (Spider-Man)