Maxwell Lord (Supergirl)

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 repaair 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 realises 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 buildign 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 secons 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 civillians 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 seperate Knox' compartment from the rest of the train. Knox' department drives on and is eventually blown up by the bomb.

During an interview Lord gives later, Kara realises 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 intresting 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.