| “ | I work in the real world, a world that needs the rule of law. Anything outside the natural order is… unpredictable. | „ |
| ~ Maxwell to Ray Sacks. |
Maxwell Lord, otherwise known as the Black King, is an antagonist in season nine of CW's Smallville. He is a high ranking member of the organization Checkmate with the meta-human ability to read people's minds. He appears in the episode titled "Charade", and again in "Hostage".
He was portrayed by Gil Bellows, who also portrayed Howard Metzler in Law & Order, Banks in Hunt to Kill, and Warren Pryce in Chucky.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Maxwell Lord acquired the ability to read the thoughts and memories of others at an unknown time in his life. This caused him to view meta-humans as unpredictable and dangers to the natural order of life and made it his goal to eliminate every single one of them. To accomplish this, Max joined Checkmate under the pretense that he would help Amanda Waller recruit others like him to protect and serve the United States government.
Charade[]
In his efforts to uncover Clark Kent's identity as "The Blur", Lord had disgraced District Attorney Ray Sacks released from prison to find people who've briefly witnessed The Blur and hooked them up to a machine that put together pieces of him through their memories. One of his kidnapped victims was Lois Lane who had a more intimate relationship with The Blur than the others, which made it difficult for Lord to extract memories of him from her, even as she laid unconscious.
When Clark arrived (as the Blur), Max told him that if he took another step that he would kill Lois. He also revealed that Lois was subconsciously fighting Max's telepathy because she was in love with him.
Clark, realizing that it was killing Lois, super sped through Max's machine thwarting Lord's plan. Though he manages to escape, Max was later forced into a limo at gunpoint where he comes face to face with the mysterious Red Queen of Checkmate.
Hostage[]
Lord assists the Red Queen in locating the Book of Rao. Upon discovering that Tess Mercer has the Book of Rao, Lord abducts her and uses his psychic abilities to extract its location from Tess's mind by trapping her in a mental illusion. Upon awakening in what appears to be the Luthor Mansion Tess discovers that her bedroom has been boarded shut and that she is Lord's prisoner.
His deception is eventually revealed, but by that point Lord already had the information the Red Queen needed. After Tess escaped, Max contacted the Red Queen to let her know it was done and fell to the ground by some sort of frequency she had sent through the phone. Max's fate afterwards is left ambiguous.
