Maxwell Lord IV is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Justice League #1 (May 1987) and was created by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire. Maxwell Lord was originally introduced as a shrewd and powerful businessman who was an ally of the Justice League and was influential in the formation of the Justice League International, but he later developed into an adversary of Wonder Woman and the Justice League.

The character made his cinematic debut in the 2020 DC Extended Universe film, Wonder Woman 1984, portrayed by Pedro Pascal. A new iteration portrayed by Sean Gunn appears in the DC Universe (DCU) film Superman and the second season of the television series Peacemaker (both 2025).

Maxwell Lord IV is the son of Maxwell Lord III, a successful businessman and head of the Chimtech Consortium. Maxwell III set out to be a good example for his son by striving to always do what was right. When Maxwell IV was 16, he came home to find his father dead in an apparent suicide. His father had discovered that his company had produced a carcinogenic product, and could not bear the guilt.

Lord's mother was convinced by her husband to employ a similar practice, cajoling heroic metahumans to help Lord. Thus, he sparked the plans to bring the Justice League, leaderless and broken after the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, under his exclusive control.

Lord initially worked behind the scenes to establish the Justice League, while under the control of a computer created by Metron. The computer wanted Lord to set up a worldwide peacekeeping organization as part of its plan to dominate the world.

A retcon changed Lord's controller to the villainous computer program Kilg%re, which had taken over Metron's machine. A second retcon mitigated Kilg%re's and Metron's influence, stating that Lord already had plans to take over the League and would have pursued them regardless.

Lord's ruthlessness at this time was illustrated when he set up a disturbed would-be terrorist as a villain for the League to defeat, resulting in the man's death. Later, Lord rebelled against the computer's influence and destroyed it.

Once free of the computer's influence, Lord is portrayed as an amoral businessman, but not a real villain. During the time that Giffen and DeMatteis were writing the Justice League, Lord is shown struggling with his conscience and developing heroic qualities, though he would remain a con-artist.^{[citation needed]}