Posted in: Comics, Max, Movies, TV, Warner Bros | Tagged: dc studios, dcu, J.M. DeMatteis, james gunn, Maxwell Lord

Maxwell Lord: James Gunn, J. M. DeMatteis Share More of Their Thoughts

With rumors of the DCU's Maxwell Lord being cast, James Gunn & J. M. DeMatteis continued their social media conversation about the character.

On Friday, reports hit that DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn & Peter Safran had found their DCU's Maxwell Lord in Sean Gunn (Marvel Studios' "Guardians of the Galaxy" films). Created by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis & Kevin Maguire, the character first debuted in 1987's Justice League #1 and would go on to become one of the more complex characters in the comics universe – opinions straddling the line between a misunderstood dude with good intentions and a "big bad" with some ugly plans for the future. Well, character co-creator DeMatteis took to social media to make it clear their Maxwell Lord wasn't a villain and that he hoped Gunn went with Giffen, DeMatteis & Maguire's version. Gunn tagged DeMatteis in his response, seemingly siding with DeMatteis when it comes to pushing back on the idea of Lord being solely a "big bad," adding that the character was a difficult one to pin as being any one thing. Well, that led to a great exchange between the two earlier today, with DeMatteis diving deeper into how he sees Maxwell Lord while Gunn makes an excellent comparison between Lord and Amanda Waller from John Ostrander's run as writer on DC Comics' Suicide Squad.

"He's flawed (and in the early stories manipulated by a sentient AI), a bit of a con man, but, in the end, Max has a heart of gold and loves his team. But I'm sure you know that!" DeMatteis wrote in response to Gunn. Following up on what turned into a nice mini-analysis of the complex character, Gunn added, "I like the nuanced Max for sure. The 'evil Max' is in some good stories by some good writers & artists, but I always loved the character in JLI for being multidimensional – same way I loved Waller in Ostrander's 'Squad.' Two characters able to step out of the all-good or all-evil paradigm that was de rigueur in those days (and, still is, actually.)" Here's a look at a screencap

Recently, the character was brought to life by Pedro Pascal in the Gal Gadot-starring Wonder Woman 1984). And while Gunn didn't officially confirm the news, the news could make things interesting when you consider what overall role Lord could play in the DCU – could we be looking at an evil version of the MCU's Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), where he has storyline threads across the films and series? At the time of the initial reporting, no one specific project was attached to Gunn's Maxwell Lord, leading to speculation that it could be a more across-the-board DCU role.

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