Maxwell Lord was technically the main antagonist of Wonder Woman 1984, but he’s probably the least threatening villain in the entire DC Extended Universe. It seems like they cast Pedro Pascal simply because he was popular from Game of Thrones and The Mandalorian. And while his acting isn’t technically terrible here, it just didn’t work.

I don’t remember his story entirely clearly, but I do recall that he was a struggling businessman terrified of his son seeing him as a failure. He manages to get his hands on a mystical artifact called the Dreamstone, which grants wishes, but like a monkey’s paw, there’s always some kind of catch. He thinks he breaks the cycle by wishing to become the Dreamstone itself.

While it technically works out for him in the short term, allowing him to grant wishes and take something in return from each person he deals with, his bargains are mostly shady and drive him into an increasingly chaotic spiral of magic debt.

Things escalate to the point where I believe he actually becomes President of the United States, or at least the de facto power behind the presidency. Wishes start spreading indirectly to almost everyone, and they end in total disaster nearly every time.

But Diana uses the Lasso of Truth on him and manages to convince him that this whole path was the wrong choice. Somehow he’s able to renounce his wish and things reset back to something close to normal. Since he was never really a villain in the traditional sense and had no memorable combat with Wonder Woman, the whole relationship between him and her as antagonist and hero feels pretty anti-climatic. I wasn’t familiar with his character from the comics, but I can see why Maxwell Lord remains rather obscure.