Back Issues: Cheetah, Maxwell Lord to menace ‘Wonder Woman 1984’

Villains have been heroine's allies at times

The world's greatest superheroine takes on two new foes when "Wonder Woman 1984" debuts in theaters and on HBO Max on Christmas Day.

After getting delayed multiple times by the COVID-19 pandemic, the sequel jumps forward in time from World War I to the loaded title year and pits Diana of Themyscira against longtime rival Cheetah and one-time comic book ally (kind of) Maxwell Lord.

One version of the Cheetah or another has been a thorn in Wonder Woman's side since her first appearance in 1943's "Wonder Woman" #6. That incarnation was Priscilla Rich, a wealthy socialite with a fragile ego whose jealousy over Diana's popularity caused an alternate personality to emerge.

As the Cheetah, Rich framed Wonder Woman for robbing a charity, started a spy and slavery ring and challenged the Amazon princess on her home turf of Paradise Island. Because of her mental instability, the Amazons attempted to help Rich reform, which worked for a while, though she kept returning to her villainous ways.

When artist George Perez revamped Wonder Woman in the late '80s, he and writer Len Wein introduced a new Cheetah, archaeologist Barbara Minerva. This is who Kristen Wiig will play in the film.

On an African expedition, Minerva's team was ambushed by a tribe who wanted to sacrifice them to imbue one of their members with the power of a dark god's cheetah avatar. Minerva usurped the power, but due to her lack of "purity" (the ritual called for a virgin), she was cursed with a hunger for human flesh. Rather than wearing a costume, this Cheetah was transformed into an animal-like form.

At first an ally of Wonder Woman's, she blamed Diana for her situation, believing the Amazon princess could have saved her.

DC's 2011 New 52 reboot recast Minerva as a career criminal whose aliases included Priscilla Rich. She encountered Wonder Woman on her first venture into Man's World and used the chaos of a terrorist attack to perform the ritual that transformed her into the Cheetah.

Maxwell Lord was a wealthy businessman who helped form the Justice League International while under the influence of an alien computer (we've all been there, right?) Although his methods and motivations were often questionable, Lord more often than not was an ally of the League.

Eventually he went from normal human rich guy to metahuman when an alien race known as the Dominators detonated a bomb over Earth that activated a latent gene in some people, giving them powers. Lord gained the ability to control people's minds, although the effort takes a toll on him, resulting in nosebleeds or worse.

Despite often being a comedic figure, Lord took a dark turn in the leadup to DC's 2005 "Infinite Crisis" event. He was revealed as the head of the spy organization Checkmate and killed former ally Blue Beetle to hide his machinations to control the superhuman community.

After taking control of Superman's mind, Lord was killed by Wonder Woman when she discovered it was the only way to break his influence over the Man of Steel. He later came back, as so many comic characters do, and managed to wipe his existence from the memory of most people on the planet by pushing his powers to the extreme.

My first real encounter with Lord was in the 2003 limited series "Formerly Known as the Justice League," a comedy in which he pulled together former Justice Leaguers as the Super Buddies, a storefront super-team with their own hotline. A sequel hinted that the evil Max was actually a doppelganger from another dimension, though it was more of a winking joke than an actual plotline.

In the New 52, Lord was a villainous figure from the start, developing mind control powers early on and starting in Checkmate shortly after college. After falling out of favor with the government, he orchestrated a plot to free a group of powerful villains hidden away in a secret prison and usurp the power of the demon Eclipso. He was stopped by the combined forces of the Justice League and the contemporary Suicide Squad.