a con-artist. From Invasion! to Identity Crisis Originally a normal human, Lord is one of many people on Earth gifted with superpowers during the Invasion crossover, when a Gene Bomb is exploded by alien invaders. This bomb activates Lord's latent metagene, granting him the ability to control the minds of others, albeit at great difficulty. Despite being a metahuman, Lord never identifies as one. Instead, at the urging of his mother to act for the benefit of non-metahumans, he shifts his hatred for the generic "authority figures" who caused his father's death to the metahuman community. After he is shot and placed in a coma at the beginning of JLAmerica/JLEurope crossover Breakdowns, Supervillain Dreamslayer takes over Lord's body and supercharges Lord's power, allowing him to control thousands of minds at once. Using Lord's body and power, Dreamslayer almost forces the Justice League International (JLI) to disband. While possessed Lord forces the JLI to battle itself, the mortally wounded Silver Sorceress manages to contain Dreamslayer, and holds him within her mind as she dies, taking him with her. When Lord is freed, his power is burnt out. Later, Lord is diagnosed with a brain tumor and dies. Kilg%re however, had been waiting for the right moment to reactivate its control of Lord. Kilg%re downloads Lord's consciousness into a duplicate of one of Dreamslayer's allies, Extremist cyborg Lord Havok (in a further retcon the body is said to be a New Genesis-built automaton). In this form, he spends some time testing the League's capabilities and takes control of the secret organization the Arcana. The cyborg body later shifts to resemble his original human form. Doomsday later crash lands on Earth, easily trounces the League and kills Superman. With Earth undefended, world-conqueror Mongul invades and destroys Coast City killing Lord's mother. This event further fuels his hatred and paranoia against the metahumans, as well as leading him to believe that not only can metahumans not be trusted, but that their personal battles and scuffles are enough to shatter world safety. Lord puts together several former JLI members, including L-Ron, Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and Fire as the "Super Buddies", advertised as "heroes the common man could call". These stories are told in the six-issue miniseries Formerly Known as the Justice League in 2003, and its 2005 sequel, I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League. In Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis (2004),