Warning: The following contains spoilers for Wonder Woman #764 by Mariko Tamaki, Steve Pugh, Romulo Fajardo Jr., and Pat Brosseau, on sale now.
Wonder Woman is one of the most fierce warriors in the DCU. She was raised and trained by the most powerful of the Amazons and has the blood of Zeus running through her veins. However, she is now in the precarious position of being teamed up with a partner that she not only does not trust, but also killed at one point in time.
Maxwell Lord has run the full spectrum from being a hero to a supervillain. In the previous Wonder Woman story arc, random people were being sent into violent rampages brought on by intense hallucinations. The culprit was a phone app that had a dangerous digital signal buried in the code. The digital signal was traced back to a subsection of Lord Enterprises called Odysseus, which was closed down after Maxwell Lord's arrest. Lord wound up helping Wonder Woman find the mastermind behind the scheme, and in the process also discovered that a lot of Lord's technology was stolen and had been put on the open market. Now the two have partnered up to locate and reacquire the stolen tech.
In the previous dynamic between the two Diana maintained the position of authority in the investigation while Lord acted as a collaborative associate. However this hierarchy may have been changed during the course of the investigation when each one saved the other one's life. When Diana was corrupted by the code and fell into a destructive rampage, Lord helped to isolate the corrupted code and stop her from harming herself and others. Diana returned the favor by later stepping in front of a bullet intended for Lord. In the latest issue, the dynamic between the former enemies has changed. Diana and Lord appear to be equal partners while chasing down a lead to some of the stolen tech in Miami.
They are on the beach to meet a contact who promised to hand over some stolen tech in exchange for political asylum, but his true intention was to lure them there and kill them. "This tech is mine and it's going to make me rich," he gloats. "Welcome to the future of freelance superhero killing." The man presses a button which leads to enormous deadly robots coming out of the water.
Diana rushes off to clear the beachgoers from the immediate threat while Lord secures the would-be killer from getting away. The two seem to effortlessly work together, each taking on a task to help the innocent bystanders while also taking down the killer robots. Lord didn't much care for being told what to do, but he did his part and made sure the killer was taken into custody.
Maxwell Lord and Wonder Woman have a long history together. Lord has done some good things, as he was influential in forming the original Justice League International team, but he did some pretty bad things as well, like using his psychic abilities in an attempt to take over the world. Lord was resurrected during Blackest Night after being killed by Wonder Woman during Infinite Crisis after he took over the mind of Superman.
In the current Wonder Woman run, it appears as though Lord is on the path of redemption. He seemed to have been "scared straight" after being held prisoner by Amanda Waller. Wonder Woman is hesitant about his motives and doesn't fully trust him, but he has saved her life twice so far and he's being helpful in tracking down some of his old, deadly tech.
It looks like Wonder Woman, for the time being at least, has a new partner that she's putting on a very short leash.