[4] Stein brought in Gary Washington (Knight One) and Black Thorn as Checkmate operatives, both of whom were his friends, and both of whom were introduced during his run on Vigilante.

was at various times involved with the other government agencies in the DC Comics universe, primarily the Suicide Squad, which resulted in the crossover "The Janus Directive".

The Agency is first set up by Amanda Waller to serve as a small branch of Task Force X under the command of Colonel Valentina Vostok (formerly Negative Woman of the Doom Patrol) to perform operations worldwide considered vital to the security of American interests.

She relinquishes command to Harry Stein, who recreates The Agency into a new image and organization, dubbed Checkmate, in relation to its chess-inspired organizational scheme.

"The Janus Directive" is a crossover storyline that involves an inter-agency war between Checkmate, the Suicide Squad, and Project Atom, who are manipulated by Kobra in order to distract the United States intelligence community from his activities.

Ultimately, Deathstroke is also revealed to be working for the CIA, and joins up with the American and Russian Checkmate to invade Cheshire's base later, after she threatens the world (unleashing a nuclear warhead on the country of Qurac as leverage).

A man called David Said has taken over the role of King within the organization, and in the "Knight Moves" storyline[11] Checkmate invades the Batcave, in order to recruit the Huntress in the process.

It is revealed that Maxwell Lord has assumed the position of Black King within the Checkmate organization with the intent of manipulating the agency to kill all of the metahumans present on Earth.

While DC did not explain how or when Lord came to power (or had seemingly gone from supporting metahuman involvement in the protection of the planet to this personality), it has been implied that Checkmate may have been the victim of Superboy-Prime, who warped the very fabric of reality by punching the walls of his prison outside this dimension.

In order to hide his activities, which included hijacking and reprogramming to his own purposes the super-spy satellite Brother I that Batman originally built to monitor all metahumans, Lord murdered former ally Ted Kord.

In 52 Week 24, Martian Manhunter reveals that he has spent months undercover undermining the remnants of Checkmate to convince the President of the U.S. to disband the organization.

Rucka's stated plans in several interviews[13] include depicting the repurposing of Checkmate as a United Nations-affiliated intelligence/intervention force with a specific purpose of maintaining "balance" between Earth's human and metahuman communities in the wake of events in The OMAC Project and Infinite Crisis.

The Rooks make their first appearance in issue #25 as Checkmate's highly powerful black ops squad (while the Knights are "Special Agents" and Bishops "Advisers").

At the start of the Brightest Day crossover, Maxwell Lord returns from the dead and uses his mental abilities to erase all memories of his existence from everyone on the planet, save for several former members of the Justice League International.

[16] Following this, Lord discredits Fire (who is one of the heroes who still remembers him) by forcing everyone at Checkmate to believe that she has failed a psychological evaluation and has begun to show signs of mental instability.

[17] The members of the new Justice League International eventually infiltrate Checkmate headquarters by disguising themselves in stolen Rocket Red suits, but the mission goes awry and they are forced to flee before they can capture Lord.

Its members are Green Arrow, The King, Lois Lane, the Manhunter (Kate Spencer), Mister Bones, The Question, Steve Trevor, and Talia al Ghul.