Using their satellite base for surveillance, they ban free speech, limit elections, and eliminate crime by lobotomizing criminals and supervillains through Lord Superman's heat vision, although they justify their behavior as "temporary" and for the people's own good.

Lord Superman has also imposed severe restrictions on his girlfriend Lois Lane's way of life, forbidding her from making phone calls, having unauthorized guests, or leaving her home.

The events of "A Better World" aid Amanda Waller's crusade against the destructive capabilities of the metahuman population if the government left it unchecked.

When Batman confronts Waller, she reveals simulations that show what would happen if the League went rogue; each time, the government was defeated.

However, it successfully recruits the populist, astute Green Arrow as its political conscience; he puts the role of Cadmus in perspective for the League, preventing it from succumbing to the temptation that created the Lords.

Luthor hacks the Justice League Watchtower to attack Cadmus headquarters, causing extensive collateral damage to the surrounding area.

However, Cadmus chooses to retaliate, sending Galatea (a clone of Supergirl) and an army of genetically engineered metahumans to destroy the Watchtower and kill the rest of the League on board.

When Batman finally convinces Waller that Luthor is responsible for the attack, they confront him in his Lexcorp offices, only to be beaten back by Lex, who demonstrates unnatural speed and strength due to Brainiac secretly being in his body for several years.

With Flash supposedly dead and Luthor at his mercy, Superman is put in the same position as his Justice Lord counterpart, but resists the temptation and proclaims that he is his own person.

In 2012 Treehouse Kids released its Heroics line of collectable figurines, which includes Justice Lords Superman as a chase figure.

[4] The alternate universe presented in Injustice: Gods Among Us also shared much similarity to the Justice Lords, in that a parallel version of the Justice League, save for Batman, became oppressive rulers of the world after Superman was tricked by the Joker into killing Lois Lane, their unborn child, and destroying Metropolis with a nuclear bomb, for which Superman kills the Joker in retaliation, leading to his descent to tyranny.

The idea of metahumans taking control of humans, and of Superman leading them to make a better world, is also developed in the Elseworlds mini-series Kingdom Come.

In Grant Morrison's series The Multiversity, the Justice Lords were brought into mainstream comic continuity, being revealed to originate from Earth-50.