I maintain that Max, tired of living in a cyborg body, decided to create himself a clone body. And while he was at it, he figured, hey, why not have it be a younger body? Too bad younger Max was a douchebag, the kind of douchebag who WOULD shoot Ted in the head, and he betrays real!Max, puts him in stasis, dumps him on Kooeykooeykooey as a new statue of Max Lord for pigeons to poop on, and then assumes his place, becoming head of Checkmate (and maybe Max always was, but never in an evil way), and then getting his human clone neck snapped by Wonder Woman.
I stand by that theory. The real Max is still out there.