How James Gunn Sneakily Retconned Peacemaker Into The DCU
“I wish I could Lucas the sh*t out of this.”
There’s no denying it’s been a strange time for the DCU. James Gunn’s tenure over the franchise started a little bumpy, as his movie The Suicide Squad came out well before he was announced as DC Studios co-president, and even his spinoff series Peacemaker was still firmly embedded in the Snyderverse version of the franchise.
But after much hand wringing, Peacemaker Season 2 is finally well and truly DCU canon. One moment from the Season 1 finale has been completely changed to fit this new iteration, in piece of sneaky retconning that has never been done before.
Per Gunn, Peacemaker Season 2 is entirely be canon. But The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1 are both only partly canon. As James Gunn has made clear before, the only parts that are truly canonical are the ones shown in the “Previously On...” segments before Peacemaker Season 2. It’s easy enough to follow when you’re watching it, however, there’s a little bit of revisionist history afoot.
Peacemaker’s “Previously On...” Explained
The Justice League cameo from Peacemaker Season 1 is replaced with a Justice Gang cameo in Season 2.
Peacemaker Season 1 ended with a massive battle against the alien known only as the Cow. Before the ragtag team sets off to defeat it, Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) decides to call her mother Amanda Waller for backup. “So, I was thinking, like, maybe you could call in the Justice League?” she says. Sure enough, after the battle, we see the silhouettes of Superman, Aquaman, the Flash, and Wonder Woman appear... after the fight had already been won. We even get to hear Flash and Aquaman banter a little.
In the Season 2 prelude, however, these moments look completely different. When we see Adebayo call her mom, the visual switches just before she says “League,” and her voice says “Gang” instead. When the “backup” comes too late, the Gang consists of silhouettes of Mr. Terrific, Superman, Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and Supergirl. We even get some extra cracks about a bad experience Peacemaker had with Guy Gardner, even if they were clearly filmed after the fact.
So why go so far as to create an entirely new ending for Season 1? According to James Gunn, he would have gone even further if he had the chance and re-edited Season 1 like how George Lucas re-edited the Star Wars trilogy. “I wish I could Lucas the sh*t out of this, but I can't because it's too expensive,” Gunn said at a roundtable interview Inverse attended, “and I think we'd rather spend the money on a few more Supergirl VFX shots.”
Now that James Gunn is starting the DC Universe fresh, Peacemaker Season 2 will be completely canon, so no more retcons from here on out.
Gunn also is quick to remind people that the hubbub over the change isn’t that big of a deal for the average viewer. After all, it’s been two years since Peacemaker Season 1, that’s plenty of time to forget the specifics of that last-minute cameo shot that didn’t really matter much. “Normies don't care about all this canon stuff so intimately,” he said. “They're like, ‘Oh, cool. Peacemaker and Superman team up. Oh, cool, It's aliens and Predator together.’ It doesn't matter if it's not completely consistent in the past.”
If that’s not enough of an explanation for you, Peacemaker Season 2 deals heavily with different dimensions. If you’re not willing to overwrite Season 1, Gunn explains, then consider Season 2 as taking place in another universe entirely. “This is the universe in which everything was exactly the same as Season 1 except for the Justice League and Bat-Mite,” he says.
