Peacemaker Season 2 Will Fix The DCU's Messiest Canon Mystery
Your own worst enemy.
There are a lot of things that still don’t make much sense about the new DC Universe, but the question of Peacemaker’s continuity looms largest of all. The first season of the Max Original spun off directly from James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, and its final episode made another overt connection to the Justice League of the “Snyderverse.” But DC rebooted the franchise soon after, leaving Gunn and his creative co-chair, Peter Safran, to get creative about Peacemaker’s place in the new universe.
Gunn has been cryptic about the upcoming Peacemaker season, and how it will connect to the new DCU. In 2024, he conceded that Season 1 is part of the old DC Extended Universe, and therefore not canon to the new DCU. However, Season 2 somehow will be. The show’s latest trailer confirms that with a handful of characters that tie the season to Gunn’s upcoming Superman movie. John Cena’s Peacemaker is seen auditioning for a new super-team run by Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), and trading barbs with Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced).
It’s a weird pivot from Season 1, which featured cameos from the old Justice League. Fortunately, Gunn remains one step ahead: before we can say “how the hell is this even possible?” the Season 2 teaser fixes its plotholes by bringing Peacemaker into DC’s multiverse.
Peacemaker Season 2 still maintains a loose connection to Gunn’s Suicide Squad, as Cena’s anti-hero will have to atone for the demise of Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). His father, Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), seems to be the main antagonist this year, and he’s determined to hunt down Peacemaker to avenge his son. That said, Season 2 still isn’t quite the DC universe we’re used to, but a parallel reality with stark similarities to the old DCEU.
At the very end of the Season 2 teaser, Peacemaker enters a room to find another version of Peacemaker holding him at gunpoint. It’s safe to assume the latter is the Peacemaker of Season 1, while the “new” Peacemaker, the subject of Season 2, seems to encounter him after passing through a portal to the DCEU. There don’t seem to be many differences between these two characters, aside from their respective versions of the Justice League. How their paths will diverge from here is anyone’s guess, but in solving its messy canon confusion ahead of Season 2, Peacemaker now has the freedom to tell its story as it sees fit.
