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After seeing James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad last year, I wasn’t terribly confident in the idea of a spin-off series dedicated to the Peacemaker character. There was cynicism in this of course -it was yet another example of shallow franchise expansion in the ever-dominant superhero genre market, and DC again seemingly riding Marvel’s coattails of issuing series exclusive to their streaming service about supporting characters in their film universe to further deepen the brand. But independent of this there was also just the fact that Peacemaker, as played by John Cena, was an asshole. And not just an asshole -a murderous militant and jingoistic proto-fascist who exits the film one of its’ most loathsome characters, in spite of his doofus charm and comical fragile masculinity. And this was the right choice for the film -his heel-turn in fact is where I really became engaged. But a whole show centred around the guy sounded nigh insufferable. There’s only so far the jokes about his racism and sexism can go.
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Turns out though, James Gunn is not a man to be underestimated. Turns out he is fully aware of all the implications of this character and that that is exactly what fascinated him about Peacemaker enough to give him his own show –a show in which the whole thesis revolves around his capacity for change and understanding what has made him the man he is. Gunn recognizes a humanity in Chris Smith and dares his audience to recognize it too, while extending the courtesy that Chris and those real world folks he is based on have it in them to be better people. And from this driving thematic tether he produced a superhero show that is a true and compelling character study in tandem with a bizarre comic book romp. A real show that surpasses any of its’ counterparts over on Disney+ and has no need for a larger universe as context or to advance some narrative function warranted by a movie six months down the line. Peacemaker honestly, is what a superhero show ought to be.
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The show is great for several reasons perhaps starting with its’ opening theme that is in spite of its’ deadpan figures, one of the most exhilarating TV intros I’ve ever seen –each detail about it is flawless! The sense of irreverent fun it conveys plays out through the whole show -which proves there is a way to make an R-rated superhero project funny without simply mimicking Deadpool. That R-rating allows for a ton of creative licence as well, not just in terms of the violence but how it can be applied tonally (the ending to episode six is way more of a horror movie than anything in Moon Knight or the new Doctor Strange). The filmmaking, though not on par with Gunn’s movies, is versatile, creative, and interesting too. And the characters are well-rounded, each played tremendously by their actors. Unlike any of the superhero shows that preceded it, Peacemaker has a real ensemble that works as a strong and dynamic unit. It’s not just about the one important guy, and you actually care about each of these other figures in his life. Marvel has often been accused (and somewhat justifiably so) of not being interested in the ordinary people who populate its’ world –even the initially powerless side characters in that universe often graduate to hero status, because it’s the only way Marvel knows how to make its’ characters resonate. But strong personalities like Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) or John Economos (Steve Agee) don’t need to wear costumes to be just as engaging –they don’t even need to be based on some minor comic book character, they can be original creations.
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And it’s that interest that James Gunn and Peacemaker have with real people and their tangible world that I think propels the series’ principal focus and sets it apart from most other modern superhero media. Because this series casts its’ superhero as a real person; and not in the superficial, highly controlled way of many an MCU protagonist, nor the heavily cynical interpretation of revisionist superhero media like Watchmen or The Boys. Just a dude who’s deep down not really good or bad, who doesn’t represent either an ideal or an ill of humanity, but who’s got faults and blindspots that need to be reckoned with. And I know it may be weird to call John Cena an average guy but he makes it work. He’s got a relatable dumb bro energy and an attitude that feels very in line with the kinds of folks brought up in their parents’ politics.
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We need to discuss those politics because it’s one of the principal elements of the show that is most true to an immediate real world context. As established by The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker is rather a typical right-wing buffoon, with antiquated notions about the United States, its’ government, and things like race, class, gender, and sexuality. It’s one of the first things the show makes clear -his first interaction of the series being with a custodian (Rizwan Manji) who identifies him as “the racist superhero”. And he’s quite clearly bought into several myths and rhetoric of the right-wing culture machine. But Peacemaker also begins the show already in doubt of those political leanings, haunted by the last words that Rick Flag had said to him when Peacemaker killed him about his name and purported values being a joke in light of his actions. He can’t really defend himself against that crime and is realizing for the first time how fucked up his value system must be to create a code that states he would “kill every man, woman, and child necessary in the name of peace.” The show soon reveals that for all his posturing he doesn’t believe it, but it like everything else is a byproduct of where he comes from.
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Obviously this series had to dive into Peacemaker’s backstory, the best place to explain why he is the way he is; and in that regard Gunn pulls no punches with the figure of Auggie Smith, played by Robert Patrick, Chris’ neo-Nazi father. He has his own masked vigilante identity, the White Dragon, but for the most part is played with an unsettling banality. He is not the cartoon racist so often depicted as an easy villain: he recites Fox News talking points, makes intentionally inflammatory comments in front of an Asian-American woman, and laughs at the idea of a man being tortured into trauma -because it is such a joke to him. He’s a person who very vividly wouldn’t be out of place at the podium of any GOP rally. And he is the man who has shaped Chris Smith and his own interpretation of strength and masculinity -which is especially curious in the context of his later styling himself as a superhero. By connecting the root of Chris’ values to these indoctrinated fascist notions it draws a clear line between the superhero and the Übermensch -Nietzsche’s philosophy of the aspirational ultimate man adopted into the ideology of the Nazis; thus boldly tying the two concepts together in a way that neither Marvel nor DC has on screen yet dared to do. Chris is in some ways, as molded by his father, the ideal end result of white supremacy: a white superhero with the power and drive to cleanse his world of the undesirables. Yet the fatal flaw is the fact that Chris exists in the world, conscious of it, and unlike his father, is desperate to fit into it in spite of those things he’s been taught. Plus, he’s not so conditioned as to not be aware of the damage his father did to him, specifically an episode that haunts him to this day in which he accidentally killed his brother. Yes, this is yet another superhero show “about trauma”, but Peacemaker perhaps gets it better than most by acknowledging how trauma is often a cumulative phenomenon, made up of not a single incident but a series or even a lifetime experience.
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Peacemaker is Chris’ reaction to his trauma -a figure who stands for noble virtues that Chris on some level aspires towards, but can’t express or act on in ways that aren’t violent, that aren’t to some degree fascist. As much as he may not want it, he does have a reputation for racism through his actions. And he still feels a need to connect with his father, for all that harm done, for all it has made him into, as though in the hopes he’ll turn out to not really be so bad. He still reflects his father in some of his own politics, his casual sexism and homophobia, dismissal of social progress or inclusive language. But at the end of the day what he wants more than anything is to be loved, and in pursuit of that goal he will do what none of his Nazi handlers would ever dare: he gets to know people.
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It has been opined that there are few greater threats to bigotry than talking to and knowing people from diverse walks of life. A transphobe could cease being transphobic simply by talking to a transgender person and opening themselves up to their point of view. And this it seems is one of the guiding beliefs James Gunn incorporates into Peacemaker. Chris has a lot of prejudices and a lot of presumptions that have been allowed to fester between his adolescence and his time in prison. Outside of those, he’s never really had friends, barring an enabling amoral wannabe vigilante called Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), who just kind of goes along with Chris’ impulses either way, and a loyal pet eagle he’s called Eagly -the one living thing to unreservedly show him affection. So initially, with the Project Butterfly team, he’s standoffish and stubborn -as he’s been taught and directly playing into their own assumptions of him. He mocks Economos’ beard, makes sexist remarks towards Emilia Harcourt (Jenifer Holland), and maintains an open wilful ignorance of Adebayo’s sexuality. But Adebayo and Harcourt especially don’t take it, they confront and call him out while also correcting his presumptions. And Chris takes these in. While his toxic masculinity doesn’t permit him from owning up or apologizing for his offensiveness, he does internalize and make an effort at improvement. He needs to in order to work with this crew, and as he does so a grudging respect forms -particularly out of the strange kindred spirit he finds in Adebayo.
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Like Chris, she has her own string of issues stemming from a toxic parent -in her case her mother Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), who much like Chris’ dad still maintains an uncomfortable amount of control over her. She is in fact a plant on the squad for her mother, forced to deceive the others and work against Chris. But she gradually comes to like Chris, and vice versa, the pair being the only two on Project Butterfly who seem to truly understand one another. She reaches out to his humanity where Harcourt or Economos or leader Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) won’t. And Chris values this, while admiring her for her toughness of character. She’s the one whom he cares most about proving himself to, the model for how he should be towards others. It’s his compass for empathy, and it’s what makes the team work well together, what allows them to bond in a healthy way after a successful though ludicrous mission at the end of episode five. Even Vigilante by his proximity to and idolization of Peacemaker, is made better for this.
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It’s all so organic, so authentic that it’s hardly believable that Chris by the end of this series is the same person we were introduced to as a jingoistic caricature in The Suicide Squad. He hasn’t gone all the way yet, his demons are still there by the end, his vulnerabilities largely kept down, and he is nowhere close to a beacon of progressivism or anything …but he has grown. Chris is someone who looks to his environment to determine his behaviour -he played the macho man in Corto Maltese with the Suicide Squad, he acquiesced to his fathers’ bigotry when he came home. But Project Butterfly gave him the opportunity to take off those masks, to begin to understand both himself and how so much of his worldview has been wrong. Killing his father became then the most visceral rejection of who he was bred to be. Of course it is done with that very violence his father had instilled in him, that he now relies upon, and it does not solve the trauma. The seasons’ ending spells that out plainly. But there is hope for Peacemaker, hope that he will shake his misconceptions of authority and U.S. exceptionalism, hope that he can honestly represent more what he claims to. At the very least he has a sense of belonging with his ragtag group of colleagues.
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Peacemaker believes he’s a superhero, but until this series he’d done nothing to embody that signifier. He was merely a tough guy with good marksmanship and some gadgets designed for him by a racist. Further, he had a very narrow view of what a superhero is. And one of the sharpest subtle things that Gunn does with this series is examine superheroes in a tongue-in-cheek way that exposes deeper critiques of the archetype. Bringing in a caped vigilante Nazi forces the allusion to the Übermensch, and the innately fascist ideas buried within the superhero concept. And yet Peacemaker, in perpetual discussion with this, works to conceive the superhero in a new way in spite of this –and I can’t think of another show from the superhero genre machine that has gone there while still being a bombastic, frenetic, creatively fun time.
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There are other avenues of depth to the show, strong moments of pathos for other characters like Adebayo, Harcourt, Murn –even Economos gets a particularly sympathetic moment in the final episode. But what drives the series is James Gunn and John Cena’s commitment to this character –to taking a figure who was at best a joke, at worst a symbol of the rot in American society, and allowing him agency and the space to prove himself more than either of those things without rewriting his personality or excusing his past actions. It’s a tough tightrope to walk and they do it beautifully. There is a truth of purpose behind this and it likely comes from Gunn’s experience with many a Peacemaker-type in the online sphere (they are of course the ones who drove him off Twitter, temporarily off his job at Disney, and inadvertently to DC to begin with). He could have come away from that more angry than ever, made a Peacemaker show steeped in cynicism, or worse nihilism –too often the temptation of work aiming to deconstruct the superhero genre. Instead, he chose optimism, and not a liberal delusional optimism that necessitates little action, but a proactive optimism in peoples’ capacity to learn and grow under the right circumstances. It’s a kind of optimism we perhaps need right now and it doesn’t seem to be coming from other sources.
Peacemaker is a show about the belief that a hero can redefine themselves, about the frailty of extremism to the simplicity of connection. It is perhaps the most humanist piece of superhero media we’ve seen since Logan. A show that stands on its’ own beyond its’ genre trappings made with exquisite care by the best artist working within that genre today. And I hope it serves as an example to other superhero shows coming down the pipe. Do they really wanna taste it?
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