*WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM PEACEMAKER ON HBO MAX*
This show was something else entirely. I did not expect a show about the man who killed Rick Flag to be so awesome, let alone actually liking that man. Peacemaker is a spin-off series of James Gunn’s The Suidide Squad that stars the villain Peacemaker and a new rag-tag gang of misfits to take on an alien invasion in his hometown.
Written by the eccentric mind of James Gunn, this show was able to transform Peacemaker from a one-dimensional badass antagonist into a three-dimensional beast of a protagonist, and I applaud John Cena for truly proving himself to be a great actor.
The Plot
The story was pretty easy to follow from the start with your standard “alien invasion prevention” arc, but the sub-plots are what gave this show it’s groove. Although there was no real Task Force X dispatched, Peacemaker was still being forced by Amanda Waller to her dirty work since he still has the bomb in his neck from The Suicide Squad, and unfortunately he was stuck working with two government agents and two “IT” US agents (not really the best team to fight-off aliens). Thankfully, another villain/antihero is introduced, Vigilante, and he just so happens to be Peacemaker’s BFF (at least that’s what Vigilante thinks). Another issue amongst the team is that one of their members, Adebayo, is Amanda Waller’s daughter (which she was keeping a secret for the whole season), was tasked to plant fake evidence in Peacemakers trailer home to pin all the craziness of an alien invasion on him.
Pinning the mission chaos on Peacemaker would have been easy since the aliens, called Butterflies, burrow themselves inside people’s brains and controls them. It should also be noted that most of the Butterflies possess the bodies of politicians and other important citizens, which is why publicly blaming Peacemaker for their deaths would be logical since people think he’s political terrorist (which is a little true).
We also learned more about Peacemaker’s family and backstory, which can be summeraised by saying that his abusive dad is the “White Dragon”, aka the leader of the KKK…..I had no idea that they existed in DC Comics……
It was also revealed that Peacemaker had a brother, who he accidentally killed in a fight when they were kids. So that explains a lot for why Peacemaker is fucked-up and ironically he doesn’t seem like that bad of guy when compared to his dad. Despite the fact that Peacemaker’s father taught him everything he knows, he does NOT share the racist ideals his father preaches to his cult (thank God for that). Peacemaker does have a fight with his father later in the season, and it ends with Peacemaker killing him.
It was one of the hardest things he had to do in this season, and it took a toll on him since during the last episode he sees his dad’s ghost taunting him, which is a reference to his comic variant having hallucinations of his dead father. Another hard choice he made was technically commiting alien genocide. The final episode was a huge battle with Peacemaker’s group vs the Butterflies at their home base where they stashed their food supply, an alien cow that produced a nectar they eat in order to live.
Peacemaker was at a crossroads. He knew that the Butterflies wanted to rule the world, but he was able to make peace with their leader earlier in the season, and she pleaded her case that her race and the humans are on the brink of extinction. Her plan was for her kind to assume control of the world leaders to steer the humans to safety, which is a nicer way of saying world domination, and Peacemaker chose to basically kill an entire alien race and damning the humans.
After the mission was done, Adebayo asked Peacemaker why he chose to kill the cow, even after everything the Butterfly leader told him. Peacemaker just said it was because he knew that the Butterflies would hurt her and the rest of his friends if he helped them.
Final Thoughts
This show gave me a new understanding to Peacemaker’s character. He admitted that he never wanted to kill Rick Flag, started to care about the people around him, he started to make his own choices, and he even contemplates on if he wants to stop killing people or not. James Gunn was able to give depth and popularity to essentially a C-list supervillain, bumping him up to an A-lister character, and gave us a new view of the DCEU (something 2017’s Justice League failed to do).
The show has already been greenlit for season 2, and I can’t wait to see what James Gunn has in-store for Peacemaker. There is also talk of Gunn making another series with a different charcter from the Suicide Squad (hopefully King Shark or Bloodsport), so I’m looking forward to that aswell.
Peacemaker is a must watch for HBO Max users (or for you devious stream pirates out there), and it restores a little hope for the DCEU. Now we just have to hope that The Batman movie is a hit. Anyway, that’s all I have for you today. This is your friendly neighborhood saying good-bye, and see you next time.
Hall of Mercs 