SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot points in “Full Nelson,” the Season 2 finale of “Peacemaker,” now streaming on HBO Max.
When “Superman” premiered in July, it served as the first big screen introduction of the new DC Universe, as overseen by DC Studios co-chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran. But it turns out that Season 2 of Gunn’s HBO Max series “Peacemaker,” which concluded on Thursday, provides an even more crucial launching pad for the overarching story Gunn aims to tell within the DCU, with the introduction of two major new elements to the franchise from the DC Comics: The covert agency Checkmate, and the metahuman prison planet Salvation.
As Gunn explained in a virtual press conference on Tuesday (which Variety moderated), Salvation will play a central role in Gunn’s 2028 “Superman” sequel, “Man of Tomorrow.” But both concepts will be narrative threads that will run through the entire DCU, including DC Studios’ next HBO Max series, “Lanterns.”
“It may not seem like it at first, but it is all very connected,” he said.
In fact, Gunn has known he wanted to use Checkmate and Salvation for DC projects since before he and Safran were tapped to lead DC.
“That was always pretty instrumental in the overarching story that I’m telling in the DCU,” he said. “I had mapped out what I thought the general story was, and two important aspects to that were Checkmate and especially Salvation.”
So what is Checkmate and how is it introduced into the DCU?
In the “Peacemaker” season finale, which Gunn wrote and directed, the 11th Street Kids rally to rescue their friend and titular superhero, aka Chris Smith (John Cena) — not from some nefarious evildoer, but from himself. As a consequence of his misadventures in the Nazi-drenched alternate universe Earth-X in the previous episodes — in which he watched his father die in front of him, again, and nearly watched his brother die in front of him, again — Chris is convinced that he is, in his words, “the angel of fucking death.” He’s abandoned his home, cut himself off from his friends, and is wallowing in misery at a cheap motel.
After Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Adrian (Freddie Stroma), Economos (Steve Agee) and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) finally find him, however, they remind Chris that when he’s true to himself, he’s inspired all of them to be true to themselves — and it’s pretty much the only time any of them have felt they’ve done good in the world. So, led by Adebayo, they resolve to abandon the authorities that have led them astray, and build something together that can actually make people’s lives better, using the massive pallets of “blood money” Adrian’s stockpiled from fighting crime as Vigilante.
From left: Nhut Le, Tim Meadows, Freddie Stroma, Danielle Brooks, John Cena, and Jennifer Holland on “Peacemaker.”
Jessica Miglio/HBO Max
So they found Checkmate, an independent, private crime-fighting agency that also includes Judomaster (Nhut Le) and disillusioned A.R.G.U.S. agents Fleury (Tim Meadows) and Bordeaux (Sol Rodriguez). Checkmate has a storied history in the DC Comics, first appearing in 1988 and populated mostly with DC’s anti-heroes; Peacemaker and Vigilante were early members, and Bordeaux has also been a prominent operative. (Other DC luminaries in Checkmate include Amanda Waller, Deadshot, Deathstroke, Huntress and Mister Terrific.)
Gunn said that he’d been a big fan of Checkmate in the comics and he “always wanted to build Checkmate into” the DCU. “It’s the real culmination of the 11th Street Kids and their desire to be good,” he said. Checkmate will remain “separate from the other institutions in the DCU,” he said. “I think they’re going to be really, really good at what they do. When we see them next, their circumstances will be a little bit different than the startup that they’re at now.”
What about Salvation?
Elsewhere in the “Peacemaker” season finale, A.R.G.U.S. chief Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) has deployed the agency to use Chris’ trans-dimensional portal to locate an alternate universe as close to the conditions of Earth as possible. After many failed attempts — and the loss of several lives via a flesh-eating-zombie universe and a demented-candyland-populated-with-carnivorous-imps universe — Harcourt and Bordeaux finally seem to find what they’re looking for.
(When asked whether there was any alternative universe he wanted to visit but couldn’t, Gunn started laughing. “I wanted them to open the door and see Deadpool in a room,” he said, still giggling. “I talked to Ryan Reynolds about it. But I would’ve had to go through some pretty, pretty big hoops to do that. He wanted to do it!” He winced. “Oh, that’s all anybody’s gonna talk about now, is fucking Deadpool in the other room. I should’ve never said it!”)
After the A.R.G.U.S. team find the ideal planet, they learn the true purpose behind their efforts: Flag wants to use the planet, which he names “Salvation,” as a prison for metahumans that are uncontainable on Earth — an idea that first appeared in DC Comics in the 2007–2008 limited series “Salvation Run.”
“I like the concept of creating this prison that was absolutely inescapable, but was also a little rash,” Gunn said. “Because they think it’s not dangerous from their initial tests. But in the comics and in this world, obviously there’s hints of it being dangerous.”
From left: Sol Rodriguez, Jennifer Holland, Anissa Matlock on “Peacemaker.”
Jessica Miglio/HBO Max
While “Salvation Run” included a cavalcade of DC villainy pitted against each other — driven by a rivalry between Lex Luthor and the Joker — Gunn warned fans not to expect the DCU version of Salvation to hew closely to the comics.
“It really is about the concept,” he said. “The part that really spoke to me was the beginning of it, where Rick Flag Jr. and Amanda Waller [said], ‘Fuck it. Metahumans are a pain in the ass. They keep escaping. Let’s just get rid of them permanently.’ And of course, there are a bunch of repercussions about sending a bunch of bad guys to another dimension. In this case, kind of, you know, the sole person there right now is a good guy who has to survive on his own.”
Ah yes — the “Peacemaker” season finale ends on a huge cliffhanger, when Chris is kidnapped by Flag Sr., and tossed into Salvation as payback for Chris killing his son, Rick Flag Jr.
What does this mean for Season 3 of “Peacemaker”?
Gunn indicated that as of now, he isn’t planning on bringing “Peacemaker” back for another season. “This is about the other stories in which this [cliffhanger] will play out,” he said. He was quick to add that he hasn’t ruled out a Season 3. “Never say never. But right now, this is about the future of the DCU.”
Gunn was mum on whether that means Cena will be reprising Peacemaker in “Man of Tomorrow,” or even earlier in 2026’s “Supergirl.” But it was clear that audiences should expect to see much more of the character. For one, he’s key to Gunn’s plan to use the DCU to create “diamond properties out of the smaller characters” in the DC Comics canon to stand alongside Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman.
But even more crucially, Peacemaker is “really important to me,” Gunn said. So much so that Gunn was moved to tears while talking about how the Season 2 opening credits song, “Oh Lord” by Foxy Shazam, related to the character.
“I really love the character,” he said. “I could say about me, but I don’t really think it is. Chris is just incredibly human.”
John Cena in “Peacemaker.”
Jessica Miglio/HBO Max
Gunn first conceived of Peacemaker as “douchey Captain America” for his 2021 film “The Suicide Squad.” “He started out as a character who was the kind of guy that everybody calls morally reprehensible online every day,” he said. “I would have met Peacemaker at a party and gone, ‘Who is that fucking asshole over there?’”
And yet, Gunn has used “Peacemaker” to explore the same ideas about empathy and understanding that were at the forefront of “Superman.”
“We live in this world where everybody thinks that the way to deal with people that think differently than you is to treat them like demons,” Gunn said. “What a fucking stupid idea. You want to change the world? You want the world to be a better place? You don’t do it by telling somebody they’re evil. It’s just not the way you do it.”
So will “Man of Tomorrow” audiences need to watch Season 2 of “Peacemaker” to understand what’s happening?
As far as Gunn is concerned, no. “I’m not expecting people to go into ‘Man of Tomorrow’ and know what Salvation is,” he said. “You’ll find out anything you need to know about metahumans disappearing through that movie.”
That said, Gunn knows first hand from his time within the MCU with the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films that building out a cinematic universe is a tricky endeavor.
“It’s a very, very, very delicate balance when writing these things,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to tell the story in a way where people that already know the information are not going to be bored, and where people who don’t know the information will get the information in an easy and simple way, but also not to be burdened down by too much shit. There needs to be an elegance to the storytelling. Too many mumbo jumbo things, to me, is always a thing that I [avoid]. ‘Oh, this magic stone does this and it’s that’ — there’s no emotional aspect to that. A prison in another dimension is easy for me to understand — and say in one sentence.”
With “Peacemaker” concluded (for now), Gunn will cede the spotlight to several upcoming DC projects in which he’s not the leading creative force, including “Lanterns,” “Supergirl,” “Clayface,” “The Batman 2.” But he made clear that he will continue to write and direct the DC projects that sit at the heart of the larger story within the DCU and involve Salvation, Superman, Lex Luthor and Rick Flag Sr.
“That’s the plan right now, at least,” he said. “I may get so fucking tired that I can’t do it — because I’m pretty tired, but we’ll see!”
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