‘Peacemaker’: James Gunn Confirms 3 (or 4) ‘The Suicide Squad’ Characters Will Return
The ending of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad left storylines open for several characters, including John Cena’s Peacemaker. The upcoming HBO Max series Peacemaker takes advantage of that. The first season of the action-adventure comedy premieres in January 2022 with all eight episodes written by Gunn himself. The writer-director shared a little info about the series. But fans are curious to know which characters will be returning to their screens.
Peacemaker in ‘The Suicide Squad’
The Suicide Squad introduced its audience to several lesser-known supervillains, Peacemaker, Bloodsport, and Ratcatcher 2 among them. Peacemaker was introduced in 1966 as the alter-ego of peace envoy Christopher Smith. At DC FanDome (via IGN), Gunn described him as “a guy who believes in peace at any cost, no matter how many people he needs to kill along the way.”
Peacemaker’s words are in constant conflict with his actions. Not satisfied with the peace he makes in the present, the character builds himself a Peace Palace to ensure the peace of the future, which includes a fully stocked armory of weapons he’s sworn never to use.
In The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker joins the team alongside Bloodsport and the others. He and the Idris Elba character fight to be the leader. Peacemaker eventually turns on the group. Bloodsport leaves him for dead, but an end-credit scene reveals that he’s still alive.
Who from ‘The Suicide Squad’ appears in ‘Peacemaker’?
As the title character, it makes sense that Peacemaker himself stars in the HBO Max series. In an August 2021 tweet, Gunn shared the names of some of the supporting cast. Jennifer Holland returns as NSA agent Emilia Harcourt. Steve Agee reprises his role as John Economos, warden and assistant to Amanda Waller at Belle Reve Penitentiary. After they turned on Viola Davis’ Waller, it’s unclear whether the Oscar-winning actor herself will appear.
The writer-director finished by saying “maybe one more.” If there is an extra slot, a surprising number of people are rooting for Gunn’s brother Sean to return as the murderous Weasel. Outside of Gunn’s tweet, Deadline revealed that Danielle Brooks, Robert Patrick, and Chris Conrad also joined the show’s cast.
How did ‘Peacemaker’ come to be?
In an interview with Collider, Gunn shared that the idea of a series was pitched to him as the movie was being filmed. He even added footage to the film after the show got the go-ahead. Gunn revealed that rather than having to start from scratch when approached, he wrote a few pages of a Peacemaker spinoff during lockdown for fun. On top of writing the whole season, Gunn also directed more than half the episodes Cena, in addition to playing the title character in the series, took up the role of executive producer.
Peacemaker was not a household name before The Suicide Squad. So the upcoming HBO Max show should give fans the character’s origin story while giving them the action the character is known for. The show wrapped production just before The Suicide Squad premiered. It marks Cena’s first starring television role.
