The Weirdest & Most Absurd Things Peacemaker Has Ever Done

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Do ya really wanna, do you really wanna taste of "Peacemaker" season 2?

After an extended hiatus, James Gunn's acclaimed DC Universe series is returning to HBO Max. It's been a while since we've gotten to revisit John Cena's delightfully deranged and surprisingly human paragon of "peace," as the writer, director, and new head of DC Studios needed a break after the back-to-back productions of "The Suicide Squad" and "Peacemaker" season 1 (ironically, during said break, he wound up taking on even more work for DC in the form of the "Creature Commandos" animated series and, of course, his "Superman" film).

Gunn is seemingly more than ready to get back to his creative goldmine, and honestly, so are we. In anticipation of this new adventure, we couldn't help but revisit the character's weirdest and most absurd moments from his history, both in film/television and the comics that inspired them. From his origins in the 1960s to his somewhat unexpected big screen appearance in 2025, we found all the highlights (or, more accurately, lowlights) that could influence or impact the series' sophomore outing.

Here are the weirdest and most absurd things Peacemaker has ever done.

Before making his live action debut in "The Suicide Squad," Peacemaker wasn't exactly one of DC's marquee characters — in fact, he wasn't even a DC character in the first place. He was originally created as a backup issue character for the now-defunct Charlton Comics by Joe Gill and Pat Boyette (and even when he was ultimately bought by DC, along with a bunch of other Charlton misfits, Peacemaker was almost immediately overshadowed in terms of popularity by The Comedian, a character Alan Moore created based on Peacemaker for his groundbreaking limited series "Watchmen").

Only those comic fans who read these early "Peacemaker" comics will know that Christopher Smith was initially written to be a noble diplomat, apparently so overwhelmed by the inevitability of war that he simply had to violently take matters into his own hands. Hilariously, even this ostensibly altruistic take on the character was a wacko, having built and stored an army's worth of experimental weapons in an underground bunker, despite being a self-proclaimed pacifist.

Freddie Stroma's Adrian Chase / Vigilante isn't just one of the best characters in the "Peacemaker" TV series, but he's also one of the best sidekicks/BFFs any DC Comics character has enjoyed on screen. After Chris is first let out of the hospital, Adrian is the first person to welcome him back to society. When Peacemaker struggles to kill the alien-infested family of Senator Goff, Vigilante is there to gleefully pull the trigger (and endure a fair amount of torture on his friend's behalf thereafter). He even tries to assassinate August Smith (Robert Patrick) in prison to free Chris from his dad's abuse.

But perhaps the sweetest and strangest moment between the two comes early in the series' 1st season, when Peacemaker and Vigilante go into the woods to shoot up four years of scavenged appliances together in vaguely erotic ways. The best part of this unforgettable sequence is James Gunn's choice of backing track — an over-the-top, aggressive, hard rock cover of One Direction's "Drag Me Down" from the band Santa Cruz.

Vigilante aside, Peacemaker hasn't always had the best allies — nor has he always been the best ally himself. When he first met his Suicide Squad colleague Robert DuBois (also known as the would-be Superman assassin Bloodsport, played by Idris Elba), Peacemaker was so competitive that he led DuBois in an impromptu competition of "who can kill the most people in this outpost we just stumbled upon and in the most creative ways possible."

Turns out, they both lost. The outpost they completely exterminated was, in fact, full of Corto Maltese rebels who were fighting against the same government Task Force X was there to thwart. They not only killed non-hostile soldiers but robbed themselves of well over a dozen potential allies. To make things even more awkward, their leader had actually just saved their boss Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) from certain death, and was preparing to help the Squad in their mission. Crazy as this was, it was also 100% comic accurate behavior for Peacemaker in particular.

After DC Comics bought Peacemaker from Charlton, writer Paul Kupperberg drastically reworked him for the post-"Crisis on Infinite Earths" era. Rather than a diplomat with a suspicious amount of lasers and cannons lying around, this Christopher Smith was a veteran of the Vietnam War who bore disturbing psychological scars due to being raised by a literal Nazi.

Though Chris himself didn't subscribe to his father's ideology, he was so incredibly violent in combat that he was always willing to shoot first and justify his actions later. This led him to slaughter a village of innocent civilians, including women and children. For this flagrant and vile war crime, Christopher Smith was sentenced to life in prison, where he would at least find some mental peace in the absence of constant moral injury. This retreat didn't last long, however, as the U.S. government saw potential in his lethal loyalty, and thus offered to turn him into the Peacemaker.

As for James Gunn's take on Peacemaker, he still has some hefty daddy issues to deal with. When Chris was a child, his father August had already made a name for himself as the neo-Nazi supervillain the White Dragon. He used his wealth and advanced engineering skills to construct a suit of high-tech armor, which he would one day use to try and kill his own son.

Whether because he believed Chris was genuinely trying to have Vigilante assassinate him in prison or was that ashamed of his son's personal growth, August's attempt tragically compels Chris to end his father's life. Overcome by guilt and grief, Chris begins to vividly hallucinate his dead dad during the final leg of the "Project Butterfly" mission. It's a perfect example of the show's striking ability to blend cringe humor and genuine human anguish, and the fact that Auggie is still lurking in Chris' head in the season's last scene indicates he still has a lot of healing to do.

Though DC Comics very clearly sought to capitalize on Peacemaker's newfound cinematic prominence by placing him in similarly central positions within the comics themselves, it wasn't until Kyle Starks and Steve Pugh's "Peacemaker Tries Hard!" that fans got something that truly captured the spirit of broad satire and irreverent comedy of James Gunn's work. In the DC Black Label limited series, Peacemaker stumbles into a plot that involves a villain called "The Brain" trying to transfer his consciousness into the body of the legendary mercenary Deathstroke.

Of course, Slade Wilson wouldn't exactly be cool with this, so the Brain opts to clone him instead — resulting in a veritable legion of Deathstroke babies (all equipped with little baby eyepatches) and a teenage Deathstroke who's as dangerous as he is petulant. Peacemaker recognizes that, like himself, this Deathstroke is basically a victim of an oppressive and abusive father. Peacemaker invites him to stay in his home, both to lessen his own loneliness and to be the supportive father figure he never had. It's an oddly endearing resolution to a story operating on levels of insanity only Peacemaker could rival.

There are three things that all versions of Peacemaker value more than anything: peace, weapons, and his unbelievably shiny helmet (though not necessarily in that order). In the original Charlton comics, this piece of his costume was singular and had a well-defined set of practical powers, including voice modification, radio, atmospheric augments, and limited lethal and non-lethal energy projection. For whatever reason (likely to restore some realism in the post-Crisis era), DC opted to scale its capabilities back to mere durability and sonic projection.

James Gunn has amazingly run in the complete opposite direction with his Peacemaker, introducing the concept of an entire Peacemaker Helmet Arsenal that his father created for him. (Of course, he couldn't just make one helmet that could perform all of these varyingly useful functions, so Chris is often seen lugging around a duffle of ridiculous helmets to execute more difficult missions). The most memorable helmet we've been introduced to in the series so far is the Scabies Helmet, which, yeah, it basically just gives anyone near him scabies. We're not yet sure what this looks like in practice, but our fingers are crossed that Peacemaker will finally get to use it in season 2.

Scabies might not be the most bizarre thing stored inside Peacemaker's helmet — at least, if you believe the post-Crisis version of the character, that is. If it wasn't already obvious, Christopher Smith was written with a flavor of mental instability more extreme than any other iteration of the character (which is really saying something). Because of this, he invented some... interesting flourishes for his superheroic persona, one being that his helmet could hold the souls of the dead.

This is not a Katana situation (though we would've killed for James Gunn to have written a redux of Rick Flag's infamous "her sword traps the souls of its victims" introduction for "The Suicide Squad"). Rather, Chris believes that the souls of those who lost their lives in his quest for peace are safely protected in his chrome dome, freed from their meaningless lives for a patriotic purpose.

With season 2 of "Peacemaker" scheduled so soon after the release of James Gunn's "Superman" film, it wasn't too surprising that the writer-director would waste no time introducing the character to new audiences interested in this revived DC Cinematic Universe. In the hit 2025 blockbuster, John Cena reprises his role as Peacemaker, who is seemingly a frequent guest on a reactionary nightly news program.

The fact that Peacemaker is now apparently in a position to be making public appearances is shocking in and of itself, and that's before getting into his judgmental position on Superman's heritage. When we last left him at the end of "Peacemaker" season 1 he had just barely prevented an alien invasion, but the status of his probation was dubious to say the very least. Then again, the cameo may have been a bit of meta-humor poking fun at Cena for wearing a full, "stolen" Peacemaker costume to all of his press appearances leading up to the release of "The Suicide Squad."

Intimating that Superman might have a secret or two is far from the worst thing Peacemaker has said about the Man of Steel — or the rest of the Justice League, for that matter. Chris spends the majority of the 1st season of the series spreading obviously slanderous rumors about several prominent heroes in the DC Universe, with his sources ranging from anonymous "Pepe the Frog" accounts on social media to the ol' reliable "Trust Me Bro."

He claims that Wonder Woman spent an entire party trying to flirt with him from across a crowded room, said that Batman was simply too much of a coward to kill his enemies (perhaps the least believable of all his lies, given this is the Snyderverse Batman we're talking about), and, of course, stands by the age-old slur that Aquaman... "mates" with fish. Oh, and as for Superman — Chris says he secretly has a fecal fetish.

As Gunn's DC Universe gets bigger and better, Peacemaker might actually have to start answering for some of these claims – at least one Leaguer is already confirmed for season 2. These amusing barbs also ruffled a few real life feathers, with "Arrow" star Stephen Amell sharing some choice words about one Green Arrow joke that made it into season 1.

When Peacemaker was brought to the forefront of the mainstream DC Comics Universe after "The Suicide Squad," his first job was, appropriately, leading the then-current "Suicide Squad" series from creators Robbie Thompson and Eduardo Pansica. The lineup wasn't exactly what fans of James Gunn's film had seen on screen, however (Peacemaker would actually see his leadership rivaled by none other than the forgotten Superboy, Conner Kent).

When the series begins, Amanda Waller has sent Peacemaker into Arkham Asylum to break out one of his new teammates: Talon. Despite the former New 52 headliner's declining sanity and inability to remember who he is or what he can do, Peacemaker is so devoted to the mission that he's willing to put his life on the line to help Talon escape custody, which includes begging Waller to detonate the bomb she put in his neck in order to create an explosive distraction. Fortunately, she's managed by this point to persuade Conner to her cause and sends him in to save the day instead.

Like many great James Gunn characters, Peacemaker is really just a traumatized loner looking for a friend. Much of what he learns in his series, he learns because he develops better communication skills and stronger empathy toward the people thrown into his life. We saw hints of this kind of character growth in "The Suicide Squad" — though, at that point, Chris was sadly too lost in what he thought was his life's purpose to see outside of his helmet.

It's revealed toward the end of the film that Peacemaker had secretly been given a parallel assignment by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) to destroy all evidence of Project Starfish no matter the cost. This put him in the crosshairs of Rick Flag, who felt so appalled and betrayed by the discovery that his government was running such inhumane experiments that he wanted to blow the whistle on the whole operation. Peacemaker couldn't let this happen and wound up stabbing him to death with a shard of a broken sink. This act haunted Chris in the early episodes of "Peacemaker" and will surely cause further drama when Frank Grillo reprises his role as Flag's son in season 2.

Of course, it isn't likely that Rick Flag and Peacemaker would have gone on to have some harmonious partnership in the long run anyway, given that the latter can only fit in with (fellow) psychopaths. A version of the character says as much in an internal monologue from the 2021 run of the "Suicide Squad" comic book series.

While executing the aforementioned raid on Arkham Asylum, Peacemaker admits that he actually prefers to work with psychopaths because they're "hard workers." A statement like this doesn't exactly bode well for his own mental health or his personal values — then again, the DC Studios version of the character likely has more hope to grow into an actual human being capable of developing relationships with people at least slightly less effed-up than himself. After all, the 1st season is basically an unconventional love story between him and Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), proving that there must be a human heart somewhere behind that blood-soaked dove of peace on his chest.

If there are sidekicks more loyal to Peacemaker than someone like Vigilante, it would be his pets. For the TV series, James Gunn gave Chris Eagly, a bald eagle he's trained so well it can actually assist him in combat (in simple ways, at least). Even more impressive in our opinion is that Eagly has seemingly learned some human communication skills from Chris, once offering his wing in lieu of a handshake and even "hugging" Chris twice.

In "Peacemaker Tries Hard!," Kyle Starks swaps Eagly out for a black French Bulldog that serves as the "John Wick"-like catalyst for Peacemaker's vengeful rampage. Though Eagly is a perfectly charming name for an eagle, Chris does flex his creative muscle a bit harder here when naming his dog Bruce Wayne, after his favorite billionaire capitalist. Of course, Peacemaker has neither the detective skills nor the connections to see the deeper meaning behind this name.

By the time Chris and his fellow agents have uncovered the existence of "The Cow" (a gargantuan animal used as vital livestock for the invasive species of alien body-snatchers called the Butterflies) he's been to hell and back several times. He killed his father, was betrayed by one of his closest friends, and nearly lost Eagly. The entire ordeal forced him to reevaluate his life — primarily his lethal dedication to peace.

Unfortunately, this moving personal revelation comes at a rather inconvenient time for humanity, who actually might have been better off under the control of the Butterflies. These invaders didn't plan on subjugating all of humanity through force, but they aimed to take over the bodies of those with the political power to actually save the world — a power the humans themselves were broadly misusing. By controlling the likes of Senator Goff, the Butterflies sought to combat the existential threat of climate change, prevent catastrophic war, and dilute the influence of moneyed elites. Like Peacemaker, they swore to do whatever it took to ensure the peace and safety of humanity — even if that meant killing a bunch of people in the process.

Though Chris sure seems at least partially swayed by the logic, he ultimately decides to thwart the Butterflies and gamble on humanity's willingness to save itself. Whether or not that choice restores peace to the world or his fractured mind is something we can't wait to see explored in "Peacemaker" season 2.