A Peacemaker Season 2 Easter Egg Subtly References An Underrated Batman Show

Spoilers for "Peacemaker" season 2 to follow.

Christopher "Peacemaker" Smith (John Cena) may have helped foil an alien invasion, but he's still the butt of jokes in the superhero community. In the "Peacemaker" season 2 premiere, Peacemaker interviews to join the "Justice Gang." However, neither Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), nor the team's moneyman, Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), are impressed by him.

The interviews take place in an abandoned storefront labeled "Krank's Toys." That's not a real brand, but it does have some DC Universe history behind it. The cartoon series "The Batman," which premiered in 2004, featured the villain Cosmo Krank/The Toymaker (Patton Oswalt), the former owner of Krank's Toys turned super-villain.

The Toymaker is a one-off villain in the season 3 episode "Cash for Toys." You see, Bruce Wayne (Rino Romano) led a public campaign to shut down Krank's company because it was producing unsafe (but technically advanced) toys. Now, Krank wants revenge on Wayne, so the Gotham City Police Department has the loudmouth Detective Cash Tankinson (the always wonderful Patrick Warburton) keep watch on the latter 24/7. With Cash looking over his shoulder, though, Bruce can't sneak away to fight the Toymaker as Batman.

"Cash for Toys" is far from the best episode of "The Batman," but Oswalt is fun as a silly villain and Cash is a scene-stealer. To stand out against the beloved, impossible to surpass "Batman: The Animated Series," "The Batman" not only introduced new characters (like Krank and Cash), but it also remixed old favorites. As a result, the Joker (Kevin Michael Richardson) was as acrobatic as a monkey, the Riddler (Robert Englund) was a goth, etc. At the time, these changes prompted some backlash, but in the years since, they've helped the show stand out.

"The Batman" remains more obscure than "The Animated Series," but it's plenty of fun if you give it a chance. If nothing else, Romano's Bruce Wayne is the only animated Batman who can say he's fought Dracula (Peter Stormare).

Due to some complicated edicts from DC, certain Batman villains couldn't appear on "The Batman." Ra's al Ghul, Two-Face, Scarecrow, and the Mad Hatter were all no-shows during the series' five seasons.

So, in their place, the show either used more obscure villains or created new ones. Spellbinder (Michael Massee), Rag Doll (Jeff Bennett), and Professor Hugo Strange (Frank Gorshin, later Richard Green) all filled in for Scarecrow's usual role. Meanwhile, the series' original villains included a mercenary with shock gauntlets known as Temblor (Jim Cummings), the self-duplicating Everywhere Man (Brandon Routh), the armor suited vigilante Rumor (Ron Perlman), and, as mentioned, the Toymaker.

The Toymaker, though, feels less like a stand-in for a Batman villain and more like one for a Superman rogue — more specifically, The Toyman/Winslow Scott, an inventor of toy-themed weapons and implements of crime. A villain like Toyman is pretty outclassed next to Superman, but he's more of a challenge for Batman, who also relies on his own set of toys.

Despite the "Peacemaker" Easter egg for Krank's Toys, the Toymaker remains an obscure villain. One episode of the Batman prequel TV series "Gotham" depicted Cosmo (Chris Perfetti) as the son of the original Toymaker, Griffin Krank (Thomas Lyons). A sign for Krank's Toys can also be seen in the video game "Batman: Arkham City." But beyond that, nada. Really, the Toymaker makes for an utterly redundant villain next to Toyman, who probably has a better shot of showing up in the DCU. I could be wrong, but I don't expect to see more of Krank's Toys on "Peacemaker."

"Peacemaker" is streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes of season 2 premiering on Thursdays.