James Gunn Revealed This Peacemaker Character Is Alive (But Never Appears) On The Series

Julian, it's a hungry world full of spoilers for "Peacemaker" season 2.

It might be ludicrous to compare "Peacemaker" to Tony Gilroy's "Andor." And yet, both shows take a side character in an ensemble and deepen them to the point of becoming essential to their respective franchises. Diego Luna's Rebel spy went from one of many cool guys in "Rogue One" to getting a spin-off series so good it makes the future of the franchise worrisome. The same goes for John Cena's Christopher Smith, the fourth lead in an irreverent supervillain team movie who is now one of the best DC characters ever put in film or TV

A big part of why "Peacemaker" works so well comes down to Cena's performance. He's not just a great comedic talent in "Peacemaker," but he uses his wrestling macho and patriotic baby face persona and weaponizes it, turning it on its head by making him a heavily conflicted and quite politically incorrect person. And yet, Cena infuses the character with great vulnerability and a huge heart that makes it hard not to fall for the guy. This is also due to the backstory James Gunn gives him, especially relating to Chris' relationship with his white supremacist father (Robert Patrick's White Dragon) and his dead brother.

But in all of this, there is a figure in Chris' life that's been missing — his mother. James Gunn has made a superhero career out of characters with important father relationships, from Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) in "Guardians of the Galaxy", to Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior) in "The Suicide Squad" and Nina (Zoë Chao) in "Creature Commandos." Mothers, however, are mostly missing (except, thankfully, for Ma Kent in "Superman"). This is true in "Peacemaker," where Chris' mother has been thoroughly missing ... but not dead.

As revealed by James Gunn on the official "Peacemaker" podcast, Peacemaker's mom is very much alive. "I know where she is but I'm not going to give it away," Gunn said, before revealing she was almost in this season, and he even has an actor in mind to play her.

The news that Chris' mother is still alive is hugely important. The first season of "Peacemaker" spent a lot of time with the character reckoning with his upbringing and his anger, struggling with doing his job and to kill people because he didn't want that to happen after the death of his brother Keith.

Season 2 doubled down on Chris' family issues with the discovery of an alternate dimension in which his brother is alive and his father truly loved him. Sure, it ended up being a universe ruled by Nazis, but the irony that Peacemaker's dad, Auggie, was actually not a Nazi there and is actively uncooperative with his world's authorities and trying to do the best he can under the circumstances, made for a knife-twisting and heart-breaking development.

But with his father dead (again) and Chris leaving his brother for dead (who now obviously wants to kill him), the idea that his mother is alive somewhere is just what could turn things around for the character. A potential season 3 could explore that relationship, either reinforcing the horrible upbringing Chris had, or even setting him on a path of healing by showing him the alternative he was seeking in Earth-X and lost. Having Chris meet his mom and realize she was a caring and loving woman forced to leave her family (probably due to Auggie's extremism) could set him up on the right path again.