James Gunn’s Peacemaker series has finally made its debut with the first three episodes this week. Fans got to witness a deeper look into the character and the various elements associated with him. Here we actually got to see the character being explored instead of the movie where there was hardly any indication about his past. But fans were actually surprised to see that the character was a lot less ruthless compared to the last time we saw him in The Suicide Squad. A particular moment from the movie actually saw him unable to do as he was tasked to do when he was supposed to make the kill. We also saw him regretting having killed Rick Flag in a rather vulnerable moment for the character. James Gunns defends the actions of Peacemaker for killing Rick Flag, and it paves the way for the guilt of the character in Peacemaker.
Peacemaker
The character of Peacemaker was first introduced in The Suicide Squad which came out last year. A much successful adaptation of the group of villains teamed-up together narrative, the movie introduced us to a variety of characters. The narrative saw the group being sent to destroy a giant alien starfish who is actually Starro the Conqueror. Throughout the movie, Peacemaker is the character who seems to be sticking to his own rules, and hardly much is revealed about him. Later we see that he was on his own mission under the orders of Amanda Waller, which required him to cover up the U.S. government’s involvement with Starro. This leads to a fight between Rick Flag and him that leads to the former’s death.
Later this is the very reason that he himself is left for dead by the rest of the group. But he actually survived and the Peacemaker series actually explores the events after his survival. Here we discover that he becomes a part of a team that is exploring a completely new villain that involves multiple people. Peacemaker comes to terms with various things but one thing is different about him and that involves the less ruthless version of him. He wasn’t actually able to go ahead at killing the Butterfly targets involving a family of four. It could be because of the guilt he was carrying after he killed Rick Flag and the latter called him a joke.
James Gunn Defends Peacemaker
Gunn appeared on Podly: The Peacemaker Podcast and actually defended the actions of Peacemaker killing Rick Flag. Following the release of the movie, there was a lot of hate regarding the fact that Rick Flag was killed in the movie. Not only that, but fans actually considered Peacemaker as an awful character for going through with killing Rick Flag. Gunn responded to all this by saying:
People constantly are writing on Twitter about how awful [Peacemaker] is and how mad they are that he killed Rick Flag — and I may get shit for saying this — but what he was doing, he had a reason for doing it. He kills Rick Flag in The Suicide Squad because there’s a piece of evidence that he believes will cause the world a great amount of disturbance and death and violence. He’s covering up the truth, so if you believe in the truth being out there no matter what, you definitely don’t agree with that.
Killing Rick Flag is actually justified from Peacemaker’s point of view. If the U.S. Government’s involvement in Project Starfish was revealed then it would have surely caused a lot of chaos. But Peacemaker’s prime objective is to make sure to achieve peace no matter what it takes. But we actually see the character showing his guilt for his actions when he was crying in Episode 2 of the series. It will probably continue to have a serious impact on the character in the rest of the series.
Peacemaker has earned rave reviews from the critics and it has gotten praise for both the writing and the performances by John Cena. This is DCEU’s first series and this actually indicates a bright future for the franchise on the small screen. It seems that Gunn has actually helped bring a lot of success to both the DC and the Marvel world. The next five episodes of Peacemaker will be released weekly on HBO Max.
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