Peacemaker Is What Superhero Content Could Be
Image; Alex Moreland
Watching Peacemaker was like taking in a fresh breath of air. The dominance of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has meant that most modern superhero movies fall within a particular mold — i.e., light movies with incredible fight scenes and superb action. This reality is so enshrined that things that deviate from this mold usually earn some criticism. 2022's The Batman movie, for example, garnered objections for not being fun enough. "self-seriousness crowds out much chance of fun," reads the subheader of one review in the New Yorker.
However, the DC universe is generally much darker than Marvel Comics, and that has created an opportunity for creatives like James Gunn to tell stories that are the antithesis of the light fantasy of the MCU. Peacemaker is a show that's not only funny but manages to deconstruct concepts like US imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism that the MCU has never wanted to touch.
Gunn's 2021 The Suicide Squad serves as an unofficial pilot for the show, as it takes place immediately following it. The movie observes a rag-tag group of "villains" that are part of the secretive Task Force X. Headed by agent Amanda Waller (played by the peerless Viola Davis), the pejoratively labeled “Suicide Squad” is used to accomplish dangerous missions on behalf of the US government.
Waller is ruthless in her pursuit of US hegemony and often is crueler than the alleged villains she leads. In the film, we learn that their mission has nothing to do with bettering humanity but is really about erasing the US's involvement in an ethical experiment before a new, anti-US regime exposes it.
This premise is already a radical departure from the MCU, which has historically gone out of its way to ensure that the US government cannot be linked to any in-universe atrocities. The world's problems are blamed on secret Nazi groups like HYDRA or terrorist cells like the Ten Rings, never the US military or government itself, which in the real world has provided resources for many MCU films.
In fact, the MCU has had a history of deferring to conservative entities and movements. It frames opposition to institutions such as the wealthy and white supremacy as supervillain territory (see The MCU is for Rich People), and has not been the most diverse in telling these narratives. It took years to have anything in the way of nonwhite leads (see Does Disney Care About Diversity?).
The Suicide Squad not only had more substance than most MCU films but much more diversity. We had multiple compelling female leads (see Daniela Melchior's Ratcatcher and Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn), as well as both a Black protagonist (Idris Elba’s Bloodsport) and a Black antagonist (again Amanda Waller). I know people love to talk about Black Panther and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings as pinnacles of diverse representation in the superhero genre, but it took the MCU a regressive ten years to get to that point, and the DCEU has quite frankly beaten the MCU on many important milestones (see Wonder Woman).
Peacemaker leaves where The Suicide Squad left off. Christopher Smith, AKA the Peacemaker (played by John Cena), becomes part of an undercover unit trying to stop alien "Butterflies" from conquering the world. These aliens are insects that burrow into people's skulls and take them over a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Like with The Suicide Squad, we get some diversity (though honestly, I thought the movie was better in this regard). Waller's daughter Leota Adebayo, played by the excellent Danielle Brooks, is one of the primary leads. Adebayo is a textual lesbian in a beautiful relationship with Elizabeth Ludlow's Keeya. Other characters of note are the head of Project Butterfly Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji); Nhut Le's Cheeto-chomping Judomaster; and detective Song (Annie Chang), who steals the show once she's taken over by the Butterfly alien's leader.
But what really gets me into this show is a fascinating conversation about fascism and white supremacy interweaved throughout the first season. You see, unlike the MCU's Captain America, which is pretty much "self-aware" propaganda for American Exceptionalism, Peacemaker's pro-America rhetoric isn't portrayed as good. We learn that his vigilantism was taught by his white supremacist father, the White Dragon (a not subtle Klan reference), who raised him explicitly to purge minorities.
That premise leads the viewer to an uncomfortable conversation about how pro-American superheroes can channel into the white supremacist fascism that has dominated much of American political discourse. Adebayo even calls Peacemaker's worldview a "proto-fascist libertarian idea of freedom." The show is directly challenging our worship of this iconography and who we consider to be the hero.
The problems with American Exceptionalism are further highlighted in the show's other villain — the body-snatching Butterflies from another planet. While the actions they have committed are reprehensible, it's not out of a will for domination (well, not only that), but to correct America's systemic failures. As body-snatched Detective Song monologues in the season one finale:
“Our kind traveled here from a planet that had become unlivable….But not long after we arrived, we realized that the people of Earth were on the exact same trajectory as our people had been, ignoring science in favor of populist leaders who tell you that the floods and the fires and the disease are unrelated to your own actions. Valuing profit over survival. Treating minor inconveniences as assaults on your freedom. And so, we made a vow to do anything we could to change your future. We made a vow to make the choices for you that you were incapable of making on your own, to save your people and your world no matter how many lives it cost us.”
Like damn, isn't that an exact diagnosis of all of our current problems (side note — I might be team bug overlords).
When Peacemaker decides to stop Song's plan by killing her people's only food source, it's not portrayed as some righteous good action, as we see in other properties, but one where we aren't even sure if the hero was correct.
"Did I just kill the world," Peacemaker asks Adebayo?
"Maybe," she responds, "or maybe you just gave us a chance to make our own choices instead of our bug overlords."
This conversation is honestly a refreshing moral dilemma that the MCU movies have primarily strayed away from. There is no Falcon and The Winter Soldier speech about how America can be better. We don't know if Peacemaker's decision was correct because the American system he is working from is so toxic that you are ultimately left wondering if aliens would do a better job.
We are left uncomfortable with the status quo, and that's what you want a piece of art to do when broaching topics like white supremacy and capitalism because they cannot be solved by watching 8 hours of television. They will require a systemic overhaul to unravel, and that work will be difficult and nerve-wracking.
With Peacemaker, we see a window into what modern superhero shows and movies could be. Although fictional, this show doesn't stray from the emotional reality of what America is and has always been. It does not pull punches when discussing systemic issues such as racism and capitalism.
It's been clear for some time that Disney's MCU is more interested in delivering a sanitized fantasy that does not challenge our larger problems, but with Peacemaker, I see a world of possibility wrapped up in an American flag and a ridiculous-looking helmet.
Ca-Caw.