Justice League Rejections and Dimensional Portals: Peacemaker Is Back

HBO Max was an ombre rainbow of color at San Diego Comic-Con last weekend as they premiered the first full-length trailer for the second season of Peacemaker, James Gunn’s Emmy-nominated DC spinoff series. Following Peacemaker’s blockbuster first season, which included appearances at SDCC last year and SXSW earlier this year, the trailer is the first extended look at what the future holds for Peacemaker / Christopher Smith (John Cena) and his team, and the early sign is that this season is going bigger, weirder, and more emotional.

The eight-episode first season, which took place five months after the events of The Suicide Squad (2021), saw Peacemaker barely survive a near-fatal gunshot from Bloodsport (Idris Elba) in what was supposed to be a killshot to the heart. That heart would go on to be repaired by a mysterious “specialist” (Jessica Scarff), which allowed him to be recruited by the U.S. government and sent on a secret mission codenamed “Project Butterfly.” He would then be forced to assemble a new team with Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) at the helm, and backed by A.R.G.U.S. agent John Economos (Steve Agee), NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and the rambunctious, Miami-Meter-maniacal Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), whose expert driving skills quickly earned her a spot on the squad.

That mission, as it turns out, was a lot more than just another government program. The task at hand: to stop an alien race of parasites that look like butterflies but can inhabit human bodies, descending on Earth and taking over. In the season finale, the team was able to kill them all, with a rousing fistfight on a bloody ranch, managing to escape with their lives, with multiple team members being seriously injured and Smith himself taking a bullet to the heart. (For more on this, read our recap and deconstruction of Peacemaker’s first season.)

Peacemaker returns in a much-changed DCU. Season 1’s world was a much smaller, more established space defined by the continuity of the DCEU, which is now defunct in the wake of 2023’s last two DC films, Shazam! Fury of the Gods and The Flash. But Gunn’s post-Zoe/Self 4D Brainventure universe, recently renamed the DCU in a three-film slate described as part of Gunn’s “Gods and Monsters” phase, now houses Peacemaker Season 2. Gunn himself was quick to note during the Hall H panel that Gunn was the rechristened DCU, as mentioned in his exclusive interview with Decider’s Jeff L.pack. But Gunn has confirmed the events of the first season and the DCEU, minus a few cameo spots from other League members, are canon and still exist.

Joining Cena, Brooks, Holland, Agee, and Freddie Stroma, who will all return this season as the fan-favorite, unhinged assassin Vigilante, are Nhut Le as Judomaster and Eagly, Peacemaker’s bald eagle sidekick. Robert Patrick will also return as the late Auggie Smith, Peacemaker’s dead father. Patrick will be joined by Frank Grillo as Rick Flagg Sr., father to the late Rick Flagg (Alex Christopher), killed by Peacemaker at the end of The Suicide Squad. Grillo’s character will be leading A.R.G.U.S. and is out for blood. Also joining the cast are Tim Meadows as Agent Langston Fleury, Sol Rodriguez as Sasha Bordeaux, and Michael Rooker as Red St. Wild. Rooker’s character is being billed as Eagly’s “nemesis.”

According to the official synopsis, Chris Smith is not only grappling with the emotional fallout from the violence in his past but also with a newly emerging desire to be a better person. He’s still going to keep the peace at any cost—but now he also wants to earn that peace by being a hero, not simply through compliance and obedience.

A teaser that debuted in May gave the first look at the over-the-top insanity this season is destined to deliver. Set to the tune of Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord,” the minute-long teaser depicted Chris unsuccessfully auditioning to join the Justice League, composed of Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (Isabela Merced), and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), all reprising their roles from Gunn’s Superman. It’s only natural that his pitch falls flat.

The teaser also dropped a few updates on the beloved main cast members. Adebayo has gone from “renting at one of the high-end neighborhoods in Grand Theft Auto” to, according to Economos, “living in the worst level of Grand Theft Auto.” Harcourt is “experiencing a particularly severe case of toxic masculinity,” according to Murn, while Vigilante has landed a job in food service.

But the most shocking reveal, one that the trailer also teases but only fully shows, is that dimensional portal. In a truly mind-bending move, Smith ends up in a parallel universe where he is stopped in his tracks by another version of himself. This other Chris is the hero and the legend that this Peacemaker thinks he wants to be. And after some rapid-fire, almost-philosophical dialogue between the two about why he can’t be a hero in his world, this other Peacemaker urges him to just stay and not return home. Frustrated by his lack of hero status and romantic woes in his world, he seriously considers it. But naturally, of course, that past isn’t done with him. “No matter how green the grass is over there, you belong here. With us,” Harcourt says.

The Peacemaker season 2 trailer comes on the heels of Gunn’s SDCC Hall H panel, in which Gunn was asked about Smith and his character growth. “I like TV shows where the characters don’t just return every season and they’re the same characters. I like to see growth. I like to see change. And sometimes I even like to see regression,” Gunn explained. “Peacemaker is a different guy this year. He’s dealing with the demons he sort of opened up with in the first season, trying to deal with them, and the world is not accepting him the way he is. They aren’t accepting him as a hero.”

Peacemaker Season 2 premieres August 21, 2025, exclusively on HBO Max.