James Gunn’s much-hyped Peacemaker Season 2 premiere has finally arrived — and I sincerely wish it hadn’t and that I didn’t have to review it… What unspools in the first episode is a chaotic, vulgar, self-indulgent disaster that makes even Gunn’s shaky Superman reboot look like a cinematic triumph by comparison. I enjoyed much of the first season. I like John Cena. But this episode? It is amateurish, infantile dreck with almost nothing redeemable.
From Snyderverse to Gunnverse – But Only for His Friends
The first season of Peacemaker was set in the Snyderverse — the DCEU of Henry Cavill’s Superman, Ben Affleck’s Batman, and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. Then Gunn rebooted everything, casting Cavill aside and promising fans a “fresh start.” But here’s the catch: the entire cast of Peacemaker, including Gunn’s wife Jennifer Holland, got grandfathered into the shiny new DCU.
A screenshot from the intro of Peacemaker on Max – Max
So what fans get is a recap that clumsily rewrites history, swapping Snyder’s Justice League for Gunn’s Justice Gang and recasting Superman and Supergirl into Season 1’s finale flashback with a really bad green screen cameo from Green Lantern and Hawk Girl.
The hoops jumped here aren’t for story coherence. They’re for keeping James Gunn’s inner circle on the payroll.
Superman Was for Families — This is Absolutely Not
Gunn and DC rushed Superman (a family movie made for kids) to digital platforms so people could watch it before tuning into Peacemaker Season 2, directly drawing a connection between them. That decision is nothing short of irresponsible. The family-friendly tone of Superman has no connection whatsoever to the grotesque carnival of profanity and nudity in Peacemaker.
James Gunn and John Cena introduce the Red Band Trailer for Peacemaker Season 2 – YouTube, DC
The first episode opens with a downgraded credits sequence (the first season’s opening was incredible, this is the definition of blah…) before diving headfirst into an endless barrage of F-bombs, crude jokes, and an extended, graphic bedroom party scene at Peacemaker’s house. (Let’s put it delicately: multiple people together, men and women, fully unclothed and exposed.)
There was no clear warning for parents who might assume this was safe DC content connected to the same colorful Superman movie their kids just watched with the flying dog.
It’s not edgy. It’s not subversive. It’s lazy shock humor trying to mimic The Boys, but without the sharp writing that makes that series work.
The Multiverse…Again – Because Gunn Can’t Help Himself
If there’s one thing audiences are sick of, it’s multiverse stories. Marvel wore the concept into the ground, and even Deadpool mocked it for how stale it’s become.
A screenshot of Peacemaker meeting the Justice League in the Max original series Peacemaker – Max
So what does James Gunn do with his second big DC project? He opens the multiversal floodgates again.
Peacemaker stumbles across a doorway to a parallel universe. Fans assumed this might be a bridge from the Snyderverse into the DCU. But because Gunn already forced Peacemaker into the DCU from the start, the multiverse angle serves no purpose other than bloating an already joyless script.
It is, to put it bluntly, infuriating.
Gunn’s Family Business
Jennifer Holland’s character, Emilia Harcourt, was an enjoyable part of Season 1. In Season 2, Gunn turns her into a hollow “damaged lone wolf” cliché. She gets saddled with yet another bar fight sequence where men harass her — only this time she loses. It feels less like storytelling and more like Gunn recycling tropes to keep his wife onscreen.
James Gunn introduces the trailer for Peacemaker Season 2 – YouTube, DC
And of course, Sean Gunn makes his appearance, because James never misses a chance to hand his talentless brother a cameo. At this point, it’s not a DC Universe — it’s a Gunn family scrapbook.
I have a dream where Sean Gunn and Ted Raimi star in a movie about the talentless brothers of big Hollywood directors who have to…I dunno save the world or something…
Cameos, F-Bombs, and Wasted Potential
Fans expecting genuine DC connective tissue will be disappointed. Instead of clever integration, we get throwaway cameos from Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl, plus Peacemaker auditioning for the Justice Gang in a scene that goes nowhere.
A screenshot of John Cena as Peacemaker in the show Peacemaker – Youtube, DC
There are glimpses of John Cena’s real talent buried under the wreckage. His portrayal of a grieving Peacemaker encountering his dead brother in a parallel world had the potential to land emotionally. For one fleeting moment, it did. But then it was drowned in another tidal wave of cheap profanity and juvenile jokes. Gunn’s script drops the F-word so often it would make David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, look restrained.
The Rating That Breaks the DCU
The biggest problem with Peacemaker Season 2 is its very existence in Gunn’s new DCU. The show is rated MA, with content that has no place next to a Superman film marketed to families and kids.
David Corenswet as Superman flying in James Gunn’s “Superman” – YouTube, DC
This isn’t about censorship or prudishness. It’s about tonal consistency and audience trust. Parents now have to double-check and review every single DC release to make sure their children aren’t blindsided by scenes like the ones in this Peacemaker Season 2 premiere. Gunn’s whims dictate the universe, and the result is a fractured brand where family-friendly content sits uneasily beside graphic shock TV.
One of the Snyderverse’s many (many…) issues was that it created a super hero universe that wasn’t for kids and families. I thought with Superman’s hopeful tone that WB had corrected this mistake. Now I see I was mistaken. And sure, Deadpool and Wolverine is the same in the MCU, but it took Marvel from 2008 to 2024 to release that movie. This is literally the SECOND DCU live action project.
Final Verdict
The Peacemaker Season 2 premiere is a self-indulgent, tone-deaf disaster that should never have made it past a review in the writers’ room.
James Gunn sits for an interview – YouTube, GQ
John Cena does his best to salvage the material, but no amount of effort can elevate the juvenile chaos James Gunn insists on forcing into his DC projects.
Score: 2.5/10 — John Cena earns the only points in an otherwise soulless Gunn slopfest.
What’s your Peacemaker Season 2 premiere review? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
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I lost all hope for Gunns DCU after his shoddy retcon of the ending of Peacemaker by including the Justice Gang..it made no sense whatsoever considering Chris hadn’t discovered the other universe yet ..Gunn doesn’t care..he just wants to retain his stuff from the previous universe.
Too bad. Against all odds Season 1 of Peacemaker was pretty dang compelling.
I may be a bit opposite in that I never expected Peacemaker S2 to be more family friendly. It doesn’t need to be so overt in trying to distance itself from the family friendly stuff but Peacemaker is Peacemaker.
Plus, look at the rumors of what will happen in the Supergirl movie. She’s a cynical deadbeat drunk travelling the universe or whatever on an extended bar hopping adventure. Not a particularly family friendly thing.
And the other stuff coming out with Lobo (why keep the minimally talented Jason Mamoa and throw away a perfectly awesome Cavil?), The Batman, and, of course, the Misfit Anti-hero movie.
I think it has been clear Superman may have a family friendly tone, but the rest of what we see on the roadmap is dark and adult only fare.
I know zilch about this character. I missed the boat on him both in comics and that first season, so I have no real frame of reference. Strangely, this review leads me to think this kind of project with its sophomoric tone is right up his alley and about the ceiling of his talent. Not everyone is meant to lead.
Sometimes the manager needs to be demoted to the bullpen coach. No shame in that….. hahahaha.
Superman is… super. Spider-Man got bit by a spider. Batman, well he got his bats. Ironman, iron, obviously. Fantastic Four, well, there’s four of them. X-Men are named after the fella that put up the land for the institution.
All that being said, as an outsider. Yet still assuming the character’s name means something, come origin time,…. does he make peace? Or is it the opposite? Is he the clown that fails at maintaining order while making fun at why at why the orders to blame? Seems a tired old trope, if true.
Hollywood’s greatest talent has always been shooting a dead horse.
Every article put out by the access media makes a big point of telling the reader how Peacemaker killed his White supremacist father in season 1. The state mandated religion of negro worship is on full display here, along with the narrative that White people should turn their backs and openly plot for the murder of any racist White people, even if they’re your own father. Friendly reminder that racial solidarity is practiced by every other race except Whites, who instead have been sold the idea of being a race traitor as a virtue.
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