The second season of Peacemaker, starring WWE champion and actor John Cena, is just around the corner. With it comes a lot of questions about how the anti-hero will fit into both the old and new DC canon, given his limbo status, which has even led DC Studios head James Gunn to voice his frustration.
Speaking with Den of Geek ahead of San Diego Comic-Con, Gunn reiterated that the second season of Peacemaker will address all the continuity confusion questions related to DC’s past and present.
“There are certain things from the old universe that we refer to in Peacemaker season 2, but until then, they’re not canon,” Gunn told Den of Geek. “Almost everything from season 1 is canon, but season 2 will explain everything that is or is not canon.”
While on the press tour for DC Studios animated series, Creature Commandos, Gunn made his sentiments on canon clear: that it doesn’t really matter matter. More precisely, in an interview with IGN, Gunn said canon has become more critical post the height of the Marvel Cinematic Universe than he thinks it should be, and Gunn hopes his vision under DC will buck that trend and put strong scripts at the forefront.
“One of the weird things to me is none of this is real,” Gunn told IGN. “It may be alarming to people, but none of it is real.”
Yet, that hasn’t stopped Gunn from joining in on DC fans’ tepid headache over what is and isn’t canon when it comes to Cena’s Peacemaker. Divorced from season 1’s finale, which saw the Justice League show up late to the cataclysmic final battle but just in time for one last Aquaman jab for the road, the series has become cameo fodder in other DC projects. Key among them being Peacemaker‘s Harcourt and Economos showing up in Shazam: Fury of the Gods to headhunt Billy Batson into the Justice Society, as well as an appearance in Dwayne Johnson’s vanity project, Black Adam, which added to the confusion, particularly with its own post-credits scene featuring a cameo by Henry Cavill’s Superman.
“They’re not canon! I hate it!” Gunn said. As GamesRadar+ notes, Gunn had “no idea” why the pair of characters would be scouted for the Justice Society.
Given what we’ve seen from the official teaser trailer for Peacemaker season 2 and the vigilante’s own cameo in Superman, the HBO Max series will attempt to dispense with its vestiges of old DC continuity through the concept of pocket universes. Given that the final moments of Peacemaker‘s teaser trailer saw him draw a gun on his alternate universe doppelganger, the tidying up of DC canon might take Kylo Ren’s “let the past die” monologue to heart. Either that or therapy in Gunn’s DC universe is way more drastic than our own.
Peacemaker season 2 premieres on HBO Max on August 21.