Peacemaker (DC Extended Universe)

Peacemaker Christopher Smith
DC Extended Universe character
Promotional still of John Cena as Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad
First appearance	The Suicide Squad (2021)
Based on	Peacemaker by Joe Gill     Pat Boyette
Adapted by	James Gunn
Portrayed by	John Cena Quinn Bennett (young)
In-universe information
Alias	Peacemaker
Nicknames	Mr. Peacemaker Pissmaker P Chris Dipshit Muscleman Weakling
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Title	The Peacemaker
Occupation	Mercenary Vigilante
Affiliation	Suicide Squad 11th Street Kids
Family	August "Auggie" Smith (father) Keith Smith (brother)
Home	Charlton County, Washington, United States of America
Nationality	American
Abilities	Master marksman Skilled hand-to-hand combatant
Pets	Eagly (bald eagle) Eek Stack Ik Ik "Goff" (butterfly)

Christopher "Chris" Smith, also known as The Peacemaker or simply Peacemaker, is a fictional antihero in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) media franchise, based on the Charlton / DC Comics character of the same name. Adapted for film by writer/director James Gunn, he is portrayed by John Cena. Smith operates as a vigilante who aims to achieve peace at any cost, which results in a 30-year prison sentence at Belle Reve Penitentiary. He is approached by the facility's warden and the director of A.R.G.U.S., Amanda Waller, to join a strike team composed of other inmates on an infiltration mission en route to the remote island of Corto Maltese. Upon turning on his teammates and being incapacitated during the mission, he is nursed back to health by A.R.G.U.S. and sent on another mission immediately afterwards, now being tasked with accompanying a group of alumni from A.R.G.U.S. to prevent a world-threatening epidemic known as "Project Butterfly".

As of 2022, the character is a central figure in the franchise, having appeared in two projects thus far: the feature film The Suicide Squad (2021), and the first season of the eponymous HBO Max streaming television series Peacemaker. The character will return for the latter series' second season.

Character development and execution

Background

In October 2018, James Gunn was hired by Warner Bros. to write and direct a planned sequel to the DC Extended Universe film Suicide Squad (2016), after he had just been fired from Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures as writer/director of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), in light of a series of controversial tweets he had made many years prior that he would later apologize for. While he would be almost immediately reinstated by Disney and Marvel Studios following his hiring by Warner Bros. & DC Films, his commitment to his engagement with the latter studios meant that production on Vol. 3 would have to be pushed back significantly to accommodate for his projects with DC, with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige encouraging Gunn to make "a great movie" during a discussion regarding his prioritization of the latter project, and pushing the production start date for the former film into 2021.

James Gunn, writer/director of The Suicide Squad (2021) and creator of the HBO Max series Peacemaker (2022-present).

Gunn's Suicide Squad film, eventually titled The Suicide Squad, was intended to act as a relaunch of the IP and characters as opposed to a direct sequel to the previous film directed by David Ayer, that would take the franchise in a new direction and feature a largely new cast. Roven and Peter Safran were set as producers, with Zack Snyder and Deborah Snyder as executive producers. Safran had pushed for Gunn to take on the project, feeling that there was no better director than him to "bring together a disparate group of outsiders on a mission".

Adapting Peacemaker to film and television

Professional wrestler and actor John Cena portrays Peacemaker in the DCEU as a "douchey, bro-y Captain America"

Among the new characters that would be part of the film's revised team lineup, James Gunn selected the character Peacemaker, originally created by Joe Gill and Pat Boyette for appearances in Charlton Comics publications prior to the character's absorption into DC Comics alongside other Charlton properties in the 1985 crossover event storyline "Crisis on Infinite Earths", which would integrate Peacemaker into the main DC Universe. Gunn was initially looking to cast Dave Bautista in the role, as the two had previously collaborated on the Guardians of the Galaxy films in the MCU franchise with Bautista's portrayal of Drax the Destroyer. However, Bautista was unavailable for the role due to taking the lead role of Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead (2021).

Fellow WWE alumni John Cena entered talks to portray the character in April 2019, as Gunn had wanted to work with Cena upon seeing his performance in the romantic comedy Trainwreck (2015), and had been looking for an appropriate role for him for a while. Cena had previously auditioned unsuccessfully for roles in both Marvel and DC Comics-based films, notably being rejected for both Cable in Deadpool 2 (2018) and the titular character in Shazam! (2019), in addition to various MCU roles. He would however, be openly passionate about working on a project with James Gunn, reflecting in January 2022 that,

The only reason he gets a free pass is his reputation as a storyteller. He just does not let up, he claws at every piece, and I know it's gonna be good, because he starts from a blank page and that's it. But I always read it, I always read the story to make sure one, I like it, and two, it falls within my skillset. I do want to challenge myself, but I don't want the first time I do something to be on screen for a paying customer. I want to get practice and perform at a level that's consumer quality.

— John Cena

During the promotion of The Suicide Squad, Cena decided to wear the Peacemaker costume for interviews and other promotional events as a way to familiarize the audience with the lesser-known character, which was a tactic that he had previously used when he was a professional wrestler.

After finishing work on The Suicide Squad, Gunn began working on a spinoff series about the origins of Peacemaker "just for fun". He brought the idea to producer Peter Safran, who was later approached by DC Films to create a Suicide Squad spinoff series. The Peacemaker series was eventually picked up by HBO Max in September 2020, with Gunn writing all eight episodes of the first season and directing five of them. Cena agreed to reprise the role for the series in 2020, becoming an executive producer with Gunn and Safran. As a result, Peacemaker, who was originally intended to die in The Suicide Squad, was kept alive for the series, and a post-credits scene was filmed in January 2021 for the film in order to set up Peacemaker, which also began filming around that time. Following the first season's success, a second season of Peacemaker was ordered in 2022.

Characterization

Cena would describe his character as "a douchey Captain America", with Gunn adding that the character would go to as many lengths as possible to achieve peace. Upon being cast, Gunn would also tell Cena not to read any comics featuring Peacemaker to develop background knowledge with the character, as having a preconceived notion of what the character could be would distract from the story Gunn wanted to tell. Cena would paraphrase Gunn in an interview as saying, "you have what I’m looking for. Just be yourself, and if you’re willing to take direction, I think we can do something special." Cena originally envisioned the character as "a drill sergeant, Full Metal Jacket-esque personality", with the actor being told to change direction and emphasize his "do-gooder side" about 20 minutes into filming his first scene in-costume. Cena during the same interview, would contrast his acting career in regards to this role, to his career as a professional wrestler, stating that "Whenever I play a role in a movie, it really is never myself. Whereas WWE is the odd thing that a lot of times you have to create an extension of yourself because the narrative is just so damn long".

Despite being portrayed as self-righteous, duty-driven, and egotistical in The Suicide Squad and continuing to flaunt that facade in Peacemaker, Smith is in actuality a broken, self-loathing man trying to find a purpose in the world, but is too haunted by the horrible actions he committed to adjust in a normal environment. Smith's time with the 11th Street Kids, as portrayed in the series, allows him to slowly come to terms with his past demons and reconsider his world views, showing his vulnerable side more often to others and learning to process his repressed emotions, but also becoming more emotionally unstable and prone to bursts of anger. Viewers noted that Peacemaker received less character development in The Suicide Squad compared to other characters such as Robert DuBois / Bloodsport, Cleo Cazo / Ratcatcher 2, and King Shark, and that the Peacemaker was considered "irredeemable" in the film, but this was intended by Gunn to set the character's development in his eponymous series. Gunn used the series as an opportunity to explore current world issues through the title character, in addition to expanding on his relationship with his father, which was alluded to in the film.

The decision to make Smith bisexual, confirmed by the penultimate episode of the first season of Peacemaker, was floated by Cena, according to Gunn. He states that "Peacemaker is an interesting character because he's so fucked-up in so many ways, and then in other ways, he is kind of weirdly forward-thinking. John does improv all the time, and he just turned Christopher Smith into this hyper-sexualized dude that is open to anything sexually. I was surprised by that. But I thought, 'I guess it makes sense that this guy isn't one-dimensional.'" Cena examined the history of the character in the comics and determined that with Christopher Smith's childhood struggles and hardships, he would be "willing to do anything to a certain extent."

Fictional character biography

Early life

Further information: Peacemaker (TV series)

Christopher Smith was born in Evergreen, Charlton County in Washington state to August "Auggie" Smith, a former vigilante operating under the alias White Dragon who was infamous for his nature as a white supremacist and his neo-Nazi beliefs. Auggie trained Christopher to kill at a young age against his will, permanently warping his sense of morality. He would soon accidentally cause the death of his brother Keith, whom Auggie favored greatly over Christopher, deeply angering the former and traumatizing the latter.

As he grew up, Chris became mentally unstable, swearing an oath to keep the peace at any cost, regardless of the means he would use to achieve it and how many people he would have to kill. He creates his own uniform and adopts the alias "Peacemaker" as he begins his pursuit for justice by any means necessary. Smith befriends local crimefighter Adrian Chase, also known as "Vigilante". At one point he encounters future Justice League members Flash and Wonder Woman in person, with one of his first major activities including the apprehension of a criminal who went under the alias "Kite-Man". After he begins killing criminals and other civilians in the name of peace, Smith is arrested and sentenced to 30 years at Belle Reve Penitentiary for his actions.

Task Force X and Project Starfish

Further information: The Suicide Squad (film)

While imprisoned, Smith is recruited by A.R.G.U.S. director Amanda Waller into a privately sanctioned strike team of imprisoned metahumans and criminals codenamed "Task Force X". The squad is tasked with a mission on Corto Maltese to eliminate an anti-American regime that has overthrown the island's government and destroy a Nazi-era laboratory named Jötunheim, which contains the secret experiment "Project Starfish". After a faction of team members led by Col. Rick Flag are quickly killed in action, Smith, alongside his comrades, infiltrate Corto Maltese from elsewhere as Flag and surviving member Harley Quinn are captured by a Corto Maltese resistance group and the island's new government, respectively.

The second squad, consisting of Smith, Robert DuBois / Bloodsport, Cleo Cazo / Ratcatcher 2, Nanaue / King Shark and Abner Krill / Polka-Dot Man, locate Rick Flag at a base camp for the resistance movement and convince the rebellion's leader, Sol Soria, to assist them in the coming conflict. Sometime after retrieving Quinn from a compound occupied by the Corto Maltese regime, they capture the lead scientist in charge of Project Starfish, the Thinker, who assists them with breaking into Jötunheim, allowing Smith, DuBois, Harley, Krill and Nanaue to rig the facility with explosives while Flag and Cazo accompany Thinker to the laboratory.

Thinker reveals to Flag and Cazo that Project Starfish involved the capture and experimentation of an extraterrestrial being known as Starro, who was brought to Earth by the U.S. government, which had secretly funded the project for decades while using thousands of Corto Maltese natives as unwitting test subjects. Flag, horrified by the ethical implications, decides to take the hard drive containing the project's details and leak it as evidence. However, he is confronted and killed by Smith, who was secretly under orders from Waller herself to cover up the U.S.' involvement in the project. As a skirmish elsewhere between the other squad members and the Corto Maltese military leads to Polka-Dot Man prematurely detonating the explosives, Ratcatcher 2 steals the drive while Peacemaker attempts to execute her. Bloodsport interferes, saving Cazo and shooting Smith, which leaves him with near-fatal injuries as Cazo and DuBois flee the crumbling facility with the drive.

As the remaining members of Task Force X kill the now-freed Starro and save Corto Maltese from annihilation, a separate group from Belle Reve is dispatched to retrieve Peacemaker from the ruins of Jötunheim. Following Starro's defeat and the dissolution of the squad, two of Waller's associates, John Economos and Emilia Harcourt, visit Evergreen Hospital in Charlton County to check up on Smith's recovery process, with Harcourt proclaiming that keeping him alive was important, as he would be needed to save the world again.

Project Butterfly

Further information: Peacemaker (TV series)

Meeting Clemson Murn and encountering a Butterfly

Upon being released from intensive care five months later and returning to his nearby trailer home, Smith is approached by Economos, Harcourt and their associates from A.R.G.U.S., now spearheaded by an informant of Amanda Waller named Clemson Murn, while also being introduced to a new recruit to the organization and Waller's daughter, Leota Adebayo. Murn briefs Smith on a potential incoming threat known as the Butterflies and arranges a group meeting to be held at O'Rourke's Sports Bar & Grill in the evening. Smith then visits his father, who supplies his son with new types of helmets as Peacemaker with different attributes and abilities. Following the dinner and briefing, Smith, alongside his pet eagle Eagly, tracks Harcourt as she enters a secret bar. Disillusioned by Smith's attempts to court her, Harcourt leaves the bar as Smith soon eyes a lone woman named Annie Sturphausen who immediately attracts him. They engage in a one-night stand before she attempts to kill Smith, revealing herself to be a Butterfly upon discovering the dossier he was supplied pertaining to the details of the operation. The skirmish ends when Smith uses the helmet from his father to eviscerate her using a seismic sonic boom wave as a projectile.

The local police department, headed by detective Sophie Song, are alerted to the incident and arrive to investigate, with Smith notifying Harcourt, who arrives with Adebayo to escort Smith off the premises before he can be apprehended. As Smith collects his uniform and belongings from Annie's apartment, Song and her partner Larry Fitzgibbon enter the apartment and begin questioning its residents while tailing Smith. Smith hides with resident Evan Calcaterra and his wife Amber, who assist Smith in gathering his belongings as Song and Fitzgibbon continue questioning other occupants. Smith is cornered by the police as he attempts his escape, but Harcourt intervenes and aids Smith and Adebayo in getting away as they are shot at by Song and Fitzgibbon.

Meanwhile, John Economos accidentally alters Smith's entity and fingerprints to correlate with those of Chris's own father August. Despite reconfiguring the credentials, both Evan and Amber claim August's involvement upon being bribed by Adebayo, leading to Auggie's unintended arrest and incarceration.

Assassinating the Goff Family

Upon being shunned by the team for the incident involving Sturphausen, Smith returns home and meets with Vigilante, who invites him to partake in target practice and engages in a threesome between him, Smith and Amber; they collectively discover that a device belonging to Sturphausen was in actuality a miniature spaceship, confusing the three of them. The following day, Murn briefs the team on their first ops mission, directing them to assassinate United States Senator Royland Goff and his family, who are presumed to all be Butterflies. Smith and Harcourt infiltrate the Goff home, but as Peacemaker hesitates on executing Goff's wife and children, Vigilante kills them upon joining the mission. As Vigilante is about to kill Goff himself, their bodyguard Judomaster intervenes and incapacitates both Smith and Vigilante, taking them into the house's basement for questioning. Goff attempts to goad Smith into confessing intel by torturing Vigilante and revealing his secret identity as Adrian Chase. Harcourt, Murn and Adebayo intervene after entering the basement through a secret passageway, allowing Smith to free himself and kill Goff, after which a butterfly emerges from Goff's corpse. Economos incapacitates the escaped Judomaster.

Interrogating Judomaster

Judomaster is taken back to the group's hideout for further questioning. Meanwhile, Chase and Smith stop by Auggie's house, where the latter retrieves new equipment and learns of his father's arrest. Despite Clemson Murn and Adebayo attempting to talk him out of it, Smith visits his father at the Corrections Center, where the latter threatens to expose Project Butterfly to the authorities. Outside, Adebayo suggests to Chase that Smith would be better off without his father, prompting him to get himself arrested out of a desire to infiltrate the prison grounds so he could kill Auggie himself, unbeknownst to Smith. Chase provokes Auggie's associates into physical confrontation but fails to aggravate Auggie himself and is bailed out by A.R.G.U.S. from serving time, as Harcourt comes to collect him and return him home.

Meanwhile, Smith and Adebayo return to their hideout, where they discover Judomaster's attempted escape from the premises. After a lengthy confrontation between Smith and Judomaster, Adebayo abruptly shoots the latter just as he begins to inform Smith about the true purpose of the Butterflies. Disillusioned, Smith returns to his trailer, having kept the Butterfly he claimed to have killed alive in a jar. Alone, he grieves about having to kill Rick Flag at Jötunheim and the death of his brother.

Glan Tai infiltration and Butterfly takeover

At Evergreen Corrections Center, Auggie continues to plead his innocence to Song and Fitzgibbon, allowing them to learn that Chris Smith himself killed Annie Sturphausen at the apartment complex when matching their fingerprints and later re-interrogating the Calcaterras. Meanwhile, Chris is briefed by the team on the nature of the Butterflies, learning that they enter a human host through their orifice and feed on an unspecified liquid substance. Adebayo's discovery from the previous night leads them to the Glan Tai bottling facility. During the operation, Smith, equipped with a helmet that grants him X-ray vision, learns that all employees in the factory are disguised Butterflies, in addition to encountering an escaped zoo gorilla named Charlie. They successfully kill all the "employees" in the facility, with Economos killing Charlie with a chainsaw and thus earning Smith's respect and camaraderie. The team bonds on their way back from the factory, and Smith invites Adebayo to his trailer for some drinks, where the latter replaces his personal diary with a replica, acting under orders from Waller.

Song arranges for Auggie's release and acquires an arrest warrant for his son, much to the dismay of Deputy Locke, who is secretly collaborating with Murn on Project Butterfly unbeknownst to the rest of the team. At Smith's trailer, the Goff Butterfly (Eek Stack Ik Ik), attempts to communicate with him and Vigilante just as the Evergreen police force arrive to arrest him, prompting him to escape with Chase and Eagly. While in the process of hiding, Chase accidentally drops the jar containing "Goff", allowing her to escape and assimilate Detective Song. Smith, Chase and Eagly escape back to the team hideout with the help of Locke, who is later presented with Smith's personal diary by a police officer involved in raiding his trailer. At the hideout, Economos traces the Butterflies' activities back to Coverdale Ranch, where the team suspects that they are utilizing a "cow" to mass-produce the raw amber fluid. Adebayo soon experiences guilt over hiding confidential information about the operation from both Smith and her mother.

"Goff" summons an army of Butterflies to possess every police officer and inmate within Evergreen Corrections Center, including Locke. Auggie, meanwhile, rallies his followers and dons the White Dragon armor, intending to end his son's life. Later, Smith and Chase witness a television broadcast where Butterfly-Locke publicly incriminates him with entries from his diary and issues a public mandate to apprehend and arrest him.

Facing his father and the Cow

Feeling betrayed by his companions, Smith, along with Chase and Economos, decides to find and eliminate the "cow" himself. However, they are intercepted by Auggie and his followers. Eagly attempts to save Smith only to be injured by Auggie, who directly confronts Smith. As he pins Smith to the ground and prepares to execute him, Chase intervenes by dismantling a weak point in Auggie's armor, allowing his son to physically overpower and reluctantly kill him. The rest of the team reunites with Smith, Chase and Economos at a nearby veterinary clinic, where Eagly is treated for his injuries. Harcourt and Adebayo inform the others of Murn's demise, as they witnessed him being killed by the assimilated police officers led by "Goff". The team elects Harcourt as their new leader, who briefs them on the Butterflies' objective to teleport the "cow" to another enclave. As the team leaves the clinic to head to Coverdale Ranch, the Butterflies prepare to move their "cow", in actuality a giant alien larva.

Upon reaching the Ranch, Adebayo contacts Waller to send reinforcements, with the team improvising a plan due a shortage of time. After Economos fails to remotely kill the Cow with a shockwave, Smith, Harcourt and Chase launch a frontal assault, eliminating multiple Butterflies. Harcourt and Chase are shot during the skirmish, with Adebayo intervening to save Harcourt's life. Meanwhile, Smith confronts "Goff", who attempts to sway him to the Butterflies' cause, revealing to Smith that the Butterflies came to Earth seeking refuge before realizing that the planet was at the mercy of humans attempting to profit off of its resources, thus convincing them to assimilate their kind in order to guide them towards achieving peace. Smith, aggravated, responds by launching Adebayo directly into the Cow using his "human torpedo" helmet, destroying it before killing Butterfly-Locke and eviscerating Song's body, though choosing to spare "Goff".

As the 11th Street Kids prepare to leave the ranch, they are met by Justice League members Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Aquaman. Infuriated, Smith cusses out the League for their lack of urgency before walking away. In the aftermath, Harcourt, Economos and Chase undergo medical treatment for their injuries, with Chase escaping from the hospital as Harcourt recovers. Adebayo and Smith make amends over the latter's diary, with Adebayo inspired to leak details surrounding "Project Butterfly" and Waller's role in assembling Task Force X to the public, clearing Smith's name in the process. Smith returns home, sitting on his porch with Eagly, "Goff", and a hallucination of his deceased father.

Reception

Cena's portrayal of Christopher Smith / Peacemaker across his appearances in the DCEU has received positive reactions. Speaking on his performance in The Suicide Squad, Katie Rife, writing for The A.V. Club, stated that "Cena once again proves himself to be a talented comedic actor" in the role, describing the character as a "living action figure". Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times would further add that Cena's performance as his "ironically named" character wound up adding "to a terrific ensemble and a deft balance of brains, heart and other viscera". Commenting on the chemistry between Cena's Peacemaker and Idris Elba's character Robert DuBois / Bloodsport, CNET's Richard Trenholm observed that a constant positive throughout the film was "The pair clashing hilariously as they try to one-up each other in homicidal creativity", further complimenting Cena as being "so good and so funny as the uptight Peacemaker, he seems like an entirely different actor from the block of wood who fell off the screen with a dull thunk in this year's Fast and Furious 9".

Critics similarly welcomed Cena's performance in Peacemaker the following year. IGN writer Samantha Nelson observed the progression in characterization in the series, contemplating that "Peacemaker quickly becomes a significantly more sympathetic character than he was in Gunn’s film, even if he is exasperating to his teammates such as Belle Reve warden John Economos (Steve Agee), who Peacemaker constantly accuses of dying his beard." She further comments that "Cena has a great sense of humor and seemingly no shame as he plays a sad-sack heel whose best friend is his bald eagle sidekick, Eagly". Charles Bramesco of The Guardian highlighted Cena as "the show’s strongest attribute", attributing it to "his veiny musculature lending a much-needed weight to face-offs that falter when ramping up the plastic-looking CGI". He likens Cena's presence and prowess in the series to physical comedy, iterating that "the bass has been cranked into the red every time he hits a wall or floor, letting us feel the heaviness of his elephantine body. He’s well-suited to the role as a budding comic performer too, his alpha-man-boy bluster the ideal fit for Gunn’s sophomoric hijinks".

See also

• Characters of the DC Extended Universe
• Peacemaker (TV series)#Cast and characters

References

The fictional character biography and portions of the characterization were adapted from Peacemaker, The Suicide Squad, and respective pages for episodes of Peacemaker (TV series) at DC Extended Universe Wiki, which are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.

External links

• Christopher Smith (DC Extended Universe) on DC Database, a DC Comics wiki