Parallel Worlds and Painful Growth in Peacemaker S2

HBO Max had a big panel at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, and it was lit by the premiere of the full-length trailer for Peacemaker Season 2. The Emmy-nominated DC Comics antihero series from James Gunn debuted the first look at its second season in May, but this is the first time audiences have gotten to see more than just a brief tease. Spoiler alert: it’s about to get bigger, weirder, and more emotional than ever before.

Peacemaker Season 1 was eight episodes that picked up five months after the events of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (2021). This was because, at the end of that film, John Cena’s Christopher Smith—aka Peacemaker—had been shot in the head, nearly killed, and put on life support. In Season 1, he’s been recruited by the U.S. government to work on a secret task force codenamed “Project Butterfly” and assembled a new team of elite, government-trained super-soldiers under the direction of Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), and with the support of A.R.G.U.S. agent John Economos (Steve Agee), NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and new team member Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks).

The big twist is that Project Butterfly turns out to be so much more than just another top-secret government mission. The team is quickly mobilized to battle an alien race that took over Earth by possessing human hosts in the form of parasitic butterflies. They fight their way to a bloody showdown on a ranch against the insectoid aliens and make it out alive, but not without some major scars and emotional baggage.

Peacemaker will be returning in a much-changed DC Universe, though. Season 1 technically existed in the DCEU, which was officially dissolved at the end of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Gunn introduced Season 2 in this new, properly debuted DCU in the “Gods and Monsters” family of interconnected movies, shows, and comics he also launched at SDCC. Gunn confirmed at the panel, however, that with the exception of some potential cameo roles, everything that’s happened before is still canon.

Fans can expect to see Cena, Brooks, Holland, Agee, and Freddie Stroma as beloved wacky white supremacist bad boy Vigilante to return this season. Nhut Le is also back in the role of Judomaster, along with Eagly, Peacemaker’s titular pet bald eagle sidekick. Robert Patrick also reprises his role as Peacemaker’s deceased father, Auggie Smith. Gunn also revealed that this season will introduce Frank Grillo as Rick Flagg Sr., father of the recently deceased Rick Flagg—played by Jay Hernández—who Peacemaker killed in The Suicide Squad. Flagg Sr. now leads A.R.G.U.S. and is looking for revenge. New cast members also include Tim Meadows as agent Langston Fleury, Sol Rodriguez as Sasha Bordeaux, and Michael Rooker as Red St. Wild, Eagly’s nemesis.

In the official synopsis, Chris Smith is still reckoning with both the emotional fallout of his violent past and his desire to better himself. He’s still all about keeping the peace, but now he’s set on earning that hero status, not just through obedience but through actions. He’s on his way to heroism, in other words, but in his way.

The May teaser got fans started on the ride of epic absurdity and carnage that is Peacemaker. Set to Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord,” the video shows a short montage, including some close calls in what appear to be some expensive-looking suits, that culminates in an attempt by Chris to audition as a member of the Justice League. Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (Isabela Merced), and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn) all reprised their roles from Gunn’s Superman, and they’re all in attendance in the agency office when Chris goes in to pitch himself. He awkwardly tries to sell them on his platform of mass destruction, of course, to no avail.

The teaser also dropped a few fun character updates. Adebayo “recently moved on up and is now living in the worst level of Grand Theft Auto,” per Economos. Harcourt, meanwhile, is “dealing with a particularly severe form of toxic masculinity,” the agent says. Vigilante is “working at Red Robin flipping burgers and scraping bacon bits off of countertops.”

The biggest surprise in the new trailer, though, is the appearance of a dimensional portal. Chris inexplicably walks into a hole in the ground—seemingly of his own free will—and emerges in a parallel universe. There, he discovers there’s another version of himself. This one is the beloved one, having built a successful career as a decorated, legitimate hero. Frustrated with his status and love life in his home reality, Chris wants to switch places and stay. That’s easier said than done, though. Predictably, his past is going to catch up with him, because Harcourt has one of those inevitable but also terrifyingly succinct lines: “No matter how green the grass is over there, you belong here. With us.”

At the Hall H panel at SDCC, Gunn himself addressed fans and made it clear that this season is all about characters and character development. “I like TV shows where the characters don’t just come back another season and they’re the same characters,” Gunn said. “I want to see growth. I want to see change—and sometimes regression. I don’t want to say too much about this season, but Peacemaker is a different guy this year. He’s dealing with the demons that he uncovered in the first season and is 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.