John Cena has a quick cameo on this summer season’s Superman as Peacemaker, the foul-mouthed mercenary the wrestler-turned-actor has performed since 2021’s The Suicide Squad. That film was a part of the previous DC Comics shared universe (DCEU), so it appeared odd that Cena’s character would seem in James Gunn’s new tackle Superman, contemplating he was, ostensibly, a part of a distinct multiverse. Properly, Peacemaker’s second season premiered final night time, and thru a reshot scene, has plucked the antihero from one universe into one other with out making an enormous stink about it.
In Peacemaker’s first season finale, Cena’s character met up with the Justice League from the earlier movie universe, together with Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Flash. The remainder of the crew was principally obscured in shadows and solely seen as silhouettes, however Momoa and Miller’s presence makes it clear they’re seemingly accompanied by Henry Cavill’s model of Superman, who portrayed the superhero from 2013 to 2023. This ties Peacemaker to the previous continuity, which once more complicates Cena’s look in Superman.
Season two’s premiere episode, “The Ties That Grind,” addresses this with a gap sequence referred to as “Beforehand within the DCU,” which recaps the earlier season with one main change. Reasonably than calling the Justice League for assist as he did within the finale, this part is reshot and redubbed to as an alternative present the Justice Gang featured in Superman arriving on the scene. Nathan Fillion and Isabela Merced reprise their roles as Man Gardner and Hawkgirl, whereas silhouettes of Superman, Supergirl, and Mister Terrific are additionally proven however obscured in shadow, like within the unique scene.
In a roundtable interview with shops like IGN, Gunn mentioned that whereas followers may need anticipated a extra convoluted multiversal rationalization that pulled Peacemaker from one continuity to a different, the director mentioned he’d reasonably go along with a easy strategy.
“Might I make it in order that Peacemaker is the DCEU Peacemaker, although he’s not likely the DCEU Peacemaker, and he walks via that portal, and that’s the place the DCEU Peacemaker is?” Gunn mentioned. “I might have, however individuals are like, ‘How are normies going to grasp it?’ And no, the reply is, normies don’t give a shit. Normies don’t care about all this canon stuff so intimately.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s not utterly constant previously. So I assumed the easy manner was actually the very best, which is simply saying, yeah, this world is slightly totally different. We all know there’s universes, and that is the universe wherein the whole lot was precisely the identical as Season 1, aside from the Justice League.”
Some followers could be irritated on the handwavey nature of this variation, however it’s most likely a great factor Peacemaker didn’t should spend a complete episode throwing its hero via the multiverse to justify him exhibiting up in future initiatives. Now it could simply get again to what it really desires to do reasonably than losing all these valuable, pricey minutes of runtime, to not point out the dear time of us viewers. New episodes of Peacemaker premiere on HBO Max on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. Jap.
