Peacemaker is back on HBO Max and just as great as ever. Coming on the heels of Superman, the show jumped right back into its rich emotional storytelling, showing us the 11th Street Kids after their defeat of the aliens in season 1. The first episode of season 2 dropped a big bombshell on fans, as it was revealed that White Dragon had a doorway to another universe. This universe had the Smith family as major superheroes, and seemed like the perfect world for Peacemaker, but viewers have noticed something about this world — it’s awfully white. There were no people of color in the vast majority of scenes, and White Dragon, a racist in the other world, was popular. This has led comic readers to theorize that this is a world, Peacemaker’s “best dimension ever” is a world the comics have taken us to before — Earth-X.
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DC’s multiverse can make things confusing, but it’s introduced readers to multiple Earths. Earth-X is one of the darkest Earths, where the Nazis won World War II and where a team of heroes called the Freedom Fighters battled against them. Crisis on Infinite Earths did away with this Earth, and since then, the Freedom Fighters have been folded into the larger DC Universe. The return of the DC Multiverse saw Earth-X return as Earth-10, but readers haven’t gotten to spend a lot of time there. With fans theorizing that this may very well be the alternative universe in Peacemaker, it’s worth looking Earth-X and it’s decades of fascinating history starting with the Freedom Fighters.
Earth-X Was Very Different from Other DC Earths
The story of Earth-X begins at Quality Comics in the 1940s. The success of Superman and Batman saw many comic companies jump into the superhero game, creating characters like Uncle Sam, the Human Bomb, Black Condor, Doll Man, Phantom Lady, and the Ray. The Freedom Fighters as we know them didn’t exist back then, and wouldn’t exist until DC bought the characters and trademarks of Quality Comics. DC did this several times over the years in the 50s, purchasing the Marvel Family from Fawcett and the Charlton heroes. Their books were standard superhero comics of the ’40s, fighting supervillains and Nazis, although their Earth wasn’t conquered by the Nazis. That wouldn’t happen until the first appearance of the Freedom Fighters in Justice League of America #107, which was one of the yearly Justice League/Justice Society team-ups. In the issue, the Freedom Fighters were able to reach across the multiversal void and ask for the help of the Justice League and the Justice Society. The three teams battled against the Nazis and the Freedom Fighters went back to their endless battle against the Nazis, getting a 15 issue series in 1976. Eventually, it was established that the Freedom Fighters were actually from Earth-Two, in the late 70s/early 80s book All-Star Squadron (which set back in World War II) and went to Earth-X to fight the Nazis.
Earth-X was one of the first time that comic readers went to a Earth where the Nazis, and it was marginally popular. However, it would go away when the rest of the multiverse was destroyed in Crisis. The Freedom Fighters were folded into the history of the singular DC Earth, following the stories that were told in All-Star Squardon. The only one who is still the same is Uncle Sam, who is powered by the magic of freedom, while the other members of the team would get legacy heroes taking their place in the present day. When the multiverse returned in 52, it was only a matter of time before we got Earth-X back. This would happen in the 2014 story known The Multiversity, which took readers across the DC Multiverse. Now titled Earth-10 (because X is the Roman numeral for 10 and back then there was only supposed to be 52 Earths so they didn’t use letters), readers got to see this world in Mastermen, which posited that young Kal-El landed in German territory, and was raised by Adolf Hitler, allowing the Nazis to win the war. Mastermen was set in the present day, as Superman doubted the path his life took, with the Freedom Fighters staging an attack against the Mastermen, the Nazi Justice League. It was hinted that Superman, or Overman as he’s known on his Earth, helped them. Since then, we haven’t returned to Earth-10. At least not in comics.
Earth-X Explains Everything About Fishy About Peacemaker Season Two
Alternate histories where the Nazis won World War II have been around for decades, but Earth-X was one of the first. It was a way for DC to use the heroes of another company they had purchased (the Marvel Family would get Earth-S), and became a small but interesting part of the DC Multiverse from 1973 to 1985. Readers got to spend a decent amount of time there and have since witnessed its return about a decade ago (The Multiversity: Mastermen #1 published in 2015), and it remains one of the most intriguing Earths in DC history.
We had an idea that Peacemaker would go to alternate Earths from the trailer, and it looks like James Gunn is dusting off the concept of Earth-X. So far, it’s just a theory, but Earth-X fits what we’ve seen so far in Peacemaker (a joke from What’s Happening not landing and the lack of Kardashian fame, as well as the very white extras and lack of Leota Adebayo at ARGUS). Most of the Earth-X stories are out of print, but you can still explore it if you hunt down the old Crisis on Multiple Earths collected editions of the ’00s. Maybe we’ll get lucky and DC will bring these stories back into print, showing new fans why Earth-X was a dark world, but such a great concept.
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
