The penultimate episode of Season 1 of Peacemaker made its way onto HBO Max on Thursday, showcasing a wild and emotional new chapter in the DC universe. The live-action series has been taking a unique approach to the canon of Christopher Smith / Peacemaker (John Cena), marrying a number of character traits and aspects of his status quo across decades of comics. Episode 7 just might have continued to do that in spades, with a line of dialogue teasing one of Peacemaker’s weirdest stories from DC Comics canon. Spoilers for Episode 7 of Peacemaker, “Stop Dragon My Heart Around”, below! Only look if you want to know!
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The episode saw the situation surrounding Project Butterfly only continue to escalate, which was made even worse by Auggie Smith / White Dragon (Robert Patrick) now being out of prison and reunited with his group of Neo-Nazis. Ultimately, Auggie and his group hunted down Christopher Smith / Peacemaker (John Cena), Adrian Chase / Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), John Economos (Steve Agee), and Eagly, and aimed to kill them. A violent fight occurred on the side of a road, and ultimately culminated in Vigilante utilizing the weak points in Auggie’s White Dragon armor to stab him. Auggie died in the ensuing fight with Peacemaker and Vigilante, but not before remarking that Chris wouldn’t be able to get rid of him that quickly.
That qualifier of not being able to get rid of him that quickly already hits, when you consider the emotional trauma and abuse that Chris has confronted across the existing episodes. But for those familiar with Peacemaker’s roots, that might have taken on a different meaning. In the Peacemaker comic miniseries of the 1980s, it was established that Chris’ dad was a man named Wolfgang Schmidt, who had actually served as a Nazi commander in World War II. As a child, Chris witnessed his father’s suicide, and was deeply scarred by the ordeal — which was only made worse when Wolfgang started literally haunting him. While Chris hid these visions of his father from anyone else, and eventually repressed them, they were instrumental in his decision to become a pacifist.
So, if Peacemaker does get a highly-rumored second season, maybe we’ll see Auggie haunt Chris in a similar way to Wolfgang. Not only would it create a new bit of narrative tension for future episodes of the series, but it would honor the weirder annals of Peacemaker’s history.
New episodes of Peacemaker debut Thursdays exclusively on HBO Max.
