Peacemaker Premiere Explains How He Gets His Helmets

Peacemaker's first episode explains where the hero gets those helmets from. *Spoilers for the HBO Max premiere.* Well, the last we saw of John Cena's hero, he was laid up in a hospital bed. However, early in the show he sneaks out of there back to his home at the trailer park. Upon being recruited for yet another task force for an operation called "Project Butterfly." Well, he's going to need a new suit and a new helmet. Viewers head to his father Augie's house with him to get all of that new equipment. Upon arriving at the house, the older man berates his son for failing in The Suicide Squad. It's a bit tough to stomach the hostile and bigoted nature of Peacemaker's dad. Clearly, Cena's performance echoes some of that discomfort. 

Despite the verbal barbs, Augie gives Peacemaker a new suit and helmet out of his lab. This comes in handy later when Cena's character is in a tight spot and needs the upgraded abilities that the helmet provides. It's clear that there's so much more hiding in this HBO Max series than some fans thought. You can bet that we haven't seen the last of Augie either.

Comicbook.com had the chance to talk to James Gunn about the series and he said the core of this tale is compassion. He gave a really thoughtful take on Peacemaker's ethos.

"I didn't go out to say I wanted to tell the story about toxic masculinity, just like I didn't do that in my other movies," Gunn began. "Well, a little bit moreso in The Suicide Squad, actually. That was sort of in the forefront of my brain. I mean, at the end of the movie, you see the character that's the masculine character save the day by becoming completely vulnerable with Ratcatcher. So it's always a part of the stuff I do."

"I think that for me, really, it was about Peacemaker's political belief system, and some of the masculinity issues are part and parcel with that," Gunn added. "It was about having somebody like Peacemaker, who has this umbrella of beliefs over him and believes everything he reads on the internet. And then having Leota Adebayo, played by Danielle Brooks, who has a completely different way of looking at the world."

"Yet, somehow, they find something in each other that is common — and actually, they really love each other. That relationship, to me, is the central love story," the director claimed. "It's not romantic. It's not sexual. It's just about two people who can see beyond the exterior of what people are, to who they really are as human beings. It is that understanding, and that compassion, that I think allows for change in this world, and I think that it's something that is not given out very easily. We aren't very generous, especially on social media. And generosity is something that we could all use a little bit more of, including me."

Are you enjoying Peacemaker so far? Let us know down in the comments!