Peacemaker Season 2 exists in a complicated canon space. The first season of James Gunn’s TV show existed in the now-extinct DC Extended Universe, with its title character having debuted in that universe’s The Suicide Squad. Its sophomore outing belongs in the newly launched DC Universe, spearheaded by Gunn himself, which includes 2025’s Superman. Some characters will return, others won’t, and it will all end up making enough sense to get by. But perhaps the biggest issue of all with the changes, at least where Peacemaker is concerned, is the Justice League.
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The team was technically introduced at the end of Peacemaker Season 1. There were cameos from Jason Momoa as Aquaman and Ezra Miller as The Flash, alongside two silhouettes, which were clearly supposed to be Henry Cavill’s Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. That, however, was a very different time for DC. Since then, Cavill’s Man of Steel returned and was soon gone again; The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom both underperformed at the box office, and Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC to reshape things in their image. Notably, that image no longer includes the Justice League, as Peacemaker Season 2 retcons the scene and erases the team from DCU canon. Contains spoilers for Peacemaker Season 2, Episode 1.
How Peacemaker Season 2 Retcons The Justice League
Given it’s been over three years since Season 1, Peacemaker‘s second season begins with a recap of events – but with a couple of tweaks. In a scene where Danielle Brooks’ Leota Adebayo referenced the Justice League by name, she now says “Justice Gang,” referring to the team from Superman. That includes the Guy Gardner version of Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi).
This is then taken further with a recreation of the scene where the Justice League arrive – except now it’s the Justice Gang. Superman remains in place, but it’s obviously supposed to be David Corenswet’s version rather than Cavill’s. There’s also a place for a silhouette of Milly Alcock’s Supergirl, alongside the three aforementioned heroes. Green Lantern and Hawkgirl make actual appearances, too, though it remains to be seen just how involved they’ll be as the season progresses. Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), who is the man behind the team, also appears in Peacemaker Season 2.
The decision is no surprise, as it was the biggest point of potential confusion. What’s more, Gunn had teased it back in November 2024, telling IGN: “The truth is almost all of Peacemaker is canon with the exception of Justice League… which we will kind of deal with in the next season of Peacemaker.”
In the run up to Peacemaker Season 2’s release, Gunn spoke at a press event that ComicBook attended to explain why he chose to go with the change rather than something more complex involving a multiverse reset. The answer was just to assume nobody would really care. “Could I make it so that [season 2] Peacemaker is the DCEU Peacemaker, even though he’s not really the DCEU Peacemaker, and he walks through that portal and that’s where the DCEU Peacemaker is? I could have,” Gunn said. “People are like, ‘How are normies gonna understand it?’ The answer is normies don’t give a s–t. Normies don’t care about all this canon stuff so intimately.”
“They’re like, ‘Oh, cool, Peacemaker and Superman team up?’ ‘Oh, cool, it’s Aliens and Predator together?’ It doesn’t matter if it’s not completely consistent with the past,” Gunn added. “So I thought the simple way was really the best, which is just saying, ‘This world is a little different.’ We know there’s universes, and this is the universe in which everything was exactly the same as season one — except for the Justice League and Batmite.”
What Peacemaker’s Justice League Retcon Means
Peacemaker Season 2’s Justice League retcon is a pretty neat fix, easily swapping in the Justice Gang to better fit the now-established DCU canon. But that it’s happened is not only important for the conversation around what exists and what doesn’t, but the future of this burgeoning shared universe.
Notably, this more firmly establishes the Justice Gang as the main superhero team of the DCU. This was something Superman already started doing, so it’s a logical way to build on that. We already know that Fillion will also appear in 2026’s Lanterns, and it’s expected the characters will be involved in what Gunn terms the next movie in the “Superman saga,” which will include Corenswet’s Clark Kent, but seemingly won’t be a direct sequel. What else those characters appear in is to be determined, but it seems clear that Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and Mister Terrific will all have big roles to play as the DCU continues to expand.
This also suggests a level of teamwork between Superman and Supergirl that we’ve not yet seen. Supergirl was drunk in her Superman appearance, setting up a very different version of the Woman of Tomorrow for her 2026 solo movie. But this sequence does suggest that at some point in the future – perhaps that “Superman saga” movie – we’re going to see the Kryptonian cousins fully working together, which could even mean a full Superman + Supergirl movie. It’s also unknown if they’re full-time members of the Justice Gang, or just helping out.
Then there’s the not-so-small matter of the DCU’s own Justice League. Gunn has not yet revealed detailed plans for that team, but it’s fair to assume it will be formed eventually. Superman is in place, multiple Green Lanterns are being added (Lanterns will include Hal Jordan and John Stewart), and there are definitely plans for a new Batman and Wonder Woman in this universe. It’d make sense for Gunn to establish all of those characters individually – along with, presumably, a new Aquaman and Flash at some point – rather than rushing into a team-up. But the Peacemaker retcon clears the deck, meaning it’ll be a much smoother fit in canon if and when it does happen.
Peacemaker Season 2, Episode 1 is now streaming on HBO Max. New episodes will release weekly on Thursdays at 9pm ET
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