‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Kicks Off By Rewriting DCU History With the Justice League and the Justice Gang

No, you are not misremembering the Justice League appearing at the end of Peacemaker Season 1.

If you find yourself sitting down to watch Peacemaker Season 2’s first episode, complete with a recap of Season 1’s events, you might be scratching your head at the rewritten history of the Justice Gang — a group of heroes first introduced in James Gunn‘s 2025 summer blockbuster Superman — arriving too late to help Peacemaker (John Cena) and his ragtag group of friends defeat the Butterflies, a race of deadly parasitic aliens capable of disguising themselves as humans.

In the original version of the Season 1 finale, which aired on HBO Max all the way back in February 2022, after a tough battle on the farm where the Butterflies were headquartered, the Justice League shows up to eradicate the alien threat, only for Peacemaker to pass on their too-little too-late attempt to save Earth as he, Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and John Economos (Steve Agee) had already defeated the extraterrestrials.

At the time, the Justice League shot in the Peacemaker finale included the shadows of Henry Cavill‘s Superman, Jason Momoa‘s Aquaman, Gal Gadot‘s Wonder Woman, and Ezra Miller‘s The Flash. While Cavill and Gadot’s faces are never shown, Momoa and Miller did make appearances, even having a quick back and forth with Peacemaker, over a remark he made earlier in the episode.

“You’re late, you fucking dickheads,” Cena’s character says as he and his friends walk past the group, turning to Aquaman and adding, “Go fuck another fish, asshole.” Aquaman, who the group joked about having sex with a fish throughout Season 1 and the finale, then turns to Miller’s character and says, “I’m so fucking sick of that rumor.”

Now, here’s where things get fishy… sorry, I had to go for that one.

In the new and retconned version of events, the Peacemaker Season 1 recap shows Superman — the David Corenswet version, that is — coming to save the day alongside the Justice Gang, including Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Supergirl (Milly Alcock). Even before the clip is shown, however, the retcon is introduced as clips of Adebayo calling in the Justice Gang and Peacemaker sharing a hilarious aside tease the group’s arrival.

“You know, one time I puked all over Green Lantern, I got seasick from flying on the green magic carpet,” Peacemaker tells Harcourt in one snippet, “Weird thing is, he liked it.” Just then, the recap jumps to Peacemaker and his team walking past the Justice Gang, still calling out the group for their late arrival, only this time to a reaction from two different characters.

“What a meathead,” Hawkgirl says to Green Lantern, who quickly responds, “Screw that guy, you know he tells people I’m a puke freak?”

It’s not a massive surprise for anyone who has been following the DCU, as even before the Season 2 premiere, Gunn — who took over as co-CEO along with Peter Safran in October 2022 — via the trailer announced that the highly-anticipated second season would include appearances from Merced and Fillion’s characters. Additionally, billionaire Justice Gang investor Maxwell Lord, played by Gilmore Girls alum Sean Gunn, was said to guest star in the project; all three appeared in Superman, which shot consecutively with Peacemaker.

The latest version of Peacemaker aligns more closely with Gunn and Safran’s version of the DCU moving forward, as Gunn has taken painstaking care to choose projects and comic characters to adapt. In December, he brought the Creature Commandos — a black ops team comprised of Belle Reeves prisoners — to the small screen in an eponymous HBO Max animated series. Although not a live-action project, the series is considered canon to the DCU, with Frank Grillo voicing his character, Rick Flag Sr., who also appears in Peacemaker Season 2.

Peacemaker Season 2 is now streaming on HBO Max. New episodes release Thursdays.

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