HBO's Peacemaker series is a perfect blend of comedy, action, and personal tragedy. Its titular protagonist (played by John Cena) considers himself a superhero but is actually a bigoted mass murderer who undertakes black ops missions for the US to reduce his prison sentence.
The show is a spinoff of 2021's The Suicide Squad, which first introduced Peacemaker to the DCEU. The character has been in print for over half a century and was the inspiration for the Comedian in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. In fact, it was Watchmen, more than anything else, that inspired the modern-day version of Peacemaker that fans have come to know.
Peacemaker's Charlton Comics Origins
The original Peacemaker (AKA Christopher Smith) was created by artist Pay Boyette and writer Joe Gill and was originally part of Charlton Comics, debuting in issue #40 of Fightin' 5. A devout pacifist, he worked to establish peace between rival nations. Smith despaired at diplomacy's failures, eventually becoming so desperate that he assumed a new identity as the vigilante Peacemaker, using violence to spread peace.
DC acquired several classic Charlton Comics characters in the 1980s, including Peacemaker. He was given a new origin story that made him the son of a Nazi scientist. Around this time, the character was adapted into Watchmen, re-imagined in a new, even more twisted identity as the Comedian.
The Comedian Revolutionized Peacemaker's Identity...and Comics
British writer Alan Moore revolutionized American comics in the 1980s with his macabre, sophisticated scripts. His most famous work, Watchmen, re-imagines several classic Charlton characters in a grounded story of Cold War politics, exploring the psychological and philosophical extremes that could drive people to become costumed vigilantes. The comic opens with the Comedian (who was based on Peacemaker) being thrown out a window to his death. Readers only learn about who this murdered man was through a series of flashbacks as his fellow "heroes" commemorate his death.
The Comedian participated in horrible war crimes during the 20th Century, not out of love for his country, but rather because it gave him an excuse to be his worst self. During the US invasion of Vietnam, he lit his cigars with his flame thrower while burning men alive. He later murdered a Vietnamese woman he had impregnated. When riots broke out in the early 70s, he delighted in brutalizing American citizens. Throughout his career, he killed men, women, and children without remorse.
To put it bluntly, the Comedian was no hero. His name has obvious parallels to Batman's arch-enemy, the Joker, and he frequently butts heads with two Batman allegories, Rorschach (representing Batman's trauma-induced ultraviolence against criminals) and Nite Owl II (who builds expensive crime-fighting gadgets to compensate for his insecurities). Rorschach and Nite Owl are also originally based on two Charlton superheroes, the Question and Blue Beetle.
One way that Watchmen revolutionized comics was by ascribing different political philosophies to each character, thereby deconstructing how real-world ideologies might influence superheroes. Rorschach is an Objectivist, Nite Owl supports liberalism, and the Comedian embodies the philosophy of realpolitik, in which nations use power and coercion to achieve their goals without regard for morality. The politician Henry Kissinger famously pushed for realpolitik to destabilize foreign nations, ordering many of the war crimes that Comedian performed in the comics. At his funeral, those who knew the Comedian in life stood over his grave and remembered him as a cruel, mass-murdering sadist. But his influence lived on and went onto inspire depictions of the original Peacemaker.
The DC Universe And Multiversity's Pax Americana In The New 52
Watchmen has been called the world's greatest comic. Its legacy easily overshadows the Charlton heroes who inspired it. And those characters--now DC properties--continued to grow and to be shaped by the versions of themselves that appeared in Watchmen. The most notable way this applied to Peacemaker was seen in Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's one-shot comic The Multiversity: Pax Americana.
The comic pays homage to Watchmen, using the original Charlton characters to tell a story with a similar plot, themes, and even page layouts. Set in the early post-9/11 era, the comic critiques the US War on Terror in the same way that its predecessor critiqued American policies during the Cold War. But instead of opening with the death of the Peacemaker-inspired Comedian, here the story opens with the real Peacemaker assassinating the President. The non-linear story then shows how in the past, he was a patriot devoted to serving and protecting the President. Paradoxically, he killed for peace.
These themes are prevalent in the film The Suicide Squad, which featured a story about the US backing of fascist juntas in Latin America, a perfect example of realpolitik. In the film, Peacemaker is part of a black ops mission sent to destroy all evidence of US human rights violations after their puppet government is overthrown. As he says before massacring a guerilla camp, "I cherish peace with all my heart. I don't care how many men, women, and children I have to kill to get it."
But there is a cost to such actions. Peacemaker's life is both a joke and a tragedy. He envisions a pure, untarnished, peaceful America, and he fights for a nationalist ideal. Tragically, the blood-stained violence of his crusade is the very thing that keeps such peace from ever being able to exist.