After ten movies within the DC Extended Universe featuring major heroes like Superman and Batman, Warner Bros. has entered the streaming world with John Cena's Peacemaker. After the wacky anti-hero's introduction in 2021's The Suicide Squad, the HBO Max series picks up on Christopher Smith's life after being shot by Idris Elba's Bloodsport, and he's in for a wild new world of adventure.
WARNING: The rest of this article contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Peacemaker.
With The Suicide Squad director James Gunn returning to helm this series, Cena holds nothing back as the foul-mouthed, over-aggressive macho man looking to serve his unique version of justice after getting out of prison. The first trailer from DC FanDome 2021 teased that the powerful anti-hero would be back to his classic antics alongside other returning characters like Emilia Harcourt and John Economos.
One of Peacemaker's more vulgar comments coming in one of the show's future episodes has him calling Batman a "p---y," which certainly isn't out of character considering this is the same man who flat out said "f--k Aquaman" in the show's first trailer. According to Gunn, it's something of a miracle that this line even makes it into Episode 4 at all.
James Gunn on Nearly Censored Peacemaker Line
In a recent interview with TVLine, Peacemaker creator James Gunn expressed shock in the fact that one line about Batman being called a "p---y" actually made the final cut.
Gunn revealed that Warner Bros. wasn't exactly fond of the sentiment at first, even though Peacemaker makes similar, and even sometimes worse, comments about other heroes within the DCEU. He also shared that it comes from the idea that Peacemaker "has a point of view that makes any sense" on the Caped Crusader, which helped Gunn convince the studio to let him get away with the line:
“I was very surprised, because they were not too fond of Peacemaker calling Batman a p—y. I’m like, ‘But he talks about all these other terrible things about all these other superheroes that are much worse than calling Batman a p—y.’ Not only that, Batman is the only one he makes a fair point about; everybody else he’s really just believing stuff that he read on the Internet. Everything that he believes is kind of nonsense, and Batman is the only one [he] has a point of view on that makes any sense whatsoever. They let me get away with what I got away with at the end of the day.”
Looking at why it was specifically that Batman line that irritated the DC heads, Gunn wasn't exactly sure what went wrong. Considering this is the same series that insinuates that Superman has quite an unusual fetish himself, along with the Aquaman comment, the director didn't know how DC worked through what to include in the show's final cut:
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. I don’t know why him calling Batman a p—y is potentially more offensive than him saying Superman [has a poop fetish]. I don’t understand why one was brought up and one wasn’t.”
No Comment is Beyond Peacemaker
Within the opening minutes of Episode 1, fans quickly learned that John Cena's Christopher Smith had no qualms about uttering comments and remarks that many would consider offensive or inappropriate. Multiple members of his team even make comments about this trait of his throughout the first batch of episodes that premiered on HBO Max.
From footage shown in the first three episodes and other previews, Cena's Peacemaker has taken a variety of not-safe-for-work shots at every member of DC's holy trinity from the Justice League. While it's still unclear why his remark about Batman was almost cut in post-production, Bruce Wayne gets the honor (or dishonor) of becoming a verbal punching bag for the self-absorbed hero wannabe.
Assuming that Peacemaker continues its R-rated ways in the last five episodes, it won't be surprising to see other comments hurled towards the DCEU's finest, such as the one Batman is about to take next week. The big question now is whether any future comments from Cena's anti-hero escaped the chopping block, although there doesn't appear to be much that's off the board.
The first three episodes of Peacemaker are now available to stream on HBO Max.
