Peacemaker Season 2 will copy the DCU's Superman movie's biggest villain twist, according to a recently released clip from the series. Following the release of James Gunn's Krytonian epic, the return of John Cena's Christopher Smith is the next thing on the DCU docket. The R-rated streaming series will continue to lay the foundation of Gunn's interconnected superhero world, while following up on key points from the Superman film.
The inspiration from Gunn's 2025 blockbuster will not stop at its narrative set dressing, though, as Peacemaker will also seemingly include a very similar villain twist to the David Corenswet DCU kick-off film. In that movie, Corenswet's Man of Steel went up against a clone of himself, known as Ultraman, created by the villainous Lex Luthor.
A new clip released from Peacemaker Season 2 revealed that the HBO Max series will also see its central hero fight another version of himself as a part of its eight-episode run.
The clip, which was shown during a recent appearance by star John Cena on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (via Jordan Jones on X), sees Cena's Peacemaker hero confronted with a secondary version of himself, with the pair engaging in a skull-cracking fight throughout the character's home.
Both Peacemakers get a couple of good hits in before the clip ends, as a chase ensues in what seems to be an epic, spacious armory.
Fans have been teased with this second Peacemaker in various pieces of marketing for the show's second season, but until this point, it has been unclear whether the pair would come to blows, as seen in this new Season 2 clip.
The DCU is already familiar with this twist of having essentially a clone of a particular project's primary hero, as James Gunn employed a very similar twist in Superman with Ultraman.
Ultraman debuted in the new DC movie as a mystery masked figure, only to be revealed to be a clone of David Corenswet's Man of Steel created by Lex Luthor to do battle with the super-powered Kryptonian.
It is unclear whether this secondary Peacemaker in Peacemaker Season 2 will be a clone like Ultraman was in Superman, or if the character is a multiversal variant of Cena's hero introduced in the new set of episodes.
Peacemaker Season 2 comes to HBO Max on Thursday, August 21, picking up the story of John Cena's Christopher Smith/Peacemaker, a doofy superhero cast aside by the greater super-powered world. After Season 1 of the hit James Gunn series took place in the now-defunct DCEU, Season 2 will transition the show to the newly minted DCU.
Cena stars alongside returning Peacemaker actors Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, and Jennifer Holland in the new season, with plenty of DCU cameos already promised for the series (including David Corenswet's Superman himself).
Why Are There Two Peacemakers Now?
Coming off the fairly grounded tale told by Peacemaker Season 2, it could be confusing seeing that there are now (for some reason) two versions of John Cena's titular character in the new batch of episodes.
Exact specifics of why this is the case have not yet been divulged by creator James Gunn or anyone on the Peacemaker creative team, but one can assume there is a specific reason for these two characters going at it in the new series.
Peacemaker Season 2 will likely have to explain why/how the new series has been moved from the DCEU to the new DCU. One way it could do this is by introducing the idea of the DC Multiverse, literally picking the show up from one reality and dropping it into another.
Superman already introduced the idea of other planes of reality with Lex Luthor's pocket dimension prison, so this could push this idea one step further, moving the Peacemaker team from one universe to another, crossing paths with secondary versions of their characters, like the villainous Christopher Smith seen in the new Season 2 clip.
