We haven’t seen the last of John Cena’s Peacemaker, for better or worse. Hot(tish) on the heels of August’s The Suicide Squad, the white-pants wearing, peace-at-all-costs dude will appear in his own HBO Max series in January—and HBO just released the first clip, which features a car, an eagle, and his classic outfit. I mean, uniform. Which needs breaking in.
Peacemaker believes in peace no matter what it takes, and it usually takes a lot of things that one might not consider peaceful. He also has an eagle named Eagley, because of course he does. In the clip, he meets Amanda Waller’s underlings, who have no patience for the uptight Peacemaker. Which could be funny—Peacemaker is basically designed to be the butt of jokes—but their jokes are unfunny and childishly mean in a weirdly dated-feeling way.
Peacemaker was created by The Suicide Squad director James Gunn, who also wrote all eight episodes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, during the filming of The Suicide Squad, Gunn was approached by DC Films president Walter Hamada and producer Peter Safran, who asked which character he’d be interested in creating a spinoff for. The answer was Peacemaker, in part because—unlike Idris Elba’s Bloodsport—the character still had a lot to learn at the end of the film.
In this clip, he’s clearly still learning. Peacemaker comes to HBO Max in January.
