The Peacemaker Finale Sets Up a Story Pulled From This 2000s DC Comic
When Chris Smith sought salvation from his past, I don’t think he meant it like this. Much of Peacemaker’s sophomore season saw John Cena’s titular antihero struggling to live with the things he’s done—so much so that he eventually tried to run from his problems by relocating to another dimension. In the finale, written and directed by DCU head James Gunn, Chris seemingly gets everything he wants. He accepts his flaws, gets the girl, and is reunited with his friends. Everything’s in its right place—but the good vibes are fleeting.
Chris is kidnapped and brought to ARGUS at the behest of Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), who is keen to have Peacemaker be the guinea pig for his new project. During the finale, Senior uses the interdimensional travel device retrieved from Chris to access a planet called Salvation, which will now serve as a new prison for metahumans. Throughout Peacemaker season two, we’ve seen Flag working with Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and becoming more sympathetic to Luthor’s belief that metahumans are a threat to be controlled. Since prison breaks seemingly happen all the time in the DCU, a more drastic solution is required: ship them to a different reality and throw away the interdimensional key.
If this sounds a lot like Lex’s prison from Gunn’s Superman, you’d be right. This time, Salvation is fully backed by the US Government. While it’s ethically questionable, Senior states he’s got a solution to work through those issues, but is willing to use Peacemaker as a test subject for the new prison—and avenge his son, Rick Flag Jr., who Chris murdered all the way back in 2021’s The Suicide Squad. The final moments of the finale show Chris alone and stuck on Salvation as menacing sounds of all kinds begin to erupt.
For DC comic-book readers, the mention of Salvation likely triggered blaring sirens. The concept originated with none other than Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin, who (according to his blog) pitched the idea of a prison planet for supercriminals to DC in the late ‘90s, alongside his regular collaborator John Jos. Miller. According to Martin, he and Miller couldn’t quite crack the story in a way that satisfied everyone, but left the project on good terms.
The idea then found a second life in 2007 when prolific writer Bill Willingham (Fables) stepped in alongside writer Lilah Sturges and artists Sean Chen, Walden Wong, Joe Bennett, and Belardino Brabo for a miniseries called Salvation’s Run. The plot is strikingly similar to the Salvation setup in this season of Peacemaker. Frustrated with the rampant crime sprees of various DC villains, Amanda Waller and Rick Flag Jr. round up the bad guys and send them to another planet. Things get a little Lord of the Flies, with the foes falling into either Team Joker or Team Lex Luthor. It’s eventually revealed that this planet is a testing ground for Darkseid’s forces, causing everyone to team up in order to survive.
