New Mission, New Villains: Peacemaker S2 Trailer Teases Major Twists

James Gunn has set out to make one crazy show, and the new season trailer for Peacemaker proves it.

The Emmy-nominated DC antihero spinoff series got a full trailer debuting at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend. The HBO Max trailer is the first substantial look at what fans can expect from John Cena’s Christopher Smith, aka Peacemaker, in the second go-round. It’s clear: The next chapter for the unhinged, muscle-headed paramilitary marksman is going to be wilder, weirder, and more emotional.

Season 1 of Peacemaker took place after the events of The Suicide Squad (2021), beginning five months after the events of the group’s mission to Corto Maltese. There, Peacemaker barely survived a near-death experience after being shot in the chest. He’s called upon by the U.S. government for a top-secret, high-stakes covert operation codenamed “Project Butterfly” and thrown onto a new team under Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), supported by A.R.G.U.S. agent John Economos (Steve Agee), NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and the newly recruited Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks).

Project Butterfly quickly becomes more complicated and way more than just another government-sponsored mission. Peacemaker and his ragtag crew must go up against an entire alien species—parasitic butterflies—that have come to Earth to take over and inhabit human bodies. At the end of Season 1, Peacemaker and his team of misfits defeat the creatures in a bloody showdown at a ranch and somehow survive with their lives, but not without major wounds and emotional scars.

Season 2, however, finds Peacemaker in a new, very different DCU. The first season took place within the film universe that was the now-defunct DCEU. Season 2, according to Gunn himself, takes place in the freshly minted DCU he officially unveiled at Comic-Con as part of his planned “Gods and Monsters” slate of movies and shows. Gunn confirmed, however, that most of the previous season and film happenings (sans some Justice League cameos) are still canon.

Peacemaker Season 2 will see the return of the series’ principal cast members, including Cena, Brooks, Holland, Agee, and Freddie Stroma as the fan-favorite unhinged vigilante. Joining the returning group are Nhut Le as Judomaster and Eagly, Peacemaker’s plucky bald eagle sidekick. Robert Patrick is also returning as Peacemaker’s dead father, Auggie Smith, who exerts a shadowy yet ever-present presence in his son’s life. The biggest additions this season include Frank Grillo as Rick Flagg Sr., father to the late Rick Flagg (Lamar Johnson) from The Suicide Squad, who was killed by Peacemaker in the last act of the film. Flagg Sr., now the head of A.R.G.U.S., is out for revenge. Also joining the cast are Tim Meadows as agent Langston Fleury, Sol Rodriguez as Sasha Bordeaux, and Michael Rooker as Red St. Wild, described as Eagly’s “nemesis.”

The official synopsis teases the emotional state of Peacemaker’s Chris Smith this season, still coming to terms with the violent carnage of his past, as well as wanting to be a better person. “He is still trying to make peace at all costs, but this time, he wants to do it the right way,” the description reads. “He wants to be a hero, not just a soldier.”

A teaser was released in May, teasing the insanity and mayhem of the next season and, more audaciously, multiverses and time travel. With the instrumental “Oh Lord” by the hard rock, baroque pop, and electronic punk band Foxy Shazam playing in the background, the footage showed Cena as Chris trying unsuccessfully to join the Justice League. He’s joined by the full Justice League in this meeting, including Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (Isabela Merced), and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), all reprising their roles from Gunn’s Superman. His pitch for entry lands with a thud, of course.

The brief teaser also gave fans some good laughs about how all of the supporting characters are faring this season. Economos teases that Adebayo is now “living in the worst level of Grand Theft Auto.” Holland’s Harcourt is allegedly suffering from “a particularly severe form of toxic masculinity,” and Vigilante is now working in the food service industry.

The most jaw-dropping reveal from the trailer is that a dimensional portal has somehow opened up, and in this crazy adventure, Chris has stumbled upon it and into a parallel universe. He meets another version of himself, another Chris, who is already loved and adored as a bona fide hero. Frustrated in his own current life with being at the bottom of the list with friends, foes, and his romantic failures, he decides to stay in this universe. He’s essentially planning to erase himself from his timeline and all the destructive deeds that follow. But as his past is prone to doing, of course, it will catch up with him. Harcourt tells him one of the more surprising lines of the trailer and a powerful sentiment: “No matter how green the grass is over there, you belong here. With us.”

Gunn, who was on the Hall H panel at SDCC, noted that a big theme of the second season is character growth. “I like TV shows where the characters don’t just return every season and they’re the same characters. We like to watch characters that are changing. We like to see growth. We like to see change—and sometimes regression,” Gunn said. “Peacemaker is a different guy this year. He’s dealing with the demons that he uncovered from the first season, and trying to deal with them, and the world is not accepting him the way he is. They aren’t accepting him as a hero.”

The first season of Peacemaker Season 2 premieres August 21, 2025, exclusively on HBO Max.