Peacemaker Calling Batman a [NSFW!] Almost Didn’t Pass Muster at DC
Of all the insults and (sometimes very) sordid gossip that Peacemaker directs at fellow superheroes in his eponymous HBO Max series, it is a dig at the Dark Knight that most raised hackles over at DC.
In the fourth episode of the Suicide Squad offshoot (streaming Thursday, Jan. 20), Peacemaker (played by John Cena) again trades barbs with his father’s next door neighbor (Mel Tuck), who claims that Peacemaker ain’t no hero if he kills people — unlike Batman.
Peacemaker stops in his tracks, spins around and snaps, contending that Batman never crosses that line because “he’s a p—y! ” He then launches into a detailed argument to support that POV.
Series creator James Gunn told The Hollywood Reporter‘s always-excellent TV’s Top 5 podcast this week that putting Batman on blast like that almost didn’t fly at DC.
“I was very surprised, because they were not too fond of Peacemaker calling Batman a p—y,” Gunn shared. “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 has has a point of view on that makes any sense whatsoever.”
In the end, the DC overlords “were great,” Gunn said. “They let me get away with what I got away with at the end of the day.”
As for why DC took issue with a dig at Batman’s masculinity and not the alleged and very specific fetishes Peacemaker assigns to Aquaman and Superman, “I don’t know. You’d have to ask them,” Gunn said with a chuckle. “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.”
HBO Max, meanwhile, expressed “some concerns” about Peacemaker’s father being a white supremacist. (“That was a delicate situation,” Gunn said.) “The only other thing that HBO Max ever said to me at all was, ‘We’re HBO and you guys are saying the F-word so many times.’
“It was scripted a lot,” Gunn noted, “but Steve Agee (who plays Economos) tends to put the word in a bunch of extra times, and it got over the top at times.”
And as for the violence and the sex? “There was one moment they were afraid of us showing that comes in Episode 6 that I pretty much insisted on keeping,” Gunn teased.
Want scoop on Peacemaker, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.
This is deeply ironic as the DCEU Batman has actually killed a LOT of criminals (He probably killed like 20 of them in Batman V Superman alone lol) and planned to straight up murder Superman until he came to his senses.
So the whole “Batman never kills” thing pretty much went out the window a long time ago in this particular version of the DC Universe. I mean he probably killed more people then Oliver ever did in the Arrowverse.
Are you sure about that? Oliver shot a lot of arrows during his typical gang/criminal empire level takedowns. Many of those guys likely never got up again.
lol Batman was mowing down criminals left right and center in BvS. And that was like in the span of less then a week. Imagine how many criminals he must have killed since the death of Robin (which was the catalyst that made him abandon his rule of no killing and made him descend into rage). Oliver just fired a bunch of arrows.
I stand corrected. I just remember Oliver had a few talks about the amount of bodies he was leaving behind from Lance. I think he caused the SCPD a few headaches before changing his ways.
Agreed. It doesn’t make any sense in this universe. Which, on both ends, that Batman kills and they deny it, is one of the reasons why the DCCU has been a mess.
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And haven’t seen it, but maybe Gunn answers his own question. In the other cases it’s made to sound like goofy internet speculation, where this time about Batman it’s made to sound like he has a point.
I’m getting deja vu from that time DC got on Harley Quinn‘s case about implying that Batman, shall we say, “gives special attention” to p—y.
Just detecting an amusing trend.
That was the set-up for the question on the THR podcast, yes.
Harley Quinn wasn’t going to imply it. They wanted to show it happen.
If you want to see a real debate about murder/death between heroes then go and re-watch Daredevil 2×03. The argument between Matt and Frank, with each giving their own PoV, was incredibly well written. Peacemaker’s tirade is just pointless.
That was a great scene. But how do you know Peacemaker’s is pointless since it doesn’t air for a week?
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(Don’t get me wrong. It probably is. But it’ll take till Thursday to be sure or not).
HBO Max worried the father was a white supremacist?
Well they never read the comics. Dad was a fulll on Nazi there.
HBO Max puts warnings on all their old movies to avoid offending people’s delicate sensibilities. Are you surprised that even the bad guys can’t be nazis to them?
I’m always surprised with how much the overall cancel culture thinks things should be sanitized instead of just letting characters be who they’re written to be and those that are evil/wrong, you’re properly taught how/why they’re that wrong.
Cause overall, everyone’s too afraid about teaching it, that no one’s ever gonna learn about it period and it’s all going to repeat itself, like is slowly happening.
And always even more surprised when the parents now have been the same kids who were all taught this stuff with no fear, but can’t figure out how now they’re afraid of it for their children.
If only because they have to be able to properly explain how it actually screwed them up first.