The first look at James Gunn and John Cena's TV series Cena describes as "a douchey Captain America." The HBO Max show will release in 2022 and be exclusively written by Gunn, who will also direct at least five of the eight episodes.
In the comics, Peacemaker's father was a Nazi war criminal who took his life in front of his five-year-old son. From there, Peacemaker grew up to slaughter innocents until being arrested, when he was given an opportunity to a government "Peacemaker" program in order to free himself. Now on parole, Peacemaker will kill any adult or child in order to achieve "peace" and atone for his and his father's crimes. The voices of both his father and his victims ring around in his massive, mirrored helmet, a notably humorous costume piece which Gunn describes as "a nightmare to film."
In an the rest of the DCEU, a goofier costume juxtaposed with deeper philosophical confrontations can be seen as dense, new territory for fans of the universe. Cena explains this further:
This guy is a loud, obnoxious, bro-ey douchebag. That sucks. But why? At what point did he become such a douchebag and what does that mean? There’s a lot to dive into there.
To live in a world that has a Wonder Woman and a Superman, Gunn says it's "not an easy thing for [Peacemaker] to contend with." Although no plot details have yet been released, Gunn now says the show will have "a big science-fiction story" as well as plot points surrounding real-world issues. The show is expected to be for mature audiences, like the R-rated The Suicide Squad, with Gunn claiming that if the series were edited for broadcast TV, it "it would be forty seconds long."
Similar to other postmodern explorations of superhero-dom such as Watchmen and The Boys, Peacemaker as a character echoes how the inherent ties between power and abuse apply to beloved caped crusaders. As Cena describes it, it's "f**ked."
Source: Empire