Major spoilers to follow.
John Cena as the titular Peacemaker
To the surprise of no one, James Gunn’s Peacemaker television show on HBO MAX is a massive hit among fans and critics alike. Utilizing Gunn’s talented writing and directing skills, the show is one that is full of heart, comedy, violence, and just the right amount of drama to keep things from spiraling out of control. However, despite the shows overwhelming success among audiences that tuned in for its eight-episode runtime, there was one scene in the finale that got the internet riled up, and not in a good way.
To recap the moments of the finale: Christopher Smith, a.k.a. Peacemaker and his ragtag team of handlers successfully infiltrate the Butterflies compound, and after a long battle filled with Gunn’s signature “beautiful” violence as seen in The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker kills the alien “cow” and thus ends the Butterflies’ ability to sustain themselves and take over planet Earth. As the titular character and his team then walk through the blood-soaked battlefield, the team is surprised to see the arrival of the Justice League, late to the party, but very evidently missing a few members.
These missing members are that of Cyborg and Batman. As integral members of the Justice League, viewers found it odd that the two superheroes were left out of the cameo that featured Jason Momoa and Ezra Miller reprising their roles as Aquaman and The Flash, while the roles of Superman and Wonder Woman were played by stunt doubles.
The late arrival of an incomplete Justice League
Of course, there is certainly an easy way for the showrunners to use to simply explain away the missing Batman and Cyborg characters. Maybe they were just busy on other crime-fighting endeavors, or perhaps they were not necessarily needed to combat the likes of the Butterflies, but it still strikes us as odd that the two characters missing from the line-up are the ones that the studio is having the most problem dealing with at the moment.
As we all know, there is no love lost between the studio and Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg in 2017’s Justice League and 2021’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The actor has accused the studio of unfair treatment towards him on numerous occasions, causing the studio to issue a rebuttal and remove him from any future films.
Then, there is the matter of Batman, or more specifically, Batfleck. With the actor no longer interested in playing the role, the Justice League’s appearance in Peacemaker only more than certifies his departure from the DCEU, which is frankly quite disappointing if at all true.
Maybe we are overthinking it. Maybe we are not. But there certainly seems to be enough evidence to speculate on why such important members of the Justice League would be left out of the cameo by the showrunners of Peacemaker.
Or perhaps, the showrunners just did not want to take the spotlight away from the Peacemaker himself.
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