Peacemaker Season 2 Trailer: Justice League Rejection and Personal Redemption

HBO Max dazzled San Diego Comic-Con with the official Season 2 trailer for Peacemaker, the Emmy-nominated DC spinoff series helmed by James Gunn, over the weekend. The full trailer was a first extended look at what to expect from John Cena’s Christopher Smith, and it’s going to be bigger, weirder, and more emotional than ever before.

Peacemaker’s first season followed the events of The Suicide Squad (2021), taking place five months after the Corto Maltese mission. Smith barely survived the mission after being shot, nearly fatally, so he was forced to accept a U.S. government mission codenamed “Project Butterfly” where he, and a small team assembled by Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) and A.R.G.U.S. agent John Economos (Steve Agee) with NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and new A.R.G.U.S. recruit Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), would stop an alien threat from taking over the world.

Peacemaker’s covert operation turned out to be much more than a simple government mission. Smith and his crew were racing to stop an alien parasitic butterfly species that had already started to invade the Earth and take over human hosts. The end of Season 1 showed the newly formed group defeating the extraterrestrial beings in a violent battle on a ranch and escaping with their lives, although all of them with serious injuries and emotional trauma.

Peacemaker returns to a much-altered DC Universe. Season 1 took place in a version of the universe that closely followed the events of the DCEU, a cinematic universe that has long been defunct. Season 2 finds Peacemaker now in the freshly established DCU as part of Gunn’s “Gods and Monsters” slate of titles, which the filmmaker introduced last year. Gunn has already made it clear, though, that everything that has happened up until this point, aside from some surprise cameos from Justice League members who will no longer be appearing, remains canon.

James Gunn has confirmed the return of Cena, Brooks, Holland, Agee, Freddie Stroma as the fan-favorite insane vigilante, Nhut Le as Judomaster, as well as Eagly, Peacemaker’s winged bald eagle sidekick. Robert Patrick is also confirmed for a return to the role of Peacemaker’s deceased father, Auggie Smith, who died at the hands of his former boss, Amanda Waller, at the end of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and whose memory has long been a dark force in Christopher Smith’s life. New cast members include Frank Grillo, who plays Rick Flagg Sr., the father of The Suicide Squad‘s deceased Rick Flagg, a friend of Peacemaker’s killed off-screen by Cena’s character. Grillo’s Flagg has since taken over A.R.G.U.S. and is determined to avenge his son’s death. Other new cast members this season are Tim Meadows as agent Langston Fleury, Sol Rodriguez as Sasha Bordeaux, and Michael Rooker as Red St. Wild, described as Eagly’s “nemesis.”

According to the official synopsis, Chris Smith is now trying to deal with both the emotional baggage from his violent history as well as his new desire to be a better person. He’s still on a mission for peace by any means necessary—but this time he’s also looking to earn that peace through heroics, not simply through blind subservience.

A teaser trailer was released in May, which was the first to show off what to expect from the sheer absurdity and intensity of what was to come from Season 2 of Peacemaker. Set to the tune of Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord,” the official trailer showed a failed attempt of Chris to audition to join the Justice League—Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (Isabela Merced), and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn) are all expected to reprise their roles from Gunn’s Superman. The trailer showed the full audition, which lands about as expected, awkwardly, with Chris awkwardly pitching to them to join his new team as they laugh in his face.

The teaser also gave fans a fun update on some of their favorite characters. Danielle Brooks’ Adebayo, now “living in the worst level of Grand Theft Auto,” according to Steve Agee’s Economos. Jennifer Holland’s Harcourt, it’s been revealed, is reportedly in a “particularly severe form of toxic masculinity,” while Freddie Stroma’s fan-favorite Vigilante, an unhinged vigilante seen ramming through Darkseid’s Superman with a rocket launcher at the end of The Suicide Squad, has been reduced to the fast-food industry.

The Season 2 trailer’s most shocking reveal, however, is that of a dimensional portal. In a head-spinning moment, Peacemaker finds himself stumbling into an alternate universe where he encounters a version of himself who is already a beloved hero. Frustrated in his current world with his failures both romantically and in his inability to be accepted as a true hero, Chris first attempts to just let the doppelganger version of himself keep it, but he’s, of course, still being pursued by those in his original world as his past isn’t finished with him yet. Jennifer Holland’s Harcourt isn’t having it: “No matter how green the grass is over there, you belong here. With us.”

Director James Gunn, who was present for a Hall H panel at SDCC, addressed the character-focused direction the show is taking this season. “I like TV shows where the characters don’t just return every season and they’re the same characters,” Gunn said during the SDCC panel. “I want to see growth. I want to see change—and sometimes regression. Peacemaker is a different guy this year. He’s dealing with the demons 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.”

Peacemaker Season 2 premieres August 21, 2025, exclusively on HBO Max.