Everything You Missed in the Peacemaker S2 Comic-Con Trailer

HBO Max took the stage this past weekend at San Diego Comic-Con to premiere the first full-length trailer for Season 2 of Peacemaker, the Emmy-nominated DC spinoff series from James Gunn. The premiere trailer marks the first extended look at what fans can expect from John Cena’s Christopher Smith’s antihero series, and it’s safe to say that Season 2 is gearing up to be a bigger, weirder, and more emotional sequel.

Peacemaker‘s first season saw Smith, aka Peacemaker, fresh from barely surviving a near-fatal gunshot at the end of The Suicide Squad (2021), recruited back into a black ops government mission by the secretive Project Butterfly five months after the Corto Maltese mission that almost killed him. Joining forces with the new, young team of Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), A.R.G.U.S. agent John Economos (Steve Agee), NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and recruit Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Smith assembled the ragtag team to take down what was assumed to be an alien threat.

Project Butterfly turned out to be much bigger than a routine black ops assignment, though. Tasked with stopping an alien species that arrived on Earth in the form of parasitic butterflies able to inhabit and take control of the bodies of human hosts, the team launched into an intense action-packed season of wild new action. By the end of the Season 1 finale, the motley group finally took down the swarm of deadly alien creatures after a bloody cat-and-mouse chase at an expansive ranch, and the team survived, but not without some painful losses, serious injuries, and lasting emotional trauma.

Season 2 of Peacemaker sees the antihero return to an ever-evolving DC Universe. With Season 1 being part of the now-defunct DCEU cinematic universe, Season 2 steps into the just-launched DCU, revealed by Gunn himself at SDCC as part of his newly unveiled slate of “Gods and Monsters” films and series. Gunn also confirmed at the panel that past events (sans a few Justice League cameos) are still canon, while also reconfirming that Season 2 will serve as a direct follow-up to the events of The Suicide Squad.

Joining Cena, Brooks, Holland, Agee, and Freddie Stroma as fan-favorite, unhinged Vigilante are Nhut Le as Judomaster, and Eagly, Peacemaker’s loyal, leaping bald eagle sidekick. Returning from Cena’s DCEU run and reprising roles from The Suicide Squad (2021) is Robert Patrick as Peacemaker’s dead father, Auggie Smith, who died in the iconic Suicide Squad finale—and whose absence looms large over Peacemaker. New to this year’s season is Frank Grillo as Rick Flagg Sr., the father of Rick Flagg (Michael Murphy), who was killed by Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad, with Flagg Sr. now leading A.R.G.U.S. and seeking revenge. Other cast members joining the series for this year 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, meanwhile, is still all about the series’ protagonist. “Haunted by the personal cost of his recent mission and his place in the world, Chris Smith continues to wrestle with the emotional toll of his bloody past, as well as a newfound desire to become a better man,” it reads. “He’s still going to extremes to get the peace that he so desperately craves, but for the first time, Smith is seeking to earn that peace by becoming a hero, rather than by blindly following orders.”

The previously released teaser, however, is when Gunn and Co. drop viewers into what is shaping up to be the often-ridiculous world that Gunn’s “Gods and Monsters” DC Universe has to offer. Set to the over-the-top, indie-metal rock stylings of Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord,” the preview included a brief sequence of Chris auditioning to join the Justice League, featuring Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (Isabela Merced), and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), who all reprise their roles from Gunn’s Superman. To his credit, he makes the same face during his poor, uninspired attempt at joining the JLA, of course.

The two-minute teaser, meanwhile, also offered viewers some delightfully fun character updates. For one, Economos (Steve Agee) states to Chris (who’s in a domestic therapy group, of all places) that Adebayo is now “living in the worst level of Grand Theft Auto,” while Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) is “fighting with a particularly severe form of toxic masculinity” and Vigilante “started working at Applebees.”

The most surprising teaser reveal of all, however? A dimensional portal. The sequence, a mind-bending gut punch, finds Chris strolling into another world as he comes across a portal of sorts. Upon entering it, however, he is greeted by a much more loving and accepting world, and by his doppelganger, who already seems to have established himself as a celebrated and true hero. Peacemaker, frustrated by his current standing and romantic failures, in the world he lives in, toys with the idea of staying in the parallel world to finally live his life as the hero that he feels he can and should be. But of course, as Harcourt deadpans after he steps back through the portal, “No matter how green the grass is over there, you belong here. With us.”

Director, writer, and executive producer James Gunn also sat down with the press during SDCC’s Hall H panel to talk about Season 2. Of the new season, Gunn said the series will take center stage in exploring what is in store next for Peacemaker. “I like TV shows where the characters don’t just return every season and they’re the same characters,” Gunn explained during SDCC’s Hall H presentation. “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 that he had when we saw him in the first season, and is now 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.