Warning: Contains spoilers for Peacemaker episode 6.
In a bizarre scene—even for HBO Max's Peacemaker—Captain Locke claims that he saw someone matching the description of the Hamburglar murder police officers. The James Gunn-led DCEU TV series has already dropped references to plenty of obscure, oddball DC comics characters like Bat-Mite and Matter-Eater Lad. The latter reference even mentions the fast-food chain Wendy’s, but for as bizarre and quirky as Peacemaker can be at times, none of this quite explains why Locke would make such a blatant lie.
In Peacemaker episode 6, “Murn After Reading,” Captain Locke (Christopher Heyerdahl) covers Peacemaker (John Cena) and Vigilante’s (Freddie Stroma) escape by killing several police officers in cold blood. When Sophie Song (Annie Chang) and Larry Fitzgibbon (Lochlyn Munro) come across the scene, Locke says that he arrived as the shooter was getting away. Fitzgibbon assumes that it was Peacemaker's doing, but Locke goes on to describe the suspect in a serious tone, clearly describing the McDonald’s mascot known as the Hamburglar, down to the fact that as he left, he said “robble robble.”
Locke’s lie in Peacemaker about the killings is so obviously false that Fitzgibbon immediately runs after Song to say that Locke is either too stupid to lie well or is deliberately messing with them. Based on his conversations with Murn, Locke has worked in black-ops around the world and is working on Amanda Waller’s paycheck at this point. He has shown himself to be generally a weird dude, but ultimately he just doesn’t need to fear reprisals in any form—even if someone calls him on claiming a mass murder was committed by the Hamburglar. His job is only to prevent the investigation from being able to move forward, and as soon as he is done he has the power to be a ghost in the wind; or, at least he would have been if not for the Butterflies.
There's another layer here: why would James Gunn include this scene in Peacemaker and, given his affinity for strange and often esoteric references, has the Hamburglar appeared in any part of the DC Comics universe before? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Hamburglar has not appeared in the comics—but the McDonald's brand has. In a 1980s comic run of Ambush Bug, a fourth-wall-breaking superhero, the second issue concludes with Ambush Bug picking up fast food, only to find Darkseid (or rather, an inflatable doll of him) working behind the counter, holding his McDonald's order. While perhaps unlikely, it's entirely possible that James Gunn's strange Hamburglar reference was a deep-cut to this old DC joke.
DC is not the only one to have got in on including culinary mascots in their work. In the 1980s, Marvel teamed up with Kraft Foods to bring The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man to comic books. The Kool-Aid Man is technically part of the Marvel comics canon and his stories portrayed him as a hero protecting Earth from an alien species called The Thirsties. While the 1980s might have seen the height of it, food mascots in comic book universes are nothing new, although Peacemaker’s take on the Hamburglar might be a bit more gruesome than those that came before.
Peacemaker releases new episodes Thursdays on HBO.
