Warning: Contains spoilers for Peacemaker episode 7.
In the DCEU’s Peacemaker TV series, Vigilante is obsessed with Peacemaker, and that helps to highlight an MCU problem with Captain America. The DCEU and the MCU are often trading off of each other in subtle ways, with the MCU notably including multiple references to the existence of DC characters as fictional figures within their universe. However, some of these comparisons become more obvious with James Gunn at the helm of the DCEU project as he has also played an extensive role in the MCU.
When Peacemaker (John Cena) first gets out of hospital and retrieves his phone, he finds that he has a huge number of voicemails from Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) eager to hang out with him. Throughout Peacemaker, Vigilante has followed Peacemaker around and fawned on him, but has some very static ideas of how Peacemaker should behave. In Peacemaker episode 7, “Stop Dragon My Heart Around,” Peacemaker says that only his brother, Keith, and Eagly ever loved him.
While it might appear that Vigilante loves Peacemaker and Chris is simply ignoring him when he only cites Keith and Eagly, Vigilante doesn’t really love Chris Smith. Rather, Vigilante loves the idea of Peacemaker and idolizes him as a figure. Peacemaker hopes to be a sign of peace but does not always achieve that, and in part is hampered in achieving that goal in his post-killing Rick Flag life because of the perceptions that people already have of him. Similarly, in the MCU, the Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) Captain Americas see themselves as a symbol of justice and hope but struggle against the machinations of government agencies who would rather use that symbol as a military tool, as with John Walker (Wyatt Russell). Throughout his time in the MCU storyline, the idea of Captain America has been misunderstood by the in-universe public because of the government portraying him publicly through propaganda as a tool of the United States military. Both Chris Smith and the men behind Captain America are people with their own wants, desires, and morals, but Vigilante’s obsession helps to show how the public perception of them as symbols harms their own causes.
This Vigilante obsession with Peacemaker in the Peacemaker TV series helps to highlight a parallel between Peacemaker and the John Walker Captain America in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. Peacemaker doesn’t voice that he no longer wants to kill people until his conversation with Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) in Peacemaker episode 6; however, he clearly has become a different person prior to that, as shown when he struggles to kill senator Royland Goff and his family. While he has his own intentions of how he wants to be seen as Peacemaker going forwards, the US-government-backed ARGUS puts him in a position where he becomes a weapon of the state. Similarly, John Walker had strict ideals about who Captain America was and how he wanted to carry the shield, but when pushed into military positions once again by the US government, he struggled with the reality of the symbol.
The real problem for the men behind the symbols is truly highlighted by the Peacemaker arguments between Vigilante and Peacemaker. While Vigilante loves the idea of Peacemaker, he relies on that image being static as aspirational and to validate his own choices as a vigilante. Thus, when Peacemaker changes after the events of The Suicide Squad, he refuses to understand the change. Vigilante repeatedly shuts down Peacemaker from trying to change the image that Vigilante has of him, continually denying Peacemaker the opportunity for introspection, the desire to get away from killing people, and recognizing his distaste for the killing of innocent people. This demonstrates how problematic Peacemaker’s relationship with Vigilante is beyond the comedic elements of it, but it also provides Peacemaker with an opportunity to critique comic fans who dislike any changes to their perception of comic characters, an issue that became upsettingly relevant with the introduction of an African American Captain America.
Peacemaker releases new episodes Thursdays on HBO.
