In brightest day, in blackest night, no reference shall escape DC’s sight. Over the eight-episode first season of Peacemaker in 2022, writer James Gunn had Chris Smith (John Cena) make mention of superheroes and supervillains in the DC pantheon. From exploits with Matter-Eater Lad, Doll Man, and Kite-Man to salacious claims about Superman and Aquaman, Peacemaker also took aim at Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Green Arrow, accusing the Emerald Archer of being a brony. But one Justice Leaguer’s reference ended up on the cutting room floor.
By retconning the Justice League cameo in which Jason Momoa’s Aquaman says he’s sick of rumors that he sleeps with the fishes (so to speak), the “previously on the DCU” recap that opens season 2 replaces Peacemaker’s exchange with Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Flash. “What a meathead,” Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl says in the new version, to which Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern Guy Gardner replies, “Screw that guy. You know he tells people I’m a puke freak?”
Peacemaker does just that in the recap’s altered version of events. “I have a real bad gag reflex,” he’s seen telling Jennifer Holland’s grossed out Emilia Harcourt. “You know, one time I puked all over Green Lantern. I got seasick from flying on a green magic carpet. The weird thing is he f—ing liked it.”
On Peacemaker: The Official Podcast, Gunn revealed the Green Lantern reference was originally shot for season 1 and repurposed for the Justice Gang’s cameo in season 2. “As we’ve talked about previously on this podcast, some things are canon in the DCU, and some things from season 1 are not canon,” Gunn said. “One of the biggest things was the Justice League appear, and we cut them out of the show, at least for the ‘previously in the DCU.’”
“There is no Justice League yet in this world,” he added. “The other thing you see is a scene that we actually cut from season 1. I thought it was funny at the time. It actually goes on for a long time. They were like, ‘You can’t do that.’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ Because it was something that I made [Cena] say on the day. It wasn’t scripted. So that makes sense why Guy Gardner doesn’t like Peacemaker.”
Gunn and his Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad producer Peter Safran wouldn’t take the reins of DC Films until later in 2022, when they were appointed as co-chairmen and CEOs of Warner Bros. Discovery’s new DC Studios division.
The filmmaker previously revealed that the former DC Films leadership was “not too fond” of Chris calling Batman a “p—y” for not killing his coterie of supervillains.
“I’m like, ‘But he talks about all these other terrible things about these other superheroes that are much worse than calling Batman a p—y.’ Not only that, Batman is the only one he makes a fair point about; everybody else he’s really just believing stuff that he read on the Internet,” Gunn told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022.
Despite some pushback, Gunn added DC executives “were great” and “they let me get away with what I got away with at the end of the day.”
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