Peacemaker Enters the Multiverse in New Season 2 Teaser

HBO Max brought a Super-sized trailer for Season 2 of Peacemaker to San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, marking the first look at what’s next for James Gunn’s Emmy-nominated DC antihero. In the trailer, the world (and multiverse) around Peacemaker is turned upside down when his alter ego, Christopher Smith, crosses through a portal to another dimension and is greeted by a “better” version of himself.

Directed by Gunn, Season 2 of Peacemaker will pick up from where the Emmy-nominated first season left off. Following the events of The Suicide Squad (2021), five months have passed since the events of the Corto Maltese mission that left Smith nearly shot to death in the head. Assembled by the U.S. government for an undercover mission titled “Project Butterfly,” he is placed on a new team, led by Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), with A.R.G.U.S. agent John Economos (Steve Agee), NSA agent Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and new member Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks).

Project Butterfly was meant to be a standard new mission from the government, but it quickly became much more. The team is tasked with stopping an alien race of parasitic butterflies that come from another dimension and invade Earth by possessing and killing human hosts. By the end of the first season, the team can defeat the insects in a bloody battle at a ranch, and escape with their lives, but not without some key injuries and major emotional trauma.

Peacemaker is back in a much-changed DC Universe this season. Gunn confirmed to Comic-Con that Peacemaker: Season 2 still takes place in the DCEU, though not the defunct “DCEU” that we knew in the past. The action will instead take place in the freshly established DCU, in the same shared universe that Gunn introduced in Black Adam and led by the new “Gods and Monsters” shared storytelling slate that he leads at DC and the wider Warner Bros. superhero universe. Gunn also confirmed that events from both movies and past Peacemaker, as well as the broader DCEU events before Peacemaker Season 1, are canon (with the notable exception of the few cameos that various Justice League members may or may not get).

The returning cast members for the season include Cena, Brooks, Holland, Agee, and Freddie Stroma as the fan-favorite Vigilante. Others include Nhut Le as Judomaster, who also returns, as well as Eagly, Peacemaker’s loyal bald eagle sidekick. Robert Patrick also returns as Peacemaker’s dead father, Auggie Smith. New this season is Frank Grillo as Rick Flagg Sr., who is revealed to be the father of the late Rick Flagg (Corey Hawkins), a former A.R.G.U.S. agent killed by Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad. Frank Grillo’s Flagg Sr. is currently in charge of A.R.G.U.S. and has his sights set on Peacemaker for revenge. Other additions this season include Tim Meadows as agent Langston Fleury, Sol Rodriguez as Sasha Bordeaux, and Michael Rooker as Red St. Wild, Eagly’s “nemesis.”

In the official synopsis, Peacemaker finds Chris Smith not only battling the personal toll and emotional trauma of his past, but also his innate drive to become a better person. He still aspires to make peace, but this time he wants to earn it through his heroics—not just through blind obedience to a cause.

As teased by an early, brief teaser trailer released in May, Season 2 promises to be just as much over-the-top absurd action as it is emotional core, with Gunn promising that the season will not only deliver more crazy sh*t, but challenge the antihero to grow as a person. The May teaser, set to the tune of Foxy Shazam’s “Oh Lord,” first sees Chris getting in an awkward pitch to join the Justice League (featuring Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders (Isabela Merced), and Maxwell Lord (Sean Gunn), all of whom are reprising their roles from Gunn’s Superman). He is rejected, naturally.

The teaser also offered early funny character quips on what the team has been up to. Adebayo is reportedly “living in the worst level of Grand Theft Auto,” per Economos. Harcourt is reportedly dealing with “a particularly severe form of toxic masculinity,” while Vigilante was doing the most, ending up as some sort of delivery driver for the food service industry.

The most shocking tease of the new trailer, however, was the appearance of a dimensional portal. During an otherwise normal moment where the team is on the move through the woods, Chris finds himself wandering off the path, and instead of heading back to the group, he takes a shortcut through an impossible dimensional portal. In a twist that changes everything for Chris and his team, he stumbles into an alternate universe and is greeted by an alternate version of himself. The other Chris is different: an already beloved hero, who didn’t suffer the same travesties that Peacemaker endured in his world.

But Chris is frustrated with his life, including his bad luck with love in his universe, and in the trailer, it’s implied he at least briefly considers staying with this other version of himself. Of course, his past eventually catches up with him (pun intended). Harcourt has a choice line to close the trailer: “No matter how green the grass is over there, you belong here. With us.”

James Gunn, who was on hand to talk about the season during the Hall H panel at SDCC, was particularly clear that Season 2 will be focused on the changing. “I like TV shows where the characters don’t just return every season and they’re the same characters,” Gunn said. “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.