This Thursday will see the three-episode series premiere of Peacemaker, the latest collaboration between writer-director James Gunn and actor John Cena. The live-action series is set after the events of The Suicide Squad and chronicles a personal and emotional story for Christopher Smith / Peacemaker (John Cena), a pacifist vigilante who will kill anyone to fulfill his mission. The show takes the stereotypically-masculine aspects of Peacemaker’s comic tenure — from his comics debut in the 1960s, to his DC renaissance in the 1980s, to his modern appearances — and uses them to tell a character-driven and often-surprising story. While speaking to ComicBook.com ahead of Peacemaker’s premiere, Gunn, who wrote all eight episodes of the series and directed five of them, broke down its approach to masculinity, and argued that it allows for “compassion” to ultimately be at the center of the narrative.
