Peacemaker season 2 didn't quite end with the bang that James Gunn repeatedly seemed to hint at in interviews and on social media (it seems the "really, really, really big cameo" was indeed Lex Luthor).
However, the DCU does have a new, heroic version of Checkmate. There's also Salvation, a prison planet discovered within the QUC that Chris Smith is currently the only inmate on, courtesy of the villainous Rick Flag Sr. (his plan is to eventually fill it with the world's criminal metahumans).
Yahoo! News spoke with the DC Studios co-CEO and asked him to explain his decision to bring those two very important elements into this shared world.
"Well, those are the two things that were always a part of this season," Gunn confirmed. "So when we sat down, even before I sat down with the writers room in DC, I had sort of mapped out what I thought the general story was, and two important aspects to that were Checkmate and especially Salvation."
"Those were things that I had pitched to everybody before we ever came into DC and then after we came into DC and we met with the writers room and worked things out a little bit more," he continued. "That was always pretty instrumental in the overall, overarching story that I’m telling in the DCU, but also connected to it as well."
While Peacemaker is a vengeful Rick Flag Sr.'s guinea pig on Salvation (to see if Metahuman prisoners can survive there, which seems doubtful based on the noises we hear), Gunn maintains that Chris is an "important character," but confirmed that he has no plans for Season 3 right now.
"This is about the wider DCU and other stories in which this will play out right now," he explained. "That doesn’t mean that there won’t be. I don’t want to never say never, but right now, no, this is about the future of the DCU."
As for Rick's new villainous status, it seems that was Gunn's plan all along, despite his seemingly being portrayed in a heroic light in the animated Creature Commandos.
"We saw a guy in Creature Commandos, which, when you’re first watching that season, he seems like he’s the good guy, but he’s absolutely not," the filmmaker revealed. "He screws up everything again because he thinks he’s smarter than Waller, which he isn’t, and he falls for this woman, and is kind of played by her from the beginning. The fun thing about Rick Flag is he’s not this. He’s totally imperfect."
Still, Checkmate may be there to counter him. "You’ll definitely see Checkmate carrying through like they’re a thing now, so they’re a part of what’s going to happen, and I think they’re going to be really, really good at what they do," Gunn promised. "When we see them next, I think their circumstances will be a little bit different than the startup that they’re now."
We didn't revisit Earth-X in the Peacemaker Season 2 finale, and despite theories to the contrary, Captain Triumph (Keith Smith) didn't come seeking revenge. Gunn claims to have "plans" for the character, but admits that he hasn't "figured out exactly how it’s all going to work out, so I have to make sure I can do it."
You can hear more insights from Gunn and the cast of Peacemaker in the player below.