HBO MaxPeacemaker mastermind James Gunn has been explaining what goes down in Season 2, and why it isn’t a multiverse story.
Marvel started telling its ‘Multiverse Saga’ in Doctor Strange a decade ago, a story that crossed over to the Spider-Man movies and Loki TV shows, as well as the studio’s most recent release, The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
DC now appears to be getting in on the act during Peacemaker Season 2, in which Christopher Smith journeys to an alternate dimension where, as we wrote in our four-star review, “life is good, Peacemaker is popular, and his father – who is very much alive – genuinely loves him.”
But James Gunn says Peacemaker’s journey isn’t part of a multiverse story, and more akin to an acclaimed novel from the 1980s…
Why new Peacemkaer is like Philip Roth’s ‘The Counterlife’
During an interview with Interview, Gunn called out the major difference between Seasons 1 and 2 by stating that: “Peacemaker Season 2 really is the Christopher Smith season. It’s about the character of Christopher Smith. It is much more about him than it is about a superhero named Peacemaker. That’s just the costume he sometimes wears.”
VintageHe then elaborated by adding: “It’s about him discovering this other world, which is sort of Xerox of his world with minor differences. And those minor differences seem to be that everything is better for Peacemaker.
“His life over there – his doppelganger of Peacemaker – is everything that he kind of wishes his own life was. That’s the kind of high concept we start with.
“There’s been a lot of talk about, ‘Oh, you’re doing the multiverse and that’s already been done.’ But it really isn’t the multiverse. It’s more like Philip Roth’s ‘The Counterlife’. It’s about one reflection of your world.”
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For those who haven’t read Roth’s postmodern 1986 tome, it follows fictional author Nathan Zuckerman and his brother Henry through alternate versions of their lives and deaths, via a series of overlapping and frequently contradictory narratives.
How Season 2 connects with Superman
HBO MaxGunn also explained how the show connects to his recent Superman movie, in which Peacemaker cameoed.
“The way it relates to Superman is the whole crux of the season,” said Gunn. “There’s this thing called the QUC – the Quantum Unfolding Chamber – which we saw in Season 1 of Peacemaker and exists in Auggie Smith’s closet, which is a dimensional doorway.
“We find out it’s a dimensional doorway to 99 other dimensions – and by dimensions, I don’t mean alternate realities. I mean other dimensions, other realities.
“That becomes a sort of crisis with A.R.G.U.S., who is in charge of looking over Metahuman affairs, because of what happened in Superman with Lex Luthor’s dimensional pathway tearing up and destroying a quarter of Metropolis.”
All of which seems to mean we aren’t watching multiverse storytelling in the new series, but rather a multi-dimension tale.
Peacemaker Season 2 hits HBO Max in the US today (August 21, 2025) and will be available on Sky Max in the UK, while there’s also a sneaky way to watch it for free.
For more comic book action, here’s Dexerto’s ranking of the best superhero movies ever, plus our list of the best superhero shows of all time. You can also check out our guide to every upcoming DCU project.
