Peacemaker Season 2 Introduces a Captain Triumph Twist Only Hardcore Comic Fans Noticed

Peacemaker’s (John Cena) brother Keith (David Denman as an adult, Liam Hughes and Bryson Haney as a child) inadvertently caused much of his mental trauma. Despite being a cool and supportive big brother to young Chris Smith, the Keith of the DC Universe’s main dimension died when Chris accidentally hit him too hard after their monstrous father Auggie (Robert Patrick) forced them to fight. Meanwhile, adult Keith from the twisty alternate reality Earth-X (aka Captain Triumph) remains a decent big brother. Unfortunately, he’s also a virulent racist who has internalized the white supremacist ideology of the Nazi dimension – unlike the show’s best villain, Auggie, whose alternate dimension version turns out to be a relatively good guy.

While that’s a lot of complications for a character, it turns out that Keith’s existence is even more tortuous and complicated than that, and chances are you won’t notice the full irony of the “Peacemaker” version of the character unless you’re a big comic book fan. The thing is, the DC Comics version of the character is far from a Nazi – he’s actually a staunch anti-fascist. He’s also a superhero powered by the ghost of his deceased brother, which is a particularly odd twist when you remember that in “Peacemaker” it’s Captain Triumph’s brother who is haunted (but rather specifically not powered) by his death.

In the comics, Captain Triumph is not named Keith Smith and is unrelated to Peacemaker or White/Blue Dragon. Instead, it’s about a World War II writer named Lance Gallant, whose courageous twin brother Michael is an Air Corps pilot who dies in an explosion caused by a Nazi saboteur. Lance witnesses Michael’s death and supernatural creatures called the Fates sense his desire for revenge. They bond Michael’s ghost to Lance, allowing the twins to join as a single entity with a combination of classic flying brick powers and ghostly stealth abilities.

Although his comic book connection to Peacemaker is tenuous at best, it’s understandable that James Gunn chose to use Captain Triumph as Keith’s superhero alias for Season 2 of “Peacemaker,” which deals with trauma. After all, Lance Gallant is an obscure enough character that it’s still unlikely he’ll be adapted into the DCU as is, but his story as someone literally haunted by his deceased brother fits the themes. of the tragic life of Chris Smith.

Season 2 of “Peacemaker” is streaming on HBO Max.