Warning: Contains spoilers for Peacemakerepisode 7.
James Gunn’s Peacemaker has marked a lot of DCEU firsts, but now the series has confirmed the DCEU’s first queer superhero. While DC’s Arrowverse TV shows have contained a huge amount of detailed LGBTQ+ representation, the DCEU has been lacking this dimension. In 2021, the MCU started to fix their long-term lack of LGBTQ+ representation in their media and now, in Gunn’s Peacemaker, the DCEU is doing the same.
Throughout the Peacemaker TV series, Peacemaker is always keen to talk about his sexual prowess, as well as the rumors he has heard about other superheroes’ sexual proclivities. When he is hitting on Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) in Peacemaker episode 1, Peacemaker claims he hasn’t had sex in four years, and then corrects himself to say that he hasn’t had sex with a woman in four years. In Peacemaker episode 3, Peacemaker is seen in bed, clearly post-coital from a threesome with Amber (Alison Araya) and Vigilante (Freddie Stroma).
While these scenes all indicate that Peacemaker has had sex with a range or people regardless of his gender identity, they could be dismissed under toxic ideas that sex in prison or within a threesome doesn’t “count.” However, in Peacemaker episode 7, “Stop Dragon My Heart Around,” White Dragon (Robert Patrick), Peacemaker’s father, notes that the reasons he hates Peacemaker include the fact that he has "slept with the whores of polluted blood... and men!" This suggests that Peacemaker has had sex with men outside of the previously stated situations and has been public enough about it that his father is aware of it. While Peacemaker hasn’t openly claimed a bi/pan identity, he has not stated that he is heterosexual either and his actions clearly support him being the DCEU’s first queer superhero.
The DCEU does already have one queer character; however, while Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is sometimes the protagonist and has been known the help the heroes, she is not really a hero herself, primarily helping the heroes because it happens to align with her own interests. In Birds of Prey, the opening sequence confirmed that Harley was bi/pan as she had previously had relationships that ultimately didn’t work out with both men and women. While it was important to acknowledge her sexuality, this was ultimately expected as it has become an important facet of the character, whereas Peacemaker is not canonically queer in the comics so making him so in the Peacemaker TV series and doing so in an incidental way is an important step.
The incidental inclusion of an explicit statement that Peacemaker sleeps with men serves as important representation, and the fact that it is spouted in rage by a bigot helps to put a positive spin on it. Just as crucially however is the fact that this idea is supported by other comments that have been made throughout Peacemaker. Chris Smith seems to have an intricate awareness of the size and shape of his male friends’ genitals, often basing nicknames on them. Additionally, when he talks about the 1980s rock groups in Peacemakerepisode 1, he notes that they were “real men, because they weren’t afraid to be women,” which serves as an interesting critique on today’s concepts of hypermasculinity and is also just not a terribly cis thing to say. While Peacemaker is the DCEU’s first queer superhero, he has yet to embrace the identity, likely due to the ideals ingrained in him in his youth which lead him to mock Adebayo when it is revealed she has a wife.
Faefyx Collington (They/Them) is a senior features writer for Screen Rant. They're a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction, focussing on science fiction, fantasy, and mystery for the former and on culture, gender, and current affairs for the latter. Never content to settle to one thing, Faefyx is also a co-host and producer of the podcast and video series "Unramblings," and can occasionally be found making music around the internet as well. Having acquired degrees on both sides of the Atlantic, Fyx has settled (for the moment) in the southern United States where they live with their spouse and an entirely appropriate number of cats.
