THIS IS THE ONLY TIME PEACEMAKER ACTUALLY WEARS HIS COSTUME IN THE COMIC.
James Gunn made the DC Comics anti-hero Peacemaker a household name for superhero fans in his 2021 movie The Suicide Squad and his hit 2022 HBO Max (or was it just called Max then?) TV show Peacemaker. With the character’s new surge in popularity, DC Comics wasted no time putting Peacemaker in more comic books. And with Season 2 of Peacemaker on the horizon, it makes sense to take a look at one of them.
Who Is Peacemaker?
In January 2022, midway through Peacemaker’s first season, DC Comics released a double-sized one-shot, Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace, written by Garth Ennis as part of their Black Label imprint.
If you’re familiar with Garth Ennis’s work, he’s the perfect writer to handle a character like Peacemaker. Ennis is known for violent, graphic, coarse, and darkly humorous comics like Preacher, The Boys, and The Punisher MAX. Peacemaker is essentially what happens when you mix Captain America with The Punisher — an anti-hero fueled by pure jingoism, believing that peace and freedom can only be achieved through violence and death, particularly towards criminals and America’s foreign enemies. With Ennis at the pen, you know he’s going to portray Peacemaker in a way DC normally wouldn’t in their mainstream comics.
So how does Garth Ennis’s version of Peacemaker compare to James Gunn’s?
A Cold and Calculated Take On the Character
Disturbing the Peace takes place primarily in a cemetery, where Christopher Smith/Peacemaker sits on a bench with a woman named Dr. Sedgewick — a therapist tasked with evaluating whether he’s psychologically fit for continued duty. Most of the comic is Smith explaining his life story to her.
The comic doesn’t appear to connect to either the main DC Comics universe or James Gunn’s cinematic DC Universe. Right away, it’s clear this is not the goofy but well-meaning Peacemaker played by John Cena. He doesn’t even put his costume on at any point in the story, present or flashback, nor does he or anyone else ever refer to him as Peacemaker.
Ennis’s version of Christopher Smith is surprisingly calm and intelligent, yet emotionally cold and calculated, completely unaffected by death and violence after discovering the aftermath of his family’s murder-suicide when he was just eight years old. As Smith recounts the violent and chaotic events of his childhood (including getting kidnapped and adopted by a couple of outlaws), his time in the U.S. military, and the special missions he was sent on overseas, he explains his complicated — and deeply sociopathic — sense of morality and personal philosophy.
The whole issue, Dr. Sedgewick listens in growing discomfort, her professional curiosity mixing with unease, especially when Smith reveals he knows more about her than she feels comfortable with. It starts feeling less like The Sopranos’s Dr. Melfi talking to Tony, and more like Clarice Starling across from Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
The Comedian Comparison
It’s worth mentioning that Peacemaker was the original inspiration for Edward Blake/The Comedian in Alan Moore’s Watchmen. But ironically, Ennis’s portrayal of Peacemaker here feels somewhat inspired by The Comedian’s nihilistic personality. In Watchmen, Edward Blake calls himself The Comedian because he sees life as one big joke. Chris Smith, however, is dead serious — there’s no humor in what he does. He kills in the name of peace because he believes in what he’s doing. Whether or not Ennis intended this parallel and contrast to The Comedian, it works.
Left: Chris Smith/Peacemaker Right: Edward Blake/The Comedian
Dark Humor and Brutal Art
The one-shot is packed with Ennis’s signature pitch-black humor. It’s not “funny” in a purely comedic sense, but the absurd over-the-top violence and Peacemaker’s flat, matter-of-fact narration — casually explaining discovering his family’s corpses and the reasons his parents decided to end their lives — will get some dark chuckles from readers.
Garry Brown’s artwork and Lee Loughridge’s colors complement the tone perfectly, with rough, detailed environments and expressive character work that carry the story seamlessly from panel to panel, leaving space for readers’ imaginations to fill in the blanks. Brown captures Peacemaker’s insanity especially well through simple yet unsettling facial expressions — particularly those cold, empty baby-blue eyes.
The Only Letdown
The biggest drawback is that Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace is just a one-shot, even though it almost reads like the first issue of a larger ongoing story. Ennis could have explored so many more ideas to separate this Peacemaker from both his modern comic and live-action counterparts, but for now this looks like the only story he’s written.
The mature-yet-humorous tone even evokes the spirit of DC’s 1990s Vertigo imprint — the era of Hellblazer and Swamp Thing — when the publisher wasn’t afraid to be darker and more adult. While Black Label provides similar freedom today, it mostly sticks to mini-series. A Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace series, even a short 3–12 issue run, would’ve been incredible with Ennis at the helm. Maybe one day we’ll get one.
Final Verdict
Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace is a strong one-shot that delivers a twisted new take on DC’s now-famous anti-hero. Garth Ennis gives us a version of Christopher Smith that’s chilling, intelligent, and disturbingly logical — a man for whom the only true peace is found in death.
If you’re a fan of Ennis’s other work, or you enjoyed James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and HBO Max’s Peacemaker series, this is a must-read.
Peacemaker Season 2 premieres August 21st on HBO Max.
THIS VERSION OF PEACEMAKER IS ACTUALLY TERRIFYING. IT’S A SHAME WE’LL PROBABLY NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN.
