DCU boss James Gunn has teased what sounds like a significant cameo that appears near the end of Peacemaker Season 2 — but stopped short of saying whether it’s a character we’ll see in the Superman movie or another character from the wider, rebooted DCU.
This summer’s Superman movie is set before Peacemaker Season 2, which premieres on HBO Max (yes, they’ve changed the name back) on August 21, 2025. Supergirl comes out on June 26, 2026, but we don’t have a release date for the Lanterns TV show. Both are set in-universe after Superman and Peacemaker Season 2.
Earlier this month, Max released a new trailer for Peacemaker Season 2, which featured Superman supporting characters Maxwell Lord, Hawkgirl, and Guy Gardner interviewing Peacemaker for membership in the group. It does not go well for Peacemaker.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Gunn said Peacemaker Season 2 is “very much connected to Superman and it’s very much connected to what comes after,” and there are even more connections on top of that.
“You’ve seen what we call the QUC, the Quantum Unfolding Chamber, in the first season of Peacemaker, and we see more about that technology in Superman,” Gunn explained.
“The QUC is the center of the story in Peacemaker season 2. We see a lot of different characters from Superman in the [season], [including] Isabela and Nathan and Sean, and then we see a bunch of other characters later on in the season from other parts of the DCU and from Superman. There might even be one really, really, really big cameo near the end of the show.”
Gunn also confirmed Peacemaker Season 2 is set a couple of years after the events of the Season 1 finale, but the DCU timeline is vague. “I see how difficult, after all my time at Marvel, it is to make things truly fit together, so it’s an unspecified amount of a couple of years,” he said.
As has become apparent in recent months, there are a number of characters set to appear in Superman, Peacemaker Season 2, Supergirl, and Lanterns. It could get confusing, which begs the question: will the DCU have a chronological timeline similar to what Marvel Studios’ MCU has on Disney+?
That’s a question that was put to Gunn on social media earlier this month, and he responded to say the DCU timeline is, for now at least, as the films and TV shows come out.
“As of now it’s basically as the movies and shows come out — although of course some of these feature flashbacks — Creature Commandos, Superman, Peacemaker, Lanterns, Supergirl,” Gunn explained.
Disney+ has a section that orders all the Marvel movies and TV shows in chronological order to create a really helpful and canon timeline. While Gunn’s response here makes it sound like HBO Max won’t have something similar, perhaps in the future when there are a lot of DCU projects to think about, the time will come.
Other upcoming DCU projects known to be in the works include Clayface, which has a September 11, 2026 release date. DCU movie The Authority, however, sounds like it’s in trouble. Gunn has said Waller, a spinoff of Peacemaker, “has had a couple of setbacks, frankly.” However, HBO Max series Booster Gold “is going pretty strong,” and Paradise Lost is “totally, still important and we’re working heavily on it,” Gunn has said.
Speaking of cross-project characters, fans are wondering how the Superman movie is going to deal with all its side characters. The latest trailer showcased everyone from Mister Terrific to The Engineer, as well as newcomer The Hammer of Boravia and the mysterious Ultraman.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
