James Gunn’s New DCU Somehow Already Has a Confusing Timeline
Peacemaker Season 1 doesn’t count anymore, for some reason.
The DC Universe is starting over with a completely blank slate. After the dark, slow-mo-riddled era of Zack Snyder films and weird Joker performances failed to find a foothold, The Suicide Squad and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn is taking over to try to bring some color to the franchise’s next chapter. However, the transition isn’t going to be as clean as we first thought, as a new quote from Gunn reveals one DCU show will have a foot in both worlds.
In a post on Threads, Gunn revealed that he’s hard at work on upcoming DCU projects, including Peacemaker Season 2 and Superman (previously titled Superman: Legacy). The two projects will film simultaneously, but due to the writers’ strike, Peacemaker Season 2 will premiere after Superman.
James Gunn is dividing Peacemaker into “before Superman” and “after Superman.”
Now, here’s where things get weird. In the replies to the post, James Gunn confirmed that Season 1 of Peacemaker isn’t canon to the new DCU, but Season 2 will be, because it takes place after the events of Superman. That means while both seasons of the show exist in the same narrative, only Season 2 will belong to the DCU.
It’s a strange choice, but it’s not entirely unprecedented. Star Wars underwent a similar “blank slate” event on April 25, 2014, when every Star Wars project except the films and the animated series The Clone Wars was reclassified as a non-canonical “Star Wars Legend.”
After this happened, the next animated series, Star Wars: Rebels, was able to bridge the gap a bit. It introduced Grand Admiral Thrawn, the main villain from the Legends Heir to the Empire novel trilogy, back into the modern canon. He would later return as a major villain in Ahsoka, establishing him as a big baddie going forward.
How will Peacemaker explain the shift from non-canon to canon between the seasons? And should fans even care?
Peacemaker may be straddling two different DC universes, but since Season 2 will take place after Superman, the shift likely won’t be as jarring as fans may fear. There will presumably be a time jump between the two seasons to allow Superman to happen, meaning Season 1 of Peacemaker could essentially serve as a non-canon prequel.
Maybe there will be an in-canon explanation for the shift, much like the infamous “gas leak year” explanation for Community’s lackluster Season 4. Maybe we’ll learn that Season 1 exists as a dream or an alternate timeline, allowing a new story to be told from scratch. It’s also possible that Season 1’s events will simply end up irrelevant to the bigger story Superman will set up, and casual viewers may not even notice or care about Season 1’s canonical status.
So don’t worry if this still sounds a little confusing. Even if the two seasons co-exist on separate sides of canon, James Gunn can handle a weird timeline. You just need to sit back and enjoy it.
