When DC bought Charlton’s intellectual properties, they got some decent acquisitions on the cheap out of it: the Question is probably the most important, along with Blue Beetle (“the intellectual property so good, they shot him in the head”), and although everybody makes fun of Captain Atom the good Captain has his place as the DC Universe’s official dupe of shadowy powerful men. After a long stint of meaninglessness, Nightshade managed to get a little respect as a member of Shadowpact, and they’ve revived the long-dormant Judomaster tag by giving it to some new girl Judomaster in JSA: Fifth One On The Right Gets A Miniseries.
And then there’s Peacemaker. Peacemaker, living proof that no matter how hard you try, some concepts are just stupid. In the case of Peacemaker, the concept was “a man who loves peace so much, he’s willing to kill for it.” Seriously, that’s his tag line. You know how I know that’s his tag line? Because every writer who uses a Peacemaker – any Peacemaker – uses that tag line, because it sounds dramatic. However, it also doesn’t make any sense, because it’s stupid. It’s a very stupid way to describe someone who is essentially a cop in a costume – moreso than most for that matter. Like Peacemaker, it only sounds cool until you think about it for a couple of seconds.
(It also doesn’t help that he has a terrible costume. The Keith Giffen rendition above is probably the single best version of Peacemaker’s costume and it is still fucking ugly as sin – like a Cylon on ‘ludes or something.)
And he’s kind of a schmuck. The Christopher Smith Peacemaker is basically a crazy dude who listens to the voices in his head (which he started hearing after, guess what, he got hit in the head!) who tell him to kill baddies. This works really good up until the voices tell him to go kill Eclipso, at which point he dies because he’s just a guy with a couple of fancy guns and Eclipso is, well. Eclipso. Since then, there have been several other Peacemakers. They have all been either boring or stupid. Yes, including the new one in Blue Beetle.
It’s easy to explain why Peacemaker sucks. Peacemaker sucks because he’s just a guy with some guns and a little baggage. He doesn’t even have Punisher-level baggage to justify why he wears a helmet that looks like a tin-plated fan. He just kind of thinks it’s the right thing to do. He’s so boring that the best thing he can do is be bodycount fodder. He did that just fine. Let him stay friggin’ dead until the next time they feel the need to rejuvenate the trademark.
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Peacekeeper had a miniseries in the 80’s that struggled valiantly to pull the character out of suck. It retconned a lot of the dumber elements of his above origin, like why the guy that loved peace so much built weapons as a hobby, and that he was pretty crazy before any head injuries, possibly because his dad had been a Nazi who killed himself in front of him.
And Peacekeeper still sucks. Good effort, though.
His helmet is laced with explosives? His right glove’s got a vial “that becomes a firebomb when crushed” (like, for example, when he falls down and tries to catch himself with his hands)?!?
WHAT??!?!?
From Monty Python: “I’m starting a war for peace.”
Hold on, I have an idea for a comic book character…
The “new” one in Blue Beetle is actually the original, Christopher Smith. His death at the hands of Eclipso was greatly exaggerated.
That’s not a Cylon helmet.. its a Cyberman helmet.
or a giant metal spatula.
At first glance he kinda looks like Ant Man with his helmet on sideways or something.
I’m new-ish to this blog so I’m not sure if the Rex-score is actually meant to be representative of the character you’re talking about but it sounds like you /really/ don’t like this character and he’s still 24% as awesome as Rex is?
That don’t add up in my book. The text makes him more like 5-9% as awesome as Rex is.
Tops.
Nothing says “badass” quite like really tiny bikini briefs.
Didn’t Alan Moore retcon him into The Comedian for The Watchmen?
The problems with the Peacemaker are obvious: the hideous costumes, the overt violent nature in conflict with actual peace-making desires, etc. The solution ought to be to make him into a MacGyver-ish problem-solver, tone down the need for massive firepower and replace with a more surgical, zen-like appreciation for basic physics.
Was it you who wrote before about the failure of DC Comics to ever develop a Punisher proxy, because the nature of storytelling in the DC universe makes such roaring rampagers obsolete? Or was it, hrrrrm, maybe Occasional Heroine’s blog? I forgot.
With a name like Emil Bork, you’re just asking to get wasted by a peace-loving headcase in a chateau. I especially like that they feel compelled to tell you that he’s an only child. No goddamn duh, DC! Anybody with an older brother would’ve gotten that dumb-ass helmet beaten off his head a long time ago. Parents of only children, beware!
Peacemaker was the inspiration for the Comedian in Watchmen, so at least he’s not totally useless. Of course the characters in Watchmen were completely retooled from their Charlton inspirations, but if you squint you can see how the idea of Peacemaker being a contradiction morphed into the essential bit of character for the Comedian.
The concept isn’t all that bad, but it’s a bit naive. The idea that you could “end war” by fighting one-on-one with a handful of warmongers is darkly amusing, so it’s no wonder that in the 80s revamp someone decided he was actually nuts. I could see the character working if his goals were scaled down, made more personal, and in the right setting – but then he’d basically be just about any generic 80s action hero cliche, and there wouldn’t be anything all that interesting about him.
How do you start “master weapon-making” as a hobby? Is step one sharpening sticks into spears?
In a sense, the Iron Man movies (well, number one certainly, and from what I’ve seen of the trailer for #2) riffs on similar themes. Perhaps a trifle less crazy, and a whole bunch less ‘I have explosives laced into the plastic shell my head goes into’. Heck, they even have ‘weapons design as a hobby’ – although in Tony Stark’s case, it’s also a vocation, or was for a while.
Really, the only trick is that Peacemaker isn’t just cleaning up messes that he himself created. Also, not a suave billionaire playable by Robert Downey Jr.
So far in this thread, Peacemaker has been compared to The Comedian, the Punisher, and Iron Man. All of whom are reasonably interesting characters, all of whom have appeared in major Hollywood productions.
That suggests to me that maybe the concept for Peacemaker isn’t all that horrible — it’s the execution of the premise that’s been bad.
And his level of crazy doesn’t even approach that of Mike Baron’s Badger. The Badger was not only crazy, but in a really interesting way, that promoted awareness of several psychological interference disorders. Can we say that about the Peacemaker? …..no.
I’m pretty sure Peacemaker is the inspiration for Ozymandias, not The Comedian. Ozy ends up as a “peacemaker”, and he’s clearly willing to kill for it…
PEACEMAKER: “I kill people!”
CROWD: “Aahhhhhhh!!!”
PEACEMAKER: “For peace!”
CROWD: “Yay!”
No, Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt was the inspiration for Ozymandias.
Ozymandias was based on Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt. Comedian was based on the Peacemaker.
A helmet laced with explosives. It’s Suicide Bomberman!
I guess I have a soft spot for all the schmucks, because I kinda like Peacemaker. I just don’t know why. I’m sure *something* could be done to make him interesting.
Didn’t Alan Moore retcon him into The Comedian for The Watchmen?
Yes. The original proposal was titled “Who Killed the Peacemaker” and the main characters were all from Charlton. But since the story would make several of the characters unusable Giordano aid no to the use of the Charlton characters and alternate versions were developed.
Peachmaker –> Comedian
Captain Atom –> Dr Manhattan
Question –> Rorshack
Blue Beetle –> Nite Owl
Nightshade –> Silk Spectre
Sarge Steel –> Ozymandias
D’oh! Yes, of course, I meant Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt — > Ozymandias.
His outfit is made of a body-armor-esque material of his own creation.
It does not cover his chin or elbows.
One bad day against Senor Semtex, the Exploding Hidalgo, and he’s gonna be a mess.
“SLEEVES! WHY DIDN’T I MAKE SLEEVES?”
I do like the BB version, because there he’s essentially Brock Samson. All he needs is Patrick Warburton reading his lines.
My friend likes to say “fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.” That sounds like this guy. Helmet looks terrible, and really the whole ensemble looks un-salvage-able.
I think you’re right in that he’s only good as fodder. Even the Comedian, who seems much better as a character, only really made an impact by dying. Okay, and fathering a girl with a woman who he had tried to rape a few years before.
So, he’s Dove with guns? I love him already.
The Blue Beetle version is decidedly unsucky, and now I’m gonna go reread the whole run. Hurray
“Didn’t Alan Moore retcon him into The Comedian for The Watchmen?”
Yes and no. Yes, the Comedian was based on the Peacemaker, but that is totally a wrong usage of the term “retcon.”
I misused ‘retcon’?
(dies of shame)
I think this character really can be done well. Just:
a) Don’t give him a epileptic’s helmet.
b) Don’t set him in the DCU proper. A man who seeks peace through violence can be a really really interesting idea anywhere not already full of men who seek peace through violence, some of whom are Superman.
The original Charlton version of the character seems like the real problem is that whoever created him didn’t know when to stop piling on ideas.
The Tom Tresser Nemesis suggests that combining James Bond and Q into one guy has the potential to be awesome.
A superhero who actually helps make the world a better place by dealing with political threats and terrorists like a one-man Mission Impossible team? That sounds great in theory.
A Batman wannabe with guns and a jetpack? A lot of eight year old kids would love that.
But scrambled all together, it’s just too much. What could have been really fun suddenly starts seeming like a cynical attempt to cash in on pretty much everything people thought was cool back in the Sixties.
He should have had a female sidekick in a black catsuit. That might have pushed him over the top into being ironic.
As it is though, yeah… That helmet really sucks. And a Swiss chalet? Really?
But still… I can see why Marvel stole the premise for War Machine at one point. It’s kind of neat if you don’t overthink it.
I feel gypped. My dad was an army officer, and I never learned ANYTHING about flying fighter aircraft.
Sorry, but I disagree. To me the John Rogers Blue Beetle version of him isn’t stupid or boring. Of course they got rid of the stupid helmet and the day glo costume, and the only reference to his catch phrase is as an identifying insult. He came across as cool.
Wow… The first sentence in my last post is a mess. My apologies.
I love all the crazy junk he has in his gun belt. Especially the Derringer, for some reason. But it just begs the question of why he doesn’t rely more on his silly helmet. The ugly thing fires ultrasonic stun rays (Hey, just like Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol agents! Neat.) and lasers. With that in mind, he doesn’t really need about half of his standard gear.
He would be better off carrying some knives instead of a backup gun that probably only holds two shots.
I’m overthinking this too much, aren’t I?
Man, that’s some quality Munoz tracing there.
Also: Bork Bork Bork.
Alex Ross drew him to look sort of like Boba Fett for his brief appearance in “Kingdom Come”.
Which is an improvement, until you recall that Boba Fett’s biggest victory required the entire Imperial Navy to do all the real work, and that he was ultimately offed when a blind man with a stick knocked him into the galaxy’s biggest Freudian metaphor.
@Sofa King
Yes.
Actually, His shirt (sans logo) & gloves remind me of Captain Hammer. :/
I really like the idea above for the Peacemaker as a kind of MacGuyver-ish, brilliantly resourceful problem solver. That would’ve been great for the Checkmate book.
The “Dove with guns” line inspired me, too. The idea I had was to make him a sort of anti-Deadshot/Bullseye, or maybe a sort of gun-totin’ Green Arrow/Hawkeye. Basically, a crack marksman and trick shooter with maybe a heightened sense of sight who only takes nonlethal shots. Maybe give him some trick bullets with weird chemical compounds in the classic Green Arrow manner. That way you can have a combination of the theatrics of the archer superhero without the illogic of using a bow & arrow, and with the coolness of a John Woo flick. I don’t know, done right it might be as good as the shootout in Hot Fuzz.
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