Peacemaker Reveals The Surprising Secret To Saving Marvel

The success of James Gunn’s Superman and Peacemaker amid the failure of The Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps means the impossible is happening: the DCU is now beating the MCU at its own game. That’s especially surprising because the DCEU had so many high-profile failures back when it looked like Marvel could never falter. Now, Disney is wondering what they can do to restore the MCU to its former glory, and Peacemaker has provided the answer: it’s time to stop taking this stuff so seriously.

When the DCEU began, it quickly earned a reputation for being grim and dark thanks to films like Batman v. Superman. We got lighter-hearted fare later (including Joss Whedon’s Justice League and The Flash), but the DCEU never really shed its reputation for being a needlessly serious cinematic universe. And fans often contrasted this with the MCU, which was filled with brighter colors and endless punchlines.

The DCEU (unlike the MCU) failed, and now the DCU has successfully risen from the ashes, with James Gunn’s Superman earning more than any other solo film featuring the mighty Man of Steel. That movie resonated with audiences because it fully embraced the silliness of its comic book source material, which is why Superman is surrounded by talking robots and a crazed dog. His enemies include a killer kaiju the size of Godzilla. Now, Peacemaker is expanding the DCU with even more irreverent storytelling, and the second season has proven to be a bigger hit than Season 1.

Like many fans of both DC and Marvel, I found myself wondering what Kevin Feige and his team could learn from the success of James Gunn’s recent DCU work. The conclusion I came to is that Marvel, like DC, needs to stop taking itself so seriously. Before I can elaborate on what that means, we need to discuss the function of humor in the MCU.

How Humor Happens In Marvel

Right now, a lot of Marvel fanboys are yelling at me for suggesting that this cinematic universe is too self-serious because so many characters (like Iron Man and Spider-Man) and entire shows (like She-Hulk: Attorney At Law) are designed to be funny. This type of humor is surface-level. When it comes to its own universe and storytelling, though, the MCU has been deadly serious for a long, long time.

For example, Marvel movies typically refuse to criticize their central characters, which is why nobody in Avengers: Endgame gives Star-Lord nearly enough guff for letting his emotions screw up the fight with Thanos. They also refuse to engage with real social issues so much that the writers of Black Panther didn’t realize how sympathetic they made Killmonger, as someone who responds to the shameless racial exploitation around the world with anger.

Nothing is more serious in the MCU than death, which is why WandaVision turned the death of the Vision into a traumatic exploration of the Scarlet Witch’s fracturing sanity. Along the way, The Eternals tried to meditate on how immortality can be its own hell, and even Spider-Man: No Way Home turned this famously lighthearted franchise into one where Aunt May gets brutally murdered by someone else’s Big Bad.

Long story, not very short, the MCU isn’t truly lighthearted: the colorful costumes and catchy quips are wrappers around a universe whose creators desperately want it to be taken seriously. That approach has yielded diminishing returns, as evidenced by The Thunderbolts (an ensemble melodrama where the bad guy is depression) and The Fantastic Four: First Steps (which sets up the next big Avengers film), both failing at the box office. Meanwhile, Peacemaker is killing it on the small screen thanks largely to the fact that it treats nothing in the DCU as sacred.

Peacemaker Is In On The Joke

For example, the first episode of Peacemaker Season 2 reveals that vomit kink allegations haunt Guy Gardner and that Hawkgirl is worried about her butt getting too big. We see Peacemaker dealing with his existential problems by hosting a drug-fueled orgy. Oh, and after Peacemaker kills someone with a very familiar face, we see his darkly comical struggles to hide the body.

I can’t speak for every fan, but what I love about Peacemaker’s humor is that it proves that James Gunn is in on the joke. He understands that the comic source material is downright wacky and that good superhero storytelling means leaning into the weirdness rather than away from it. It’s a proven approach, and this is exactly what made Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films so special.

Best of all, Peacemaker proves that humor doesn’t have to come at the expense of deep character development or ambitious storytelling. Even as the show explores taboo topics like superhero sex lives and the merits of murder, it delivers standout storylines where the title character explores parallel dimensions and literally takes the cosmic path less traveled. So far, this has culminated in the revelation that there are dozens of parallel universes in existence, meaning this silly show is also expanding the DCU in a game-changing way.

A Message For Marvel’s Kevin Feige

Kevin Feige, I’m assuming you’re reading this, so listen closely: it’s time to stop taking the decades of Marvel lore as deep source material that must be adapted faithfully into woefully serious movies and TV shows. Comic books are a source of endlessly wacky, endlessly weird stories and characters, and bringing that off-kilter vibe to the screen always wins over the fandom. Peacemaker has provided the target, pointing out how the MCU can save itself.

Now, the only question is whether Disney is willing to pull the trigger. This will require completely overhauling its approach to Marvel’s storytelling. But with a creative reset right around the corner, that may be the only way to save this troubled cinematic universe.