Peacemaker season 2 premiered this week, and with it, came an explanation as to how the show and its cast would head over to the DCU. The answer was…they were already in the DCU.
James Gunn did a straight-up retcon of the end of Peacemaker season 2, inserting the Justice Gang from Superman in the final scene instead of the Justice League from the Zack Snyder DCEU era. The cast is not sucked into some sort of interdimensional portal in order to save canon, it’s just…paved over.
That raises questions about just how far back things reach, given that Peacemaker’s arrival and half this cast were in Gunn’s Suicide Squad, a clear DCEU movie. Gunn has talked about this before and said that only Creature Commandos is “pure canon” as the DCU kicked off, and he already said ahead of time that the Justice League was not canon to Peacemaker (a preview of him writing them out, it seems).
Gunn calls Suicide Squad an “imperfect memory.” Some events there are clearly canon, the entire saving of the world and Peacemaker’s killing of Rick Flagg Jr, for instance. Gunn has also spoken about wanting to bring Idris Elba’s Bloodsport back.
But one of the biggest questions is about the star of three DCEU movies, including Gunn’s Suicide Squad, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, where previously there were years of the character populating animated shows and video games. So, is she canon now?
Gunn spoke about this recently, and now Robbie has chimed in about her status as well. Two weeks ago, Gunn told EW that whether Robbie will continue playing Harley Quinn will be “revealed down the line.”
However, it has not even been revealed to Robbie yet. Here’s Robbie speaking to Variety:
“I’ve heard nothing… You can’t get sick of Harley. I love her so deeply. I always had high hopes for her, like Batman — a character that lives on long after I’ve had a go at it. I feel like I need to share Harley.”
Unlike Peacemaker or Bloodsport, Harley was a major DCEU player, starring in two Suicide Squad movies and her own film, Birds of Prey. She is also one of the highest profile, A-list stars in the DCU universe with roles like Barbie, The Wolf of Wall Street and Once Upon a Time In Hollywood under her belt. Needless to say she’s quite busy (she’s also a mom now) and seems extremely open to pass on the role to someone else, which does seem like the most likely answer to all this in the end. Gunn may like Robbie, but I’m not sure how many ties he wants to keep to the DCEU as his new universe expands.
The other factor here is that it’s not clear what DCU projects Harley Quinn would even appear in going forward. The only confirmed live-action Batman project in the works is The Brave and the Bold, and if that’s an accurate comic adaptation, that’s not a story that features Harley Quinn at all.
While Gunn is not ruling anything out, all signs are pointing to the idea that Robbie is probably not coming back. But we also don’t know when, if ever, we might see Harley again in the DCU more generally.
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