The Suicide Squad spin-off is a hair-metal mosh pit of an anti-superhero...

Being a critique of jingoism and machoism filtered through the comic book form, the show inhabits the same morally nebulous realm as The Boys.

Contrary to popular belief, superhero saturation isn’t a point of no return. It is an ongoing process of many stages. First came the comic book adaptations that played it straight. Once those were done to excess, second came the adaptations that got chirpy and quippy. Once those were done to excess, third came the adaptations that had a self-conscious edge. That’s the stage we’re in now, one short of terminal, where turning ideas on their head has become cliche in itself. Still trying to set himself apart is James Gunn, who brings his signature off-kilter tone and some clever twists to The Suicide Squad spin-off Peacemaker.

As he did with Dawn of the Dead and Slither before The Suicide Squad, Gunn peppers the blood and gore with snark. And as he did with Guardians of the Galaxy before The Suicide Squad, he employs action in the service of comedy, and finds a band of goofy underdogs you can’t help but root for, despite their faults. Topping it all off is a steady stream of hair metal classics to shape characterisation, enhance the thrills, and spark a sensory sugar rush. Hair metal kicks in right from its opening credits, where the principal cast line-dance to a comically stilted routine backed by Wig Wam’s “Do Ya Wanna Taste It.”

A still from Peacemaker

It is an optimal mood-setter to dive into a mosh pit of an anti-superhero series. John Cena reprises his role from The Suicide Squad as the insufferable blowhard Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker, a man who puts the moron in oxymoron, seeing as he is a state-sanctioned killer whose motto, in his own words, affirms: “I cherish peace with all my heart. I don’t care how many men, women, and children I need to kill to get it.” The character epitomises the hypocrisy of American democracy and its spirit of righteous intolerance.

Being a critique of jingoism and machoism filtered through the comic book form, the show inhabits the same morally nebulous realm as The Boys, serving guts and giggles at once, straddling the thin line that separates the civic do-gooders from the egotistic do-badders, and dabbling in the kind of clownish irony that passes for satire nowadays. After a point, the comedy has the same numbing effect as that one guy at a party who can’t read a room to save his life, piles on one joke after another but none land, and mistakes the awkward silence as encouragement to persist in his efforts.

After having recovered from the wounds he suffered on the Corto Maltese operation in The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker is coerced into taking on a fresh black-ops mission by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) with the threat of being thrown back into prison. If the mission last time was to stop Project Starfish, this time it’s to stop Project Butterfly: foil a body-snatching plot led by a race of aliens trying to make Earth their new home after the destruction of their own planet. In the spirit of anything goes, the aliens feed on an amber fluid mass-produced by a kaiju-sized “cow.” At Peacemaker’s disposal are a variety of helmets: one that comes armed with the power of a human torpedo, one with sonic booms and one with X-rays.

Replacing Task Force X is the team of A.R.G.U.S.: the mercenary leader Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji), the steely-eyed lieutenant Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), the tech expert John Economos (Steve Agee), and the rookie agent Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks). Peacemaker has two sidekicks: one is a CGI eagle named Eagly, that tells you exactly how juvenile the man is; the other is a fellow crimefighter who calls himself Vigilante (Freddie Stroma) and whose sociopathic tendencies make Peacemaker’s obnoxiousness feel moderate.

Peacemaker

To be sure, Peacemaker is a man with no filters. He is sexist, racist and xenophobic. But as the season progresses, he grows more self-aware of what he says and how he behaves, as Adebayo confronts him on his casual bigotry. She acts as a counterpoint, while making a case for Peacemaker still having the capacity to change. Vigilante embodies the naïve extremities of his old ways, without the self-awareness. A secondary antagonist in Peacemaker’s white-supremacist father Auggie (Robert Patrick) shows how noxious ideologies are transmitted across generations. The toxic complications that come with fraught father-son relationships also informed Gunn’s story in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Just like in the Marvel movie, being forced to choose between the family one is born into and the family one chooses fuels an identity crisis here too.

No doubt, Peacemaker is a supercharged bundle of contradictions who makes for a solid jumping-off point for exploring how bigots are made and how they can be unmade. Cena, playing against his WWE persona, does leverage his muscular frame to often amusing results. He is supported by an all-round engaging cast who can shift between the dramatic and comedic bits without undercutting either. But it hard to be too enthused about more seasons of Peacemaker as we reach ever so close to the terminal stage of superhero saturation.