Videos by ComicBook.com
“I was very surprised because they were not too fond of Peacemaker calling Batman a p—y,” Gunn, who scripted all eight episodes of The Suicide Squad spinoff, revealed on The Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s Top 5 podcast. “I’m like, ‘But he talks about all these other terrible things about all these other superheroes that are much worse than calling Batman a p—y.’ Not only that, Batman is the only one he makes a fair point about; everybody else he’s really just believing stuff that he read on the Internet.”
That includes a profanity-laden rant about Aquaman (Jason Momoa) in Episode 1, “A Whole New Whirled,” where Peacemaker accuses the undersea superhero of “f—ing fish” — a claim he read about on Twitter.
Ultimately, DC executives “were great,” Gunn said. “They let me get away with what I got away with at the end of the day.” Asked why DC took issue with the Bats-phemy but not vulgar barbs at Aquaman and Superman, Gunn said with a laugh, “I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. I don’t know why him calling Batman a p-y is potentially more offensive than him saying Superman [has a poop fetish]. I don’t understand why one was brought up and one wasn’t.”
Though Gunn enjoyed creative freedom on the R-rated The Suicide Squad, the series creator said HBO Max had “some concerns” about a reveal in Episode 2, “Best Friends, For Never,” where audiences learn Peacemaker’s racist father is the white supremacist supervillain The White Dragon.
“That was a delicate situation,” said Gunn. “The only other thing that HBO Max ever said to me at all was, ‘We’re HBO and you guys are saying the F-word so many times!’”
Starring John Cena, Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Jennifer Holland, Chukwudi Iwuji, Steve Agee, and Robert Patrick, new episodes of DC’s Peacemaker premiere Thursdays on HBO Max.
