Friday, 26 July 2024

Peacemaker (1988) #1-4

Peacemaker #1-4

Originally released in 1988

Written by Paul Kupperberg

Art by Tod Smith



Peacemaker is a character who gained a ton of attention after appearing in James Gunn's movie The Suicide Squad.  He's a walking contradiction - a man who fights for peace, and loves peace so much that he would gladly kill for it.  However, his comics version is very different from the one played by John Cena - Cena's version alternates between cold-hearted killer and total goofball/idiot, whereas the comic version is unhinged, bordering on insane.



Going by dialogue from the characters, Peacemaker previously believed that his victims' souls were trapped in his helmet, talking to him.  That doesn't seem to be the case any more - now he believes that the ghost of his father, who he watched commit suicide, is haunting him, and that his ship's auto-pilot is actually his father flying the plane.  Peacemaker's father in the streaming series is a piece of work - a racist abusive piece of white trash who goes by the title of the White Dragon.  However, in the comics, his father is (or was) a full-fledged Nazi and commandant of a concentration camp, who maintains his racism even after death.  Hard to say which one's worse.



Peacemaker has a girlfriend, maid, butler, and a blind mechanic, but all of them with the possible exception of the mechanic are government agents and psychiatrists tending to his numerous mental health needs.  Not helping matters are the impossibly high expectations that Peacemaker places on himself - as Dr. Tzin-Tzin wages a campaign to undermine the Soviet Union and take advantage of the ensuing chaos, Peacemaker stops a few of his plots, but lambasts himself because numerous other terrorist actions are carried out in the process.



Not helping matters is that he's staying up for three days straight in an obsessive global hunt for any threats to peace. (which is easier said than done in the tail end of the Cold War)  Peacemaker is a man haunted by his past and obsessed over an impossible ideal that is rapidly driving him into a suicidal rampage - despite being the title character, he's only a hero by virtue of the villain being worse.



As the series goes on, Dr. Tzin-Tzin grows increasingly annoyed with Peacemaker's interference with his plans - as this is post-Crisis On Infinite Earths, where all of DC's various Earths were merged into one, I'm surprised that there's no mention of any other heroes being involved.  Tzin-Tzin wants Peacemaker dead, though I'm surprised he's bothered - by the time of the final issue, Peacemaker is so far gone that he's hallucinating that everyone is his father.



Peacemaker's girlfriend Dominique St. Clair arguably plays a larger role in stopping Tzin-Tzin's plot than Peacemaker does - while meeting someone as part of her spy work, she's trapped and captur. She manages to break free and stop Tzin-Tzin from launching nuclear weapons at the Soviet Union.  After finding the coordinates for Tzin-Tzin's dirigible, she sets the missile to target it, ending Tzin-Tzin's plans. (Peacemaker himself serves as an effective distraction, but neither one knew about the other's efforts)



The story ends on a slightly more hopeful note than what I was expecting, though Peacemaker's mental state is still shaky at best.  It was an interesting read, and different from what I expected going into it.

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Hawkman (1964) #1-9

Hawkman #1-9 Originally released in 1964 Written by Gardner Fox Art by Murphy Anderson