Warning: Contains spoilers for Peacemaker season 1.

The DCEU is getting complicated and the way that The Suicide Squad spinoff TV series, Peacemaker, ended highlights how Batman is a big part of the problem. The DCEU has been evolving as it has been created, with some plans left forgotten as new ones are born. As the franchise gets more sprawling, some of the cracks are starting to show, and DC needs to find a long-term solution for the problem.

At the end of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016), Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) meets with Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck). There is an implicit suggestion that Waller knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman and Wayne is clearly investigating Task Force X. As he leaves, he tells Waller to shut the program down or he and his “friends” will shut it down for her. While Batman is mentioned in Peacemaker multiple times, he has not appeared in this arm of the franchise since.

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The fact that Batman threatened Amanda Waller not to continue with Task Force X but then seemed entirely uninterested in her operation during The Suicide Squad was a strange plot hole. Peacemaker season 1 initially appeared to be fixing this problem by implying that the show took place in a different timeline. In a conversation with his father’s neighbor (Mel Tuck), Peacemaker discusses Batman’s no-kill rule which was not included in the DCEU because Zack Snyder did not think it made sense. If Peacemaker took place in a timeline where Batman didn’t kill people then it was a different Batman who might never have threatened Waller. However, at the end of Peacemaker season 1, the DCEU TV show included a cameo appearance from the Justice League. While Ben Affleck’s Batman himself isn’t present, the appearance of Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Flash suggests that they are the same version of the Justice League and that Peacemaker is set in the main DCEU timeline after all. This ultimately suggests that Batman really did just forget about Amanda Waller and Task Force X.

Part of what makes this Batman plot hole so strange is how easily it could have been fixed. Peacemaker leaves Batman looking stupid or, at the bare-minimum, forgetful. It is possible that Amanda Waller used her resources to find some way to divert Bruce Wayne’s attention away from Task Force X. Waller might have been able to persuade him of the need for the program or, more likely, could have threatened to reveal his secret identity if he didn’t let her continue with Task Force X. Peacemaker would have only needed to include a brief line about Batman from Waller’s perspective and her conversations with her daughter, Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) could have facilitated this.

Like some of the other problems in the DCEU, this problem arises from the fact that Ben Affleck wishes to step away from the role permanently. This presumably led him to not be included in The Suicide Squad and allowed Batman’s original threat to largely be forgotten in the Peacemaker script. The DCEU timelines are getting particularly convoluted with different theories about how the various movies could fit together. However, The Flash, by breaking the timeline even more and bringing back Michael Keaton’s Batman could finally straighten the DCEU timeline out and help to explain Peacemaker’s inconsistencies.

Key Release Dates
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  • The Batman (2022)Release date: Mar 04, 2022
  • DC League of Super-Pets (2022)Release date: Jul 29, 2022
  • Black Adam (2022)Release date: Oct 21, 2022
  • The Flash (2023)Release date: Jun 23, 2023
  • Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)Release date: Mar 17, 2023
  • Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2022)Release date: Dec 16, 2022
  • Blue Beetle (2023)Release date: Aug 18, 2023
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Faefyx Collington
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Faefyx Collington (They/Them) is a senior features writer for Screen Rant. They’re a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction, focussing on science fiction, fantasy, and mystery for the former and on culture, gender, and current affairs for the latter.
Never content to settle to one thing, Faefyx is also a co-host and producer of the podcast and video series “Unramblings,” and can occasionally be found making music around the internet as well.
Having acquired degrees on both sides of the Atlantic, Fyx has settled (for the moment) in the southern United States where they live with their spouse and an entirely appropriate number of cats.

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