Warning: SPOILERS for the Peacemaker episode “Ignorance is Chris” are ahead! Stream the episode now with an HBO Max subscription.
There was indeed a dark secret at the center of Peacemaker’s alternate universe, as it was confirmed in “Ignorance is Chris” that this world is Earth-X, where the Nazis are in control of the United States. However, that wasn’t even the craziest part of the newest Peacemaker episode to be released on the 2025 TV schedule. That honor belongs to Nicholas Hoult cameoing as Lex Luthor in a scene with Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr. James Gunn, the mind behind Peacemaker and this summer’s Superman, explained why Luthor’s appearance has to happen, and the upcoming DC movieMan of Tomorrow factored into the decision.
Rick Flag Sr. visited Lex Luthor at Belle Reve to request his help with tracking down Christopher Smith’s Quantum Unfolding Chamber, as Luthor some experience opening up rifts to other universes. However, in an interview with Variety, James Gunn clarified that we won’t see either an Earth-1 or Earth-X version of David Corenswet’s Superman in the final two Peacemaker Season 2 episodes, saying:
No. In fact, David was very upset that Nick got to be on the show, and he didn’t. It just didn’t work. I needed Lex in the show to serve a specific purpose. And actually, what Lex and Rick Flag are up to affects very much what happens in an aspect of Man of Tomorrow. So all of that is connected. But this relationship between Rick Flag and Lex Luthor is a potentially negative thing for Superman and all meta-humans.
Rick Flag Sr. got off to a good start with Lex Luthor by agreeing to transfer him to a non-metahuman prison in exchange for his cooperation. However, the ominous way Flag told Sasha Bordeaux that A.R.G.U.S. was now partnered with Luthor made it sound like there’s more to this deal that we’re not aware of yet. Whether we’ll learn any specifics before Peacemaker Season 2 is over remains to be seen, but this partnership will impact what happens in the recently-announced Man of Tomorrow.
That 2027 DC movie will see Lex Luthor and Superman joining forces to battle a shared threat, and James Gunn knew that would be where Luthor ended up next on the big screen as he was writing Peacemaker Season 2. The writer/director explained:
Totally, yeah. I didn’t know some things about it, but I knew what the overall story of the DCU was. That was something I pitched to [Warner Bros. Discovery CEO] David Zaslav before we even took the job. I’m like, here’s the story. There’s going to be this movie, this show, this movie, this show, and those things all fit in in different ways. Some things came, like Clayface, that we didn’t expect, and other things have been a harder road to travel. But the general outline of that overall story is what we are following through Superman, Peacemaker, Man of Tomorrow and beyond.
It’s been heavily implied, but not confirmed, that Brainiac will be Man of Tomorrow’s main antagonist, and James Gunn also confirmed we’ll see more of María Gabriela de Faría’s Engineer. But for now, Lex Luthor has agreed to help A.R.G.U.S. with this important task, and it was shown in one of the Peacemaker Season 2 previews that it’ll involve bringing in his henchmen Otis and Sydney Happersen. Whatever Luthor is getting out of this arrangement, I think we can all agree it’s not going to be good.
We have just two weeks to go until Peacemaker Season 2 is over. After that, Lanterns will premiere on HBO sometime in early 2026, and Supergirl and Clayface are set for theatrical releases on June 26 and September 11, respectively, on the 2026 movies schedule.
