January Official DC Book Club: Peacemaker '87!

General Discussion Comic Books
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  1. We see that Peacemaker continues to struggle with the hallucination of his late father by his side. During one of these conversations, Wolfgang “reminds” Peacemaker that he has just as big a part in this war as those he’s fighting against. Do you think that this particular bit of conversation derives from Peacemaker casting doubt on his own role? Is he truly an icon of peace at this point, still hoping to be the hero that saves the day, or has the mental torment triggered a response to execute mercilessly in hopes of quelling Wolfgang’s dialogue by any means possible?

I guess he saved the day in the sense that he confronted Dr. Tzin-Tzin and his plot was ultimately stopped. But you could argue that it was mostly saved by Dominque St. Claire when she stopped the missiles from hitting the Soviet Union and redirected them to Tzin-Tzin’s flying fortress. I guess at the very least, Peacemaker was there to ensure that Tzin-Tzin stayed on the fortress so that he could be taken out with the rest.

In the end, I think it’s hard to really call him an “icon of peace” because…well, he is a warrior, and not a diplomat. At best, you could say that Peacemaker will to what it takes to ensure that said diplomats and officials can make peaceful treaties and the like. He definitely plays a hand in saving the President and Premier of the Soviet Union from getting killed, but he himself doesn’t get the two to talk and de-escalate. Hell, I don’t know if we even hear what effect these talks did, if any.

  1. Do you think Peacemaker is haunted by these visions because he craves his father’s attention on him in any way he can, which is why Wolfgang wasn’t necessarily expelled when he “jumped” from the plane? Moreover, do you think Peacemaker is still trying to prove to his father that he can make him proud, or is it more so that he’s trying to prove him wrong?

I think there’s definitely a bit of wanting his father to love him, and I think the trauma of seeing his father commit suicide and what his father did will always be a part of Christopher, but hopefully this experience allowed him to work out that desire to please his dead nazi father and more to work to be better than him.

  1. On page 12, we see a man dead on the ground with a collapsed sign that reads “PEACE” while Peacemaker shouts “I’ll give them death … more than any of them bargained for!” and guns down the surrounding soldiers. How do you feel about this clashing imagery? Additionally, by “avenging” them, do you believe Peacemaker is contributing to the protestor’s wishes for real peace?

I guess if you asked Peacemaker about that, he would say that the protester would rather be alive and not gunned down by the terrorists he’s there to stop. He couldn’t save that particular protester, but he hopes that by stopping this terrorist, they won’t be able to hurt any innocents like that ever again.

Is this a flawless argument? Certainly not, but I think it’s fair to say that Peacemaker himself didn’t disrupt the peace proceedings nor did he put the bullet in the protestor.

  1. Do you believe that Peacemaker is aware that his father’s ghost still looms in the back of his mind, or does it seem more like Wolfgang is creating a completely different persona in Peacemaker’s conscience when he’s shown to be toasting to the thought of them being “reunited”?

I think he knows the “ghost” is still there because it’s really just his inner mind, his intrusive, self-loathing, and self-destructive thoughts made manifest.

I don’t know if those inner thoughts would take on a new persona here, at least right now. I don’t know any other people in Christopher’s life who would really have the same effect. Maybe if Dominique had died during the events of the story, those negative emotions could have taken her shape and used the fact that she died and he wasn’t able to stop it, but obviously, that wasn’t what happened.

  1. Overall, it’s implied that Peacemaker may have depended on this psychosis to aid him in carrying out his mission as “No sane man could’ve done what had to be done out there.” Do you think this relates to Peacemaker’s hesitation to perform certain contract kills in the HBO series as he may yet be too “sane”? Would you consider the latter a desperation to cling to his humanity?

I don’t know if the two situations are really compatible. In the comic, the people that Peacemaker are taking down are pretty much cut and dry, clear as day terrorists and super-villains. With Cena’s take on the character, he’s wrestling (erm, no pun intended) with the more grey area of killing a good man who was going to release potentially damaging information, and he really only struggled with his current mission on the show when he didn’t really know what the extent of it was.

I will say that while I don’t know if being insane had anything to do with it, Peacemaker in the book got through it all because of his drive and determination, the need to fulfill the mission and stop the evil force.

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Overall, I would say that this was decent miniseries. I think it’s fair to say that the least interesting part of the story was the main story of Dr. Tzin-Tzin’s plans for global chaos, because it’s pretty much the most generic world domination plot they could have done. The fact that the villain was pretty much the most stereotypical evil Fu Manchu style villain didn’t help things either.

The most interesting thing about the series was without a doubt Peacemaker’s history and his struggles with his mental illness. I think @NYJt3 said it best that if they added another issue or two and either dropped the big supervillain plot or did something different (I mean, you have a character that’s being haunted by a past involving nazis, and you don’t make nazis the main threat in the story? That’s just a wasted opportunity right there!), they could have had something really special on their hands.

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  1. It was a little hard for me at least to understand entirely what Peacemaker’s dialogue with his father was meant to show about him, other than that he has serious, serious issues. For as much as he clearly hates his father and doesn’t want to be anything like him, he often seemed to end up doing exactly what his father told him to do.
  2. I would have liked maybe seeing a few flashbacks to what Christopher’s relationship was like with his father while he was alive. He was clearly a despicable person, but so much of what haunts Peacemaker seems to be how his father ended his life rather than the horrible things he did while he lived. I would just be interested to know if his father was decent to him, or distant, or actually abusive.
  3. I feel like the protestors would really hate what Peacemaker was doing. His solution to everything (at least in this series) is “more violence”. I was also surprised that the way he was just gunning down and blowing up everyone around him he wouldn’t have hurt or killed some innocent people. I feel like the way he operates he would’ve caused a lot of collateral damage and killed bystanders, really.
  4. I don’t think Peacemaker is aware that his father his still around, at least not on a surface level. His comment about needing four days to get sane again seemed like a bad sign to me, because it would take much longer than a few days for someone with all his issues to become sane.
  5. I feel like without his dad’s voice in his head taunting him and pushing him, Peacemaker probably wouldn’t constantly be fighting and so quick to kill. I do feel that if his handlers learned a little more about his psychosis and how to take advantage of it he could easily be pushed into killing just about anyone if he thought they were a threat to peace.
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