{"id":980331,"date":"2025-10-10T10:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/?p=980331"},"modified":"2025-10-10T07:05:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T11:05:28","slug":"peacemaker-james-gunn-dcu-checkmate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/tv\/peacemaker-james-gunn-dcu-checkmate\/","title":{"rendered":"Peacemaker: James Gunn on the DCU’s Newest Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/svg>This post contains spoilers for Peacemaker<\/strong> Season 2 Episode 8.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final moments of Peacemaker<\/a><\/em>‘s Season 2 finale, Adebayo and the 11th Street Kids find new purpose. No longer content to do the bidding of Amanda Waller or Rick Flag Sr., the gang\u2014along with new additions Langston Fleury, Sasha Bordeaux, and Judomaster\u2014form a new group called Checkmate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To comic readers, the name Checkmate raises eyebrows, as the organization has long existed as DC<\/a>‘s version of SHIELD<\/a>, complete with all the moral ambiguities that the comparison implies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, James Gunn<\/a> sees no ambiguity in their mission. In his mind, they are a force for good, especially for former ARGUS agents Harcourt and Economos. “They’re worker bees,” Gunn said of the pair in a press conference following the Peacemaker<\/em> finale. “They’ve worked for intelligence organizations their whole lives. They’ve basically done what they said. They’ve broken out a couple of times, like at the end of The Suicide Squad<\/em>, but basically they’re worker bees.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Gunn, Harcourt and Economos started to change after hearing a speech that the Auggie of Earth-X <\/a> gave earlier in the season, in which he presented himself as a guy trying to do his best. “Some people saw that as evil and others saw that as good, and that’s not it,” Gunn insists. “He’s trying to do something, and maybe for Harcourt and Economos, it’s not enough.” Further, Gunn says that the new Checkmate finds its inspiration in an even more unlikely place, their friend Chris. “For all of Peacemaker’s flaws, he’s always been brash and done, you know, whatever he thought the right thing was,” Gunn points out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Auggie’s speech “leads into this desire to create an organization using some of Adrian’s ‘blood money’ truly for the good. And to create an organization that is going to be separate from the other institutions in the DCU, which is the government and corporations and the Justice Gang, the typical metahuman gangs. I think it’s the real culmination of the 11th Street Kids and their desire to be good.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\r\n\n\t\t