Peacemaker Season 2 Finale Teases the Superman Sequel You Didn’t See Coming — With a George R.R. Martin Twist

Peacemaker Season 2 just slammed the door shut — literally — and fans are buzzing. The finale does not just mess with Chris Smith's life; it nudges the entire DC Universe toward James Gunn's Superman: Man of Tomorrow. Here is what actually happens, why the name Salvation matters, and how this could snowball into a Darkseid-sized problem.

So... what did that finale actually do?

A.R.G.U.S. — now run by Rick Flag, played by Frank Grillo — takes the mysterious multiversal doorway Peacemaker handed them in the previous episode and goes exploring. On the other side? A habitable planet. Flag christens it Salvation and immediately decides to convert it into a one-way exile zone for Earth’s metahumans. Not a prison with parole. A trap with no return trip.

Then it goes full grim. A.R.G.U.S. kidnaps Peacemaker and shoves him through the portal as the guinea pig to see if Salvation is actually safe. They slam the door behind him, stranding Chris on an alien world with zero backup. The last beat is all dread: distant, very not-friendly roars rolling in from the darkness.

This is not just a superhero cliffhanger. It is a clean setup for Gunn’s new DCU to collide with Superman's next chapter.

Quick status check

• Season 1 (2022): 8 episodes, 93% on Rotten Tomatoes
• Season 2 (2025): 8 episodes, 96% on Rotten Tomatoes

Wait, Salvation? That name is a deep cut

Salvation is not a random sci-fi label. It is pulled from Salvation Run, a 2007–2008 DC Comics storyline written by Bill Willingham and Lilah Sturges, spun out of an idea George R.R. Martin cooked up with John Jos. Miller called Exiles in Paradise. The pitch was basically: what if the world did to supervillains what Britain did to convicts — ship them off to a faraway land with no way home?

In the comic, Amanda Waller’s Suicide Squad rounds up heavy hitters — Joker, Lex Luthor, Bane, Poison Ivy, Gorilla Grodd — and ports them to a distant planet named Salvation. The twist: Salvation is already in the orbit of the New Gods of Apokolips, meaning Darkseid’s fingerprints are all over it. The place is a meat grinder of traps, monsters, and nasty alien tech. Survival story, not redemption arc.

Martin has talked about the inspiration on his site, framing it like the Australia model, complete with no escape and travel only via Boom Tube. The goal was a decades-spanning saga of villains either dying, adapting, or — occasionally — changing.

How this funnels straight into Superman: Man of Tomorrow

By naming the planet Salvation and turning it into a point-of-no-return dumping ground, the show is waving a pretty loud flag at Salvation Run. If Gunn is pulling that thread, this is not just another alien sandbox — it is a runway to Apokolips and, eventually, Darkseid.

Darkseid is DC’s cosmic tyrant, ruler of Apokolips, eternally hunting the Anti-Life Equation — the thing that erases free will. That is the kind of existential problem that demands Superman’s involvement, and it is exactly the scale you build toward when you want a genuine DCU crossover.

There is also a potential Lex wrinkle. If Earth starts to realize Salvation is connected to Apokolips, you can imagine a version where Lex Luthor gets dragged into the solution — even to the point of working with Superman. Gunn has teased that dynamic before on The Howard Stern Show:

'It is a story about Lex Luthor and Superman having to work together to a certain degree against a much, much bigger threat.'

That bigger threat feels tailor-made to be Darkseid. And if that is the case, Peacemaker’s lonely new address is not just a mean twist — it is the opening move in a long game.

Where that leaves Peacemaker (and the DCU)

As of the finale, A.R.G.U.S. has repurposed Salvation as a one-way metahuman prison, Peacemaker is the poor soul stuck there first, and there is something very loud living out past the horizon. If the comics DNA holds, Salvation could be a backdoor to Apokolips, which puts Superman and, likely, Lex on a collision course with Darkseid in Man of Tomorrow.

Peacemaker is currently streaming in the US on HBO Max.