James Gunn Explains the Dark Inspiration Behind PEACEMAKER’s Alternate Dimension and Confirms G.I. Robot’s Live-Action Debut
This week’s episode of Peacemaker threw fans for a loop with a shocking alternate dimension reveal, and now James Gunn has confirmed that it also sets the stage for a major Creature Commandos character to make their live-action debut.
In “Ignorance is Chris,” Peacemaker’s dreamlike new reality takes a sinister turn when Harcourt notices something deeply wrong as not a single person of color has appeared since their arrival.
The discovery of an American flag marked with a swastika makes it wildly clear. This isn’t just another timeline, it’s DC Comics’ Earth X, a world where the Nazis won World War II.
Things escalate quickly when Adebayo uncovers the terrifying truth. Chris’ brother Keith and their neighbors turn hostile, chasing her down after realizing “one got out.”
When speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Gunn revealed that the twist didn’t come from the pages of DC at all.
"Honest to God, it's not from the comics. It's from Philip K. Dick's Man in The High Castle, which is a book I've always really liked. I'm a huge Phil K. Dick fan, and that was the first book of his I ever read. It's about an alternate Earth where the Nazis won World War II, and that was more what inspired me for this.
“It just seemed to be a natural outcome of Chris dealing with his personal journey. He goes and he gets everything he desires, but it is a monkey's paw because there are a lot of things about this place that are — and even though people think he went to our Earth, it really is worse than our Earth. It is.
“He's finding out the complexity of all that. Everybody thinks that means everybody there is a Nazi, everybody there is bad, but you find out that things are not that simple in the next episode."
If that made you think about Creature Commandos’ Nazi-hunting G.I. Robot, you’re right on track. Gunn confirmed that the mechanical soldier is eventually making the leap into live-action.
"The answer to that question, which, this is going to be all anybody talks about from this interview, is yes, but not necessarily when you think you're going to see him. So not necessarily in Peacemaker Season 2."
While it looks like Chris and the 11th Street Kids won’t be getting help from a robot killing machine just yet, Gunn teased that fans should brace themselves for even more wild developments in the final two episodes.
This live-action tease comes as Creature Commandos is gearing up to launch as the first animated project in Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DCU. Gunn previously explained:
"Creature Commandos is an animated series, I've written all the episodes, something we're going to do that's a little bit different at DC is gonna have characters move into animation, out of animation, usually having the same actor play their voice as who plays them in live-action."
So while G.I. Robot won’t be joining Peacemaker’s fight against Earth X just yet, his eventual arrival in the DCU is officially locked in. And knowing Gunn, the payoff will be worth the wait.