James Gunn Explains Why DC’s Biggest Villain Likely Won’t Appear in the New DCU

James Gunn is setting the record straight about one of DC’s biggest villains, and why fans shouldn’t expect to see him anytime soon.

After the finale of Peacemaker, people have been asking Gunn nonstop about John Cena’s anti-hero and what’s really going on with the strange “Salvation” prison dimension created by ARGUS.

Some fans even thought they saw hints of Darkseid, especially with the parademons showing up in the woods during the closing credits. But according to Gunn, that’s not the case.

In an interview with Screen Crush, the DC Studios boss explained that his version of Salvation isn’t tied to Darkseid or the New Gods like it was in the comics.

“I don’t expect that to be exactly what it is,” Gunn said. He shared that he took inspiration from Salvation Run, the 2007 comic series written by Bill Willingham and Lilah Sturges, which was actually based on an idea by Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin.

Gunn liked the idea behind that story — a group of supervillains sent to a distant world where they’re forced to build their own society. “I liked the idea of supervillains building a society in this other dimension,” he said.

“And I liked the way that it was a very practical way that Amanda Waller and Rick Flag Jr., in that instance, were trying to deal with the problem of meta-humans who continuously escaped from prison in a way that I think a fed-up government might.”

But while the comic book version of the planet was secretly tied to Darkseid’s world, Gunn says that won’t be the case in the DC Universe he’s building. There won’t be any connection to Apokolips or DeSaad.

“You gotta remember the first and foremost thing is that I’m building a world, okay?” Gunn explained. “And in that world, an aspect of that world is now obviously ARGUS, who are in charge of meta-human activities, have taken upon themselves to start sending meta-human prisoners to Salvation. That’s the plan, at least. And then we’ll have to see how that affects and touches everything else.”

So even though the parademons might look like a tease, Gunn says fans shouldn’t expect Peacemaker to cross paths with Darkseid anytime soon. It’s not just about changing things up from the comics, it’s also about timing.

After working on the Guardians of the Galaxy movies for Marvel, Gunn is careful about introducing another giant cosmic villain. “There are aspects of Darkseid and Thanos, [who] are obviously very similar. They look very similar,” he said. “Using Darkseid as the big bad right now is not necessarily the thing, for a lot of reasons: because Zack [Snyder] did it so cool in his way. And because [of] Thanos in Marvel.”

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