By now, it should be clear that when it comes to comic book deep cuts, Peacemaker Season 2 isn’t messing around. Not only has the show’s slick retcon cleverly blended aspects of the old DCEU into the new DCU, but the first episode of Peacemaker Season 2 is also full of Easter eggs, great and small. And one very under-the-radar reference in Episode 1 is a call-back to one of the first and strangest DC supervillains ever. In the “perfect” dimension — in which Peacemaker’s (John Cena) brother (David Denman ) and father (Robert Patrick) are alive — there’s one specific character that the Top Trio defeated, and this call-back is a very, very obscure reference.
At the end of the first episode of Peacemaker Season 2, before Chris encounters his other self and accidentally murders said doppelgänger, he takes a good look at the trophy room/library of his family’s home in this alternate dimension. Much of what’s on display are newspaper headlines trumpeting the various successes of the “Top Trio,” which consists of Peacemaker, his brother, and his father. One headline reads: “Top Trio Save Gotham From Ultra-Humanite.”
Who is the Ultra-Humanite?
In Action Comics #13, dated June 1939, Superman encounters a villain presented as the opposite of the Man of Steel: the Ultra-Humanite. This predates Lex Luthor’s debut, but at first glance, the Ultra-Humanite’s bald visage might make you think he was a first draft.
As the Ultra-Humanite explains in his first appearance, “I am known as ‘the Ultra-Humanite.’ Why? Because a scientific experiment resulted in my possessing the most agile and learned brain on Earth! Unfortunately for mankind, I prefer to use this great intellect for crime.”
Basically, the Ultra-Humanite began as a Professor Moriarty figure at odds with Clark Kent. But after the Golden Age, the Ultra-Humanite took on a much different guise as a villain who could transfer his consciousness into other bodies. In 1981, the Ultra-Humanite was revealed to have his mind inside a white gorilla, which, for most comic book fans, is his most familiar form.
Is the DCU a multiverse?
Although this hidden mention of the Ultura-Humanite is probably just an Easter egg, one interesting comic book detail could suggest that the dimension the Peacemaker has entered is analogous to Earth Two from Pre-Crisis DC lore. Back in 1961, Earth Two was introduced in DC Comics via The Flash; the idea was that Golden Age versions of various DC characters existed in a parallel dimension, which preserved certain outdated storylines.
It’s possible that Peacemaker Season 2 has introduced its own version of Earth Two into the newly rebooted DCU. In the comics, Earth Two was eventually combined with other dimensions in the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries from 1985 to 1986. It’s unlikely that the DCU under James Gunn is headed toward a new Infinite Crisis, but it’s also possible that the new Peacemaker Earth Two can serve a similar function as the old Earth Two: a refuge for alternate versions of characters, including old-school heroes and weird supervillains.
