When Peacemaker returned to our screens for another season, retcon and all, it also brought back one of the wackiest heroes that James Gunn has ever written – and just when you thought he couldn't get any weirder... Gunn decided to do us a solid and give us two of them.
In the comics, Vigilante is DC's answer to Daredevil: attorney by day, masked crimefighter at night. In the DCU, however, he's more like DC's answer to Deadpool. Adrian Chase is the asexual sociopath to Wade Wilson's overly horny, pure-of-heart hero. Peacemaker season 2 explores the multiverse, with each character meeting their alternate reality counterpart, with some interactions more heartbreaking than others.
The best one, by far, is when Vigilante meets Vigilante-2, and it's this scene that goes down as my favorite joke of 2025 – probably because it's as absurd as it is wholesome, and with a delivery that can't be matched.
We Spider-Man-memed!
In Peacemaker season 2 episode 6, the 11th Street Kids use Adrian Chase's basement (where he has that fun little secret room of his) to open the portal to an interdimensional space known as the Quantum Unfolding Chamber. With the door wide open, Vigilante-2 walks into the secret room. Chase immediately draws his gun, but his counterpart quickly takes off his mask.
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Vigilante-2: "It's me! I'm you from another dimension. My keys worked to get in here!"
Vigilante: "Are you fucking kidding me?"
The two then excitedly point at each other and shout, "We Spider-Man-memed!" The reference to the popular Spidey pointing meme means that Spider-Man is recognized as a fictional character in the DCU – and there's something so delightfully nerdy about that. The scene goes on from there, with the two bonding over their interests and talking about what Peacemaker-2 is like... But I've watched the moment of their initial meeting upwards of 50 times.
I know that explaining a joke technically no longer makes it funny... but it's Stroma's delivery of, "Are you fucking kidding me?" that makes this the best joke of the year. It's the quick switch from murder face to sheer delight in just a few seconds – and the way that smile goes teeth first, making it completely and utterly wholesome... which is especially funny given the fact that Vigilante definitely has Antisocial Personality Disorder.
"At the end of the day, James’ writing defines that character," Stroma previously told Gizmodo. " And then when you’re acting, you get to come up with your own inner monologue and try to figure out what it is that Vigilante is really thinking."
"It’s very fun to play a character where you can create anything in your head and see how it fits in with everyone else."
Another Adrian
It's hard to imagine anyone else playing Adrian Chase, especially given the childlike wonder and whimsy Stroma gives to such an R-rated and often ruthless character. As it turns out, the role originally went to Chris Conrad –who you might recognize as Julie's love interest in The Next Karate Kid, or as Johnny Cage in 1997's Mortal Kombat Annihilation. In 2021, it was announced that Conrad had left Peacemaker due to "creative differences," despite filming five episodes – including part of the season finale.
"He's an incredibly talented guy, but we were on different pages about certain things, and I don't think he wanted to continue on the series in the long run," Gunn previously told ScreenRant. Stroma initially came in and re-did the ADR for some of Conrad's masked scenes, before going on to reshoot them completely.
Peacemaker's Vigilante is nothing like the serious, straightforward crimefighter (and district attorney) we know from the DC comics... and thank goodness for that. My favorite Vigilante joke from Peacemaker season 1 is when he and Chris are in the car, and Chris is looking at Adrian's most recent Google searches. "'Taylor Swift sexy butt'?" he reads out loud. Adrian replies, "What? Oh, no, um, that's just because I wanted to see some pictures of her sexy butt." No notes on that delivery.
Honorable mentions:
The Snowman sequence, The Naked Gun: I’m still in disbelief that director Akiva Schaffer had never watched the Jack Frost horror movie where a snowman wields a knife, or the Jack Frost kids movie starring a post-Batman Michael Keaton who enters purgatory as — yep, you guessed it — a snowman.
Erik finds out the truth about his dad, Final Destination Bloodlines: This movie has no business being as funny as it is, but the ad-libbed line, “Is that why he always wanted to play catch?!” gets me every time.
Dreux and Alyssa try to get a loan, One of Them Days: It’s the woman behind the desk who starts laughing hysterically to the point of tears after seeing Dreux’s credit score that makes it one of the best (and sadly one of the most relatable) scenes in the whole film.
A tray of seven hot dogs, Weapons: It's a peculiar number of hot dogs to set out for a small lunch of just three people, sure, but it's also a reference to a Whitest Kids U'Know sketch starring Zach Cregger's late best friend, Trevor Moore.
Peacemaker season 2 is streaming now on HBO Max. For more, check out our list of the best HBO Max shows.
