That cover's from 1993, but I'd swear he still looks like John Cena.

Lots still in the dollar bins, Peacemaker speculators--I mean, 'fans.' From 1993, Eclipso #11, "A Call To Arms" Written by Robert Loren Fleming, pencils by Audwynn Jermaine Newman, inks by Ray Kryssing. (I should apologize to Newman; I think I always thought this was Bart Sears!)

"Somebody's been sleeping in my bed," says Peacemaker; there's an intruder in his hanger. Kind of a Mark Twain-looking cat, who also happens to be bulletproof: Commander Steel! The original one? The older one? By using the right tone of voice, as Amanda Waller suggested, Peacemaker falls right in line for his mission: a little trip to Parador, where Eclipso is holding a little girl hostage, because she may know where three billion American is buried. (That would be about 30,000 kilograms, looking it up!) Eclipso does seem interested in getting the money (and tormenting the girl) but it's not clear why, save that he could probably do a lot of damage with it.

Bruce and Mona Gordon surprise the Creeper, in their bathroom, in the shower, using all the towels (a Dallas reference?) and tell him about Waller putting together a team; as Sarge Steel tells her he can't go, but has a sub: Major Victory. The Creeper then picks up Mark Shaw, my favorite Manhunter (except maybe he doesn't!) while Mona gathers Infinity, Inc.'s Wildcat and Dr. Mid-Nite. (So this issue is for fans of Peacemaker's show and Stargirl's!) Later, Amanda Waller gives the mission briefing, saying they couldn't wait for Bruce to get Nemesis, when Bruce arrives, saying he couldn't find him. Of course, 'Bruce' was Nemesis, who peels off his mask after "the stupidest plan I've ever heard," and stomps out, refusing to join "this kamikaze circus!" This would've been four years after he had quit--and quit hard--Waller's Suicide Squad; I'm surprised he would even hear her out.

Waller may not be as dumb as that, though: taking one of Professor Bennet and Chunk's solar weapons for a test, she shoots an Eclipso-possessed bat that had been listening in. Now she can tell them the real plan...which might work about as well, if not worse. I don't think I had been reading Suicide Squad regularly at the time, so I may have given Waller the benefit of the doubt; but reading it now I wonder if they were set up to fail all along, maybe in the hopes of getting proper A-list heroes to go after Eclipso. Read more!

Well, Peacekeepermaker's Helmet was good for something after all.

OK, the other day I mentioned that the Manhunter figure, that I'm never going to get, should come with a Peacekeepermaker mask as an accessory. Why, you may ask? Readers of Eclipso may remember that both Manhunter and Peacekeepermaker were killed in a failed assault on Eclipso; Manhunter turned out to be a sub in over his head, but Peacekeepermaker was dead. (I don't think that's been reversed yet, like a few other deaths there: Creeper was killed there, and had to dig himself out of his own grave.)

In his first storyline, mysterious collector and reclusive actress Olivia Vancroft wants Mark Shaw's Manhunter mask for her wall of masks. Vancroft hires the shapechanging assassin Dumas to get it for her, and hiring an assassin for a basic theft may not have been a great choice, since Dumas proves overzealous and goes after Shaw and his family. To protect them, Shaw offers Vancroft his mask, but she tells him that Dumas' code of honor won't let her cancel a job. Before he leaves, Vancroft asks Shaw to put on his mask, perhaps not realizing the sensors in it would reveal her secret...

Shaw returns later, as Manhunter, to blackmail Vancroft: she and Dumas are one in the same; Dumas being his male identity, and Vancroft his idealized woman. Unfortunately, Shaw forgot one important detail in his plan:

Shaw was already outmatched, but now on Dumas' home turf he doesn't have a chance. Dumas offers him the chance to kill himself, but Shaw declines, deciding to fight it out. He realizes the collection is Dumas' mask, and starts to destroy it, luring Dumas into the open for the kill:

I'm willing to bet Shaw picked the Peacemaker mask because it's a big, metal lump; and not for the irony. Dumas dies, and Shaw leaves both their masks in the collection: unlike a lot of masked heroes, Shaw has no particular attachment to his. It's just a mask. In a nice touch, he leaves his mask with three of DC's prior Manhunters'.

From Manhunter #4, "Through the Mask" Written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale, pencils by Doug Rice, inks by Kelley Jones.

Researching for another post, I realized on this and Peacemaker's other post, I started typing his name as Peacekeeper halfway through. No one appeared to notice, which should tell you all you need to know about him.
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The Helmet. I just can't get past the helmet...

Well, once again, there is a reason this blog is called Random Happenstance, and not Timely Happenstance, or I would've talked about this character a couple months ago, before Watchmen came and went and anyone might've cared...

Peacemaker. The average comic reader could probably tell you that he was one of the Charlton Heroes purchased by DC, and in Watchmen the Comedian is based on Peacemaker. That, and he's got a terrible, terrible helmet. It's almost a perfectly serviceable, Judge Dredd-like helmet, but it looks like it has an additional clear plastic condom of a helmet on top of the first one. Just awful.

And if you've ever thought the Charlton characters didn't receive the most respectful treatment from DC (in the current DCU, the Question and Blue Beetle are dead and replaced with new characters, and Captain Atom is missing and probably evil) well, Peacemaker was paving the way there. He didn't have a ton of appearances before he was killed off in a super-hero massacre in Eclipso, but in his first DCU guest-spots in Vigilante, Peacemaker believed the ghosts of those he had killed lived in his helmet. I guess that's why he needed the extra helmet. Peacemaker, real name Christopher Smith, formerly Schmidt; was later cured of that delusion, but wasn't done being crazy yet: he was haunted, taunted by the ghost of his father, who had been an SS commandant of a concentration camp in World War II.

I find it interesting that while there certainly are ghosts in the DC Universe (the Spectre or Deadman, for example) most people who see them are still crazy, and Peacemaker certainly was. He was so over the top crazy, he would've made Rorschach look reasonable and sane. Further adding to his problems (on multiple levels) Smith served in Vietnam, with distinction, until a village massacre that led to a life sentence. (A WWII veteran father and Vietnam tour of duty would tie Smith to real-world dates, and make him a bit old for superheroing. Granted, in his MAX series, the Punisher is in the same boat, but Frank doesn't traditionally fight super-villains, or wear a stupid helmet.) After a couple years in prison, Smith volunteered for a top-secret military program called the Peacemaker Force; which was decommissioned before it even began. Except Smith didn't go back to prison, he simply wandered off and made a go of it himself.

It seems like a trade off that didn't quite work: the Nazi ghost may have seemed like an edgy hook, since Peacemaker's slogan, "He loves Peace so much he'll kill for it!" and Rambo tactics would've already been old hat by the time of his limited series in 1987, and as far as America knew, "terrorists" were convenient multi-ethnic bad guys for movies, video games, and comic books. The terrorists, led by cardboard Asian baddie Dr. Tzin-Tzin, were more racially diverse than the Justice League was at the time...But, as seen in this fight scene from issue #3, the ghost of Smith's father simultaneously disparages and cheers on his son (in the previous issue's cliffhanger, the head goon bets Peacemaker can't take 20-to-1 odds, and Smith's dad doesn't bite) while being a racist bastard, as you'd expect a Nazi to be. Still, that makes it harder to sympathize with Peacemaker, even if he doesn't appear to have his father's prejudices.

This isn't a good series, no: Dr. Tzin-Tzin's plot is overly complicated and stupid (your hoary old 'get the U.S. and U.S.S.R. to destroy each other and then take over in the anarchy that follows' plot), Smith has a whole support team (somehow) to repair his gear and try to keep him relatively sane--his psychiatrist dresses up as a maid, so Smith will talk to her without feeling threatened or judged--and while this is ostensibly in the DC Universe, there's no interaction even though the causalities are pretty high. Well, it was Europe, not Star City, I suppose. And the art isn't great, either. But it's at least an interesting failure: they were trying to do something with the character, and while it may not have taken off, it certainly wasn't for lack of trying.

Did I mention he had a jetpack? Yeah, Peacemaker had a jetpack.

Peacemaker #1-4 (1987) Written by Paul Kupperberg, pencils by Tod Smith, inks by Pablo Marcos. I have to admit, I do kind of like the covers, particularly #2 and #3, both of which portray Peacemaker as a gung-ho, guns-blazing, keep 'em flying kind of hero; not the psychotic mess he actually was.

(By the way, I had the Fu Manchu-looking Dr. Tzin-Tzin, who had occasionally fought Batman and others, confused with Dr. Moon, who brainwashed Catwoman in stories that don't fit into continuity at all yet still make more sense than Zatanna-mindwipes.)

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