The ensemble cast of James Gunn's Peacemaker has made a long journey from a band of hateful jerks to bizarre newfound family. The team's newest addition and Peacemaker's oldest friend is the socially inept crime-fighter Vigilante, but his relationship with the team seems to be taking a dark turn.
Peacemaker centers around the titular anti-hero as he and his government-issued handlers do battle with the mysterious butterflies. Peacemaker's old crime-fighting buddy Vigilante joins up largely by force, following the team out to a job and getting roped into the work for a lack of other options. Almost no one seems thrilled to have him there and there's very clearly something wrong about him.
Adrian Chase, AKA Vigilante, is a young man who idolizes Christopher Smith as a personal hero. To that end, he dons a handmade costume and carries a variety of weapons to kill anyone he sees committing a crime. He's pretty clearly some sort of psychopath, lacking any sense of empathy for those he kills and exhibiting no social awareness in his interactions. The character wavers in tone between a comic-relief cartoon character and an unnervingly grounded ideological serial murderer. He's polite, but often says things that feel woefully out of place. He's childlike in some ways, a trait he shares with Peacemaker. His relationship with Christopher Smith is somewhat pathetic, the older hero sees him as an annoyance rather than an asset. That relationship, however, has only begun to develop new layers of unpleasantness as the series has carried on.
Vigilante was introduced in episode 2 of Peacemaker, appearing excitedly to greet Christopher after his release from prison. Their dialogue is terse, Vigilante is ecstatic to see his hero while Peacemaker is less than pleased. After a brief practice montage, Vigilante follows Peacemaker on his first proper mission as part of Project Butterfly. In a moment of moral conflict, Peacemaker shies away from assassinating a family.
Vigilante establishes himself right away by taking up the weapon and killing without compunction. This action makes him invaluable to the team, and the group's leader Mr. Murn recognizes that immediately. Everyone else there, Peacemaker included, repeatedly points out the fact that Vigilante is unhinged, but that fact only seems to make Murn more certain of his role. Now that Murn's secret is revealed, it will be interesting to see how Vigilante's role changes in the group.
After eagerly killing children with little justification, Peacemaker and Vigilante are captured. In a misguided move, their interrogator chooses to torment Vigilante to force Peacemaker to give up information out of empathy. Peacemaker lacks any real concern for his friend, so he allows Vigilante to be disfigured and unmasked as Adrian Chase.
After their escape, Chase repeatedly makes a point of laying blame upon Peacemaker for allowing him to be hurt. It's clear that Chase is furious and deeply hurt by this exchange. He seems to forgive Smith for his actions, but even that comes with some intense back and forth about the pair's absentee fathers. Vigilante is made aware of the severity of Smith's relationship with his dad and makes a fateful decision that seems to change his position in the narrative.
Chase decides to get himself arrested, willfully entering prison to find and kill Peacemaker's dad. Auggie Smith, AKA The White Dragon, is a violent white supremacist who runs with a pack of Nazis in lockup. Chase easily defeats Smith's fascist friends but finds Smith unwilling to fight under the circumstances. The team moves fast to get Chase out of jail before he can kill Smith's father, but never mention the incident to Peacemaker. As of episode five, Vigilante is a valued member of the team, all transgressions are going unacknowledged, and things seem to be going well for Chase, but these details still bubble under the surface. There are several ways that the gang's relationship with Vigilante could place him in the final boss position.
Given the reaction Christopher Smith had to the arrest and detention of his father by John Economos, he's unlikely to be pleased when he finds out Vigilante tried to kill him off. This could elevate Smith's apparent dislike of Chase into a full-blown conflict, destroying the delicate balance in the team. Conversely, Chase claims to have forgiven Smith for letting him get tortured, but his unhinged temper could reverse that swiftly. Vigilante has proven to be extremely jealous of the other members of the team and their easy banter with Peacemaker. As Smith gets closer to the group, Vigilante could turn against them in anger. But, if Adrian Chase turned against the team, would he stack up to the main antagonist?
Vigilante is at least the second most competent killer on the team, but it's unclear whether he could take Peacemaker in a straight fight. What he does have is a complete lack of moral inhibitions, which could allow him to gain the upper hand through sheer underhanded cruelty. Furthermore, the big threat of the series is the Butterflies, mysterious insects which inhabit the brains of their victims and turn them into superhuman monsters. Imagine the threat Vigilante could be if he willingly accepted a Butterfly to kill his former idol. Fans will just have to wait and see what the final episodes of Peacemaker have in store for Vigilante.
