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Peacemaker (comics)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Peacemaker is the name of a series of superheroes originally owned by Charlton Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. The original Peacemaker first appeared in Fightin' 5 #40 (Nov. 1966), and was created by writer Joe Gill and artist Pat Boyette.
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The Peacemaker first appeared as a backup series in Charlton Comics' espionage-team title Fightin' 5 #40 (Nov. 1966) When that series was canceled with issue #41, the Peacemaker received his own title that lasted five issues cover-dated March to November 1967, with the Fightin' 5 as a backup series. Some of penciler-inker Pat Boyette's artwork for a projected sixth issue later appeared online.[citation needed]
Following Charlton Comics' demise in the early 1980s, DC Comics acquired The Peacemaker and released a four-issue miniseries (Jan.-April 1988).
The Peacemaker is Christopher Smith, a pacifist diplomat so committed to peace that he was willing to use force as a superhero to advance the cause, uses an array of special non-lethal weapons. He also founds the Pax Institute. Most of the villains he goes up against are dictators and warlords.
Smith later learns that his peace-through-violence efforts were the result of a serious mental illness brought on by the shame of having a Nazi death camp commandant for a father. He believes his father's spirit haunts him continually and criticizes his every move, even as he tries to live down his past.
Becoming a particularly deadly vigilante who would kill at the slightest notice, he begins to believe that the ghosts of the people he killed, or who were killed in his vicinity, are collected inside his helmet and can offer him advice and commentary. For a time, the Peacemaker serves as a U.S. government agent under the auspices of Checkmate, a special-forces unit, hunting down for terrorists until own his behavior becomes too extreme. He eventually crashes a helicopter to destroy tanks controlled by the supervillain Eclipso and is reported dead.[1]
His soul shows up in the realm of Purgatory in the Day of Judgement series. A team of heroes has shown up to recruit the soul of Hal Jordan. The guardians of Purgatory do not like this and Peacemaker, along with other dead vigilantes, rally and provide enough of a distraction so the group can return to Earth.
Another operative using the name Peacemaker appeared only once, in Justice League International vol. 2, #65, as a member of the "League-Busters".
Mitchell Black, a surgeon, was recruited by the "Peacemaker Project", an organization unaffiliated with the Pax Institute and the US government's "Project Peacemaker". Black would reappear in the miniseries titled L.A.W. (Living Assault Weapons), reunited with the other heroes acquired from Charlton. He appeared to have been killed by the supervillain Prometheus in Infinite Crisis #7.
Another individual appearing in the current Blue Beetle series has claimed both Smith's name and the Peacemaker identity, both things confirmed by several hints, the most important ones dropped shortly before his demise,[2] such as his catchphrase of "loving peace so much, he'd kill for it." spoken by La Dama to define him.[3] However, divested of his trademark helmet, he was shown using the 'Mitchell Black' identity before settling again on his real name.[4] A year prior his meeting with Jamie, during a fight against Intergang, he found himself in a Bialyan pyramid that happened to be the same one Dan Garrett found the scarab in years before. While in there, he accidentally came into contact with alien technology that gave him the ability to receive the scarab's database in his mind, and explaining the inability of the Reach in controlling Garrett and Reyes: if the scarab was taken away with a partly functioning A.I., the higher instructions, included the ones needed by the Reach to control the host, were left in the pyramid, then downloaded into Smith's mind. Upon witnessing Jamie's rebellion, and as Reach technology can support only one fully functional scarab for planet, Peacemaker himself was implanted with a scarab,[5] left dormant until a Sinestro Corps Power Ring upon reading the Reach A.I. as a conscious mind, assign him the control of Space Sector 2, the one Reach Empire came from.[6] He is sent to kill Jaime, but Jaime enters the scarab's signal and with the help of his tamed Scarab A.I. helps Smith in facing his inner fears, as his Nazi father. Gathering enough courage for a last stand, he forcibly cuts the scarab from his spine leaving him injured, but not dead.[7]
The Peacemaker was briefly shown in flashbacks in Alex Ross and Mark Waid's comic Kingdom Come as a member of Magog's Justice Battalion, along with the rest of the Charlton 'Action Heroes'. In them, he is wearing an outfit more reminiscent of Boba Fett. He was apparently killed with the other team members when Captain Atom exploded.
The character is used as the basis for The Comedian in Alan Moore's Watchmen.
In the final issue of 52, a new Multiverse is revealed, originally consisting of 52 identical realities. Among the parallel realities shown is one designated "Earth-4". As a result of Mister Mind "eating" aspects of this reality, it takes on visual aspects similar to the pre-Crisis Earth-4, including Peacemaker and the other Charlton characters. The names of the characters are not mentioned in the panel in which they appear.[8]
Based on comments by Grant Morrison, this alternate universe is not the pre-Crisis Earth-4.[9]