Peacemaker First Look: Check Out John Cena's New Team On Upcoming HBO Max Series

James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" introduced us to John Cena's Peacemaker, an overly zealous patriot who will happily burn America to the ground in order to "save" it. Gunn enjoyed writing the character so much that he decided in post-production of "The Suicide Squad" to give Peacemaker his own show. We now have a first-look at the HBO Max series, which Gunn describes as "a really f**ked up version" of the 1970s "Captain America" TV movie he loved as a kid.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly that includes the first look image above, Gunn admits that he committed one of his pet peeves when creating the "Peacemaker" series. 

(Warning! Major spoilers for "The Suicide Squad" below, so stop reading if you haven't seen and care about that sort of thing.)

In "The Suicide Squad," Gunn kills off Peacemaker at the end of the film. Gunn gets annoyed when killed-off characters come back from the dead, but he was so excited to create a "Peacemaker" spin-off that he tacked on an end credits scene where Economos (Steve Agee) and Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) check in on an unconscious-but-alive Peacemaker in the hospital. "I did exactly the thing I hate when other filmmakers do [it]," Gunn told EW. "But I did it! I'll have to live with the repercussions, which is the most incredible TV show people will ever see."

The eight-episode series will star John Cena as a very-much-not-dead Peacemaker, as well as Agee and Holland as their respective "The Suicide Squad" characters. The image above also reveals what the new members to his black ops team will look like. Chukwudi Iwuji plays Murn, a mercenary who works for Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) and the leader of Peacemaker's new team. Freddie Stroma is playing Vigilante, a character who, wait for it, is a vigilante. And Danielle Brooks rounds out the team as Adebayo. "She isn't always treated the best by the people around her," Gunn said, "but despite her differences with Peacemaker, they form a bond."

Gunn wrote the entire series and directed five of the episodes. And while he'll be busy shooting "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3" for awhile, he also said he'd be more than willing to do a second season of the HBO Max show. "I would like to do a season 2," he said. "They just have to tell me that they want to do it."

"Peacemaker" will premiere on HBO Max in January 2022.