Folks, seems like the fan campaign worked. After the billboards, the sit-ins, the blimps flown over the Warner Bros. lot shot down by the Animaniacs, and the Million Happersen March on Washington, ya boy is back in this week’s episode of Peacemaker. That’s right: Stephen Blackehart has returned as beloved Superman character Sydney Happersen.
Spoilers for the episode past this point, but following up on last week’s Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) cameo, it’s clear James Gunn knew they had to top it somehow. And how do you top one of the greatest supervillains ever? His second in command. Or third. Maybe fourth. Possibly tenth. Honestly, it’s not totally clear.
On the advice of Lex, Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo, of Grillo’s Pickles fame) and Sasha Bordeaux (Sol Rodríguez) ask Sydney Happersen to help them find Peacemaker’s (John Cena) portal that is the MacGuffin of Season 2. Sydney wants to know what’s in it for him, in a riff on the Lex scene from Episode 6. Flag explains that if he doesn’t want to do it, they’ll just tell Lex he said so, which immediately cows Sydney into helping out. And not only that, he takes less than two seconds to find the exact location of the portal Peacemaker is using.
After that, Flag says he’ll keep him around since he’s so useful… And then he shows up in the post-credits scene, saying that he’s going to masturbate to Pornhub. Good [checks notes] joke?
Who Is Sydney Happersen In Superman?
In case you can’t recall the name immediately, he’s the tall guy with the mustache who worked at LuthorCorp, and eventually sort of turned against Lex once the baddie started destroying Metropolis. So what’s he doing in prison? Well, he was also instrumental in destroying most of Metropolis, as well as multiple attacks on Superman, and massive destruction to the city prior to that as well. So yeah: prison.
Here he is saying, “Lex, the rift is almost here!” in a very silly voice:
In the movie, Happerson is a scientist, while in the DC Comics source material, he’s more specifically Lex Luthor’s assistant (as well as a scientist). As for Sappersen’s role going forward in the DCU? Seems like he’s working for Rick Flag Sr, now. Stay tuned. As is, congrats to the fans. Now it’s time to boot up the fan campaign to bring back whoever is sitting directly behind Sappersen in the pic above. We can do it, fam!
Peacemaker Season 2 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
Peacemaker season 2 premiered on HBO Max on Thursday, August 21. The season will be eight episodes long, with one episode premiering per week.
Here’s the full list of episodes in Peacemaker Season 2, with premiere dates:
- Thursday, August 21, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 1
- Thursday, August 28, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 2
- Thursday, September 4, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 3
- Thursday, September 11, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 4
- Thursday, September 18, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 5
- Thursday, September 25, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 6
- Thursday, October 2, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 7
- Thursday, October 9, 2025: Peacemaker, Season 2, Episode 8 *Season Finale*
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