John Cena is Peacemaker. James Gunn has written and directed. The music is on the nose. The show talks in short sentences. That’s quite enough of that.

Right from the off there’s a sense that this is deliberately going to be An Ride. In terms of tone it’s all over the place but, safe to say, it really deserves its audience rating – this is not a show for kids, both in terms of subject matters but also in terms of portrayals of violence, sex and language.

The sense I get is this is supposed to be a superhero show for grown-ups. Except it’s steadfastly dealing with a central premise that is cliched comic book in nature. I say this in the sense that extreme violence is unrepentantly the main solution and almost no cliché is left unturned.

Look past that though and you find John Cena playing a blinder. Peacemaker is a complex and nuanced character; largely unlikeable but with just enough vulnerability that he’s more than an incompetent and violent, misogynist, racist buffoon.

What Cena and the show does really well is situation Peacemaker. We see very quickly the life he comes from in the wake of the events in the movie The Suicide Squad. We meet acquaintances, family and a very special American Bald Eagle.

Peacemaker is a child in a man’s body. However, Gunn doesn’t make this something to be mocked but instead it’s pretty clear that we’re to pity Cena’s character as a man who was let down by just about everyone in his life – from his neo-Nazi father through the small town where he grew up – there doesn’t appear to be one good thing in his life.

The show doesn’t excuse his behaviour or attitudes on the back of this explanation but it sets them centre stage so we can follow Peacemaker’s understanding of the world without it being one that is either unremittingly grating or plain offensive.

Don’t get me wrong – there are scenes, especially those including racist content, that I suspect only a White man could have written, and that remains a problem because they’re not half as funny as I think they’re intended to be and when that humour fails to land all you have left is just how shocking this kind of commentary is shorn of the tongue in its cheek.

I’m in two minds about this – the show is so full of content which hits at the edge of the envelope that I can’t say what it’s really trying to achieve. Is Gunn writing exactly what he wants and just going with whatever idea comes into his head? Or is Gunn trying to offend as many people as possible (nearly all of whom will be on the right hand side of the aisle)? Or is he just out of control with a lack of strong editorial to bring the scattershot into a tight, more defined narrative?

Coming back to Cena – he is excellent, not just for taking a role which will, I think, define his career for some time to come, but in committing to this character in a way which makes him feel real. Peacemaker is principally a parody and a satire of Batman, but it works as a satire of power fantasies more generally and in that sense Gunn’s delivery of a man utterly out of his depth but somehow continuing to make ridiculous decisions brings life to what would otherwise just be a garishly palleted mess of a show.

I’m going to hold fire on talking about the secondary characters beyond saying that we hit trope city this week – big man tech nerd, conventionally gorgeous blonde woman superspy, boss’s daughter, mysterious team leader and a nerdy friend channelling all of the Deadpool vibes. This is a series, so I think it’s worth withholding judgement on them based solely upon how they land in this first episode.

It’s hard to look past just how busy this show is, how hard it’s trying to be irreverent, witty, in your face and daring. It’s like being hit in the face with a haddock wearing cool sunglasses and telling ‘your mum’ jokes. I think I like it but, honestly, I’m mainly trying to figure out what’s just happened while cackling my way through some of the more outlandish gags.

Rating? 7 out of 10

Stewart Hotston