Is Rick Flag Sr. the Nick Fury of DCU? Speculations explored

As DCU's Superman marches towards its release this July, one question has been on the minds of fans: Which character is the connective tissue between the DCU projects? Turns out, we have an answer to this question: Rick Flag Sr., the new director of A.R.G.U.S., who replaced Amanda Waller after the latter's daughter publicly outed her mother's Task Force X activities.

You may think that he alone is the Nick Fury for James Gunn and Peter Safran's DCU, but that might not be the case. As Creature Commandos seems to suggest, while Flag Sr. is the public-facing director of A.R.G.U.S., Waller might still be the brains, thus it would mean that both of these characters could function as the connective tissue and Nick Fury from MCU Phase-I.

Frank Grillo addressed this during a Collider interview with Steve Weintraub, published in November 2024. Weintraub brought up Grillo's involvement in Creature Commandos, Superman, and Peacemaker Season 2 and drew a comparison to Grillo's role being similar to that of Clark Gregg's role as Agent Coulson in MCU Phase I. To this, Grillo responded:

"I'll go a step further. I get a little bit of a Sam Jackson vibe. It's that kind of thing where he can swing through for a little bit, like in Superman, and have a critical, pivotal role, and then a bigger role, certainly, in Peacemaker, a very crucial role, and then is the leader of the team on Creature Commandos. So, yeah, I don't know what the future holds, but I think Rick Flag is kind of the head of ARGUS, like the MCU with Jackson. I mean, you never know. It's kind of endless."

Rick Flag Sr.'s DCU role explained:

The first DCU, or DC Universe project, was 2024's Creature Commandos. But later, 2021's The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1 were also retconned into this new universe. The first time we come across Rick Flag Sr., played by Frank Grillo, is in the first episode of Creature Commandos Season 1, where he is selected as the leader of Task Force M/Creature Commandos.

After that, he is set to appear in both Superman and Peacemaker Season 2, but in a more antagonistic role than in Creature Commandos Season 1. But it remains unknown where he will return after this August's DCU series, Peacemaker Season 2. Here is the list of DCU projects and whether Flag Sr. is returning in them or not:

Who is Rick Flag Sr.?

As mentioned before, we meet Rick Flag Sr. in the DCU for the first time in Creature Commandos. His reasonable nature stands in firm contrast to his tough-guy exterior. Mourning his son, Rick Flag Jr. (who was killed by Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad), Flag Sr. strikes up an intimate relationship with Princess Ilana Rostovic while protecting her from Amazonian Sorceress Circe.

However, the finale revealed that she was planning to invade the rest of the world and was probably manipulating Flag Sr. all along. Therefore, it is possible that this reveal set Flag Sr. up for a darker path in Superman and Peacemaker Season 2. He was confirmed as the central antagonist of Peacemaker Season 2 in the DCU press event in February 2025:

"You take the character of Rick Flag [Sr.], who starts out in Creature Commandos as one character, goes to Superman, continues to evolve and change, and then he starts out as a protagonist of one show and ends up as basically the antagonist of Season 2."

However, it must be noted that Flag Sr. does have a legitimate reason for hunting down Peacemaker and possibly even his team in the second season of Peacemaker.

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Do you think that Frank Grillo's Rick Flag Sr. is the DCU's Nick Fury? Let us know.

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