What is Checkmate? Peacemaker Season 2 finally introduces the obscure team with some changes

The Peacemaker Season 2 finale has several exciting storylines that push the DCU towards a major event. However, it was one of the side plotlines introduced earlier this season that culminates in something unexpected in the season 2 finale, which is titled "Full Nelson". The said storyline is that of Danielle Brooks' Leota Adebayo.

This season began with Leota in a rough phase of her life as she was struggling both professionally and personally. She is separated from her wife, Keeya, and professionally, Adebayo is trying to get her security firm off the ground. The said security firm in the final episode of Peacemaker Season 2 takes shape as the 11th Street Kids form the organization "Checkmate".

Did Checkmate exist in the comics, or is it a Peacemaker Season 2 addition?

Checkmate is indeed a part of the comics that appeared for the first time in 1988. It initially began as a part of Task Force X but was later repurposed as a UN-chartered Metahuman Monitoring Force. Sasha Bordeaux was even broken out of prison and hired to be a part of Checkmate, even before she got her cybernetic enhancements in The OMAC Project event.

Peacemaker is not the first time Checkmate has appeared in a live-action DC project. Checkmate played a role in the ninth season of Smallville in April 2010. Now, fifteen years later, James Gunn has brought back the obscure DC spy organization to the small screen with the Peacemaker Season 2 finale.

However, Peacemaker Season 2 makes some changes to Checkmate:

One of the noticeable elements of Checkmate is the chess motif in the spy organization. The agents working are assigned chess pieces as code names, and the organization is divided into the white (intelligence) and black (field agents) divisions. But it is unclear if the DCU Checkmate introduced in Peacemaker Season 2 will follow the same modus operandi or not.

It seems that the version of the spy organization adapted for the DCU is in its nascent stage, and we don't know much about this spy organization, as it was introduced only in the Peacemaker Season 2 finale. James Gunn addressed Checkmate in the DCU in a Deadline interview. The Deadline reporter asked this question:

"What do you envision the organization looking like moving forward in this universe? Is it its own thing, or will you see it carrying through specifically with Peacemaker or other TV projects?"

To this, James Gunn's answer was:

"You’ll definitely see Checkmate carrying through like they’re a thing now, so they’re a part of what’s going to happen, and I think they’re going to be really, really good at what they do. When we see them next, I think their circumstances will be a little bit different than the startup that they’re now."

But the biggest difference between the comics and the DCU versions is that in the latter, Checkmate, for now, might be a private security firm, while in the former, it is a spy organization affiliated with the UN. James Gunn, in Peacemaker: The Official Podcast with James Gunn, touched upon the DCU Checkmate being the 11th Street Kids, with some extra members (Sasha Bordeaux, Judomaster, and Langston Fleury):

"We go to the happiest montage I've ever shot in my entire life, which is the gang taking all of Vigilante's money and putting it into some new endeavor as Foxy Shazam is on the party boat today, now. And we see them forming Checkmate. Now, anybody who's read the comics knows that Checkmate is an entity in the comics. That's where Sasha Bordeaux is most famously a member of. And now we know in the DCU, the 11th Street Kids are Checkmate, basically, only with a couple of extra members now, of people who we've seen change."

Trending

The Peacemaker Season 2 finale is currently accessible via HBO Max. Log in to the OTT platform to binge the entire season.

×

Was this article helpful?

Thank You for feedback