The DCU has started with a bang, thanks to titles arriving in theaters and streaming with a HBO Max subscription. The first slate of projects is titled Gods and Monsters, the most recent being Peacemaker Season 2. That show brought back Freddie Stroma’s scene stealer Vigilante, and both the actor and James Gunn himself have responded to chatter that Adrian is neurodivergent. Let’s break it all down.
DC’s co-CEO James Gunn has written all three of the shared universe’s projects: Creature Commandos, Superman, and Peacemaker. The latter focused on a multiversal story, with Adrian Chase/Vigilante constantly bringing the laughs (and murder). While speaking with EW, Stroma was asked about the fan chatter debating if his character was on the Autism spectrum. He responded with:
I’ve had a lot of people asking me if he’s on the spectrum, if he’s a sociopath, if he’s a psychopath. I just know James and I have talked about this, I am not qualified to make that label, that decision. So I feel like I’m going to stay out of it and let other people decide and maybe just keep that conversation going.
It looks like Stroma has seen the discourse about his signature DC character. But rather than weighing in and providing an answer to the Vigilante debate, he’s happy to sit back and watch it all play out. After all, his job is to play Adrian not debate the specifics of his brain chemistry.
While Stroma weighed in, the same can also be said for James Gunn himself. In the same interview, the Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker revealed how he feels about the debate over Vigilante’s possible neurodivergence. As the architect of the DCU put it:
I’ll be very honest with you here — yes, I know what I think of Adrian as being. But I’m not sure he’s necessarily a great person to represent that stuff because he is, in some ways, morally not admirable.
That’s an interesting perspective. While it looks like Gunn has seemingly given Vigilante a diagnosis behind the scenes, he’s not comfortable sharing that with the public. Namely because Peacemaker’s best friend is a total psycho who delights in murder and violence. As such, Adrian isn’t exactly the type of positive representation that the neurodivergent community would probably appreciate. As the director/writer/producer went on:
Peacemaker has plenty of flaws, but he’s also a moral individual who’s growing and getting better. And Adrian, we all love him, he’s lovable, we want to hug him, we want him to be our friend, but what he does in life is not great. So I don’t necessarily want to give him a public diagnosis and say, ‘These people are like this,’ because…I don’t know if he is good representation, frankly. And so that’s why I refrain from ever saying what I think his diagnosis — and it would be diagnoses — are.
Honestly, this makes a ton of sense. And it shows how methodically James Gunn is about his DC projects, including Peacemaker. So while he might know the answer to the debate about Vigilante, the character’s poor moral character makes him want to keep it close to the chest. The chatter might keep happening online, but we should probably just let it go and enjoy all the hijinks and murder that Freddie Stroma’s character brings to the DC series. If Vigilante is on the Autism spectrum, it won’t be addressed out of fear of painting that community in a bad light.
While Vigilante isn’t necessarily a good person, the alternate version of the character was on the right side of history on Earth X. Rather than being Peacemaker’s best friend he’s actually his nemesis, fighting against the Nazi values of the universe. We’ll just have to se what happens to the fan favorite character in the forthcoming season finale.
Peacemaker airs new episodes Thursdays on HBO Max as part of the 2025 TV schedule. We just shouldn’t expect the debate about Vigilante’s possible neurodivergence to be settled anytime soon.