The Power Of Every Helmet In Peacemaker Explained

One of the most amusing details about the gleefully demented first season of "Peacemaker" on HBOMax is the weird assortment of helmets that Christopher Smith's dad has cooked up. Of course, Auggie Smith is a hateful white supremacist supervillain, so his mental processes are questionable at best, even if he is a brilliant engineer. Auggie is more-or-less retired as a supervillain and views his son as a colossal disappointment. He creates his white-and-red White Dragon armor when he leads his racist Aryan Empire organization, and he later creates Peacemaker's helmets in the hopes that he'd follow in his hateful footsteps. 

When Peacemaker gets out of the hospital following the events of "The Suicide Squad," he turns to his father for help. Auggie only agreed to help his son because he thinks he might kill someone whose political affiliation or ethnic identity he hates. This is when the plethora of helmets is introduced in Auggie's sub-space storage room. Some are basic units, as seen in the film, while others have crazy powers. Some are integral to the plot of the show, and some are seen only in passing. Let's explore every one of Peacemaker's different helmets and their powers.

When we're introduced to Peacemaker in "The Suicide Squad," he's wearing the basic model of his helmet. It's extremely strong and durable. Crucially, it has his dove emblem carved into it. Peacemaker reveals that he's just not comfortable with gear that doesn't have his insignia on it. After all, as he tells the members of Task Force X, "I cherish peace with all my heart. I don't care how many men, women, and children I need to kill to get it." When Bloodsport mocks it and says it looks like a toilet seat, Peacemaker protests by replying, "It's not a toilet seat! It's a beacon of freedom!" 

When Peacemaker gets out of the hospital and takes a taxi back to his trailer home, he didn't have the fare for the cab. However, Peacemaker is at least vindicated with regard to how cool his helmet is because the cab driver accepts it in lieu of money. 

The first helmet that Peacemaker takes from his dad is the Sonic Boom Helmet. Before the mission proper starts, Peacemaker hooks up with a woman he meets at a bar named Annie Sturphausen. In the post-coital afterglow, Peacemaker waxes poetic about their connection. However, Peacemaker makes the curious decision to bring the mission file with him, and he leaves it in bed before he ventures to her living room to put on some music. Unbeknownst to him, she is a "Butterfly," an insectoid alien who burrows into humans' brains and takes over their bodies. She is reading his file on Butterflies, whom he is supposed to destroy!

It isn't a surprise when she attacks him viciously in a fight where both of them are in their underwear. She has superhuman strength and speed, and even someone with Peacemaker's killing abilities is outmatched without a weapon. He retreats to his car outside to retrieve his helmet. Something that becomes immediately clear upon him uttering the helmet's "on" phrase, "Activate Sonic Boom," is that Auggie Smith's inventions tend to have one setting: as destructive as possible. 

The resulting blast liquifies the Butterfly, destroys several cars, and creates a blast crater. Given Peacemaker's general lack of subtlety, it is an extremely apt choice of weapon, although its destructive capabilities surprise even him. The team would use its destructive powers once again in a later mission. 

Many of Auggie Smith's helmets generate a force field as part of their function. That's true of the Sonic Boom helmet, which surrounds the user with energy before emitting its devastating blast. When Peacemaker and his team members prepare for their final assault on the "cow" that makes food for the Butterflies, they determine which of his helmets might be useful. When they come to the Human Torpedo Helmet, Peacemaker scoffs and suggests that they just throw it away.

He explains, "You aim your head at whatever you want to destroy, and you become a human torpedo." Like many of the other helmets, it surrounds the user with a forcefield — only this one is propulsive. When Vigilante says "Sweet!" Peacemaker replies, "Only if you want to risk shattering every bone in your body. It's just a prototype." 

Of course, when team member Leota Adebayo goes to rescue Peacemaker, she takes that helmet with her. When she sees Peacemaker fighting the chief Butterfly, she activates the helmet over Peacemaker's protests, but she winds up smashing into hard stone. However, the helmet serves a purpose. After a very convincing attempt at getting Peacemaker to join the Butterflies' cause, he has a simple reply: "Active Human Torpedo." Peacemaker saw where Adebayo landed, and her trajectory smashes her right into the cow, killing it instantly. Luckily, Adebayo is (mostly) uninjured. 

There is a bit of controversy regarding the Scabies For All Helmet concerning its function. When Peacemaker explains it to the team, he says that it gives everyone within a one-mile radius the disease scabies, with the exception of the wearer of the helmet. What is scabies? It is an extremely itchy skin infestation caused by burrowing mites that results in horrible rashes and sometimes blisters. Damaged skin can lead to other complications, like skin infections. The team makes no comment whatsoever as to why Peacemaker would have such a helmet, as they have largely gotten used to his nonsense.

The controversy about the helmet is that Auggie Smith gives Peacemaker a different story. When Auggie Smith shows his son some of his new helmets, he points to one and says, "This one will give you scabies." Peacemaker understandably asks why he would want scabies, Auggie gives him some homespun, psychotic wisdom as he says, "Challenge yourself. Every man should have scabies once in his life." Either Peacemaker misunderstands how the helmet works, or Smith developed two distinct scabies-related helmets: one to infect others and one to infect the wearer. Somehow, this seems as though it's the more likely case, given Smith's warped mind.

On a mission to investigate a bottling company that might have been responsible for processing the Butterflies' food source, Peacemaker breaks out his X-Ray Vision Helmet. That's pretty much exactly what it sounds like, as it allows the wearer to see past skin and clothing. Knowing that the Butterflies live inside of the skulls of their victims, it is a shrewd choice for Peacemaker, who as a field operative is much smarter than he often seems. 

Of course, he doesn't let the other members of his team in on his plan. Indeed, Adebayo tells him to be chill and let her do the talking. The moment he walks in with her, he shoots everyone in the front office. It is easy to see the Butterflies in their brains, so he doesn't hesitate. When he tells Adebayo about his X-Ray Vision Helmet, she yells at him for not giving a signal. He replies, "Yeah, the signal was I shot her head off." 

Later, when Adebayo is hanging out with team leader Clemson Murn, she puts the helmet on as a lark and activates it but sees something that she isn't supposed to see: Murn is a Butterfly too. It turns out that he is working against the rest of his race and doesn't want to kill her, but it is still a terrifying moment. 

There are many ways in which Auggie Smith's designs for his helmets are deeply flawed. The overpowered nature of the Sonic Boom Helmet and the dangerous quality of the Human Torpedo Helmet are obvious ways in which the helmets are dangerous, but there are other problems. For example, the helmets are voice-activated, which would be fine if they were keyed to the voice of a specific user. As it turns out, anyone who utters the activation phrase within range of the helmet will activate its ability. The second problem is that the activation phrase is really easy to slip into a conversation.

When Peacemaker is explaining the functionality of his different helmets to his crew as they were preparing to storm the Butterflies' barn, the Anti-Gravity Helmet seems potentially useful. Peacemaker's description of its powers is, "It allows you to float." When team member Harcourt asked, "Aimlessly?" Peacemaker replied, "No, I carry a tiny hand fan to guide me." While this is ridiculous, it gets even sillier when Adebayo comes up with a plan but says, "and then maybe you can put on activate anti-gravity and just float it over there." 

While that isn't a bad plan, Adebayo accidentally using the helmet's activation phrase causes it to float away. By the time Peacemaker notices, it is out of range for him to say, "Deactivate anti-gravity." Oops. 

There are other helmets that Peacemaker takes, some of which are never even brought up but are rather just seen on display. The Underwater World Helmet, sporting a fancy fin, allows the user to breathe underwater. The Force Field Helmet is a variation of the typical helmet technology that generates a force field that surrounds the user's entire body. However, it is unclear if this inhibits the user's movement or if it gives punches any additional power. 

Then there are the other weird helmets. The Bound For Good Helmet's function is not explained. Given Auggie Smith's demented imagination, it may have bound opponents in a permanent, crushing force field. It might also compel the wearer to do good acts (albeit Smith's warped definition) or permanently attach itself to the wearer. The Itchy Bond Helmet has spikes on it. Would the spikes shoot out? Would it imprison opponents in spikes or some sort of glue? Smith seemed obsessed with making people itch, so who knows? 

Peacemaker's helmets are meant to be operated by a single user in a one-on-one situation. However, Adebayo came up with a clever way to kill the alien "cow" that is the singular source of food for the Butterflies across the globe. After hearing Peacemaker say that the destructive Sonic Boom Helmet has a few more charges, she tapes a walkie-talkie inside the helmet and devises a plan to use the Anti-Gravity Helmet to drop it on the barn so they can detonate it from afar.

That plan goes sideways when she accidentally activates the Anti-Gravity Helmet and it floats away. Peacemaker then tries to get his pet eagle, Eagly, to fly the helmet to the barn. His loyal sidekick doesn't quite get the message, and he drops it deeper into the forest instead. After they find the helmet, they get tech guy John Economos to disguise himself as a Butterfly and slip inside the barn so Adebayo can detonate it. Surprisingly, this plan works, and Adebayo brings the house down. The helmet proves far more effective as an explosive device than as a one-on-one weapon. 

The original Christopher Smith from the comics was a diplomat who loved peace so much that he would assume his alter ego of Peacemaker and use brute force to solve international disputes. 

Unlike the single-use helmets of the DC Extended Universe version of Peacemaker, the comics version had a single helmet with several different electronic gadgets. This included radar and radio communication as basic functions. It could also detect radio waves. Like the TV version of Peacemaker, the helmet had an underwater breathing device and a version of the Sonic Boom called an ultrasonic stun beam. Peacemaker could also use the helmet to change his voice and shoot a laser beam. Notably, the comics version of Peacemaker kept a separate anti-gravity device. Peacemaker was originally published by Charlton Comics in 1966 and later acquired by DC. 

The rebooted version of Peacemaker introduced in 1987 had a bulletproof helmet. The helmet could also produce a sonic burst, but this was at an output low enough to simply temporarily deafen his opponents, not reduce them to jelly.