Vigilante

Peacemaker’s second-best-best friend, after Eagly of course, **Vigilante** lives for the thrill of the (crime) fight. With a somewhat unhinged penchant for shooting bad guys, blowing stuff up, creating as much mayhem as possible, Vigilante has been in serious kickass withdrawal in the years that Peacemaker’s been locked up at Belle Reve. But now that he’s back, they’ve got to make up for lost time. Although he’s got a sense of humor, he seems to lack real human emotion. And although he’d never reveal his secret identity (even under extreme torture), he works as a busboy at Fennel Fields Mediterranean restaurant.

## Throughout the Series

### Season 1

In A Whole New Whirled, after smashing his window to gain acess, Chris then finds his cellphone has a plethora of voicemails from Adrian Chase, a.k.a. Vigilante. Sometime later, Adrian bursts outside into the alley behind the restaurant and gleefully celebrates the return of Peacemaker. But upon being caught by his co-worker, Adrian attempts to lie to nervously tell his coworker that he’s excited about his pregnant not-girlfriend’s abortion. Which ultimately weirds out said co-worker.

In Best Friends, For Never, while he's having this moment of vulnerability, Peacemaker is met by Vigilante with Peacemaker telling his fellow crime-fighter that he was doing "face muscle exercises" and definitely wasn't crying.The pair catch up after Peacemaker's four-year prison stint, with Vigilante admitting he's happy to have his "best friend" back, even if said pal thinks Eagly is his best friend, and Smith reveals he's a contract killer for the government. Vigilante then advises Peacemaker on their crime-fighting profession, saying they are natural born killers and they shouldn't feel bad about killing bad people. After this touching heart-to-heart, the pair decide the best way to blow off steam is to shoot at random household objects in the woods, drinking, and smoking weed with former kidnapee Amber in bed joining the two men.

In Better Goff Dead, while waiting to have a clear shot to kill Goff and the other butterflies posing as his family, eventually Vigilante arrives,after having been following Chris around all day. As it turns out, even though everyone thinks he’s ridiculous, Vigilante arrives in the nick of time. As Chris and Harcourt continue to surveil the family, they pour yellow goo into bowls and then start drinking it through purple suckers that emerge from their mouths. Clemson Murn orders Chris to kill them all immediately, but he can’t bring himself to shoot the kids, so Vigilante takes over and cheerily shoots all of them except Goff himself. Before he can take that shot he’s interrupted by Judomaster. He easily takes out Harcourt, Vigilante, and Peacemaker by himself. The latter two are taken inside by Judomaster and Goff, while Harcourt lays unconscious nearby. While Vigilante and Peacemaker are being held captive in the basement, Murn, Leota Adebayo, and Emilia Harcourt try to find them. The trio takes a brief tour through the house where Goff’s family is still laying dead on the floor. In the time it takes them to find the hidden door, Goff has despatched Judomaster to report what happened to his superiors. An unmasked Vigilante, tries in vain to preserve his identity by constantly pulling faces. Goff then goes onto attach electrical clips to Vigilante's genitals. Peacemaker for his part says that he won’t break under torture, least of all under someone else’s torture, but Vigilante really goes through the wringer. Later, shortly before being rescued, Vigilante and Peacemaker looking on, an alien-looking butterfly claws its way out of the remains of Goff’s face and begins to fly up and out of the cave. Upon seeing the weird creature, Peacemaker finally figures out what Project: Butterfly means.

In The Choad Less Traveled, as the special taskforce is returning home from the Goff mission, Vigilante complains incessantly about potentially losing his pinky toe. He tells the group that he needs it for balance. Harcourt and Leota for their part try to dispute this. Later, Vigilante drives Peacemaker to grab a few helmets at Auggie’s house. But Vigilante and Chris bicker over Peacemaker's failure to save Vigilante from Goff torturing him. It becomes abundantly clear to Vigilante that Peacemaker feels no empathy for Vigilante’s half-amputated pinky toe. However, it is through Auggie’s neighbor that Peacemaker learns of his father’s imprisonment. Chris then calls Murn to chew him out and asks Vigilante to drive him to the prison. Unfortunately, Leota’s impassioned words aren’t enough to dissuade Chris. After Peacemaker heads inside, Leota quickly identifies Vigilante, even with the latter in civilian attire. Vigilante tries to disguise his voice but to no avail. Meanwhile, as the Leota and Vigilante chat, she surreptitiously plants the idea of killing Auggie in Vigilante's brain. As a result, Vigilante leaves the premises. Vigilante brazenly barges into a cop gathering, grabs a trashcan and attempts to toss it through a window. But the police officers arrest him on the spot. As he lays on the floor to be arrested, he just tells the cops to watch the pinky toe as he previously sustained an injury.

Later, Vigilante marches through the prison in his jumpsuit. He immediately sits with Auggie and his Nazi white supremacist lackeys. He tries to incite a fight that will lead to him killing Auggie by throwing out words that will rouse them, and suddenly, one of the Nazis lunges for Vigilante. However, Vigilante is prepared, as he fights of all of Auggie’s buddies with ease. Auggie refrains from fighting Vigilante claiming that he won't be goaded into a fight by him. While the cops seize the duo, Vigilante blurts out that Auggie is a terrible father. Thus, revealing his identity to Auggie. Auggie then emphatically demands to speak with Detective Song.Meanwhile, in Peacemaker’s humble trailer, he procures a mason jar with none other than Goff’s butterfly. Leota inadvertently lets it slip that Vigilante is in prison trying to kill Auggie. Murn’s infuriated, and he orders the gang to remedy the situation. Afterall, he points out that framing Peacemaker’s father and then murdering him isn’t going to endear Peacemaker to them. So, John Economos looks up Vigilante to uncover his civilian identity. Harcourt then breaks Vigilante out of prison and picks him up. He slides into the passenger seat, formally introduces himself and emotionally informs Harcourt that he “messed up.” Due to the fact that Vigilante didn’t kill Auggie, now the latter believes his son sent someone to murder him.

In Monkey Dory,Vigilante and Emilia head in the back and realize there are thousands of boxes for the alien food. They suddenly come to the realization that this operation is far bigger than they thought. Unfortunately, they’re spotted and the Butterflies mobilize, dozens of them in human hosts that screech and throw themselves at the pair.

In Murn After Reading, At Peacemaker’s trailer, Vigilante shows up and the pair notice in awe that Goff has drawn a peace symbol. As they begin asking the Butterfly Yes or No questions, the police close in. Thankfully Murn manages to get through to Vigilante, and the gang leave out the roof. Although they manage to get away, the police also find the diary Leota has stashed. Song notices Eagley up on the roof partly thanks to Peacemaker whistling for its attention and begins checking through the woods for the pair. Unfortunately, everything goes awry. Vigilante falls out of the tree, the glass jar holding Goff smashes into pieces and the butterfly ends up inside Song. While she convulses on the floor, blood dribbling out her mouth, Vigilante and Peacemaker run for their lives. They manage to evade all the police but as they’re cornered by a solitary officer, Caspar Locke shows up and kills him in cold blood, saving the pair of superheroes and telling them to leave.

In Stop Dragon My Heart Around, at Peacemaker’s trailer, Vigilante shows up and the pair notice in awe that Goff has drawn a peace symbol. As they begin asking the Butterfly Yes or No questions, the police close in. Thankfully Murn manages to get through to Vigilante, and the gang leave out the roof. Although they manage to get away, the police also find the diary Leota has stashed. Song notices Eagley up on the roof partly thanks to Peacemaker whistling for its attention and begins checking through the woods for the pair. Unfortunately, everything goes awry. Vigilante falls out of the tree, the glass jar holding Goff smashes into pieces and the butterfly ends up inside Song. While she convulses on the floor, blood dribbling out her mouth, Vigilante and Peacemaker run for their lives. They manage to evade all the police but as they’re cornered by a solitary officer, Caspar Locke shows up and kills him in cold blood, saving the pair of superheroes and telling them to leave. Back in the field, Peacemaker and Economos catch up with Vigilante, who happens to be passed out in his car. Unfortunately he’s also taken all of Peacemaker’s helmets from Auggie’s house and that leads White Dragon back to him. After knocking down Eagley, Auggie turns his attention to Peacemaker. Knocking him down, Auggie prepares to take his son out. Only, Economos shows up with a machine gun, killing all the fanatics alongside him. Vigilante pounces on Auggie and short-circuits his suit.

In It's Cow or Never, Leota attempts to apologize to Chris, but he just isn’t interested in apologies, so he and Vigilante proceed to make fart noises while Leota expresses her sincere remorse. Vigilante goes onto rank his besties, and we learn that Peacemaker and Eagly are numbers one and two, respectively, while Leota sits at number five. Later, Peacemaker, Harcourt and Vigilante arm themselves for a showdown with the butterflies. Harcourt then urges Peacemaker to find the cow while she and Vigilante fend off the butterflies topside. Unfortunately, he slips on debris and falls to the barn’s lower level, with said debris burying him. Outside, Vigilante succumbs to a slew of bullets after killing Butterfly Fitz and collapsing on the ground. Harcourt also suffers a few shots and falls, with blood dripping out of her mouth. Eventually, Chris and Leota emerge from the barn wreckage to find Vigilante alive and Economos sitting with Harcourt. It looks like Harcourt might be dead, but Chris cradles her in his arms, and the gang takes her to a hospital. While at the hospital, the staff wheels Harcourt and Economos away. Vigilante collapses on the ground after asserting he doesn’t need medical attention. Leota and Chris get some much-needed one-on-one time, wherein the pair make amends, and Leota vows to do the right thing. Before she leaves, Chris informs her that, after Eagly, she’s his bestie. Some time later, Leota goes on camera to reveal Project Butterfly to the world and publically exonerate Peacemaker and Vigilante of their crimes. She then informs the reporters of how much the heroes assisted the mission and that Peacemaker didn’t write that diary. Vigilante watches while in the hospital and promptly escapes. Afterwards, Vigilante and Chris go back to doing what they do best, which is blowing stuff up.

## Trivia

* On January 10, 2022, it was revealed that although Chris Conrad filmed five episodes of *Peacemaker*, he departed the show and was recast with Freddie Stroma in his place. Gunn further mentioned he and Conrad were on different pages about certain things, and he doesn't think Conrad wanted to continue on the series in the long run. As a result, they brought Freddie in, five-and-a-half episodes in, and Gunn reshot and directed all of Vigilante's scenes in five and a half episodes thus far.
* On January 14, 2022, it was mentioned how it was a deliberate choice to have Vigilante be different from how he's been portrayed in the comics and in other DC Comics show (i.e. Arrowverse). Gunn said that, “I thought, if this guy really existed, there really was a Vigilante, a guy who dresses up in a costume, and goes around and kills people he says are doing something wrong — what would he really be like? And that’s where Vigilante came [from]. He’s very off, and he’s a sociopath, but he’s got this sort of sweet aspect to him...”
* On February 10, 2022, Gunn was asked if the red visor in Vigilante's mask is prescription, to which Gunn did in fact confirm that it is.
* On March 11, 2022, it was also revealed that five Funko figures are available: Starting with one that has Peacemaker with Eagly, followed by Peacemaker in tighty-whities, Judomaster, Vigilante, and Eagly holding an American flag. Noticeable absent are Harcourt and Leota.
* He is queer.

## Gallery

### Videos

Vigilante Comic Origins Explained - PeacemakerPeacemaker - BFFs Featurette - HBO MaxPodly- The Peacemaker Podcast - Ep. 4 with Freddie Stroma - HBO Max-2Peacemaker's Freddie Stroma on Vigilante and Passing the ‘A\*\*hole Test’
## References

1. ↑ Why Peacemaker Recast Vigilante After 5 Episodes, Explained By James Gunn - Screen Rant
2. ↑ Peacemaker’s Vigilante isn’t anything like the comics by design - Polygon
3. ↑ James Gunn Feb. 10, 2022 Tweet - Twitter
4. ↑ Original Funko March 11, 2022 Tweet - Twitter