Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for Legends of Tomorrow's midseason premiere.
Hours before HBO Max released the highly-anticipated Legends of Tomorrow midseason premiere made several jokes about John Cena and the character that he plays in the DCEU. The "Paranoid Android" episode featured a twisted variant of Nick Zano's Citizen Steel character, who seemed to be a satirical take on overly macho superheroes in general, but made some specifically knowing nods to John Cena's work as Peacemaker. While the timing of this was likely coincidental and not a deliberate attempt at creating corporate synergy between the two series, it did add an extra level of humor.
Legends of Tomorrow season 7 pits the team of time-traveling heroes against a corrupted copy of the artificial intelligence Gideon, who creates an army of robot doppelgangers to hunt down and kill their organic counterparts. The midseason premiere focuses on this new team of Evil Legends who believe themselves to be human, and the real Legends to be evil robots programmed to destroy the timeline. While most of the Evil Legends favored practical clothing and big guns, the doppelganger of Dr. Nate Heywood (aka Citizen Steel) armed himself with a completely different set of big guns, wearing a modified version of the original Citizen Steel costume that showcased his overdeveloped biceps.
While Nick Zano also adopted a low, gravelly voice seemingly inspired byThe Suicide Squad. Zano later confirmed the nod in a post to his personal Instagram where he recalled how, when asked by Legends of Tomorrow showrunner Phil Klemmer if he had any ideas for his robot double's development, he specifically requested "John Cena arms." The practical effects team honored this request, constructing a molded set of realistic prosthetic sleeves based around John Cena's arm measurements.
The 16-time WWE world champion was given another nod in the final scene of the Legends of Tomorrow episode "Paranoid Android," which was set up as a parody of the public service announcements that frequently close children's programming. The scene showed the robotic Citizen Steel breaking up a schoolyard fight between two children. Upon seeing Citizen Steel, one child excitedly proclaimed, "John Cena!" The other child was quick to correct him, but Citizen Steel's lesson on why bullying was wrong was ultimately lost on them. The kids began comparing Steel to Cena and made fun of how ridiculously undeveloped the rest of his body was compared to his arms, noting that "John Cena is swole all over!"
It is unknown if the wrestler-turned-actor is aware of the jokes that Legends of Tomorrow made at his expense, but it seems likely he'd laugh harder than anyone at Nick Zano's impression of him. Cena is famous for his sense of humor, having made memes based on his pro-wrestling catchphrase and played off his tough-guy image in humorous ways even before he was cast in the DCEU. Peacemaker also established Cena's willingness to poke fun at his image and his talents as a comedic actor, with every episode opening with a gloriously over-the-top musical number that quickly went viral.
New episodes of Peacemaker drop Thursdays on HBO Max.