Since the Superman trailer‘s release, fans have been wondering whether Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr. is the Secretary of Defense or the ARGUS director in the DCU. Grillo made his debut in the rebooted DCU in the animated series Creature Commandoes. Apart from Superman, Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr. will also be a part of Peacemaker Season 2, which is set to come out in August 2025.
James Gunn says Rick Flag Sr. is not Secretary of Defense in Superman trailer
Rick Flag Sr.’s role in the DCU has become one of the burning questions among fans after the trailer of Superman dropped.
In the trailer, when Lois Lane mentions that the Secretary of Defense was going to monitor Superman’s actions, the frame showed Frank Grillo’s Flag Sr., which appears to suggest that he was promoted to that position.
On the other hand, in the trailer of Peacemaker Season 2, Flag Sr. was introduced as the director of ARGUS, thus further confusing fans. ARGUS is the Advanced Research Group Uniting Super-Humans.
However, director James Gunn recently interacted with fans on Threads and cleared this confusion. On the platform, a user asked Gunn, “Is Rick Flag senior the secretary of defense or is that just the way the trailer is edited I thought he was running ARGUS now?”
To this, he replied, “He’s the head of ARGUS. But he works beside the Secretary of Defense General Mori.”
Grillo talked about playing Flag Sr. in the DCU with Collider in November 2024, and compared it to Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury in the MCU. He said, “I get a little bit of a Sam Jackson vibe. It’s that kind of thing where he can swing through for a little bit, like in Superman, and have a critical, pivotal role, and then a bigger role, certainly, in Peacemaker, a very crucial role, and then is the leader of the team on Creature Commandos.”
The actor continued, “So, yeah, I don’t know what the future holds, but I think Rick Flag is kind of the head of ARGUS, like the MCU with Jackson. I mean, you never know. It’s kind of endless.”
Originally reported by Ishita Verma on SuperHeroHype.
