As a tactical support agent for A.R.G.U.S., John Economos has been an integral character in Peacemaker, which premiered its second season on the 2025 TV schedule last week. However, one thing Steve Agee’s character has going against him is how difficult it is to pronounce his last named. The Peacemaker stars can’t seem to agree on which pronunciation is correct, but Agee himself claims that fellow actor John C. Reilly has it figured out.
When our own Hannah Saulic interviewed Steve Agee, who was seated next to Sasha Bordeaux actress Sol Rodríguez, during the Peacemaker Season 2 junket, she started off the conversation by asking how Economos is pronounced. Agee said that while Peacemaker creator/co-head of DC Studios James Gunn says “Econ-OH-Mos,” he says “Econ-IHm-IHs.” Then he shared:
Look, and by the way, and this is going to sound namedrop-y, it kind of is, but John C. Reilly told me that when he was growing up in Chicago, there was a family that lived next door to them whose last name was ‘Economos.’ John said, ‘Econ-IHm-IHs.’ He said it the way I say it. John Ostrander, who created The Suicide Squad, based John Economos on a person he actually knew who lived in Chicago. And so I have a feeling that the real John Economos lived next door to John C. Reilly. So I'm going to keep saying ‘Econ-IHm-IHs.’ That’s a long way to get to a short answer.
While the first version of the Suicide Squad was introduced in 1959, John Ostrander did indeed come up with the modern incarnation of the team that the public knows best, i.e. where incarcerated supervillains are sent on dangerous missions in exchange for leniency and reduced sentences. John Economos has been around 1987’s Suicide Squad #1, and in a strange twist of fate, it’s entirely possible that the real life Economos that Ostrander based the character on is the same person who John C. Reilly knew way back when in Chicago.
Someone should ask Reilly (who was directed by James Gunn for his small role in Guardians of the Galaxy) about the John Economos he knew, and then those details could be matched against ones that John Ostrader can provide about his Economos. Or maybe someone can arrange contact between the two men so they can compare notes and we can get a definitive answer. More importantly, however, is that Agee has Reilly to back him up on the pronunciation of Economos. I’ll be honest though, I still find myself following James Gunn’s lead in saying, “Econ-OH-Mos.”
Pronunciation aside, we’ll see John Economos continue to help out John Cena’s Christopher Smith and the rest of their allies as Peacemaker Season 2 unfolds. The show’s long-awaited arrival also comes over half a year after Steve Agee vocally reprised his character in the animated series Creature Commandos, which can be streamed with an HBO Max subscription as well.
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