IF there is one thing A.R.G.U.S. director Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is truly good at, which is flagrantly finding ways to exploit human rights in the name of protecting America. In Warner Bros Animation and DC Studios’s latest Creature Commandos series, Waller finds a way to create a new black ops unit without upsetting the US Congress, by having monsters in the unit instead.
Following the attack on the fictional country of Pokolistan by the Amazonian sorceress Circe (Anya Chalotra), Waller puts a team together to protect the princess, consisting of the Bride of Frankenstein (Indira Varma), Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), Nina Mazursky (Zoe Chao), G.I. Robot and Weasel (both voiced by Sean Gunn). Led by Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), “Task Force M” begrudgingly sets on their mission rife with problems, particularly when Eric Frankenstein (David Harbour) shows up to “save” his Bride.
Bloody good precedent
A spiritual sequel to 2021’s The Suicide Squad, Creature Commandos is the first official entry in the new DC Universe (DCU) created by James Gunn and Peter Safran, with the second entry being the new Superman later this year. The series is pretty much what anyone familiar with Gunn’s films would expect, as Creature Commandos follows the template of “rag-tag group of criminals or heroes forced to work together despite their differences” that Gunn established with Guardians of the Galaxy over 10 years ago and re-established with The Suicide Squad.
However, the core difference here is the medium Creature Commandos is delivered in. Being an animated series, Gunn and showrunner Dean Lorey get a lot of room in pushing their content to the extreme, particularly the violence. This brings up a question on how the subsequent DCU titles will handle graphic violence or sexual themes. Will David Corenswet’s Superman accidentally punch a hole through someone, with their chest exploding, sending bone shrapnel, innards and blood spraying out, like what happens repeatedly in Creature Commandos, in a cinema filled with children brought by their parents?
Balancing light and dark
The series serving as a foundation to the DCU aside, Creature Commandos is still entertaining. Bearing a visual and comedic resemblance to the popular, but niche animated series Archer, the show fires on all cylinders at all times, whether its time for jokes, moments of seriousness or a combination of both.
Unlike his films, Gunn has more room to expand on the characters he has. Waller is roped into Task Force M, with most of the episodes focusing flashbacks on each individual member of the team. G.I. Robot, an android created to kill Nazis during World War II, receives a sombre series of flashbacks, while characters such as the anthropomorphic, unintelligible Weasel — who was brought back from the 2021 film — and the Bride have dark backstories, particularly the latter with Gunn’s not-so-subtle condemnation of “incel behaviour”.
Overall, it is a tightrope display of balancing between the edginess of Zack Snyder’s previous DC Cinematic Extended Universe and what made those early Marvel films fun. If Gunn keeps it up with the next DCU projects, maybe Warner Bros will finally find success in its DC Comics properties.
