The first entry into the new DCU, Creature Commandos, is here. The two episode premier debuted today, December 5, 2024. Each episode is twenty three minutes long meaning they have to pack quite a bit into each episode, and boy does every single minute scream James Gunn at the top of its lungs.
***SPOILERS ahead***
Immediately, the first episode lightly touches on in universe political issues as a group of men’s rights activists are helping a villain because they want the same waterfalls as women, and the mission of the Creature Commandos is to protect US interests in oil. Rick Flag Sr., voiced by Frank Grillo, and Amanda Waller, voiced by Viola Davis, are the first two characters to be introduced. I was quickly impressed by Frank Grillo's voice acting chops as he has very little experience in voice acting. In contrast, Viola Davis sounds like she woke up, rolled over, read the script once, and called it good.
Then, the rest of the team is introduced, very similarly to Suicide Squad and The Suicide Squad. Doctor Phosphorus, a man with irradiated skin, The Bride, a walking corpse, Weasel, who is a fairly annoying humanoid weasel, G.I. Robot, who has a surprisingly funny obsession with killing Nazis, and Nina Mazursky, some kind of fish lady. The idea is that Task Force X is no longer allowed to operate as A.R.G.U.S. cannot use human beings for their missions any longer. Therefore, Amanda Waller uses metahumans that apparently aren’t human for a new group called Task Force M or the Creature Commandos.
So, it is quite literally The Suicide Squad by a different name. That’s not a surprise to me as I’m familiar with the group in the comics, but it may be a surprise to those that aren’t particularly familiar with either. It’s a bit odd to start a brand new universe with something that feels exactly like two other entries from the universe preceding it, but we all know Gunn loves zany, whacky, rag tag groups of characters almost no one has heard of.
When the opening title sequence rolled, it showed neat animations of all the members of the Suicide Squad - I mean Creature Commandos. I definitely like the animation style. It’s a blend of modern and old school animation that work really well across both episodes during the action sequences and slower moments. Then, of course, Gunn put an animated version of himself into the sequence and left out the showrunner, Dean Lorey, and the supervising director, Yves "Balak" Bigerel. I really want to support Gunn as the leader of DC, but the man just keeps convincing me that he took the job to inflate his ego as much as possible.
The first episode’s purpose is to introduce the team and their mission. It does a fine job of this. The team makes it to the location of their mission, a fictional eastern European country that seems to be mimicking Russia and Germany at the same time, and the main conflict is introduced. The voice acting for every member of the team is quite good, with Indira Varma’s The Bride and Alan Tudyk’s Doctor Phosphorus being the main standouts aside from Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr. who I already mentioned. There is a brief action sequence that is entertaining and fun. There are two obscure songs only Gunn could have found to be part of the episode, Weasel scurries around looking like a gross version of Rocket Raccoon, and G.I. Robot comedically recounts battles and how many Nazis he killed to no one. The very end of the episode introduces us to David Harbours Frankenstein, albeit for only a few seconds. Overall, it’s a decent episode.
The second episode accomplishes three things: it furthers the main conflict of the show, details The Bride’s backstory, and successfully adds two more weird, obscure songs. In this episode, the princess the team is supposed to be protecting seems to only exist for the purpose of lusting after Rick Flag Sr.. She doesn’t have much of a character other than that which is unfortunate. After we are told all about The Bride’s backstory, there is an excellent action sequence between The Bride, the main villain, and the very annoying militant men’s rights activists. The Bride throws them through walls, snaps their ankles, and shoots holes through them. It’s a very well choreographed scene, and her fight with the main villain is just as great. My biggest complaint of the episode is how gross The Bride’s backstory is. Without diving too far into it, there’s a scene that partially portrays incest and necrophilia at the same time that I certainly could have done without.
Overall, the show is good but not great. What’s holding it back, in my opinion, is the episode length. Having only about twenty two minutes to establish backstories and advance the overall plot of the show isn’t a lot of time. I know that’s the standard length for most animated shows, but that doesn’t mean Creature Commandos has to follow that standard. Gunn’s signature weird wackiness, which I’m usually not a fan of, actually works a lot better in an animated format. However, there’s still some aspects of it that are just a bit too zany and merge into annoying territory. Even though the show works, and the voice acting and animation are excellent, it feels a bit odd to start off the DCU with another Suicide Squad.
I give the show a decent 7/10.