Maxance Vincent
*Warning: the following article contains spoilers for episodes one and two of Creature Commandos.*
The DCU is off to a fairly mediocre start with the first two episodes of Creature Commandos. Starting your latest attempt at a transmedial franchise (in this case, it will cover film, TV, video games, and comics…quite ambitious, compared to Marvel’s Film/TV shared universe) with a 2D, TV-MA-rated animated series seems like a big ask, especially when DC has been in a terrible place commercially ever since the release of Wonder Woman 1984. But if there’s anyone who can reinvigorate interest in the dwindling genre of superhero entertainment, it’s most definitely James Gunn, whose inputs at Marvel and DC (prior to him becoming co-CEO of DC Studios with Peter Safran) rank high as some of the best comic book adaptations ever.
Acting as the first installment in “Chapter One: Gods and Monsters,” Gunn wrote all seven episodes of Creature Commandos, directed by Matt Peters and Sam Liu, DC animation veterans. The show boasts an all-star cast of actors poised to transition from animation to live-action. While we don’t know exactly who will appear in what, we do know that Gunn is testing this out with Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr., acting as the Nick Fury of sorts of the DCU, leading Creature Commandos but is also slated to appear in the upcoming Superman and Peacemaker—Season 2.
It does make sense for him to appear in the latter title, exacting his revenge on Christopher Smith/Peacemaker (John Cena) for the death of his son (Joel Kinnaman). However, he’s now stuck leading a team of misfits (gee, where I have seen that before?) comprised of The Bride (Indira Varma), G.I. Robot (Sean Gunn), Weasel (also voiced by Sean Gunn), Doctor Phosphorous (Alan Tudyk), and Nina Mazursky (Zoë Chao) to stop the invasion of Pokolistan by sorceress Circe (Anya Chalotra). This was enacted at the request of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), who assembled “Task Force M” after Congress outlawed Task Force X after the events occurring at Corto Maltese in The Suicide Squad.
So it’s not a “hard reboot,” but a semi-soft reboot, citing The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker and hinting at worlds already developed in the DCEU (such as Themyscira, regarding Circe). It feels quite strange to have this “new” universe basically picking up the remnants of a failed franchise instead of starting from scratch altogether. That could’ve benefited from Creature Commandos being a welcome change of pace for DC before getting to the good stuff (Superman!). Unfortunately, its first two don’t feel “new,” whether from its stale, unimpressive animation to a grab-bag of tired, unfunny jokes that always seem at odds with its aesthetic and haphazard attempt at character development.
Some of it works, but what I’ve currently seen isn’t particularly impressive. The first episode, titled “The Collywobbles,” wastes no time putting its audience into the story and leads Task Force M straight to Pokolistan, where they meet Princess Ilana Rostovic (Maria Bakalova). It introduces its central threat in the episode’s first five minutes by way of a throwaway news channel report at a mile-a-minute pace, thwarting the audience into the story in media res and seemingly filling the gap later. This could ultimately pay off in the long run, but the series has difficulty making us care about Flag’s mission and the otherworldly D-list characters he’s stuck to babysit.
The crew is tasked to help her fight off against Circe and her “army,” the Sons of Themyscira, basically the DCU’s version of the Proud Boys. The on-the-nose humor involving these characters could be the funniest part of its two-episode premiere, only because it will make a certain “fanbase” mad. However, the first episode doesn’t have much to offer in terms of storytelling and characters. It tries to set up a conflict that should be patiently built up.
However, it doesn’t have the patience to make us care about anyone on screen, preferring to introduce each character by dumping a bunch of information to the audience with no nuance or natural feeling in the dialogue. Think of “This is Katana. She’s got my back. She can cut all of you in half with one sword stroke, just like mowing the lawn. I would advise not getting killed by her. Her sword traps the souls of its victims.” It’s exposition dump after exposition dump and gets fairly exhausting relatively fast, especially when each episode will be about 21 to 23 minutes in length.
There’s no desire to give us a compelling reason to care about anyone on screen, even if episode two, “The Tourmaline Necklace,” pulls back the curtain on The Bride and how she was created to satiate the romantic impulses of Eric Frankenstein (David Harbour). But when The Bride awakens, she instead falls in love with its creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Peter Serafinowicz). Admittedly, these parts are interesting because they depict an age-old tragedy animated in the classic sense of the term. But when Circe eventually shows up to fight off against The Bride and Nina Mazursky, the conflict feels rushed and emotionally hollow, even with constant cross-cuts to the past, where Eric attempts to swoon The Bride over, but she constantly rejects him.
We don’t have a reason to latch onto these characters now. We’ll get to the past later (for sure), but what about right now? When Mazursky and The Bride are fighting Circe, their chemistry is completely non-existent, and the impact of its violence diluted, as bloody and torturous as it may get. The most prescient element of any television pilot has always been: how do we set up the world and protagonists in a way that will encourage appointment viewing? Gunn seems stuck in a cyclical rut of rehashing the same threads as Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad, but without the bite that made both films special (even with an array of exciting Gogol Bordello needle drops).
The Bride’s flashback story ends with Eric ultimately killing Victor in revenge for her rejection. But even this conflict isn’t developed to its fullest extent, always restraining itself every time it presents something interesting. Perhaps it’s the limited time that forces Gunn to shoehorn as much as he can in his 21-minute episodes. As a result, they lack any sense of urgency and purpose when the show constantly wants to rush through its (rapid) end credits instead of properly setting the conflict and eventually further developing the characters. Of course, my criticisms, for now, may seem premature since this is a seven-episode series with five more to go, but the introductory episodes always give us a taste of what’s to come and should make us excited for what’s next. But the writing is so past-due, not only in its dull “raunchy” humor but in how Gunn attempts to depict this animated Suicide Squad.
While at that time, Guardians of the Galaxy-esque stories felt exciting and invigorated love for superhero media in a way that wasn’t thought possible before, the “Suicide Squad but with Monsters” scenario of Creature Commandos doesn’t feel as fresh as it might have just a decade ago. The characters probably all have dark backstories that may be compellingly developed. Still, the air of familiarity may be the show’s most significant deterrent when it attempts to set up a new franchise full of new stories aimed at bringing back the glory days of superhero filmmaking.
Even though I ultimately enjoyed episode two much more than the first, I can’t say I won’t lose sleep over the fact that I’ll have to wait until next Thursday to watch episode three. And that’s something that was greatly felt when viewing Gunn’s last foray into the world of DC with Peacemaker. These premiere episodes were appropriately paced and immediately gave us a sense of what the show would bathe in for eight hours. Creature Commandos, while boasting an incredible cast of highly talented actors who breathe life into their characters, has a hard time accomplishing that feat in two bafflingly short episodes.
As the first project in this new and improved DCU, it should undoubtedly convince audiences that this show—and the universe as a whole—will be worth spending time devouring any piece of media from DC Studios. Perhaps this time will come, and I will have an epiphany as the show progresses, but right now, this feeling isn’t there. And it’s particularly disappointing to have this feeling while watching a James Gunn project. Here’s hoping the tide turns in its favor much sooner than later.
The first two episodes of Creature Commandos are now available to stream on Max.
“It feels quite strange to have this ‘new’ universe basically picking up the remnants of a failed franchise instead of starting from scratch altogether.”
So weird. How did James Gunn and Peter Safran think it was a good idea to kickoff this ambitious rebooted attempt at a unified superhero continuity to rival Marvel with… an adult animated streaming series directly connecting events from a previous “cinematic universe” that was supposedly put out to pasture?
Like, I get keeping Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. You get an actress who commands the screen as phenomenally as her, you don’t cut her loose. We all accepted Eon keeping Judi Dench onboard as M between Die Another Day and Casino Royale, but they didn’t try to reference events from the Pierce Brosnan era because Martin Campbell just didn’t want to let go of his fond memories directing GoldenEye.