A lot of noise has been made about James Gunn becoming the new shepherd of DC’s upcoming slate of films, especially given the failure of their 2023 output of films, but fans have reasons to be optimistic. Gunn has proven to be a talented director between the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise and with his own DC projects like Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad. So seeing him begin DC’s future not with a feature film, but with the animated series Creature Commandos, may seem like a curious choice. But according to James Gunn at New York Comic Con, it was purely coincidental.
“I wrote the scripts and then I happened to get hired as the head of DC Studios,” Gunn claimed, saying that the show wasn’t intended to be the debut title. He said that’s not a bad thing though since Creature Commandos is something that he’s personally excited for as it’s his first animated project he’s ever done. Gunn wrote the scripts for all of the episodes and described the show as “Guardians of the Galaxy with the sentimentality stripped back” and called one of the upcoming episodes in the seven-episode series “the saddest thing I’ve ever written in my life,” which is saying something after the tear-jerker ending to Guardians 2 and Rocket’s origin in Guardians 3. He also mentioned that all of the cast received their scripts at the same time, which is generally uncommon for a TV show, which gave everyone involved a clearer picture of the scope of the show.
But with all of that being said, how does the show actually look? Well, after looking at the new trailer for the series, which premiered at the panel, it looks solid. It definitely takes a lot of inspiration from The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, but I can’t help but notice a little bit of Doom Patrol mixed in there as well with how everyone is visibly shunned by society. The series will follow a group assembled by Amanda Waller, though due to the intervention of Congress, she can’t use humans anymore to send out on missions. So instead, she goes for the next best thing – monsters! So this crew of creatures has to head to Eastern Europe to save the day and kill a whole lot of villains and monsters in the process.
Even though Gunn led most of the discussion, the rest of the cast was also present, which included Steve Agee reprising his role as John Economos from Peacemaker, Alan Tudyk, Maria Bakalova, Sean Gunn, Zoe Chao, David Harbour, and Frank Grillo. James was especially happy to finally be working Frank and David after trying to find an excuse to work with them for years, but he wrote the roles of Weasel/G.I. Robot, Princess Ilana, and Doctor Phosphorous for Sean, Maria, and Alan respectively. Most of them began to talk in a bit more detail about their characters, like how Steve Agee’s Economos is “steadily staying the same [from Peacemaker]” and that “he’s not a monster, just a terrified pussy.” Chao also said how she used her history as a biracial woman to portray the fish woman Nina Mazursky. As for David Harbour, who will be playing Frankenstein, he didn’t go into too much detail about his take on the character but said it will be a unique take that will call back to the original Mary Shelley novel.
Outside of those brief glimpses into the characters, one thing most of the cast confirmed was that this will undeniably be an adult show. From killing nazis to violent sex, much like Harley Quinn, this isn’t a show for children. One example is that there’s a sex scene fairly early on in the show, which then led into a small aside about how everyone kind of wants to have sex with Nina Mazursky. Zoe Chao’s reaction to this? “Cool.” Sean Gunn’s reaction? Sadness that no one finds Weasel sexy.
In all seriousness, Creature Commandos is shaping up to be a solid start to Game Gunn’s DC Universe. The animation is solid, Gunn is an established presence, and the cast he assembled are all talented in their own right. The series will have some pretty big shoes to fill, but I think that the show is in good hands.
Creature Commandos will debut on Max on December 5th, 2024 and air new episodes weekly for 7 episodes.
