I don’t know about my fellow fans of great superhero movies and TV shows, but I think I am content with the fact that it will likely be a long time before we seen another iteration of the Justice League hit the big screen (or the small screen). Reason being: James Gunn and Peter Safran have teased that their plans for the new DC Universe canon involve a couple of teams that are also in the business of fighting evil, but are unlike anything we have seen before. One of these crimefighting collectives is the eponymous stars of an upcoming DC TV show for HBO Max, called Creature Commandos.
As Gunn revealed in a video detailing his and Safran’s plan for the DCU’s first chapter, “Gods and Monsters,” he wrote all the episodes for this new, star-studded animated series — featuring the voice talents of Frank Grillo, David Harbour, Indira Varma, and more — that will actually be what kicks off this new era of comic book adaptations. If this is your first time ever hearing about the Creature Commandos, have no shame, because you are likely not the only one. For anyone curious to know the history behind this bizarre crew of unlikely heroes, we have you covered with this breakdown of all the essential facts we know from DC Comics — starting with a basic description of who, exactly, they are.
Creature Commandos Are A Military Unit Of Supernatural Beings
Created by by writer J.M. DeMatteis — who is looking forward to the series, according to ComicBook.com — and artist Pat Broderick, the Creature Commandos made their DC Comics debut in Issue #93 of the anthology title, Weird War Tales, in November 1980. Now, while I am not usually the type who likes to compare DC properties to that of Marvel Comics, sometimes it helps your description when you find a good enough example. Similar to Marvel’s Howling Commandos — not Steve Rogers’ team from Captain America: The First Avenger, but a S.H.I.E.L.D. unit made up of classic monsters from horror fiction — the Creature Commandos were a group of soldiers that each possessed supernatural characteristics.
Their origins can be traced back to when a renowned biochemist was enlisted by military personnel from around the world to head a covert project called “Project M,” as in “monster.” Professor Mazurski came up with the idea of using humans’ fear of bizarre creatures against enemy forces and set up a secret lab underneath the statue of liberty. This beastly battalion would be deployed for some fittingly strange missions, and with a tremendous turnout of victory, which made them legends that lived on in battlefield conversation.
First Introduced As A World War II-Era Team
There have actually been a number of different iterations of the Creature Commandos (more on that later), but the story of the original line-up’s very first mission — narrated by death itself — takes place during World War II. Their objective was to fight some of the deadliest killers under Adolf Hitler’s command in an old castle in Nazi-occupied France. Now, if that sounds like a bit too much of a by-the-numbers tale from our world’s history of combat for such a unique team, their story only gets weirder from there.
For instance, in the 1981 story “The War That Time Forgot,” the Creature Commands went to the South Pacific, where they were forced to face off against dinosaurs, as well as Japanese soldiers. The mission that followed that one involved a group of school children brainwashed into fascist zombies with loyalty to Hitler, and another story chronicles an adventure they had in the lost, underwater city of Atlantis. I am already excited to see what sort of fantastic odysseys Gunn has in store for the TV adaptation.
Original Members Include A Werewolf, A Vampire, A Frankensteinian Monster, And More
I think it is time that we officially introduce you to the crew, which was led in its original incarnation by the most normal member of the bunch: the fully human Lt. Mathew Shrieve. A young farmhand named Warren Griffith would volunteer to join the Creature Commandos in order to make some good use of his lycanthropic curse. Also volunteering for Project M (in exchange for a reduced jail sentence) was Sgt. Vincent Velcoro, who — similar to Marvel’s Morbius — was injected with a serum made from the DNA of vampire bats to become a creature of the night.
The ironically nicknamed Pvt. Eliot “Lucky” Taylor, after stepping on a landmine, was put back together limb-by-limb in a way that looked a lot like Frankenstein’s Monster. Sometime later, the team recruited a plastic surgeon, who accidentally breathed in a strange gas that turned her into a snake-haired being called a gorgon and started going by the apt codename, “Dr. Medusa.” The Commandos also included two androids named J.A.K.E. (which stands for “Jungle Automatic Killer Experimental”) — the first of which blew himself up in order to destroy Atlantis.
A More Recent Creature Commandos’ Incarnation Is Led By The Real Frankenstein’s Monster
The Creature Commandos would actually go dormant in DC Comics for a while before writer Timothy Truman reimagined the team in 2000 with an eight-issue miniseries. The new line-up retained most of the original crew, save a new leader named Capt. Lucius Hunter, new nicknames (Warren Griffith went by Wolfpack and Elliot Taylor was called Patchwork Man), and a different cybernetic recruit named Gunner, who was a human before he was slain in World War II. However, a whole new shade of the team would later be introduced in DC’s New 52 continuity.
Now a division of the Agents of S.H.A.D.E. (Super Human Advanced Defense Executive), the team included not just a guy who resembled Frankenstein’s Monster, but the actual creature himself, who chose to go by “Frankenstein” for simplicity’s sake. Another of Victor Frankenstein’s creations, the Bride of Frankenstein, was also part of the Creature Commandos this time, along with Dr. Mazursky’s mermaid-like scientist daughter, Nina, a mummy named Khalis (who also served as the team medic), S.H.A.D.E. leader Father Time and the Atom himself, Ray Palmer. Modern versions of Griffith, Velcoro, and Shrieve were also involved.
Creature Commandos Have Previously Starred In Animated DC Shorts
Whenever Creature Commandos premieres (and becomes available to stream with an HBO Max subscription), it will not be the eponymous group’s first transition from the comic book page to the screen. The first time, in 2011, was in a segment from an anthology episode of the hit animated Batman TV show, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, that takes inspiration from the aforementioned jurassic tale, “The War That Time Forgot”
The team also starred in their own self-titled adventure that premiered on Cartoon Network as part of its DC Nation Shorts block in 2012. Plus, a more antagonistic version of Matthew Shrieve made an appearance on the third season of Arrow, as played by Marc Singer.
It appears that Gunn is taking a few liberties with his line-up for the Creature Commandos series, including making Rick Flag Sr. (the father of Joel Kinnaman’s Suicide Squad character) the leader. He is even bringing in a few characters from his first 2021 DC Movie, The Suicide Squad, including Steve Agee’s John Economos and Weasel, who will once again be played by the filmmaker’s brother, Sean. As long as the wars this group fights are as weird as the comics depicted, bring it on.
