DC is weird. Of the two big comic book publishers, DC’s most famous heroes are older than Marvel’s; DC’s Superman predates Captain America by three years, Batman has 23 years on Spider-Man, and when Wolverine first showed up in 1974, Wonder Woman had been around for three decades.
But again, DC is weird. Even though the newly rebooted DC Studios has the most venerable, beloved, and established superheroes in the business, its first offering is a group of rag-tag anti-heroes that nobody has heard of, aren’t remotely aspirational, and feel like benchwarmers for The Suicide Squad. The show is the new animated HBO Max series Creature Commandos, the first official installment in the new DCU, created and written by James Gunn.
And if you’ve seen other James Gunn superhero stuff, namely Guardians of the Galaxy and the 2021 film Suicide Squad, then you know exactly what this show is like. Snarky characters, depressing things happening to outcasts and mutants, amoral government organizations, violence, violence violence, and a one-liner every 30 seconds. It all works, mostly, and Creature Commandos is certainly a must-watch series for DC diehards. But if this was supposed to be such a big reboot for the entire DCU continuity, why does it feel so familiar?
Creature Commandos is a new seven-episode animated series produced by DC Studios. It takes place present-day-ish and borrows continuity from the TV series Peacemaker as well as 2021’s Suicide Squad. In a recent interview with Collider, James Gunn described the old canon from the DCEU as being “pretty unreliable memories of what happened in the DCU.” In other words, the Starfish creature from Suicide Squad and the demise of Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman) at the hands of Peacemaker (John Cena) are things referenced in Creature Commandos. Weirdly, though, Creature Commandos referencing those things is canon in the DCU, not the events themselves. This is also true of the return of Director Amanda Waller, again played by Viola Davis, which is a little like if Judi Dench had played M in a third Bond continuity, but animated only.
Right away, Creature Commandos both assumes you might know what is going on and also tells you that you don’t necessarily need to worry too much. A princess of Themyscira is causing some terrorism problems, and Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) has been hired by Amanda Waller to put together a new team of misfits. This time, though, they’re not allowed to use humans, so non-humans comprise the new squad, making this set-up nearly identical to both movie versions of The Suicide Squad.
The voice cast here is fantastic: Alan Tudyk as Doctor Phosphorus, David Harbour as Eric Frankenstein, Zoë Chao as Nina Mazursky, and Indira Varma as the Bride. Each episode dives into different backgrounds of the different characters, though overall, a linear story is being told from beginning to end. We start with Rick Flag getting a new group of anti-heroes, and (no spoilers!) by episode 7, there’s a similar scene that ends the entire show, which could set it up for an additional season, but more likely will just end up being its own thing.
For the amount of investment in these characters that Creature Commandos demands, there’s also a sense that pervades the show that the entire thing is a side quest. This isn’t to say that aspects of it aren’t compelling, but if this show is promising us a wild and zany universe of colorful characters like this across the new DCU, it remains to be seen if that promise will actually be fulfilled. Frank Grillo will reappear in the new Superman film in 2025, where he’ll be playing Rick Flag, the same character he voices in Creature Commandos. But, infamously, we already know that Rick Flag will have dark hair in the new Superman movie and he has silver hair in this cartoon. Is this the DCU’s first canon error? Well, kind of, but Gunn has already shoulder-shrugged when asked.
It’s probably not fair to keep talking about Creature Commandos as the first new representative of the new DCU. And yet, because that is the literal truth, it’s impossible not to add that extra criterion in judging both its quality and accessibility. In terms of isolated quality, Creature Commandos is decent, but not great, and for a casual superhero fan, will probably scan as a less-good version of Doom Patrol, or a strange, animated sequel to Peacemaker. In other words, if DC was going to drop the nihilistic and brutal aspects of DC’s previously shared continuity, that’s not happening here. If anything, Creature Commandos doubles down on the old grimdark DCEU vibe rather than forging a new path. And if you’re among those who feel the quirkiness of Guardians of the Galaxy-style dialogue is getting a little played-out, Creature Commandos is not here to change course. This is just how superhero teams talk now. Everyone. Quips. All. The. Time. Can James Gunn write another way? Hopes are high for the new Superman movie, and I’m just praying the dialogue in that film is nothing like Creature Commandos.
In short, if Gunn wanted to show us the new thing he’s bringing to DC, this isn’t it. Creature Commandos is a reliable, explosive superhero show. But it also feels like you’ve seen it already, very recently.
