DC's Creature Commandos, Season 1 Review

DC’s Creature Commandos, Season 1

So this is a bit of a weird one! With the huge news that the DCEU (or the ‘Snyderverse’) being rebooted, and the creative head of the brand-new DC Cinematic Universe (or whatever they are calling it) being James Gunn, there is a very… strange bit where they are keeping some aspects of the old continuity and junking most of it. Which leads to a bizarre sense of “oh, this is a brand-new thing, but we’re keeping some things the same”. It’s always one of the worst parts of DC comic adaptations, where there are so many independent continuities that aren’t supposed to be set in the same universe but there’s also sometimes a lot of callbacks to each other? Say what you want about the MCU, but at least they are relatively consistent in terms of not contradicting each other’s projects too much. 

So ahead of Superman, which would be released later this year, the first project in the ‘Gunnverse’ DC universe is… an R-rated animated project that runs for 7 episodes. DC’s Creature Commandos is a spiritual sequel to the 2021 Suicide Squad movie — even referencing events that happened in that movie (as well as its spinoff, the Peacemaker TV series). Some actors are reused, some characters make a reappearance, but otherwise this is allegedly the very first entry in the brand-new DC universe.

Which is weird, by the way. I’m a long-time DC fan, but I must confess that I’ve never even heard of many of the characters featured in this show. It does make it quite refreshing, in a way, even though the concept of the show is essentially a rebranded version of the 2021 Suicide Squad movie (not the 2016 one!). And if you’re going to introduce a bunch of brand-new characters to an audience, I suppose the ‘anyone can die’ format of a Suicide Squad story works relatively well. 

And… again, the concept of a black ops team comprised of shady military folk (Amanda Waller and Rick Flagg Senior make up this end) and repurposed supervillains trying to do black ops missions that technically benefit the United States of America… it’s always an interesting storyline that unfortunately was butchered by the terrible 2016 movie attempt. And given time, a Suicide Squad story would explore the humanity and the individual characterizations and backstories of each single member of the team. 

The plot is interesting enough, with our Creature Commandos initially being sent to the fictional country of Pokolistan to save Princess Ilana from a group of assassins led by the witch Circe. The first half of the mission deals with this relatively black-and-white mission, but later on the team gets fragmented over their differing loyalties to other characters when it is discovered that Princess Ilana might actually have the potential to wipe out all of civilisation in the future.

Our titular ‘Creature Commandos’ are comprised of a mixture of characters: Rick Flagg Senior takes over from Rick Flagg Junior, who died in 2021’s Suicide Squad, and as the only sane man that’s leading a bunch of lunatics, Rick is also torn between his loyalty to his country and his newfound romance with the Princess of Pokolistan. The Bride of Frankenstein is the closest thing that the show has to a main protagonist, who starts off with a devil-may-care attitude. She’s ill-mannered and keeps insisting that they are all ‘monsters’, but eventually learns to appreciate at least some of her teammates. Minor Batman antagonist Dr. Phosphorus is the team’s comedic sociopath, a radioactive skull-man who is probably the source of the show’s most brutal murders of random adversaries. G.I. Robot is a one-note robotic being who is preoccupied with one thing and one thing only, which is the killing of Nazis. “The Mermaid” Nina Mazursky is a modern-day Creature from the Black Lagoon, but is also the only one in the group that’s the most human, acting very much like a scared young woman thrust into a mission that she is clearly unprepared for. And Weasel returns from 2021’s Suicide Squad as an unintelligible beastly creature who’s there for a lot of comedic gags. 

One thing that makes this show works, however, is the fact that we have proper ‘flashback episodes’ for each and every one of these characters. With the exception of the first episode, each episode has a present-day plot and a flashback detailing the backstory of one of its characters (and secondary antagonist ‘Eric’, the Frankenstein’s Monster, gets another one) makes you really do feel about the backstories of these people… and it’s a bit of a coin toss whether someone receiving a spotlight in a flashback means that one of them is going to die or get more exploration in the story. This makes it a lot more fun to watch as we don’t have a ‘Slipknot’ problem from the 2016 movie, where it’s so obvious that the character that the movie itself doesn’t care to explore isn’t going to make it out of the first act.

Because of — and perhaps it’s precisely the function of — the obscureness of most of these characters and the utterly wanton brutality of the show, it really is hard to guess who’s going to make it out or not. Which I feel is a nice subversion to the two live-action Suicide Squad shows, where a lot of the marquee actors could be assumed to be safe. Not all the characters are created equal, but all of the flashback stories are crafted amazingly well. From the surprisingly dark and heartwrenching backstory for the mute Weasel, to the domino of effects that turned poor Dr. Sartorius into the sociopathic Dr. Phosphorus, to the sad series of circumstances that led Nina into mistakenly abandoning her family, to the exploration of the single-minded artificial intelligence that is the G.I. Robot… the flashbacks are easily the highlights of the show, really helping the idea that all of these ‘monsters’, all these creatures, are actual people with their own tragic backstories. 

I can’t decide which one I like the best, but Weasel’s surprisingly touching backstory (which even had a nice foreshadowing in the first episode and in the 2021 movie) and the brutality that broke a good man that Doctor Phosphorus once was… they’re all done very well. 

That is not to say that the present-day stories are bad, because they aren’t. The present-day material is where a majority of the tension lies, of course. But the present-day stuff do rely a lot on just a glorious amount of ridiculous animated gore that would make Invincible proud. There is a rather significant immaturity to the violence and gore that just somehow works with this brand of comedy, although I also recognise that it’s not for everyone. I did find it funny, for sure, but I am an easily entertained man. 

There are, however, a fair amount of plotlines that kind of peter out into nothing — and that’s particularly surrounding the Bride. The Bride is one of the first backstories we learn about, where we learn that in the DC universe, Victor Frankenstein existed and he did create Frankenstein’s Monster, Eric… who is best described as an entitled man-child. We get the requisite tragic backstory as the Bride is created and is immediately terrified shitless by “you are NOW MY BRIDE!” Eric. There is some questionable pseudo-parental-figure relationship as Victor Frankenstein ends up falling in love with the Bride instead, and this leads to Eric killing Victor and chasing the Bride throughout all of history. 

We actually do spend a significant amount of time following Eric Frankenstein as he gets alerted of the Bride’s appearance in society, and he begins to hunt her down. The show gets significant mileage from David Harbour’s performance as what I can only describe as an ‘entitled incel stalker’, but… but while we do get the journey throughout both the Bride and the Monster’s flashbacks, as well as the Monster’s own journey in the present day as he befriends Rick Flagg Senior… the story just abruptly and very suddenly brushed aside without much of a satisfying conclusion either way. The Monster doesn’t grow at all through his journey (which is a fair enough direction) but neither does he have a satisfying confrontation with the Bride (she just shoots him in the beginning of the final episode and leaves him for dead) and we don’t really get much in terms of him actually trying to do something good this time around. For the amount of time we spent with them, I had expected something more. And that could be content for the second season, but it also feels quite bland. 

The Bride’s focus in the present day, other than the brief reminiscing of her past, seems to be on her growing into a reluctant leadership role. Or, rather, her friendship with Nina. Both Phosphorus and Weasel are kind of tagalongs, after all. And… again, it’s pretty basic. It’s something we’ve seen many times in these kinds of superhero stories. But I also did feel like the friendship between Nina and the Bride as they bond throughout the seven episodes… and eventually, the big decision that the Bride makes at the end of the show was clearly influenced by that friendship with Nina. 

(I am being kind of coy with what happens because a good chunk of this show lives and dies depending on spoilers… and while maybe not in these next couple of weeks, I do see myself doing episodic reviews for Creature Commandos at some point down the line)

The cast is rounded up by a bunch of more familiar faces. Princess Ilana is perfectly believable as someone who could just be desperate or psychotic enough to be a threat, but can also manage to fool the audience to being sweet. Suicide Squad’s Amanda Waller and Peacemaker’s John Economos are serviceable beleaguered government agents that are trying their best to take control of the situation. Another Batman antagonist, Clayface shows up as a mostly non-speaking antagonist in an episode. Wonder Woman enemy Circe perhaps gets the biggest shaft, being reduced to essentially an act-one threat before the Creature Commandos get somewhat split down the middle… although I do find it rather funny that apparently arguments about Circe’s power levels for a brand-new continuity caused a lot of waves in the comic-book community. 

And the plot is… well, it’s simple enough to fit into seven episodes while devoting a significant amount of time to flashbacks and origin stories. It mostly relies on two or three big twists in the latter half of the show to really get going, and a good chunk of its tension relies more on which of these Z-lister characters will survive or die, and, of course, that’s right after the show makes you care for them. And in that regard, it’s rather successful. 

There is something to talk about the ‘dudebro’ comedy, whether it’s the wanton cursing or the gratuitous violence. Which, admittedly, is quite on par with some of the more violent superhero deconstruction projects like Invincible and The Boys, and even DC’s own animated Harley Quinn cartoon. I don’t find it as distracting, but part of it might simply be because these are a relatively fresh batch of characters to me and thus I don’t have a much of an attachment to specific characterizations that got ‘changed’ the way the Harley Quinn cartoon did. However, I am aware of the significant changes from the source material (particularly regarding the Frankenstein’s Monsters) and I also acknowledge that this is a sore spot for them.

But, well, at the end of the day… it’s not the best superhero comic-book adaptation. It obviously is mostly an in-name-only adaptation of the titular Creature Commandos, other than perhaps including characters from that title. But I do have to be honest that I actually found this seven-episode, devil-may-care, crass and violent adaptation to be extremely entertaining. It’s not your typical superhero fare, but the execution is flashy and catchy enough that I do have to be honest — I was very entertained by this show.