Warning: The following review contains mild spoilers for Creature Commandos Season 1.
On the face of it, adult animated series Creature Commandos is an odd choice to launch DC Studios co-head James Gunn’s revamped cinematic DC Universe.
For one thing, the Max Original’s first seven-episode season is far from a fresh start for the DCU. Instead, it freely cherry-picks characters, events, and actors from the legacy DC Extended Universe. Meanwhile, Creature Commandos‘ new faces don’t exactly boast Justice League-level name recognition. This, combined with the show’s edgy content – not to mention the fact it’s a cartoon, not live-action – makes the decision to kick off the DCU Chapter One a real head scratcher. Indeed, it’s probably why Gunn himself is effectively positioning the series as a soft launch, ahead of next year’s Superman reboot.
And viewed through that lens, Creature Commandos Season 1 does make a bit more sense. It’s a nu-DCU appetizer, not a main course – and to Gunn’s credit, it leaves you wanting more.
Creature Commandos Season 1 introduces us to Task Force M: Amanda Waller’s (Viola Davis) new squad of expendable, non-human superpeople. Headed up by Rick Flag Sr (Frank Grillo), this covert team of misfits – including the Bride (Indira Varma), Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), Nina Mazursky (Zoë Chao), G.I. Robot (Sean Gunn), and Weasel (Gunn again) – is dispatched to take out Circe (Anya Chalotra), a powerful sorceress causing ruckus in tiny European country Pokolistan. But once there, Flag and his team become tangled up in a bigger conspiracy that spells certain doom for Earth itself.
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If you’re up to speed on the outgoing DCEU, you’ll instantly clock how much Creature Commandos‘ first season overlaps with Gunn’s entries in that franchise, The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. The filmmaker/studio boss – who created the series and penned its scripts – and showrunner Dean Lorey don’t downplay these connections, either. On the contrary, they explicitly frame Creature Commandos as a continuation of both titles from the jump. The knock effect is that Season 1’s Chapter One hype quickly wears off, even if (like me), you’re a fan of Gunn’s previous DC efforts. It’s like buying a new car only to discover it’s really a used model. The unclear DCEU/DCU divide also makes proceedings distractingly messy, particularly when the revised and legacy lore butt up against each other midway through Season 1.
Of course, this is only a problem if “DC big picture” stuff matters to you. If you couldn’t care less about Peacemaker plot holes and the like, you’ll have a great time with Creature Commandos. As proven by his tenure shepherding Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy flicks, Gunn is at home juggling ensemble-driven action-comedy genre fare. An experienced small screen scribe, he knows how to make the most of TV’s greater narrative elbow room, as well. (Almost) every member of Task Force M gets a compelling origin story, without the pacing taking a hit. Gunn’s also in his element gleefully cutting loose with the mature content that was off-limits during his time at Marvel. Baddies explode into piles of viscera, there’s nudity and sex, and the cuss words flow freely.
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Is a superhero property aimed squarely at grown-ups as hard-hitting in a post-Boys world? Not really. Even so, it’s well-executed. And if you are big picture person, it’s a reassuring sign that Gunn isn’t kidding about building a slate of wildly varied projects. So, yes: there’s a lot to love here. Which doesn’t mean Creature Commandos Season 1 doesn’t make the occasional storytelling misstep. Notably, Circe and culture warrior caricatures the Sons of Themyscira are fairly forgettable antagonists. More broadly, the stakes in Season 1 are oddly unengaging, even after Gunn injects an apocalyptic threat into the mix. Meanwhile, a key subplot involving David Harbour’s Frankenstein – while engrossing – never feels fully integrated with the overarching narrative.
Equally, your mileage will vary on the quality of Creature Commandos‘ animation. Personally, I like it. Sure, it’s not in the same class as Arcane or Scavengers Reign, but the aesthetic is a good fit for these characters and their story. The team at Warner Bros. Animation deliver fight scene choreography that’s suitably inventive and grunty, and handle Season 1’s quieter, character-driven moments well, too. Admittedly, there are rough edges; for example, an ornate necklace looks like flat clip art in some shots. However, instances such as this are few and far between (and in fairness, Max flagged that some aspects of the press screeners weren’t quite finished).
Related: James Gunn Explains the Inconsistency in Rick Flag Sr.’s Appearance in the DCU
And even if Creature Commandos‘ animation leaves you cold, you’ll probably still vibe with its voice acting. Grillo is a perfect fit for the grizzled Flag Sr. and plays well off Maria Bakalova’s Princess Ilana. Varma does an excellent line in acid-tongued femme fatale. Harbour shifts gears from introspective eloquence to homicidal rage with chilling ease. Chao radiates innocence without ever feeling one-note. Tudyk brings snarky supervillain Doctor Phosphorus to life as well as you’d expect from the voice of Rogue One‘s K-2SO. Returning DC alums Davis, Gunn, and Steve Agee are dependably on-point too. If there’s any complaints, it’s that Anya Chalotra is underutilized as Circe; The Witcher star’s performance is decent all the same, though.
It’s a good thing Creature Commandos‘ cast are all on-form, because Gunn and Lorey rely on them to make Season 1’s hefty underlying ideas play. At its core, this is a show about what it means to be labelled a freak by a world that doesn’t understand you – but will happily exploit you. Gunn’s mined variations on this “found family of outcasts” theme throughout his career, and Creature Commandos illustrates why: because it works. That said, Gunn’s strike rate suffers the more he widens the first season’s thematic focus. Over Season 1’s seven-episode run, he touches on abusive relationships, neo-fascism, and more besides, and it’s not always immediately clear what he’s driving at.
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Fortunately, this isn’t enough to derail Creature Commandos Season 1. None of its shortcomings are; they’re too minor to meaningfully detract from what’s otherwise a solidly crafted adult-oriented superhero cartoon. True, anyone who goes in expecting a fully-fledged franchise on-ramp will exit at least a little disappointed. This really is a warm-up for Superman‘s headline act, just as Gunn warned. Yet when the credits roll on Episode 7, odds are you’ll be keen for Task Force M’s next adventure in the DCU – this DCU. If that’s not enough to earn Creature Commandos a “mission accomplished” stamp, I’m not sure what is.
Creature Commandos Season 1 premieres on Max on Dec. 5, 2024.
Published: Dec 2, 2024 12:01 am