Note: Spoilers ahead!
“Creature Commandos,” an animated series about a super-powered black ops team set in the DC Comics universe, arrived on Max on Friday, Dec. 5. Centered around a team of morally dubious characters (Antiheroes? Villains? Misunderstood ruffians with a good heart?), each with their own special abilities. The show aims to tell reimagined stories of the often-overlooked Creature Commandos of the DC universe, with writing by James Gunn, who directed both “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies. This review focuses on the first two episodes of the show and will contain spoilers for those episodes alone.
The Creature Commandos team isn’t one the average viewer will recognize, having never made the jump from comic book to blockbuster movie. The group easily draws comparisons to the much more popular Suicide Squad, as both teams are made up of villains who are forced into doing good. However, unlike the Suicide Squad, the Creature Commandos team is made entirely of Halloween monsters.
The team is led by Rick Flag Sr. (played by Frank Grillo), a grizzled general who has been tasked with keeping a handle on his new team. The titular commandos themselves are the literal bride of Frankenstein, who goes by the name “the Bride” (Indira Varma), the merman-inspired fish woman Nina Mazursky (Zoë Chao), the were-weasel known as simply as the Weasel (Sean Gunn), the Nazi-killing G.I. Robot (also Sean Gunn), and the flaming, radiated skeleton of Dr. Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk).
Given his experience writing the first and second “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, it should come as no surprise that Gunn is able to create such an interesting main cast. Although Flag and the Bride are the only characters to truly develop in the first two episodes, Gunn is quick to establish the individual personalities of each commando. Every member of the core cast is engaging and dynamic, and Gunn takes the time needed to introduce each character to the audience.
“Creature Commandos” is exciting, funny and captivating. The art direction is gorgeous, turning the show into a moving comic book, down to the deep black shadows so often seen in comics. Each character brings something to the table, in terms of backstories, dynamics and humor. The fight scenes are also very entertaining, with lots of action and movement, with upbeat yet herky-jerky songs playing over them.
The Bride easily steals the show in the first two episodes. Varma does an excellent job voicing this walking corpse with an attitude and a dark past and is able to capture a wide range of emotions that truly push the complexities of the character. The Bride is tough and intelligent, but she also displays deep, complicated emotions in the second episode — all of which Varma portrays with ease.
And although the Bride is one of the high points of the show, her backstory could become one of the low points as the show goes on. Frankenstein’s Monster, known as Eric Frankenstein in the show (and played by David Harbour of “Stranger Things” fame), has his own presence in the story. Eric pressured Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Peter Serafinowicz) into making Eric a corpse bride to call his own.
This superhero-ified reimagining of Mary Shelley’s classic “Frankenstein” is engaging — Eric is the villain of the story, threatening Dr. Frankenstein into building the Bride and then trying to force the Bride into a relationship with him — but it has some bumps. Victor and the Bride ultimately end up developing a relationship, and Eric walks in on the two of them having sex. Eric later kills Victor in a rage and spends the next few centuries chasing down the Bride in the hopes of finally getting her to marry him.
Eric Frankenstein is just as complex as the rest of the cast. His desire for love compounded with his inability to understand the experiences of others due to his own naivete creates an interesting character who the audience doesn’t want to root for but doesn’t outright hate. He’s still a monster, of course, but his drive to find love is at least understandable.
Victor Frankenstein, however, could be seen as a flaw. The writing of the character itself is fine, and Serafinowicz is incredible at voicing him, but his relationship with the Bride is suspect. He is her creator and therefore a father-figure in some regard, and he also had complete control over her life before Eric killed him. It could be argued that Victor took advantage of the Bride, but that depends on where the show takes this part of the story.
Flag also brings his own controversial takes to the show with the character of Princess Ilana Rostovic (Maria Bakalova), who the Creature Commandos have been tasked with protecting. Rostovic is incredibly pushy with Flag, trying multiple times to have sex with him despite his insistence that he isn’t interested. He does eventually reciprocate, but it leaves a bad taste in the viewer’s mouth.
Despite these flaws, “Creature Commandos” represents a new, shiny era of DC. Gunn and Peter Safran were named the new heads of DC Studios in 2022, according to a Forbes article. As a result, Gunn and Safran made the choice to reboot the DC’s film and television series, known as the DCEU. Instead, Gunn and Safran are beginning the new DC Universe (DCU) to replace it, with a new spin on the timeless DC characters. “Creature Commandos” is the first step into this new world.
“Creature Commandos” is a little rough around the edges so far, but it still has the chance to stick the landing. Despite some interesting character choices, it truly is imaginative and pushes the envelope in a way that DC has needed for many years. The seven-episode series will be releasing a new episode every Thursday, which can be viewed on Max.
Rating: 4.5/5