Gunn’s DCU starts strong with Creature Commandos

With the premiere of Creature Commandos, the DCU has officially begun

4 stars out of 5

This review does not contain spoilers

In January of 2023, James Gunn announced a slate of 10 films and TV shows that would comprise his and Peter Safran’s rebooted DC Universe. Among these was a strange project about an obscure team of DC heroes composed of monstrous characters, referred to as the first project in this slate. Given Gunn’s predilection towards lesser-known characters since his work on The Guardians of the Galaxy, this should not have come as a shock. Also announced were projects focused on Booster Gold, Swamp Thing, and the Authority. 

This week (as of writing), we saw the early stages of this plan finally come to fruition. As the CW closes the book on the Arrowverse, which defined over 20 years of DC storytelling on television with Monday’s Superman and Lois finale, a new era of DC begins with the first two episodes of Creature Commandos dropping on Max. Though the series is set in a new universe, the events of The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, Gunn’s projects in the original DC Extended Universe, are ostensibly canon, being directly referred to on multiple occasions. 

Creature Commandos follows the aftermath of Peacemaker, where Amanda Waller’s (Viola Davis) unethical conduct in organizing the Suicide Squad was revealed to the public. Now prohibited from using human prisoners, she organizes a new task force of supercriminals not considered human to protect US interests in a foreign nation under attack by a powerful witch. James Gunn has always excelled at the superhero team dynamic. His classic formula of bringing together morally grey misfits and forcing them to work together is employed here to full effect. The characters are all fairly well-developed in the span of these two episodes, especially Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), the Bride (Indira Varma), and Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk). 

It is clear that though these characters are viewed as monsters and are obviously deeply flawed, the show goes to great lengths to explore them as complex, layered people. Gunn’s writing excels at making the audience care about these colorful figures on an emotional level. His work has always mixed drama, action, and comedy, nailing all of them and continuing to do so here. The Bride especially shines in this regard, her backstory and struggles against men abusing their power over her being explored throughout episode 2. It is likely that each episode will focus on one character, the first two focusing on Flag and the Bride respectively, with the third seemingly set to focus on the Nazi-killing GI Robot (Sean Gunn) based on previews.

The action is smooth, dynamic, and vibrant. These sequences are incredibly fluid and well-choreographed. The way characters fight reveals things about them, keeping the audience engaged beyond spectacle, and making action sequences more dynamic. Flag quickly adapts when his approach doesn’t work, showing him as resourceful and smart using his environment to his advantage. Dr. Phosphorus shows his sheer power and maniacal tendencies, while the Bride is shown holding her own against an extremely powerful being, showing her resilience and brute strength. 

The characters James Gunn selected for this series are all very visually interesting and lend themselves well to creative action sequences. Circe (Anya Chalotra), the main antagonist, is a magic user, inherently clashing with the more grounded members of the Creature Commandos. This contrast is expressed well visually in episode 2. I am especially excited to see the character of Clayface (Alan Tudyk), traditionally a Batman villain who is confirmed to make an appearance. Seeing how well the show’s action displays these characters’ abilities in imaginative, fun ways has only made me more excited to see him use his incredibly dynamic powers in animation.

Despite its more adult content and themes, this premiere paired with Gunn’s comments on the topic perfectly sets the tone for how this new DCU will be handled. The audience is thrust into an already-established world with all these colorful characters. Its world-building is in sharp contrast to the MCU, which began with live-action movies and built up story threads throughout different projects. Here, many different mediums and tones are employed beyond live-action film and the stories told are self-contained and vary in audience. One especially unique project in the works as part of the current reboot slate is a kids’ movie named “Dynamic Duo”, which centers on the different versions of Batman’s sidekick, Robin and uses claymation. James Gunn has been outspoken in the past about varying DC’s output to engage a variety of different audiences and allowing creatives to present their own take on the DC Universe while celebrating what makes these characters special.

Overall, these episodes have cemented my excitement for James Gunn’s DC Studios plans. His past work writing for DC and Marvel coupled with Creature Commandos have left me with complete faith in DC under his direction. He has shown a remarkable ability to pay tribute to the work of creatives before him, respecting them and the characters they created, while building something completely new that embraces the core of what makes DC’s comic books fun. In hindsight, Creature Commandos was the perfect project to mark the beginning of the new DC Universe, something unique in a homogenized comic book adaptation landscape that takes risks and uses these more obscure characters to their fullest potential.