Warner Bros. Discovery is praying that James Gunn succeeds in making the DC universe a true contender to the MCU. Right now things are looking good for the DCU, with hotly anticipated reworkings of Superman, Supergirl, Batman, The Authority, and Swamp Thing on the way.
But the DCU will make its debut for viewers with a much more odd and unique proposition. This is Creature Commandos, a MAX animated series with Gunn as showrunner. The first trailer recently dropped, so check out your first peek at a whole new universe:
As you might have gathered, the Creature Commandos are effectively a Suicide Squad spinoff. The show continues from the events of Peacemaker season one (which I guess makes that show DCU too?), with Amanda Waller (once again Viola Davis) forbidden from endangering human lives in missions. Her solution? Sign up a bunch of monsters instead!
At least judging by this trailer, Gunn’s DCU isn’t a clean break with the DCEU and the Snyderverse. After all, if Creature Commandos is a sequel to Peacemaker, which was a spinoff of The Suicide Squad, which was itself a sequel to Suicide Squad, then there’s clear connective tissue between every prior DCEU movie and this.
Possibly I am thinking about this too hard. Anyhow, a bizarre team of superpowered misfits is home turf for Gunn. The voice cast boasts Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., Indira Varma as the Bride of Frankenstein, Alan Tudyk as Doctor Phosphorus, David Harbour as Eric Frankenstein and (of course) Sean Gunn reprising his role as Weasel and also playing G.I. Robot.
The 7 episode first season will debut on Max in December 2024. Whether it’ll be a self-contained story or set up story strands for the many upcoming movies remains to be seen. Early in production Gunn teased that it would be an “aperitif” for Superman, though we’re not sure if that means plot connections in any way.
Creature Commandos is also notable for demonstrating Gunn’s vision that DCU characters can transition consistently between different mediums, so if any of these characters show up in live-action this is the version we’ll see. In addition, the voice cast was picked so they could transition to live-action if necessary.
Whatever the case it’s nice to see one of DC’s most bizarre superhero teams leaping the page, even if I’m annoyed that the Bride of Frankenstein doesn’t have four arms like in the comics.