We got a tease, about a month back, of James Gunn’s new animated series Creature Commandos—the show laboring, kind of unfairly, under the weight of being Gunn’s first DC Comics project since he and Peter Safran took over DC Studios a few years back. Today, Gunn showed off a brand new, and much bigger, trailer for the series, which is basically a continuation of his The Suicide Squadfor the crowds at New York Comic-Con. And, can we say? Looks kind of cool as hell.
The premise is, as previously established, that Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller has been ordered not to use human prisoners in her various “Task Force X” “use bad guys to do good things” operations. So she recruits monsters instead, including a couple of Frankensteins, a robot, a flaming skeleton, a fish lady, and, of course, Gunn’s brother Sean. (Reprising his brief role as Weasel from the earlier film, as well as voicing the aforementioned robot.) Set to the strains of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” it looks like classic Gunn “superhero” fare: Darkly funny, energetic, and gory as hell.
Gunn did make it clear while on the panel that, while the show is set loosely in the DC Universe, it’s also “its own thing. Every DC project is going to be its own thing, so it’s different from Superman and Peacemaker will be different from both… Yes, a connected universe, but we are not imposing an overall aesthetic.” The rest of the cast on the panel—which included stars David Harbour, Alan Tudyk, Maria Bakalova, Frank Grillo, Zoë Chao, and Steve Agee—mostly just emphasized what a gnarly story they’re telling here. Said Tudyk of his character, radioactive skellington man Dr. Phosphorus (originally a ’70s Batman villain): “He’s a homicidal killer and takes joy in causing pain. You get his backstory and origin. It’s terrifying. There are shocking horror moments but the same characters will make you laugh, cry, and cringe.” Harbour, meanwhile, revealed his take on Frankenstein: “It’s in my wheelhouse that if you have a large person with the inner workings of a tantrum-y 4-year-old, that’s when you’re going to want to get David Harbour.”
Gunn did tease a little red meat for those with wider franchise interests, though: He revealed that Grillo’s character, Rick Flag, Sr.—father of Joel Kinnaman’s character in the movie—will appear in live-action as well, in both Superman and the upcoming second season of Peacemaker.
Creature Commandos debuts on Max on December 5, releasing weekly through January.
