'Creature Commandos' Sets Mission Start Date On Max
The new DC Universe kicks off with the James Gunn-created animated series in December
There are officially three months until the new DC Universe constructed by DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran is finally unleashed upon the world, nearly two years after it was announced. And it begins with the Gunn-created and written animated series Creature Commandos, which was specified Thursday to be premiering on December 5 on Max, for its typical Thursday new content release.
It had been known for a few months by this point that Creature Commandos would be getting some sort of December premiere. Slightly unusually, it is not a double premiere, so all seven episodes will be released individually and consecutively, landing the finale as scheduled for January 16. The series premiere will come three and a half weeks after the finale of The Penguin, which airs on Sundays. The series sees Amanda Waller, voiced by the returning Viola Davis, unable to jeopardize human lives following her secret business with both the Suicide Squad aka Task Force X and Team Peacemaker, so she goes further rogue and builds a new team, Task Force M, the Creature Commandos, which are essentially a bunch of “misfit monsters”. They include Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., Sean Gunn reprising as Weasel and playing G.I. Robot, Maria Bakalova as Princess Ilana Rostovic, Indira Varma as The Bride, Anya Chalotra as Circe, Zoe Chao as lagoon creature Nina Mazursky, Alan Tudyk as Dr. Phosphorus, and David Harbour as Eric Frankenstein, with Steve Agee reprising his role as John Economos.
“The thing I've always loved about DC Comics was that you had your mainstream comics that always ran, but they also had these tonally different comics like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns and All-Star Superman,” Gunn tells Entertainment Weekly fir their Fall TV preview as he seeks with this series to lean into the company’s diversity and strangeness. “It was different from Marvel in that way. That’s something that I really want to retain within the studio, that every project is going to bring a different vision by the artists who are creating it.” One may recall that DC Films initially brought in Gunn to make The Suicide Squad to capitalize on the magic he brought to the Guardians of the Galaxy during the bizarre limbo period where he was fired from the third installment. Heck they even made a Guardians-evoking trailer for the 2016 film that audiences knew was blatant aping. “I'm used to dealing with oddballs and irregular types and weirdos,” Gunn says. “That's what Guardians is, and Creature Commandos is kind of like Guardians without the sentimentality. The Guardians are all really good characters at their heart, and that just isn't necessarily the case with the creatures.”
He also assured that the flavor of Frankenstein he’s bringing is the more intelligible characterization born from the original Mary Shelley novel than the grunty, broken speaker that the Universal films birthed. “Part of the fun for me was taking some of the basics of Mary Shelley's story and bringing them into this story about the spurned relationship between the Bride and Frankenstein,” Gunn explained. “Frankenstein is this incredibly well-spoken intellectual but is still driven by his rage and his anger and his inability to really be a human being, and the inability for the one that he loves not loving him back. That’s what drives him.”
Each of the six episodes following the premiere’s setup will explore the characters’ backstory and pathos seemingly individually in some fashion. Here in particular Gunn previews G.I. Robot, saying “There's an innocence… that I didn't quite see until Sean stepped into the booth and started creating this character. His choices… give the character this sweet, mechanic innocence. He’s got this very sad history from World War II. The only time I think he felt at home was with the soldiers that he served with in DC's alternate history of [WWII], where metahumans were involved.”
Gunn was kind enough to properly describe the exclusive images EW was provided for their articles and whose watermarks were very effective in drying their usability as thumbnails. In his order, the first image is Rick and Frankenstein having tea together, followed by Doctor Phosphorus lashing out. Then we have GI Robot getting beers with Easy Company, with Sgt. Rock and Little Sure Shot already identified (and this may be important considering rumors going around). The collection ends with much of the team ready to fight.
Produced by DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation, Creature Commandos is also executive produced by Safran with Dean Lorey and Sam Register. Rick Morales serves as supervising producer.
Sources: Variety, Entertainment Weekly