Creature Commandos is a Strange Beginning to the New DCU
If this is Gunn's direction, it's bewildering
Oh, James Gunn. After living through disappointment after disappointment in the incongruous, disconnected chaos that was the DCEU, I had such hope for the new vision that you would cast for DC’s iconic characters on our screens, large and small. Yes, I knew your style is quirky, that you lean toward the humorous whether or not it is deserved, and I was slightly nervous about that. You gave us Guardians of the Galaxy, though, which were some of the MCU’s most original films, and that alone was reason to think the DCU would look upward from the trough where we had been happy to ignore it’s characters.
Now, three episodes into Creature Commandos, the inaugural television adventure for the new DCU, my hopes have been smashed violently against the rocks. To say I am disappointed would be an understatement. There is absolutely nothing good to say here.
I’ll confess I haven’t read the original Creature Commandos in the comics. Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. intrigued me with the New 52 reboot, but I’m still not overly aware of the team. However, even a cursory glance at Wikipedia and some overall background in comics concludes that the team depicted in this animated series is based loosely, at best, on the original concept. While two of the primary characters in these first three episodes, the Bride and G.I. Robot, are directly lifted from the pages of the source material, the rest is a mish-mash of various DC characters forced to fit the narrative. With a mish-mash comes chaos, and chaos is what we have here.
Really, I shouldn’t be surprised. Gunn, after all, directed Suicide Squad, which was 2 hours of hip hop and violence, with few redeeming qualities (I will never understand that version of the Joker).
Back to the point about chaos, though. There is some attempt to develop the characters here, which is all too rare for animated programming, and I’ll give Gunn credit in that regard. Unfortunately, it’s interspersed with unexplained plot points (where does G.I. Robot go for all those years, and how does he develop self-awareness?), minimal background on why the villain is the villain, and occasional necrophelia. By the time the third episode finished, I was having so much difficulty tracking what was supposed to be going on, that only the high points stayed with me: I was sad that the robot was destroyed, and I’m so over the damsel in distress trope with the princess. Also, lots of blood and Dr. Phosphorus has an attitude. That’s really all that I walk away with.
There’s also the question of whether or not this actually is the inaugural outing for the DCU. After all, there is also Penguin, which is an spinoff from the Batman universe, which I wasn’t aware was it’s own universe until I read something to that effect on Reddit, and am still not sure if it folds into the DCU proper. If so, my hopes are even lower. Batman has always been one of my favorite characters, and if he is not done justice, then I really have no use for this.
Spoiler: Goth Bruce Wayne is doing it wrong.
But I digress.
Pondering the Batman leaves me wondering about continuity. The next Batman film is under the umbrella of Gunn’s new DCU…unless it isn’t…which makes me feel like we’re lapsing back into the world of standalone films that are only connected in theory. I was really hoping that Gunn would find a way to tie it all together. If Creature Commandos as we’ve seen it so far is the compass by which we’re to assess this, however, I think that his quirky, humorous style simply will not serve as a cohesive glue for a universe that was in desperate need of a reboot.
I can only hope I’m wrong, because I really want to see DC’s characters done well. We’ll see how the remaining episodes of this series play out.