A couple of years ago, James Gunn announced his plans for the new universe of DC series and movies under his charge. The first of these projects was announced as Creature Commandos, an animated series that would be the first production within the new canon.
This series premiered in December and each week it released a new episode until ending this January 9 with its first season. After seeing all of this first work on Gunn’s new universe, I think this universe has the potential to rise from the ashes. I’ll tell you why.
What did we think of Creature Commandos?
The story of Creature Commandos is entertaining although sometimes predictable
The first thing to talk about is the story of Creature Commandos. Here Commander Rick Flag Sr. receives a mission from Amanda Waller to protect the princess of the country of Pokolistan. To accomplish his mission he has the support of Task Force M, a group of superhumans with characteristics similar to those of monsters.
The team is made up of the aquatic creature Nina Mazursky, the revived Bride of Frankenstein, Doctor Phosphorus, the war robot GI Robot and the curious Weasel. Although at the beginning they are total strangers, as the episodes progress they become more rounded and even empathetic characters.
Source: MAX
Something I applaud about Creature Commandos is that it manages to give each of its characters their due time to shine. In practically every episode we learn the history of these characters who often remain more like misunderstood heroes than villains. Although they never stop doing acts that make us doubt their intentions.
In general, these flashbacks of the characters and the story of the main mission manage to keep the seven episodes of the first season interesting. However, I must admit that it goes through certain paths that we have already seen several times in other projects. Especially in works by Gunn himself.
Gunn’s style shines quite a bit here for better and worse
Perhaps many of you know that James Gunn was responsible for giving us the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. In these films he took one of Marvel’s most unknown teams and turned them into some of the MCU’s most beloved characters. In Creature Commandos he does a bit of the same thing.
Outside of Weasel, who had a brief appearance in The Suicide Squad, we don’t really know any of the team members. However, by the time the final episode arrives you already know a lot about his origins and motivations. Even on social networks it is already noticeable that fans are beginning to choose their favorites.
Source: Max
While James Gunn shows his ability to give us good characters, he also has a tendency to use a lot of crude jokes, which is maintained here. While being vulgar isn’t the problem, in Creature Commandos they often feel out of place. In addition, there is a lot of humor that is very dependent on the context of pop culture, which sometimes clashes with the rest of what we see.
Although it looks good on criminals like Peacemaker or even Star-Lord, here they want to give it to all the characters and it doesn’t always work. It’s okay to have some humor to avoid falling into seriousness that borders on boring, but you shouldn’t fall into exaggeration either.
Creature Commandos really gives us a world that we don’t forget is based on comics
Another of the great successes of Creature Commandos and one of the reasons why I think it is a promising start is because of the way it shows us its world. From the first moments it lets you see that we are in a universe totally different from ours where more fantastic things can exist and happen. No more of that attempt to make everything realistic just because.
From a nation whose secret service is knights in armor with laser weapons, to the fact that high school students are not surprised to live with a woman who looks like the monster from the lagoon. Here they don’t seem ashamed of their origin in the comics, but instead accept it and make good use of it.
Source: Max
One of the problems with the old DC universe is that it wanted to get very serious and plant too much of its world in reality. Creature Commandos throws that away and tells you clearly that there is magic here, there is color, there are experiments that create incredible villains with surprising abilities and technological advances impossible in reality. This opens the door for no DC character to be left out of this universe no matter how crazy it is.
Furthermore, although it has several serious and even violent moments, at no time does it forget color. This makes me think that the future of DC could be quite creative in terms of the representation of its characters and even its thousands of fictional cities.
A promising start although it is very safe
Creature Commandos is a fairly enjoyable series from start to finish and serves as a good introduction to the new world that James Gunn is planning. Of course it’s not a perfect series and it has some flaws, not to mention that it doesn’t really propose anything new or surprising.
Source: Max
Even so, I consider that it shows the potential that this new DC universe can achieve by taking us to more unknown sides and also letting its most colorful and fantasy side shine. Now we just have to wait until July to see if this promise is fulfilled or if we could be facing another setback for Warner Bros.
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