It is entirely to the credit of “Creature Commandos” that the animated series doesn’t feel like some momentous event, even though it technically is. Officially, the show’s debut on Max marks the kickoff of filmmaker James Gunn and producer Peter Safran’s reboot of the DC Universe, symbolized by a new opening sting of Superman busting out of some chains. But the seven-episode season, written entirely by Gunn and directed by Matt Peters and Sam Liu, is as playful and irreverent as most load-bearing franchise entrants are ponderous and weighted down by obligations to a larger narrative. An ultra-violent, profane antihero story isn’t exactly light in the tonal sense; still, “Creature Commandos” is refreshingly unburdened, a feeling Gunn and Safran’s DCU can hopefully maintain when it moves on to far more major characters.
The setup of “Creature Commandos” is, explicitly and shamelessly, a redux of “The Suicide Squad,” Gunn’s DC debut back in 2021. (The “Guardians of the Galaxy” director began his tenure at DC as a hired — pun sort of intended — gun, delivering the quasi-remake “The Suicide Squad” just five years after David Ayer’s version, and then creating the “Peacemaker” spinoff series for Max.) Amoral security operative Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, reprising her live-action role) has been barred from deploying human prisoners on high-risk missions, so she turns to the state’s non-human charges as a loophole. Same villains-as-heroes concept, but with even wackier characters liberated from the need for CGI.
Like the Squad, the Commandos are ostensibly led by Captain Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), though their de facto captain turns out to be the Bride (Indira Varma), a resurrected corpse and longtime resident of the public domain. She’s joined by G.I. Robot (Gunn’s brother Sean), a World War II relic programmed to kill Nazis; Weasel (also Sean Gunn, also from “The Suicide Squad”), a nonverbal, rodent-like animal; Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), a flaming skeleton; and Nina Mazursky (Zoë Chao), a mild-mannered, hyperintelligent fish-woman straight out of “The Shape of Water.”
It takes only a few minutes to lock this ensemble into place. (“Creature Commandos” is nothing if not economical, with each episode having an average runtime of around 25 minutes.) But as the larger plot rolls along, dispatching the Commandos to a fictional Eastern European nation to protect its Princess Ilana (Maria Bakalova) against the sorceress Circe (Anya Chalotra), Gunn gives each member of the team a spotlight via flashbacks. Such reminders that monstrosity is in the eye of the beholder could easily feel trite or forced, but Gunn capably balances them with a pitch-black sense of humor. Circe leads an invading army of neckbeard incels and crushes beer cans with her magic; rather than the Monster, the Bride’s jilted, would-be lover — played by David Harbour — simply goes by “Eric.”
Harbour gives a tour-de-force vocal performance as the iconic work of Dr. Frankenstein: part pathetic, part menacing, part surprisingly erudite, and sometimes all three at once, like when he’s monologuing about his unrequited crush to a terrified taxi driver. Gunn’s spin on the classic characters is a novel one, with the Bride detesting and bloodily rebuffing her entitled, lovelorn suitor. A clever montage illustrates their relationship through the centuries, with Eric chasing the Bride from the Continent to the Wild West and back again — like Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, if one of them were an abusive creep.
“Creature Commandos” consistently deploys animation, a natural fit for a comics adaptation, in similarly artful ways. Often, the effect is comic, particularly with over-the-top violence and gore. There are also fleeting moments of beauty, sometimes seconds before “Creature Commandos” dispatches a character for good. This may be a cartoon, but Gunn gives the series’ events a weight that’s earned on its own terms. Like “Guardians” before it, “Creature Commandos” excels at making audiences care about previously obscure figures in part because they’re underdogs. Here, it’s Batman who has a fleeting cameo in Doctor Phosphorus’ drama, not the other way around. (Also like “Guardians,” “Creature Commandos” has a distinctive soundscape, dominated by the band Gogol Bordello — evoking both the setting and the show’s rollicking, chaotic energy.)
Kicking off the new DCU is just a minor footnote in the rollout of “Creature Commandos,” which is ideally as it should be. There’s less pressure on a motley crew of anthropomorphic misfits than, say, Superman, whose time in the sun lies just around the corner. “Creature Commandos” lies squarely in Gunn’s proven comfort zone, and is directly connected to a previous, successful effort. It’s less of a bang than an easing in, with little to distract the viewer from a straightforwardly good time.
The first two episodes of “Creature Commandos” are now streaming on Max, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Thursdays.