CREATURE COMMANDOS Review: Blood, More Blood, and a Little Sex, As Expected

The first production from the new DC Studios looks awfully familiar.

Creature Commandos
The first two episodes of the seven-episode series are now streaming on Max. New episodes will premiere every Thursday.

If you saw and loved James Gunn's The Suicide Squad (2021) and/or Peacemaker (2022), my confidence is high that you will enjoy his new animated series, Creature Commandos, which, like those earlier efforts, is soaked in blood and gallows humor, with a little sex to spice things up before we go to a commercial break.

(Full disclosure: I watched on my personal ad-supported Max subscription plan. And I forgot how much I dislike ad breaks, even if I got the six-month special offer for only $2.99 per month. Saving money sucks.)

To begin the series, creator/writer James Gunn brings back Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) behind the scenes, watching television footage of some disruptive events in a fictional country, joined by Rick Flagg Sr. (Frank Grillo), who is placed in charge of a group of monsters and sent to do something or other in the aforementioned fictional country.

Mostly, the show is all about murder and mayhem, so the monsters fit right into it, though I admit that I was more than a little surprised to see that the Warner Bros. all-new DC Studios began with a show featuring characters made famous by a competitor, Universal Studios. The show is based on a DC Comics series that included the characters of The Bride (of Frankenstein) and Frankenstein's Monster, who have long passed into the public domain.

Gunn's iteration of the characters takes them to the extremes, as expected. Voiced with much juice and delight by Indira Varma and David Harbour, the gruesome twosome take the lead as opposing forces and quickly become enemy combatants, as the second episode digs into their history of antagonism.

Alan Tudyk and Sean Gunn voice multiple characters, a great use of their ability to create a rich variety of voices, with Zoe Chao providing balance as a very polite amphibious scientist. (Aren't they all?) Maria Bakalove guest stars in the first two episodes as the leader of the fictional country, who falls quickly for Rick Flagg Sr.

The series is the answer to the question: what if The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker were animated, but with different characters? It very ably answers that question, which may be enough for viewers.

I must say, though, that pairing the show with The Sex Lives of College Girls on Thursday evening initially felt like a very Odd Couple. But then I realized that both shows are squarely aimed at the YA demographic, with something for everyone, if that's your thing.

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