Creature Commandos Season 1 Review – A Maddening Monster Of A Show

I have an ‘interesting’ relationship with the works of James Gunn. First, I don’t watch his horror stuff because that’s not my thing. Second, the Guardians of the Galaxy films are, in my opinion, the best trilogy in the MCU, and I’m glad he got to finish it. During that ‘hiatus’ of his, he jumped to DC Comics to make The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, and I liked them but didn’t love them as much as other people did. So, when he was announced to helm the new DC, I was curious. My Creature Commandos Season 1 review will highlight, though, that my curiosity is now heavily tainted.

I’ll start with an overview and the positives, because it won’t take long to get through them both. The show doesn’t try to hide its similarities with The Suicide Squad, as Amanda Waller assembles a team under the watchful eye of Rick Flagg… Sr… and sends them off to a country where a certain sorceress, Circe, is threatening a crown princess. Their job is to protect the princess, bring down Circe, and not get wiped out in the process. Fun times!

The first three episodes of the series are dedicated to that ‘mission,’ but, as you would expect, things go a bit sideways when Circe reveals to Amanda Waller that the princess is actually a threat to the entire world, and the team is divided as to whether this is true or not. Amanda sends those she knows she can control after her, and Rick Flagg tries to stop this by his own methods.

Easily, the most positive thing I can say about this show is that the animation feels top-notch. There are only a few spots where I felt there were some ‘oddities,’ but they were honestly pretty minor. It’s no Young Justice (which I’ll bring up again later…), but it’s a lot better than certain other 2D shows on certain streaming networks where you can tell they ‘cut corners’ to rush things out.

Furthermore, while this crew of ‘monsters’ isn’t the best around, there were standouts, including the very fun friendship of The Bride and Nina. Dr. Phosphorous and Weasel also had some nice moments.

Sadly, the rest of the show just left me shaking my head many times over.

Let’s start with the plot. James Gunn doesn’t hesitate to basically make this his version of ‘Suicide Squad 2.0,’ right down to even mentioning the plot of his Suicide Squad movie a few times (and glossing over certain elements). The problem isn’t that fact, though. The problem is that his plot hinged on key things playing out in a very specific way for ‘shock and awe,’ and it made no sense in the grand scheme.

The biggest one in my mind was the statement that the princess they were trying to save was bent on world domination. In Circe’s ‘vision,’ we see the DCU dominated by this princess and her army (which somehow includes some DC Comics big bads like Gorilla Grodd) with all of its main heroes (including the upcoming version of Superman, Batman, and even Peacemaker) dead. Circe believes this vision so badly that she gets ‘an army’ to help her take down this princess.

Except, that ‘army’ of ‘high-tech soldiers’ with freaking laser weapons was not only a joke, it got eradicated by basic dudes (see: the worst kind of men in this world today) with basic weapons! They also got torn up by The Bride, Phosphorous, and others who aren’t even on the level of characters like Superman. Yet, somehow, THIS ARMY was going to dominate the DCU so badly that freaking Circe had to come to save it? Uh… no.

Let’s keep going. One of the key ‘twists’ in the story (serious story spoilers incoming!) is that the princess seduces Rick Flagg Sr. into thinking that Circe’s vision was false and that she was actually innocent. They literally spend a LOT of time on this seduction thing… it was cringe. Yet, if Flagg WASN’T the leader of this team, her efforts would’ve been for nothing, and Amanda would’ve ordered the killing (and gotten to carry it out) without issue.

It doesn’t end there, though. Circe is ‘spared’ by the Creature Commandos because… reasons? It made no sense, especially with Waller involved. She would only want Circe on her side if she can control her, and (as I’ll point out later) she wouldn’t be able to do that, so she’d want her killed, just like she wanted Enchantress dead in the first Suicide Squad film.

Still not enough? Well, in the final episode, we find out that the princess hired Clayface to help her pull off this ruse… but it’s not explained HOW this princess from a ‘nation not in the 21st century’ would know about him, why Clayface agrees to help her, or how The Bride would recognize Clayface when she’s apparently been locked up for many years. She’s not a Batman villain, and even Phosphorous didn’t recognize Clayface.

Sadly, it still doesn’t end there. It continues with two of the ‘most shocking moments’ in the season, which fall a bit flat when you actually think about things logically.

Yes, we’re talking about the death of Nina on the show. As I continued to watch this show, the biggest question I had was, ‘Why is Nina on this team?’ As one episode showed, Waller has other ‘monsters’ who aren’t afraid to get violent, and yet she put the one nice person on this roster for… control reasons? It was very flimsy. Yes, her friendship with The Bride was fun, but it didn’t add up to much in the end because she died.

Not only that, but she died in a way that was so contrived that it hurt! In the final episode, the crew needs to kill the princess, and she’s only vulnerable… in the water. How convenient. There was no way of knowing that this would be the only way to kill her, nor did Waller have any reason to expect an ‘aquatic part of the mission.’ So, again, why was Nina there in any way? She wasn’t even used as the ‘brains of the operation!’ She was just there… to be the ‘kind one.’

As for Weasel, while I’ll praise James Gunn for the creative backstory of the character, once things get ‘intense,’ it falls apart. The end of the origin is Weasel trying to save the last remaining child who was kind to him. He’s being pursued through a burning building with the child still VERY MUCH ALIVE and very VISIBLY ALIVE, and yet, the cops are more concerned with shooting Weasel than saving the kid. Even when they have him shot, and she’s reaching out for him, the cops are more ‘worried’ about him than SAVING A CHILD!!! WHAT THE HECK?!?! That’s not reasonable in any sense, and a similar trope happens in Nina’s origin, too.

There’s a difference between making a ‘monstrous origin feel sympathetic’ and just heaping on stuff like this to ‘make it hurt more.’ Sadly, if I’m being even more honest, every single origin story for the main commandos (outside of Flagg, who didn’t get one) was flawed in more ways than one, and I’m stunned (in a bad way) with some of the things that Gunn ‘envisioned’ with some of them.

Easily the biggest faux pas character-wise was Frankenstein, who was yet another ‘Why is he even in here?’ character. Seriously, what was the point of him? First of all, his depiction was truly cringe-worthy as the ‘man-baby’ of a monster who refuses to acknowledge that The Bride can’t love him. Hint: In the comics, he’s not even close to this level of stupidity, and he even worked with The Bride as a member of S.H.A.D.E.!

To make matters worse, his whole quest throughout the season is to reconnect with her and prove his ‘love for her,’ which lasts all of ten seconds before she shoots him ‘dead.’ Oh, he’s alive and still not learning his lesson… joy.

Yet, ironically, the one that made me the most infuriated was Circe. In the comics, Circe is one of the most powerful sorceresses in the entire DC universe, regularly sparring with Wonder Woman and others on her level. Yet, she was beaten down by The Bride, Weasel, and then maimed by Phosphorus. How in the bloody heck is that possible?

They even show her warping reality at one point with The Bride, but she never uses that again. They limit her primarily to energy blasts, and thus, she gets taken down with ease, and then, they pull a ‘Wonder Woman weakness’ by saying she can’t use her powers with her hands restrained… except that’s not her weakness!

There have been a lot of complaints about certain superhero movies on both sides of the spectrum of directors and writers ‘not being faithful to the lore,’ and this is a clear example of that many times over. It didn’t help that the episodes were all under 30 minutes and had only seven episodes to tell its full story. A few more episodes could’ve fleshed out the characters more outside of their rushed backstories and made the overarching plot feel more meaningful, but it never got to do that.

Frankly, by the time we get to The Bride killing the princess, and then her getting her ‘new team,’ I was like, ‘What’s the point?’ I always go into each new TV and movie experience with no expectations so that I can judge it on its merits. As I’m sure my Creature Commandos Season 1 review has made plain, this show didn’t resonate with me in various ways. Just as frustrating is that there WAS another animated show on Max that was incredible yet didn’t get renewed for a new season… that being Young Justice.

That show had beautiful animation, incredible characters, and wonderfully deep stories, and it didn’t bombard the viewing audience with over-the-top humor, horniness, and a desire to get as violent as possible whenever possible. That series deserved a fifth season but never got it. Yet, this show has already been renewed for Season 2, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s just so that the DCU can be ‘perceived as a success’ before the Superman film arrives next year.

In the end, despite my many criticisms in this Creature Commandos Season 1 review, you can judge the show for yourself and see if it’s to your liking. There are parts to like, but there are also plenty of things to criticize. Will I watch Superman later this year? Yes. Will I go into it with no expectations? Yes. Do I think Creature Commandos should’ve started out this new universe? No. I really don’t.

Creature Commandos season one is streaming exclusively on MAX.