James Gunn teases how Creature Commandos kicks off his new DC universe

DC Comics cover a wide range of stories and tones, and that is both their blessing and curse. One reason the company has struggled for so long to build their own equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that their characters are much harder to streamline under a single umbrella than the Marvel heroes, most of whom are based in New York City and were created around the same time by the same handful of people. But now that James Gunn has taken over DC Films alongside producer Peter Safran and is starting a new interconnected fictional universe, he wants to lean into the company’s diversity and strangeness. That’s why this new franchise is kicking off with Creature Commandos (premiering Dec. 5), an adult animated series about misfit monsters. 

“The thing I've always loved about DC Comics was that you had your mainstream comics that always ran, but they also had these tonally different comics like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns and All-Star Superman,” Gunn tells Entertainment Weekly. “It was different from Marvel in that way. That’s something that I really want to retain within the studio, that every project is going to bring a different vision by the artists who are creating it.” 

So while next year’s Superman movie (written and directed by Gunn) will be a superhero epic for all ages, Creature Commandos is a spiky story about monstrous characters wrestling with their dark pasts. The show features an assortment of characters both familiar and strange — Frankenstein (David Harbour), the Bride of Frankenstein (Indira Varma), Doctor Phosphorous (Alan Tudyk), the fishlike Nina Mazursky (Zoe Chao), Weasel and G.I. Robot (both Sean Gunn) — who are being sent on dangerous missions by government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, reprising her role from the Suicide Squad movies) and Rick Flag, Sr. (Frank Grillo). Viewers will surely see the similarities not just to Gunn’s 2021 DC superhero film, The Suicide Squad, but also his Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy for Marvel. 

“I'm used to dealing with oddballs and irregular types and weirdos,” Gunn says. “That's what Guardians is, and Creature Commandos is kind of like Guardians without the sentimentality. The Guardians are all really good characters at their heart, and that just isn't necessarily the case with the creatures.”

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Creature Commandos will feature both Frankenstein and the Bride, but don’t expect to see them lumbering around or grunting. Gunn says Mary Shelley’s original novel Frankenstein was more of a touchstone in their characterization than the classic Universal horror films that starred Boris Karloff (although, of course, he also loves those). 

“Part of the fun for me was taking some of the basics of Mary Shelley's story and bringing them into this story about the spurned relationship between the Bride and Frankenstein,” Gunn says. “Frankenstein is this incredibly well-spoken intellectual but is still driven by his rage and his anger and his inability to really be a human being, and the inability for the one that he loves not loving him back. That’s what drives him.”

But Creature Commandos is also full of less-familiar faces, like G.I. Robot. Each episode of the series, following the initial setup, will delve into a different character’s backstory and pathos. What could possibly be complicated about a fighting robot? Well, we’re going to find out.

“There's an innocence to G.I. Robot that I didn't quite see until Sean stepped into the booth and started creating this character,” Gunn says. “His choices for G.I. Robot give the character this sweet, mechanic innocence. He’s got this very sad history from World War II. The only time I think he felt at home was with the soldiers that he served with in DC's alternate history of World War II, where metahumans were involved.”

Gunn is a busy man. He spoke to EW about Creature Commandos from the set of Peacemaker season 2, and is also working on post-production of next year’s Superman. He sees this series as the perfect appetizer for what’s to come from DC.

“Superman is the true start of everything, it's a humongous epic. This is a way for people to just take a little nibble and see what it tastes like,” Gunn says. “There are a ton of fun references to other DC stuff, a bunch of hints for things that are coming. So I think it's just an extraordinarily fun way to start.” 

Creature Commandos premieres December 5 on Max.