One door closes while another opens—with the series finale of Superman and Lois concluding the Arrowverse earlier this week, the past era of DC championed by Arrowverse and the DCEU ventures came to a gratifying end, and a new vista opened up as the first two episodes of the animated series Creature Commandos, the first venture of the revamped DC Universe (DCU), premiered today. After going through the opening episodes, I think it’s safe to say that the takeoff was real smooth for DCU—the first episode took a steady approach to address the crisis and introduce the eponymous team of monsters, while the action got more bombastic, and jaws started dropping in the second episode. The pilot episode wastes absolutely no time addressing the existing continuity and starts off worldbuilding while assembling the ragtag bunch of exploitable prisoners. DCU chief James Gunn has created and written the series, and his signature style of zany humor and quirky characters, with a sardonic satirical punch referring to geopolitical scenarios is noticeable in the very first episode.
Spoilers Ahead
Mission and Roll Call of Task Force M
The shrewd, manipulative Amanda Waller, chief of A.R.G.U.S., is once again overseeing things from Belle Reve prison, now with her accomplice Colonel Rick Flag Sr. by her side, whom she quickly brings up to speed with the mission at hand. Circe, the extremely powerful Amazonian sorceress, has led a group of armed incel combatants known as the ‘Sons of Themyscira’ to invade Pokolistan—a backward central European country—to overthrow its monarchy. In exchange, Circe has promised the violent band of clowns entry to the all-women island of Themyscira after she claims her rightful place (by her own admission) as the leader of the Amazons. Even though Circe’s motive behind invading Pokolistan is not yet revealed, the United States government cannot afford her taking over the country, as Princess Ilana Rostovic, heir to the throne of Pokolistan, has already made an agreement with the States to lend them her nation’s oil reserve—prompting the States to use their good old interventionism tactics, similar to what happened in Corto Maltese during the events of The Suicide Squad. Speaking of Corto Maltese, Waller expresses her sympathy to Flag for the passing of his son, Rick Flag Jr., during the mission in Corto Maltese, who was killed by Christopher Smith, aka Peacemaker. Waller avoids mentioning the name of his killer quite consciously, as Peacemaker was working under her command, and Flag Jr., whom she mentions as having a heroic death at the end, was going to expose the States’ dastardly actions. It remains to be seen whether Flag Sr. gets to know about the truth after all.
Anyway, Waller needs Flag Sr. to lead a crew to reach Pokolistan and offer security to Ilana, but given how the prisoner exploitation tactics of Task Force X were exposed by Waller’s daughter, Adebayo, she needs to come up with an alternative. Enter Task Force M, with M standing for monsters—as Waller brings Flag to the nonhuman internment division of the prison and introduces him to the luckless bunch who will be forced to accompany him. Congress had instructed her not to use human prisoners, so Waller has improvised by making a team of non-human ones.
Bride, or more specifically, as the visual cues convey, Frankenstein’s Bride, is a corpse made up of assembled body parts, and is the muscle of the team, while Dr. Phosphorus, a radioactive skeleton who can manipulate radioactive energy, is the heavy hitter. Weasel, the feral humanoid weasel, is quite literally the wild card, who had survived Corto Maltese and apparently has a record of killing 27 children, has been included as a part of Project M as well. G.I. Robot, the World WarII-era military robot with a high Nazi killstreak, has been so obsessed with his past that he has developed the tendency to include the word Nazi in every sentence he speaks, and Nina Mazursky, the aquatic humanoid creature, is revealed to be the most intelligent and sensible out of the bunch, who can help Flag in controlling them better. Just like the Suicide Squad members, the Creature Commandos have nano bombs grafted in their neck as well as a mean of control implemented by Waller, which she uses to shock the prisoners to remind them who is in charge, and if the situation demands, she will not hesitate to use it to kill a rogue member as well.
Flag Sr.’s Regret
The team reaches the royal palace of Pokolistan, where the members are greeted with warmth by Ilana and her chief of security, Alexi. While having a chat with Flag, Ilana reveals that she is trying to use their newly formed partnership with the States to uplift her country from its present condition and has been thrust into a role of responsibility she wasn’t fully prepared to shoulder just yet. Flag too shares that, unlike him, who joined the military to earn enough for his family, his starry-eyed son had enlisted to serve his country. Flag Sr. hasn’t gotten over his son’s untimely demise and considers him to be better than himself in every aspect. As hinted by James Gunn, Flag Sr.’s connection with his son will prove pivotal in “Peacemaker” season two, where he will take on the titular anti-hero to take revenge for his son’s death.
Anyway, Ilana seems to have grown romantic feelings for Flag Sr. already, and by bringing him into her private chambers, she tries to make a move on him—and a nervous Flag quickly refused her advances. Ilana might prove to be someone important in the context of the storyline, which might get revealed later in the series.
Will Eric and Bride Reunite?
At night, Flag Sr. finds Dr. Phosphorus rummaging through his stuff to get access to the control device, which is linked with the nano-bombs, with hopes to defuse them before getting detected. A struggle ensues between Dr. Phosphorus and Flag Sr., which ends in the palace kitchen as Flag finally manages to retain the control device, mentioning how foolish it was for Phosphorus to think that Waller didn’t have another control device at her disposal already. On the other hand, Bride seemed to share a connection with Pokolistan, as she was intrigued after learning about their mission destination. At night, Bride sneaks off from her room and gets followed by Nina, who decides to accompany her as Bride hires a cab to reach a dilapidated mansion. Bride mentions the mansion to be her birthplace, as flashes of fleeting memories of her unconventional, ‘shocking’ birth are displayed—and she enters the mansion at present accompanied by Nina. An elderly gypsy woman who was observing their activities from the outskirts of the wilderness nearby calls a hulking brute over the phone—whose physical appearance matches that of Bride’s.
As Creature Commandos episode 1 ends, the brute learns about Bride’s arrival in the mansion and can’t help but cry tears of joy—thinking he will at last be reunited with his Bride. The corpse-brute is none other than Eric Frankenstein, the abomination of a creation of genius scientist Victor Frankenstein, who seems eager to meet Bride. The connection between the duo, along with their origin, will be of primary focus in the next episode, and it seems the show will allow Eric to join the team as well.
