I gotta be honest; after watching the opening episode of the James Gunn scripted, first entry into the brand new DCU, I was struggling to see what the big deal was. Yes, it was jam packed with the usual eccentric characters and skewed humor that is usually found in Gunn’s work, but it just felt too similar to his own The Suicide Squad for it to truly feel like it’s own thing. Similarly, the brief run time didn’t really give us time to fully appreciate this cluster of misshapen misanthropes as we had around seven major characters and a bunch of supporting players to cram in and as a result, it all whizzed by in something of a blur. Simply put, it was fun, but it was fleeting.
However, as we go into the second episode, we now get a much better idea of how the series at large is going to play; and more than that, it looks like after that rather ordinary opener, Creature Commandos might be actually pretty damn good.
After escaping the castle where Task Force M have been camped out to protect the royal family of Pokolistan, the Bride (and a tagging along Nina) has arrived at the mansion where the hulking collection of cadavers was born and as she and her water breathing companion start searching the place for a necklace with high emotional value, we get bombarded with flashbacks that clue us in to her origin. As it happens, her start isn’t that different from the reasons she was created in the classic versions of the tale as Victor Frankenstein toils to create a mate for his earlier creation who desperately yearns for companionship. However, once Victor zaps life into her pieced together frame, the trauma of birth leaves her horrified at the sight of her proposed beau and wants nothing to do with the lovesick hulk.
However, as time goes on and Victor teaches the Bride how to speak, the two soon start to form a close bond that goes far beyond teacher/student or even creator/creation and before you know it, he gifts her the necklace she’s searching for in the present and embark on a sexual relationship. When Victor’s other creation finds out, his response is quick and brutal and after discovering Frankenstein’s mangled body, the Bride attacks her fellow monster and we see that the two have been locked in a twisted relationship of stalking and brawling to this very day.
Meanwhile, back in the present day, Princess Rostovic helps dress the wounds of Flag after his fight with Doctor Phosphorus and finally succeeds in seducing him while the remainder of Task Force M listen at the bathroom door. However, as they head out to pick their two absent teammates up, both the Bride and Nina are attacked by Circe and the Sons Of Themyscira and after a vicious set-to, both the mer-woman and the living cadaver are beaten and taken prisoner.
Finally relieved of the burden of setting everything up and laying down the characters and plot, the second episode of Creature Commandos launches out of the gate with a far more focus installment that now reveals exactly what the format is that the rest of the show will follow. It seems like every single episode will now contain flashbacks for every single member, fleshing them out as we go and using their freaky origins as a backbone for the main, more traditional Suicide Squad style plot which almost wipes out every single qualm I has about the show in one fell swoop.
It also helps that the character its chosen to start with (if you don’t count the first episode as Flag’s introduction, that is) is the Bride, because thanks to the world weary, yet bad tempered vocal performance by Indira Varma, the character is thus far the most entertaining one here. Gunn is obviously having fun injecting his particularly twisted traits into the already twisted story first told by Mary Shelly and his horror credentials serve him very well here. For a start, he makes the relationship between Victor, the Bride and the Monster more of a physical love triangle than we’re used to which leads to the scientist eventually forming a sexual relationship with his female creation that seems to be genuine – at least from her point of view. But after gifts of ornate necklaces and acts that border amusingly on necrophilia (interesting start for the new DCU), David Harbour’s lovelorn brute murders his creator in a fit of psychotic jealousy leading to a grudge match that’s been raging since 1831.
From here, the episode closes out with a montage of all the times the two have collided over the ages and even though it fucking rocks to the strains of Gogol Bordello, it interestingly paints Frankenstein’s Monster as an immortal stalker who has been following the Bride for centuries and really can’t take no (usually in the form of a tooth rattling left hook) for an answers.
While the Bride gets to enjoy an amusingly harrowing origin story, the sexual shenanigans don’t stop there as the relationship between Flag and the Princess gets fairly graphic and I’m rather amused that it took the MCU well over ten years to get to a place where more overt sex and bad language are present and the new DCU immediately drops necrophilia and a relationship with a wide age gap into the second episode of its first entry. However, while all the stuff contained in the episode that doesn’t pertain directly to the Bride does still feel a little superfluous, it’s still great to hear from Frank Grillo and Alan Tudyk characters.
Of course, not everything about the Bride’s story thread is about her origins as the series villain, Circe, shows up with her incel army and gets into an almighty bust up with the internally tormented monster. But while the antagonist has a whole raftvof magical tricks up her sleeve and a toxic battalion of disgruntled males backing her up, the Bride tears through them like some sort of rampaging cross between Captain America and the Hulk. In fact, the fight between her and Circe (once again set to Gogol Bordello) is such a barn burner, it – in conjunction with the well judged flashbacks – launches the episode into the stratosphere, especially considering that the fight hits genuinely hard and contains some wonderfully eccentric moments. After all, it’s not every day you see a superhero fight where the upper hand is gained by one character having their hands transformed into the type of inflatable balloon things you find outside car dealerships. Maybe it’s a little nod to the fact that this version of the character doesn’t have four arms like she does in the comic, but it’s cool that the balance of the show has righted itself so perfectly now that it’s in full swing.
What first seemed like an act of Gunn simply lapping himself, Creature Commandos has now suddenly blossomed to show what it’s really about as it gradually explores the tragic backstories of its misunderstood cast.
Much like the focus of this particular episode, Creature Commandos now seem very well put together.
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