A couple of years ago, we got the announcement of James Gunn taking over a brand DC Cinematic Universe, which included one clear idea: all movies, TV shows, cartoons, and video games would take place in the same universe. This makes sense since James Gunn was openly critical about how Marvel made a Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon advertised as being a continuation of the movie, but which failed to be truly connected.
It’s understandable why Gunn would be annoyed by this because he is probably the master subversion, he never wants to take the obvious path regarding his storytelling. This is probably why he decided to make a Suicide Squad spin-off project based on an incredibly obscure comic book team, The Creature Commandos.
Being an animated spin-off of The Suicide Squad, it easily delivers what most people were hoping for. It features the return of characters like Amanda Waller, voiced by Voila Davis, who probably recorded her lines in the same room that we’ve never seen Amanda Waller leave since the last Suicide Squad movie. The other returning character we have is John Economos, who had a big role in Peacemaker and is now a sort of mythology expert for Waller. The final returning character sort of would be Rick Flag Sr, whose son died in the previous Suicide Squad movie. I’ll be damned if I didn’t point out how much this character looks like a buff version of James Gunn, who he sees in this cartoon’s intro.
For people who loved the ultra-violence gore of The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, I think they are going to enjoy this: The violence ranges from people getting their heads blown out by gunfire by the Nazi Exterminator GI Robot to having there face burnt off at the touch of the skeleton man Dr Phospherus.
However, I really wouldn’t say this series is doing gore and violence just for the sake of it. Throughout the series we see the perspective as each member of the team manages to get their own flashback episodes As we see the tragedy of their circumstances, they are all people who have been wronged by society and decided to embrace themselves as the monsters they are seen as. You have characters like Dr. Phosperous, who was tortured and has now embarrassed nihilism. Some were dealt a bad hand for being monsters such as Weasle and Nina. It is safe to say police officers in this series probably have a higher body count of innocents compared to certain members of this team because of them. I think the most tragic character would be GI Robot, who can’t seem to move on beyond his basic programming of killing Nazis. These flashbacks leave the audience questioning if people in society who are part of their backstory are the real monsters. It is pretty refreshing to have a cartoon series based on a comic book property to get this deep, but I think James Gunn has made an all-time masterpiece.
As for DC fans looking out for their favorite characters, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. The Frankenstein in this show is nothing like the one from Peter J Tomasi’s Batman and Robin Run, instead going for the “giant moron” angle while also making him a sort of hopeless romantic as David Harbour brings a beautiful voice acting performance of poetic proportions. I wouldn’t be too surprised if DC soon comes out with a comic mini-series that is a closer adaptation of him and the Bride, because they are the real MVPs of the series. It would be amazing if we just got a full episode that is just about Frankenstein pining for the bride for centuries to the song of Gogal Bordello.
The only other major cameos are all in the GI Robot focus episode, where we get a flashback of his time with SGT Rock and his team. Later in the episode, we meet William Magnus, the creator of the Metal Men robots. I find this interesting, since he is established as being alive in the 1960’s instead of the present day, but it is likely his work may inspire other well-known robot engineers with the DC Universe, such as Dr. Ivo, who created the Amazo Robot, or TO Morrow the creator of the Red Tornado.
However, as much as I’d hate to make this complaint that usually comes with being in an established cinematic universe, it will have to be kept in mind how while all the events of this series is taking place, the Justice League is technically omnipresent, as we see them at the end of Peacemaker Season 1. The villain of the show’s first half is Sersi, a Wonder Woman villain who uses a terrorist group called the Sons of Themyscira (not to be confused with the actual male offsprings abandoned on an island by the Amazons). We also see Batman for a split second in the Dr Phosphorus episode, so we do know they are around. I couldn’t help but question the logic of Nina’s backstory: it does a great job establishing that she is a good person, but she gets jailed without any proper explanation for why except for maybe full frontal fish person nudity. This certainly undermines the subplot of Weasle, who is shown to have an attorney despite barely being a sentient creature. I can’t help but question where Aquaman was when Nina was in the news, surely she would fit in well in Atlantis, but instead, no one on the Justice League is doing anything about Amanda Waller doing this. The ineffectiveness will unfortunately linger over Gunn’s cinematic universe unless it is addressed soon.
I will say that while this series has been terrific on its own merits, what makes it great is how much you can emphasize with the characters. However, you only emphasize with most of them because of how terrible the world they live in is. I hope that James Gunn’s Superman movie can help redeem this world and show greater sense of optimism, or else this will just become the Suicide Squad expanded universe.
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