Yes, Creature Commandos Is James Gunn's Suicide Squad Sequel

Spoilers for "Creature Commandos" to follow.

The opening credits of "Creature Commandos" is a roll-call of the offbeat cast set to classic Venezuelan song "Moliendo Café." The last figure in the call is series creator, and new DC Universe architect, James Gunn. The animated Gunn is sitting at his laptop, writing the script for the "Creature Commandos" episode we're about to see. If you thought Gunn would be hands off with the show, think again. The series has his thumbprint over each key frame of animation and syllable of dialogue.

So far, "Creature Commandos" has the pop music needle drops that Gunn has been writing his superhero movies to since "Guardians of the Galaxy." The series' second episode, "The Tourmaline Necklace," shows the century long history between Frankenstein (David Harbour) and his Bride (Indira Varma) with a montage set to Gogol Bordello's "American Wedding." This caps off a flashback detailing the Bride's tragic backstory — she fell in love with her kind creator (Peter Serafinowicz) until the jealous Monster killed him. Gunn's superhero movies/TV, at Marvel and DC, are all about misunderstood, abrasive outsiders who push people away due to a past loss. (He is the one who transformed Nebula, as played by Karen Gillan, from an unmemorable villain into one of the best-developed characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.) I'm sure the Bride isn't the only one on her team with a tearjerking past.

This is all so Gunn-ish that I'd say "Creature Commandos" is the sequel to Gunn's "The Suicide Squad" that we haven't gotten yet. Yes, "Creature Commandos" has a (mostly) different cast than that film, but the basic premise is the same: Belle Reve prison warden Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) recruits several superpowered inmates and sends them on a black ops mission into another country.

"Creature Commandos" is an existing DC Comic, but this animated take is closer to "Suicide Squad" meets the Universal Monsters. Not that this is a bad thing.

The Creature Commandos debuted in 1980's "Weird War Tales" issue #93, created by writer J. M. DeMatteis and artist Pat Broderick. It wasn't a superhero comic, exactly, but a war one with a supernatural horror twist. The Commandos were a U.S. army unit in World War II created by one Professor Mazurzky and staffed by archetypal monster movie villains: Elliot Taylor/Patchwork (Frankenstein's Monster), Vincent Velcoro (a vampire), and Warren Griffith (a werewolf). Later, they were joined by Medusa.

The team got some spotlight here and there (including an eight-issue mini-series in 2000), but never hit the A-List. When DC rebooted its comics in 2011 with the New 52, the Creature Commandos were reimagined for the series "Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E." Frankenstein's Monster and his Bride were members of the new Commandos, while Mazursky was reimagined as Nina Mazursky (a character similar to Gill-Man from "Creature from the Black Lagoon"). "Agent of S.H.A.D.E." was short-lived, but it's a big inspiration for Gunn's "Creature Commandos." That's why Frankenstein, the Bride, and Nina (played by Zoë Chao) are in the show. G.I. Robot has also often been part of the Commandos too, so his inclusion was a no-brainer.

Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), though? He's a Batman villain, much like Suicide Squad staples Deadshot, Harley Quinn, and (in Gunn's movie) Polka-Dot Man and Ratcatcher (who still deserves that spin-off). Phosphorus' schtick (a mutated human with superpowers) is closer to a traditional comic book villain. You could argue that his "radioactive monster" theme ties into '50s B-horror movies, but he still feels closer to a Suicide Squadmate than a Creature Commando.

That's to say nothing of the team being controlled by Amanda Waller (albeit with electric shocks, not "Escape From New York" style bombs in their heads) and led in the field by Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo). Those two are the go-to leaders of the Suicide Squad in the comics and onscreen. Not that this is a bad thing; it makes more sense to reuse them than setting up another secret agency like S.H.A.D.E.

In "Creature Commandos," Waller explains to Flag (who is replacing his late son, played by Joel Kinnaman in the "Suicide Squad" movies) that due to the events of "The Suicide Squad," she can't use humans on Task Force X anymore. The Commandos are explicitly said to be a reinvention of the Suicide Squad concept, but now stocked with prisoners who aren't technically human.

Like "The Suicide Squad," "Creature Commandos" mostly takes place in the country the team has been deployed into. In "The Suicide Squad," it was the Latin American island Corto Maltese, a fictional DC universe country that debuted in Frank Miller's landmark Batman comic "The Dark Knight Returns." (Corto Maltese was itself a reference to Hugo Pratt's sailor comic of the same name.) In "Creature Commandos," the setting is the (also fictional) eastern European country Pokolistan. This, too, contributes to making the show feel like another round with the Suicide Squad.

Across "Creature Commandos" season 1, we'll keep watching for any more "Suicide Squad" similarities (or cameos) here at /Film.com

New episodes of "Creature Commandos" premiere Thursdays on Max.