The secret sauce behind Creature Commandos’ Bride was Harley Quinn

James Gunn’s Creature Commandos, the wildest version of the Suicide Squad to hit the screen yet, isn’t Dean Lorey’s first trip to the DC Comics adaptation rodeo. The showrunner cut his teeth as a producer on Powerless, a writer on iZombie, and most recently as showrunner on Kite Man: Hell Yeah!

But his biggest success so far has been as showrunner on Harley Quinn, undeniably the jewel in the crown of modern animated DC Comics adaptations. If he learned anything from making four seasons (and counting) of Harley Quinn, Lorey told Polygon, it’s to have a point of view. 

And for Creature Commandos, that point of view is the Bride of Frankenstein.

“In Harley Quinn,” Lorey said in a video chat ahead of the show’s Dec. 5 release, “when we created it and when we wrote it, we were doing it from Harley’s point of view. So the vision of Gotham that you see in Harley is bright and colorful, and it’s probably different than people are used to seeing Gotham portrayed. What we wanted to do with Creature Commandos was really honor the point of view of the show, which is a sort of an Eastern European flair. We’re strangers in a strange land going into this world, and I tend to think of the Bride as our point-of-view character on the series.” 

DC Comics’ version of Frankenstein (yes, the monster goes by “Frankenstein” in the comics) and the Bride sit squarely in the loophole of the public domain, by cribbing from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, rather than Boris Karloff’s iconic turn as the Monster, or the Hammer Horror movies that came after. Shelley’s original Monster was far more articulate than the version depicted in 1931’s Frankenstein — erudite, even. And Creature Commandos’ Bride is more than Frankenstein’s equal, voiced by Indira Varma, veteran of Doctor Who, The Legend of Vox Machina, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. 

“Great voice acting is inarguable,” Lorey said of Varma’s performance. “You hear it and you’re just like, Oh, well, obviously, it should be this. I felt that way with the cast in general, and I love the way that Indira voiced the Bride.” 

Varma’s skill is displayed in the second episode of Creature Commandos’ two-episode premiere, which drills down into the Bride’s tragic origin — but also her budding odd-couple friendship with the Commandos’ resident gill-woman, Nina Mazursky (voiced by The Afterparty’s Zoë Chao). 

“Nina is nothing if not optimistic and full of heart and all of that,” Lorey said. “The Bride is almost the polar opposite of that, and I love seeing the two of them play off each other.” 

To Lorey, committing to the Bride’s perspective for Creature Commandos wasn’t just about giving the series an “early Hammer Horror kind of ‘castle on top of the hill’” vibe, but also about the depth of emotion her story brought to the whole series. Asked about his favorite aspect of the character, Lorey said, “I think she brings trauma. She brings a history of trauma and deep emotional reservoir. I mean, she’s literally created. Her history is so complicated, and I just love it. I think it frames everything in the show.” 

The first two episodes of Creature Commandos premiered Dec. 5 on the Max streaming service, with five more episodes premiering weekly through Jan. 9, 2025.