The first entry in James Gunn’s new DC Universe has arrived with the animated Max series Creature Commandos. The seven-part first season is a lot of fun – and textbook Gunn, featuring a team of misshapen misfits who must work together against their better judgment for the good of the world.
Gunn is an executive producer on the show and also wrote all seven episodes, in addition of course to being the Co-Chair & CEO of DC Studios these days, while Dean Lorey (Harley Quinn, Kite Man: Hell Yeah!) serves as executive producer and showrunner. Creature Commandos (review) features the voices of Frank Grillo (Rick Flag Sr.), Maria Bakalova (Princess Ilana), David Harbour (Eric Frankenstein), Indira Varma (the Bride), Zoë Chao (Nina Mazursky), Sean Gunn (GI Robot and Weasel), Alan Tudyk (Dr. Phosphorus), Steve Agee (Economos), and Viola Davis (Amanda Waller).
I recently sat down for an extended interview with Gunn and Lorey to discuss the process of birthing the new DCU. We touched on a variety of topics, from what is and isn’t canon in the DCU now (and whether or not it even matters) to the “grounded” and “believable” approach to expect from the (Green) Lanterns TV show to the Justice League inconsistency in Peacemaker and much more. Read on for some Creature Commandos highlights from our chat below, but follow the links for even more!
IGN: What made you decide to go animated with the debut of the new DCU?
James Gunn: I don't remember. [laughs] I really don't remember. I think I just was like, I kind of wanted to do something animated and I wanted to do something with Creature Commandos for a while, and so I just started writing this thing. We didn't have a deal, we didn't have anything. I just wrote seven episodes of this TV show and was into it. And so then I luckily had a really great CEO at DC Studios that was me, and I greenlit my own show.
IGN: How did you decide on the roster for this particular incarnation of the Commandos?
James Gunn: [laughs] I really don't remember! I mean, part of it was from the actual Creature Commandos comics, and I kind of went through and I just picked out who everybody was, and I wanted to have a skeleton guy in there, and so my favorite of all the skeleton guys, and there are many skeleton guys, is Doctor Phosphorus. And I thought he would be the most fun, and so he ended up in there.
IGN: Frankenstein is a really surprising character in some ways, because I guess the version of him in Mary Shelley's book is a bit of a sociopath. This one does seem really to track with that, and yet he's one of our hero characters, I guess.
Dean Lorey: Is he? He's a monster and he does monstrous things, but I guess he's a hero in the same way that the Godfather is a hero in The Godfather.
James Gunn: Yeah, he's a protagonist. I mean, he's not a great guy. And he is a stalker piece of shit. He is a stalker.
Dean Lorey: He's kind of irredeemable.
IGN: Creature Commandos is definitely an adult show in terms of sex and violence. How much was that your mission statement going in?
James Gunn: It wasn't.
Dean Lorey: I don't think we went into it really thinking about it as an R-rated cartoon or anything like that. It really was just a story that we wanted to tell as honestly as we could. And that involved a little bit of violence and a little bit of sex, but we weren't shooting for any particular level of that.
James Gunn: And because it is animated, it doesn't seem as sexual or as gory as you would if it was in live-action. At least to me it doesn't. But I just kind of wrote the story that I liked and then these guys adapted it. But I didn't even think it was necessarily what one would call adult animation, which is what it's called now, when I wrote it. It's just kind of how it ended up being.
Dean Lorey: Yeah, we were on the production side just trying to be sort of faithful to the scripts that James wrote and to try not to be too excessive and keep it in the world with the story so it didn't take you out.
IGN: So James, you wrote the seven episodes and then Dean kind of takes it and runs with it. Was there a moment where it's like, “Oh, this Nazi's putting his guts back in his stomach. Maybe that's too much?”
James Gunn: [laughs] Do you think I'm going to say too much!?
Dean Lorey: James obviously saw every frame of the thing and he had very specific notes throughout, but I don't ever recall there being a question of too much violence.
IGN: Give me more guts. Maybe more Nazi guts.
James Gunn: No, I never said more. I never said more or less. It just seemed like it was always what was appropriate. It really wasn't about just being shocking ever.
IGN: Sure. Well, the moment of the Nazi putting his guts back into himself, it feels like a catharsis for a particular character.
Dean Lorey: We felt like he had it coming.
IGN: When you were casting the voice actors, how important was it to find actors who could also do the live-action versions? Because obviously we know Frank Grillo is going to be in Superman and Peacemaker Season 2 in addition to Creature Commandos.
James Gunn: Yeah, it was always a consideration. We always wanted to have somebody that could potentially play the character in live-action... Listen, there are some side characters, a couple of big ones, that are very minimal in the show [where those] voice actors will probably not play that role. I know that's the case. But for the main Creature Commandos characters, the idea was always to have those characters played by those actors.
IGN: It's not usually how it's done.
James Gunn: With Frank, it was really important because I knew that Frank was in Superman. Rick Flag's in Superman. He's in a major role in Peacemaker Season 2. So that was a character that was going to be connected throughout. So I needed somebody to do all three.
IGN: James, how did you wind up in the opening credits of Creature Commandos?
James Gunn: You tell me. That was like a shock.
Dean Lorey: James had a credit and we were trying to figure out, “Well, we gave all the characters sort of little moments,” animated moments in the credits. And we were like, “James is kind of a character. We should give him something.” And so we all got very excited about it and we spent a lot of time working on it, and how does he... Does he lean back in the chair? What does he do?
James Gunn: Aren't I writing on a typewriter?
Dean Lorey: Yeah, you're writing on a typewriter.
James Gunn: That's not canon. [laughs] I was surprised and my ego was stroked and I was like, “Oh, my God. Please don't let people think that I told him to animate…”
Dean Lorey: You did not. I can tell you for the record, he didn't, and we were thrilled to present it. And nervously we presented a little bit.
IGN: Is there a dream DC team or character that you guys would like to do next in animation for DC?
James Gunn: I mean, I have a billion.
Dean Lorey: Well, yeah, there's a bunch I would love to do.
James Gunn: Pitch us. I may green light it.
Dean Lorey: I'm interested in doing a Queen of Fables animated project. I have real interest in that. I would love to continue to do stuff in the Harley verse. There's a lot of characters I'd love to get into there. Yeah, there's a bunch. I'd love to do a Hitman comic. Garth Ennis' Hitman. I think that'd be great.
IGN: Do you have a favorite flashback sequence in Creature Commandos?
James Gunn: Well, I don't want to say what the favorite flashback is because it gives it away, but definitely my favorite episode is seven. I mean, seven is just majestic.
Dean Lorey: That's the one I would have too. I know exactly what you're talking about.
James Gunn: Seven's incredible. It's incredible.
IGN: Is there going to be a Season 2?
Dean Lorey: Well, we don't know if we can get it green lit. [laughs]
IGN: Because what happens with a Season 2? James, would you want to write the whole thing again?
James Gunn: I think that Dean has done a lot with the characters and he can handle some of that. I think let's just take it one day at a time and see what happens. But I think we want to see the characters again in one format or another. There could be other formats we could do. We could do the movie. So there's other ways of telling that story.
IGN: Creature Commandos, live-action movie?
James Gunn: Live-action, animated movie. It could be a lot of different things.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
