The Trials of Monster's -Creature Commandos

 

You’ve heard it once and you’ll hear it a million times more, never judge a book by its cover. Even if the book is a team of monstrous villains being held in a secret government prison for crimes of various severities. Creature Commandos is another installment in the ever-expanding Suicide Squad universe, this time another animated expansion. A fun short run with a cast of characters who don’t always see eye to eye, but they’re criminals just trying to survive partnered with a stoic beacon of justice. Heads were bound to butt. Creature Commandos was a cool seven episodes with a finale that felt rushed and sort of let me down.

My big problem with the final episode of Creature Commandos was the suddenness at which events played out with zero follow through. It felt lack luster compared to the rest of the show that moved swiftly, but with purpose. With flashy fights that often change location as they punch along to the interesting soundtrack. It’s a clever way to change scenes without breaking the action. Not only do the fights move smoothly and with reason, but so does the story, it’s short and simple with one or two twists, one of which caught me off guard. They knew they probably weren’t getting three seasons and a movie. It gave the vibe of hopeful second season at the end. Creature Commandos cares about telling the story of its characters and doing it well, and not for no reason knowing about the characters backstories plays into parts of the plot. Weasel ruins an assassination attempt on the princess because she looks like a girl he failed to save. He feels like he has a second chance and this time he intends to save her. GI’s story is of a robot war hero who was praised by his fellow army men. After serving his purpose he goes from hero to dangerous weapon that’s stored away. GI’s story isn’t about purpose he knows his purpose it’s programmed in; it’s about comradery. GI doesn’t want to feel alone in the world, he wants to find the companionship he shared with his comrades in the war. A bond. It’s what he’s excited to find in Nina, and he protects her. The story with the most impact of course belongs to our main character: The Bride. She gives us a whole new character Frankenstein.

The great showdown of The Bride and her monster Frankenstein is teased all season. We see Frankenstein stalk Bride across decades and the ocean a feud that has been going since he murdered her true love. The Bride resents Frankenstein and seeing their fight should have been exciting seeing the final blow should have been satisfying, a statement to cutting ties with the last of her past. Instead, it was extremely disappointing, Bride gave the final blow, but it felt all too easy. Frankenstein starts to scale a building after the Bride, she knocks him off and knocks and puts a few bullets in him and he goes down for good. Just like that a shot to the head. Which doesn’t feel like it lines up with the rest of the show, it’s lackluster when the episode before Frankenstein was eating bullets from Rick Flag. On top of that the fight with Flag had better choreography. Flag was jumping on Frankenstein’s back they were spinning. It’s what I expected to see from Creature Commandos. The Bride and Frankenstein, that was a flat loose end tie on the last episode.

 My second slightly smaller grievance with the final episode also has to do with Mr. Flag and his sudden disappearance. He gets put in critical care after a pretty cool fight with Clayface and after we confirm he’s not dead Flag is suddenly not a name we hear about anymore. His story ends in a hospital bed. Which okay he was trying to hinder the change in the story where the princess’s protectors have to murder her, and Flag became infatuated with her. He didn’t want to believe she was bad. Ilana – the princess- is killed in the end and as the episode wrapped, I expected some scene of Flag upset, tearful, maybe a little angry even. Instead, we get nothing, we don’t know how Flag took the news of his brief lovers’ death. He’s an emotional guy you think there’d be a scene to see. It felt like a second lose end that didn’t get a proper tie.

The last large piece of this unsatisfying cake is Ninas fate. Nina doesn’t quite fit in with the other Creatures being warm, kind, and bright. She doesn’t fight like the other monsters she’s never really needed to fight before being recruited into the Creature Commandoes. Her back story is being raised with all the love in the world by a dating father who never gave up on her or called her weird. She was never taught that she was lesser to anyone. After going to public high school Nina found she didn’t really fit in there either. This is what breaks my heart about Nina. She never gets the chance to belong anywhere, she’s on the cusp of finding a friendship with GI, but he dies leaving her alone again, maybe heartbroken that’s my hot take. She tries hard to girl bond with the Bride who is not having it and instead shuts down every friendly advance. Nina also does a lot of hiding in the show with no real super power other than swimming well, and no knowledge of weapons. I feel like she’s mostly there as a peacekeeper at times even though she has a sass to her. Nina is introduced as the most agreeable monster. It feels cruel and unfair in a way the show hadn’t been that as soon as Nina starts to feel like she belongs amongst the other monsters getting their words of encouragement to kill for the first time, that she is killed. In her own element that they specifically mention at the beginning of the show, Nina is butchered. She is talked up by the Bride whose approval she was searching for, even Dr. Phosphorus has some nice words to send her off with. All of this build up and they kill her, before she could feel like a part of the team, I guess before she became a killer. To rub salt in the wound of her death they rebuild GI!

I’m hoping that this article doesn’t come off as harsh. I know I’m picking at Creature Commandos’ faults, but I’m doing that because of how much I enjoyed the buildup of the rest of the show. I binged it in one afternoon sucked in by the world building and learning the backstories for each character. Finding out what brought everyone to their current situation was fun, like a little intro to DC characters I never knew about before. I have so much to say about this ending because I expected it to end with a bang, and it didn’t quite stick the landing. It tried to hastily clean up threads and gave a maybe feeling to a second season. I almost felt like the show wanted ten episodes, but was told they could only have 7 and it was nonnegotiable.   

Despite my bellyaching about the last episode, I think Creature Commandos is another fun watch in the ever-growing Suicide Squad universe. Showcasing a new cast of characters I’d never heard of before, except technically the Bride. If a second season is released, I’d watch it, but I hope they keep the original cast and don’t pick a totally new cast, please. I get too attached to characters for Suicide Squad.