Main cast: Indira Varma (The Bride, Old Woman), Sean Gunn (GI Robot, Weasel), Alan Tudyk (Dr Phosphorus), Zoe Chao (Nina Mazursky), David Harbour (Eric Frankenstein), and Frank Grillo (Rick Flag Sr)
Director: Matt Peters

First, a very important disclaimer: this reviewer is not a Gunn Bro, Gunn Gooner, Gunn Cultist, or whatever terminally online fans are calling themselves these days. Nor is this reviewer a Snyder Bro, because honestly, who has the energy?

Although props to Warner Bros for their galaxy-brain strategy of replacing one cult-personality director with a legion of annoying fans with… another cult-personality director with a legion of annoying fans. It’s like breaking up with someone who won’t stop talking about CrossFit and immediately dating someone who won’t shut up about their podcast. Brilliant.

Now, on to the review.

Creature Commandos is supposedly the second installment in the shiny new Gunn Era of the DCU. The first is Peacemaker, the only show from the previous DCEU that James Gunn didn’t Thanos-snap out of existence, and definitely not because he created it and needs to keep his wife and friends steadily employed. No sir, pure coincidence! Just like it’s pure coincidence that his brother is in the second billing of this show. Why hide the nepotism when you can celebrate it?

Now, when you’re launching a new cinematic universe—a fresh start for one of the biggest superhero brands on Earth—you’d think you’d lead with, I don’t know, Superman? Batman? Wonder Woman?  The actual A-listers people will recognize? The characters that have been household names since the invention of households?

Ah, but when you’re James Gunn, you launch with an R-rated, raunchy animated series that feels like a knockoff of The Suicide Squad — you know, that movie that already flopped so hard it created a small crater in the box office. How does that make sense?

Oh, and he even includes a caricature of himself in the opening credits, because when you’re the auteur™ running an entire cinematic universe, subtle self-promotion is for cowards. The caricature looks suspiciously similar to lead character Rick Flag Senior, which raises the question: is Flagg Sr his self-insert? Should we expect Flag Sr to start tweeting about how much he loves The Specials and getting into fights with randos on Bluesky?

In The Collywobbles, a title that sounds like a Victorian-era disease, we’re introduced to the Sons of Themyscira —a ragtag gang of incels and barely coherent dudebros who are clearly meant to represent everyone Mr Gunn gets into slap-fights with on social media. They’re led by Circe, who promises these Enemies of Gunnyscira plenty of beautiful, misogynistic rewards if they help her conquer the place. It’s about as subtle as a brick through a window with a note attached that says, “THIS IS COMMENTARY.”

You’d think Wonder Woman —you know, the actual Themyscira superhero — would be the one to handle this Themyscira-related crisis. Alas, Wonder Woman is now haram in the Gunniverse because James Gunn didn’t get to make her previous movies, and if he didn’t make it, it doesn’t count. So instead, we get the Temu Suicide Squad to save the day!

Leading this discount team is General Rick Flag Senior — note the “Senior” because this is the dad of the Rick Flag that Mr Gunn gleefully murdered in The Suicide Squad. Why? Because he didn’t create Rick Flagg Jr, obviously. Can’t have characters running around that he didn’t personally birth into existence!

(Did anyone notice that Harley Quinn was the only major character from the Snyder-verse who escaped death in that movie? Probably because Margot Robbie is too big a star to kill off — she’ll just be written out eventually so James Gunn can cast his wife as Harley Quinn 2.0. It’s not nepotism if you call it creative vision.)

Anyway, Flag Sr and the Dollar Store Suicide Squad head off to oil-rich Pokolistan (subtle!) to help the ruler Princess Ilana Rostovic.

The episode is basically an introduction to the Temu Squad, so don’t expect much beyond the usual Gunn-isms:

• Very self-aware, “I am SO smart” one-liners
• Shock collars! It’s like Suicide Squad but again!
• These criminals fighting back or trying to break free — never seen that before!
• One team member revealed to have close ties to the land – what a twist!

Still, is the episode entertaining? Well, if you’ve somehow never been exposed to James Gunn’s increasingly predictable one-note shtick, sure, it’s fine. There are jokes! Things explode! People curse and get violent because we’re all mature and edgy.

But if you’ve followed him since his Troma days — let’s be honest, his whole career is just Troma with better catering — you’ll recognize this as a lukewarm reheat of his greatest hits. There’s no variation. No evolution. No real purpose beyond giving his friends another paycheck and proving he can do whatever he wants because he’s James Gunn, dammit, and Warner Bros gave him the keys to the kingdom!

Judging by how the series came and went while the world at large shrugged in profound indifference, perhaps his shtick has finally worn thin. Still, there’s plenty of opportunity for  Mr Gunn to keep things interesting in the next few episodes. Maybe he’ll surprise us. Maybe he’ll do something genuinely fresh and unexpected! Maybe he’ll…

Nah, who am I kidding.

For now, file this one under “Been There, Done That, Got the T-Shirt, Returned It for Store Credit”.

Somewhere, Zack Snyder is sitting in his house made entirely of slow-motion footage, watching this unfold, and quietly sipping coffee. He says nothing. He doesn’t need to. The schadenfreude sustains him.