The ‘Creature Commandos’ Creative Team Gives Us the Scoop on Max’s Misfit Monsters

This article was written for the January ’25 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 346).

Emblazoned with a freshly forged DC Studios logo and fortified with an enviable creative pedigree, Creature Commandos just charged onto the Max streaming platform for its seven-episode debut season, officially launching the revamped DC Universe.

Produced by DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation, this spirited adult animated series comes from the prolific pen of Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn, DC Studios’ new co-chair and co-CEO who was brought in to give a much-needed makeover of DC’s film, TV and animation roster.

Gunn executive produces alongside Peter Safran, Dean Lorey and Warner Bros. Animation head Sam Register, with Rick Morales serving as supervising producer. Creature Commandos is based on a team of characters first seen in DC’s horror-tinted comic book Weird War Tales #93, published in 1980.

Missions Impossible

With its magnificent menagerie of monstrous misfits, the series’ premise follows Belle Reve Penitentiary’s intimidating warden Amanda Waller as she recruits incarcerated monsters and creatures for a black-ops squad to deploy on impossible missions around the globe.

Taking obscure comic characters and introducing them to modern audiences is a rare skill, and Gunn is extremely adept at it (as shown by his successful Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy). Showrunner Dean Lorey was unaccustomed to the luxury of having all episode scripts finished and polished by the time production began.

“They had four of the things done by the time I came on board. It reminded me of sort of old-school storytelling,” Lorey tells Animation Magazine. “They were emotional and propulsive, and, like everybody, I was eagerly waiting for the last three episodes. We didn’t start producing it until he [Gunn] finished writing it, which is the way you should produce stuff.

“I’ve been a fan of James forever,” Lorey continues. “Back in his Troma days I was a fan. I did Friday the 13th: Part Nine, and so that was around the time that he was doing his low-budget horror stuff. I just loved his scripts. It’s classic James Gunn material. There’s a lot of heart. He tells stories as dramas, then adds comedy and the action. That’s what we also did with Harley Quinn and Kite Man.”

Creature Commandos’ all-star vocal cast includes Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Maria Bakalova as Princess Ilana, Anya Chalotra as Circe, Zoë Chao as Nina Mazursky, Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., Sean Gunn as GI Robot and Weasel, David Harbour as Frankenstein, Alan Tudyk as Dr. Phosphorus, Indira Varma as the Bride of Frankenstein and Steve Agee as Economos.

“Well, we just hired really good actors,” says Morales about the rare alchemy of the cast. “I think the thing here, and James has always made this clear, is that going forward into the live-action films it’s going to tie directly into this animated show. So if David Harbour is playing Frankenstein here, as they go forward into the live-action films, if Frankenstein shows up, he’ll be playing him there. Frank Grillo is playing Rick Flagg, [so] he’ll show up in other live-action DC properties playing the same character. It was casting for Creature Commandos but also for the broader DC Universe as they move forward.”

Gunn conducted the first wave of voice directing himself, but as his workload naturally increased and he had to step away, Lorey and Morales stepped in to finish the sessions off.

“For me, the big thing was GI Robot, which is a character I love,” Lorey says. “I had no idea what GI Robot was going to sound like. We thought Sean would come in as kind of robot-y, but he had a delicate, sweet take on it. He brought a ton to it that I thought was beautiful.”

Its engaging animation style evokes a certain Old World charm that harkens back to vintage Hammer horror films and team-up comics of the ’90s, all accompanied by an atmospheric score by the masterful Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Moon) and the energetic tunes of Gogol Bordello, a crazy gypsy punk band that will transform viewers into instant fans.

‘To me, it feels very premium, and I love that it’s gothic but it’s not dark all the time. Hammer horror was definitely an inspiration. European is a good touchstone for me.’

— Showrunner Dean Lorey

“As you can see looking at the credits, we had a very large list of players involved, and one of the players that we worked with was Bobbypills, a French animation studio,” says Morales. “They were involved early on to do some conceptual work on character design and background look. We wanted to give a different flavor than you might typically see in one of our DC projects.”

For Creature Commandos, Morales’ creative counterpart across the Atlantic at Bobbypills was Balak, a celebrity animator and veteran comic-book creator in France who wrote Lastman.

“He’s just a really talented guy,” says Morales. “He and his team did a bunch of explorations on the Bride and Frankenstein and several other characters. We worked hand in hand with them and my team over here on the Warner Bros. Animation side.”

Morales says he discovered that he and Balak are the same age and grew up with the same comic books. “When we first met when I went to France, we talked a lot about the ’90s-era comic-book artists like Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri,” he recalls. “So you’ll see some of that design feel incorporated into these characters. It does have a little bit of a European comic-book feel, particularly in the background design. They just absolutely nailed some of the characters and met very minimal input from us, and others we took and finished off. On the design front, it was really a team effort between Bobbypills and Warner Bros. Animation.”

Lorey was especially happy with the show’s overriding Eastern European tone that evoked a sense of lush gothic horror, something that allowed it to flourish in its own realm.

“That was the target we were looking to hit, and I feel great about where we landed,” he says. “To me, it feels very premium, and I love that it’s gothic but it’s not dark all the time. The palette is vibrant, and it’s very distinct from, say, Harley Quinn. Her Gotham was basically bright and crazy and colorful by design. But this was meant to be something very different. Hammer horror was definitely an inspiration. European is a good touchstone for me.”

Strong Stories Plus Big Heart

“The show has an enormous amount of heart to it,” Lorey adds. “I honestly think there’s real emotion in the series. There’s deaths [of] major characters, and it means something when it happens. It’s real storytelling, and that’s what I really respond to. I’m very proud of it.”

Morales’ role as supervising producer in this ambitious superhero project involved overseeing everything from storyboards to animatic edits, to character design and background designs.

“It all kind of runs through me, but of course it all goes through James for approvals,” he adds. “I’m there from the earliest moments working with our directors, Matt Peters and Sam Liu. And we were fortunate to get a great storyboard team here too. I get hands-on involved in character design and reboarding things, and I boarded the title sequence. That was a lot of fun to create.

“It’s a big show, and we did a lot of work,” summarizes Morales. “For every episode we finish off, I feel like I have a favorite. And then the next episode gets finished and I think, ‘Wait, actually I like this one better.’ It’s a very good problem to have. I think people are going to love the Bride and GI Robot. There’s something new here for them. All these characters come across so well. They’ve got really human motivations, and the stories are just extremely well done.”

Creature Commandos premieres on Max on December 5 with the first two episodes. New episodes drop on Thursdays.