Everything You Need To Remember From ‘The Suicide Squad’ and ‘Peacemaker’ Ahead of ‘Creature Commandos’

December 5th marks the start of James Gunn and Peter Safran‘s first chapter at DC Studios with the release of Creature Commandos. The animated series will then be followed by Superman and Peacemaker Season 2, both of which are helmed by Gunn – and cements 2025 as a banner year for superhero media. Gunn actually built up to the events of Creature Commandos via his previous DC projects: The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1. All three projects feature a black-ops squad of super-villains and/or antiheroes conscripted into serving missions for the U.S. government, courtesy of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Here’s what happened in The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, and how they may shape the outcome of Creature Commandos.

‘The Suicide Squad’ and ‘Peacemaker’ Deal With Alien Invasions

Waller is best known for overseeing Task Force X, which is the official name for the Suicide Squad. The Squad’s objective is simple: Various super-villains will serve missions in order to shave time off their prison sentence. If they disobey orders or try to escape, Waller detonates an explosive within their heads – effectively keeping them on a very short leash. The Suicide Squad has the team going to Corto Maltese to stop “Project Starfish,” a mysterious weapon under the control of the island’s government. But the situation is (literally) bigger than the Squad thinks; “Project Starfish” is actually a massive alien called Starro the Conqueror, which the U.S. government found and took to Corto Maltese to use in experiments. Starro breaks free and starts rampaging across Corto Maltese, leaving the remaining members of the Squad to escape Waller’s control – helped by her support staff, no less – and stop the Conqueror.

Prior to Starro’s escape, Peacemaker (John Cena) and Bloodsport (Idris Elba) face off, since Peacemaker is killing anyone who could expose the U.S.’s activities on Corto Maltese on Waller’s orders. Bloodsport wounds Peacemaker, leaving him to die in the rubble of Starro’s destruction…but he miraculously survives. In Peacemaker Season 1, he winds up being conscripted into another black-ops squad to terminate “Project Butterfly” – which turns out to be another alien invasion. Said squad consists of Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and Steve Economos (Steve Agee), who previously worked on Waller’s Task Force X support staff; Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji); and Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Waller’s daughter. Adebayo winds up bonding with Peacemaker, and leaks the existence of Task Force X to the media.

The ‘Peacemaker’ Fallout Leads Amanda Waller To Create the Creature Commandos

As a result of Task Force X’s existence, Waller can no longer use human prisoners for black-ops missions. This doesn’t stop her from forming a new Task Force – dubbed “Task Force M” for the fact that, as Waller so succinctly puts it in the official trailer: “these assholes aren’t human.” Indeed, none of the Creature Commandos are human. Frankenstein (David Harbour) and his bride (Indira Varma) are living corpses; Doctor Phosphorous (Alan Tudyk) is a walking nuclear reactor; Nina Mazursky (Zoe Chao) is a fish woman; and G.I. Robot (Sean Gunn) was programmed to kill Nazis. That makes them the perfect operatives to carry out Waller’s black-ops missions, and the series looks to continue James Gunn’s trend of forging a found family out of misfits.

Anyone who’s watched The Suicide Squad will notice that there’s a familiar face among the Creature Commandos; the Weasel (also played by Sean Gunn). Not much is known about Weasel other than he supposedly killed twenty-seven children prior to his imprisonment. The Suicide Squad, in a burst of black comedy, seemingly disposed of Weasel by having him drop into the ocean and drown. But a mid-credits scene features Weasel waking up and wandering off into Corto Maltese’s forests. While the details of how he’s re-incarcerated remain to be seen, Sean Gunn has confirmed that Creature Commandos will expand upon Weasel’s backstory – and footage from the Creature Commandos trailer backs him up.

One ‘Creature Commandos’ Character Will Play a Major Role in New DC Studios Projects

The Creature Commandos will be led in their missions by Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), the father of Suicide Squad commander Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). Flag Jr. met an untimely end in The Suicide Squadafter Peacemaker fatally wounded him, and Grillo has said that Flag Sr. and Peacemaker will butt heads during Peacemaker Season 2. However, he remains tight-lipped on the details. “I’m not going to give anything away…we did get into some tangles, but I don’t know that people are going to expect what’s to happen,” he told Collider. In addition to Peacemaker Season 2, Flag Sr. will also play a major role in Superman; Grillo likened his role to Samuel L. Jackson‘s Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – a very intriguing comparison – and promises a throughline of sorts between the wildly different projects DC Studios is cooking up.

‘Creature Commandos’ Features Links To the Wider DC Universe

Superman and Peacemaker aren’t the only DC characters to have a connection to Creature Commandos. The main threat the Commandos will be facing is Circe (Anya Chalotra), the ancient sorceress who often appears as an enemy of Wonder Woman. One of the projects that Gunn announced for DC Studios’ first chapter Gods and Monsters is Amazons, a TV series dedicated to Wonder Woman’s people. More footage from the Creature Commandos trailer features the shapeshifter Clayface, hinting at a trip to Batman’s home city of Gotham. The Dark Knight is also in the plans for DC Studios, with the upcoming Batman: The Brave and the Bold set to focus on his relationship with his son Damian.

Creature Commandos is a big step forward for DC Studios. Not only will it launch a whole new universe, but it will continue to build upon story trends from The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1. With the level of praise the scripts have received, it looks like Gunn is putting his best foot forward when it comes to representing the DC Universe on screen – and that should be great news for DC fans.

Creature Commandos will premiere on Max on December 5, 2024.

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