Creature Commandos gives Suicide Squad a tragic Weasel backstory

The old DC Extended Universe and the Arrowverse with it are officially dead. In their place comes the new DC Universe as James Gunn and Peter Safran’s studio makes its mark with the first title in a new cinematic universe. Instead of starting with Superman, another founding member of the Justice League, or whatever character would be the foundation of this whole endeavor, The DC Universe begins with “Creature Commandos”.

The show is about Task Force M (for Monster) – basically just a suicide squad, but with universal classic monsters, metahuman rogues and other weirdos who do not fit under the category “human”. The team is sent to a foreign country to stop an international incident where a militia led by the witch of Themyscira and a group of incels plan to invade the country inspired by Eastern Europe. The team consists of inspired by Nina Mazurski’s Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Bride (of Frankenstein), Eric Frankenstein himself, the Nazi-killing GI Robot, and the walking radioactive skeleton Doctor Phosphorus, all led by Rick Flagg Sr.

Rounding out the team is Weasel, perhaps the most curious member of the Creature Commandos. The character first appeared in Suicide Squad where he was there mostly for comic relief and managed to sit out almost the entire movie because he was mistakenly declared KIA before the opening battle. Sean Gunn played a character who looks absolutely disgusting but hilarious – and who reportedly killed 27 children before being imprisoned at Belle Reve.

Talking to A botanistSean Gunn talked about wanting to create an emotional performance despite having fewer tools in animation compared to live action:

“James (Gunn) has always described Weasel to me as a big dog, and if you know anyone who has a dog, you know a dog has a range of emotions. They rejoice. They are sad. And they get frustrated, they get angry, they still feel all those emotions when I play Weasel, it’s one of the most difficult acting jobs I’ve ever done in my career.”

As a large dog, Weasel faces a lot of prejudice because of how he looks, and everyone he meets treats him as rude and dangerous. Throughout the first four episodes of Creature Commandos, we get brief glimpses of flashbacks: shots of Grace with the children, shots of a school fire, and Grace pulling a small child through the fire.

However, in episode 4, we learn through flashbacks that Weasel was just a lost creature found by a group of school kids who enjoyed playing with him and treated him like a pet. They looked happy, but of course it didn’t last.

When one of the children discovers that the door to the school has been left open, they begin playing inside, with the child accidentally knocking over a bottle of alcohol right next to a child playing with matches. The resulting fire spreads quickly, and when the warden sees the Weasel, he grabs his rifle and starts firing at the creature, accidentally causing an explosion that kills him and most of the children. To make matters worse, the cops arrive, shoot Weasel, and take him away—not realizing that they’ve left the only surviving child behind to be crushed by the collapsing building. The episode ends with Wiesel sleeping, crying for his friends amidst nightmares, while the sounds of Kaizers Orchestra’s “Hjerteknuser” play over the end credits.

Talking to ColliderJames Gunn said that “(‘Creature Commandos’) is really a tragedy at its core.” Indeed, even with the violence, sex and irreverent humor thrown in, the key to the show is that the team “want to go there with a tragic character.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in Wiesel’s story and the way it recontextualizes his role in Suicide Squad — where he was left to die after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Creature Commandos doesn’t just have its sad moments, it also has the emptiness with which those moments come, especially death. Characters die for no reason, not as heroic sacrifice or shocking betrayal, but simply as another casualty in battle. It doesn’t really matter to the story as a whole, or even to the team, which the series shows is completely great, and the characters are interchangeable.

That Lasca is the character who ends up being the heart of Creature Commandos makes sense. After all, James Gunn has a long history of writing love and tragedy stories about animals. Look no further than the touching depiction of animal cruelty in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which is difficult to watch, but important to the story of trauma and abuse told in the film. The DC Universe is here, and for now its heart lies not in truth or justice, but in mutated grace.