DC Horror Presents Creature Commandos #1 – David Dastmalchain, Writer; Jesus Hervas, Artist; Alex Guimaraes, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: The first media to come out of the Gunn era at DC will be the Creature Commandos animated series, an adult thriller featuring some of DC’s most monstrous heroes as they get up to some bizarre missions. So naturally, we get a comic tie-in – written by Polka-Dot Man himself, David Dastmalchian, who has been writing some pretty fun horror series over at Dark Horse. As we kick off, the Creature Commandos are on a mission and pretty much get massacred, with the only survivor being a grief-stricken Frankenstein’s Monster named Lucky who has just realized how powerful and dangerous he is. He’s taken back to base to be repaired, and the hunt begins for the team’s new members by the team’s mad doctor – just in time for her sponsor, General Wade Eiling, to enter the story and essentially take charge of the project, moving it in an even more militaristic direction.
I do think the addition of the new team members takes the team in a promising direction. One, Velcro, is an oily Vampire with corrupt ties to a major city – as well as a secret motivation for joining up. The other, a werewolf named Wanda, has been working as a secret vigilante to protect her community from racist cops and gets snapped up during a sting. These feel like much more modern monsters than we’ve seen before, so it’ll be interesting to see how they fit in. This first issue is pretty packed with twists, including a surprise reveal of another major DC character that makes me wonder exactly where and when this ties in with the DCU right now. The new DC Horror brand mostly seems to give this book a little more violence and some nastier language, but it doesn’t seem to have the unique vibe of most Black Label books. Overall, promising start, but not a breakout yet.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
