Task Force M has its next mission: season 2. DC Studios on Monday announced that the Max Original adult animated series Creature Commandos, the first in the new DC Universe from DC Studios co-chairs James Gunn and Peter Safran, has been renewed for a second season ahead of its first season finale (airing Jan. 9, 2025). The new series from DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation sees the Viola Davis-voiced Amanda Waller recruit a secret team of incarcerated monsters for missions deemed too dangerous for humans as a “last, worst option.”
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“Only James Gunn could have conjured this wild band of misfit monsters who tug at your heart and force you to root passionately for them,” said Amy Gravitt, Executive Vice President, HBO & Max Comedy Programming. “We couldn’t be more delighted to continue their stories with James, [showrunner] Dean Lorey, Peter Safran and our fantastic partners at DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation.”
[RELATED: “M” for Monster: The Weird Origin Story of the Original Creature Commandos]
Led by Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), that team of misfit monsters includes The Bride (Indira Varma), a reanimated corpse put together for the spurned Frankenstein (David Harbour); the fishbowl-headed Nina Mazursky (Zoe Chao); Nazi-killing machine GI Robot and the animalistic Weasel (both voiced by Sean Gunn); and the irradiated Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk). Their first mission in the ongoing season 1 was to protect — and then assassinate — Pokolistan Princess Ilana Rostovic (Maria Bakalova) on Waller’s orders to prevent an apocalyptic future foretold by the rogue Amazonian sorceress Circe (Anya Chalotra).
As one member of the expendable team has already been killed off, it remains to be seen which — if any — of the Creature Commandos might survive into season 2. Assuming that new monsters join the ranks of Task Force M next season, here are potential picks for their second deployment:
Clayface
The 7-episode season is set to introduce Clayface (voiced by Tudyk), the shape-shifting mud monster who has taken many forms in his criminal career as a Batman villain. While it’s unclear which Clayface this might be — the movie monster actor turned masked killer (Basil Karlo), the clay-faced super criminal (Matt Hagen), the flesh-melting monster with a malleable body (Preston Payne), or the metahuman spawn of Clayface III and IV (Cassius “Clay” Payne) — a more recent version of Clayface fought alongside Batman as a member of the Gotham Knights, so there’s precedent for Clayface using his powers for good. After his appearance in Creature Commandos, the man-monster will headline a Mike Flanagan-penned Clayface movie from DC Studios in 2026.
Vincent Velcro
A member of the original Creature Commandos, Sgt. Vincent Velcro volunteered for the U.S. government’s mysterious military operation Project “M” (“M” for monster) to avoid a 30-year sentence in an Army brig. Velcro was injected with experimental chemicals mixed with the blood of the New Mexican vampire bat to become a blood-sucking vampire. As one of World War II’s weirdest warriors, Velcro fought alongside werewolf Warren Griffith and the Frankenstein-like Marine Elliot “Lucky” Taylor under the command of the human Lt. Matthew Shrieve. Gunn’s take on Creature Commandos replaces the werewolf (later known as Wolfpack) with The Suicide Squad‘s Weasel and man-monster Taylor (a.k.a. Patchwork) with Frankenstein’s monster, who is typically an Agent of S.H.A.D.E. (Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive) — an elite espionage operation once described as “Superman meets James Bond.”
2000’s Creature Commandos run by Tim Truman and Scot Eaton reimagined Velcro (now spelled Velcoro) as a sharp-fanged, red-skinned vampire as part of a team that included the bandaged mummy Aten, the snake-skinned Medusa, and Wolfpack and Patch. What team of monsters is complete without a vampire?
Medusa
A later addition to the original roster of Project M, Dr. Myrna Rhodes was the Army’s chief plastic surgeon before the Creature Commandos accidentally exposed her to a mix of experimental chemicals upon learning the procedures that turned the men into monsters were irreversible. The chemical bath turned her into a gorgon with living snakes for hair like Medusa, a name she adopted as a member of the Creature Commandos. Her red-eyed gaze was put to use in a battle against the Justice League International in 2011’s Justice League: Generation Lost #16, where the villain Maxwell Lord controlled the Creature Commandos to fight Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes), Booster Gold, and Captain Atom.
GI Robot II (or III)
1981’s Weird War Tales #101 introduced J.A.K.E.-1 (Jungle Automatic Killer – Experimental No. 1), nicknamed “GI Robot” by the Marine Sgt. Coker. The creation of an M.I.T. think tank, Jake-1’s memory banks were programmed only to respond to the enemy (in this case, the Imperial Japanese Army). The robot’s built-in weaponry — including arm machine guns and flame throwers — made him a formidable foe to the Axis. GI Robot returned in Weird War Tales #108, an issue of the anthology series featuring the Creature Commandos, and was blown up when he walked through a minefield to rescue a princess (sound familiar?) Although he was repaired, J.A.K.E.-1 ultimately sacrificed himself when he was destroyed saving the Creature Commandos during their first meeting (in Weird War Tales #111).
The metal Marine was rebuilt anew as J.A.K.E.-2 in Weird War Tales #113, where the GI Robot battled the seemingly indestructible samurai robot Krakko. The armored automaton decapitated J.A.K.E.-2 with his samurai sword, only for the headless GI Robot to wield his head as a weapon and save his fellow Marines (who nicknamed the second GI Robot “the steel man” rather than “Tin Man”). J.A.K.E.-2 would go on to feature in subsequent issues of Weird War Tales, eventually got his own robo-dog Cap (abbreviated from Computerized Automatic Patrol Dog No.1), and went on to join the Creature Commandos.
Gunner
Truman and Eaton’s eight-issue Creature Commandos run revived Gunner Mackey as part of the resurrection unit ran by movie monster fan Professor Mazursky. Although the soldier died decades earlier on a beach in the South Pacific in 1945, Mazursky returned him to life and controlled him with de-stimulation implants in his new cyborg body. Half-man, half-machine with the brain of a bio-generated mini-computer and his right arm equipped with a .50 caliber mini-canon housed in a diradium morphalloy mobilization device, the Marine took the name Gunner. Along with the vampiric Velcoro, the pieced-together Patchwork, the wolf-man Wolf Pack, the mummified Aten, the snake-like Medusa, and the amphibian creature Bogman, Gunner served under Captain Lucius Hunter as part of M-Team Alpha — a.k.a. the Creature Commandos.
Creature Commandos Season 2
The just-announced second season of Creature Commandos joins a DC Studios slate that includes Gunn’s Superman movie (July 11, 2025), Peacemaker season 2 (TBA 2025), the feature Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (June 26, 2026), Clayface (Sept. 11, 2026), and the animated Robins movie Dynamic Duo (June 30, 2028). Upcoming titles that have yet to be dated include the films The Authority, Swamp Thing, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold; on the TV front, the DCU will expand with HBO’s Lanterns, Waller, Booster Gold, and the Game of Thrones-style series Paradise Lost, set on Themyscira, home of the Amazons (a location mentioned on Creature Commandos).
There is no release date and no cast members have been confirmed for season 2. Along with Grillo, Varma, Chao, Gunn, Harbour, Tudyk, Bakalova, and Davis, season 1 features the voices of Steve Agee as John Economos, Peter Serafinowicz as Victor Frankenstein, Stephanie Beatriz as Aisla MacPherson, Linda Cardellini as Elizabeth Bates, Gregg Henry as Myron Mazursky, and Benjamin Byron Davis as the Batman villain Rupert Thorne.
“We’re thrilled to team up with Max for another season of Creature Commandos mayhem,” DC Studios co-chairmen Gunn and Safran said in a joint statement. “From our spectacular first season of Peacemaker to the astonishing run of The Penguin to the record-breaking launch of Creature Commandos, Max has consistently delivered above industry expectations and beyond our wildest imaginings. Thank you, Casey [Bloys], Sarah [Aubrey], Pia [Chaozon Barlow], Sono [Mitchell] and the entire team for your tremendous support of DC Studios. We are proud to call Max home.”
Added Peter Girardi, Executive Vice President, Alternative Programming, Warner Bros. Animation, “Thanks to the brilliant imagination of James and the talent of our amazing artists, DC fans fell in love with this new family of heroes. We are excited to continue this wild ride with our partners at Max. You want more monsters, you’re getting more monsters!”
New episodes of DC Studios’ Creature Commandos season 1 air Thursdays on Max through Jan. 9, 2025.
