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This article contains spoilers for Creature Commandos episode 4.
In the post-credit scene of James Gunn‘s first DC outing The Suicide Squad, we see that one of the team members didn’t live up to the group’s name. Weasel is still alive, free to scurry back out into the night.
To the viewers of the movie, Weasel’s fate was a very, very bad thing. Sure, he may seem harmless and sure, he’s played by the lovable Sean Gunn. But he ended up in the Squad because he did very bad things. Namely, he killed 27 children.
That’s dark, even for the nasty things that have happened in Gunn’s DC run so far, which includes The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, and Creature Commandos. Yet, in all of the press leading up to the premiere of Creature Commandos, including a conversation with Den of Geek, Gunn and the show’s stars have said that Weasel is their favorite character. Sean Gunn even went so far as to tell Den of Geek that he didn’t think Weasel had “an ounce of evil in him.”
How could they say that about a creature imprisoned for the murder of children?
With the fourth episode of Creature Commandos, we finally get the answer. “Chasing Squirrels” delves into Weasel’s backstory. In-between prepping for trial with his lawyer (voiced by Linda Cardellini, who previously worked with Gunn playing Velma in Scooby-Doo), a group of neglected children find Weasel while playing in an abandoned school. The outcasts form a community, with Weasel finally discovering people who accept him and the kids getting to have the childhood denied to them.
It all goes wrong when a passerby notices the kids playing with Weasel. Mistaking their horseplay for an attack, the passerby calls the authorities, but also grabs a gun to help the kids himself. Between the man’s fear and the kids playing recklessly with fire, a boiler explodes, killing many of the kids instantly. Worse, the authorities confuse Weasel’s attempts to rescue the survivors as a further attack, and they prevent him from saving anyone. In the end, all 27 die, Weasel taking all of the blame.
“Chasing Squirrels” continues the Creature Commandos model of revealing that its main monsters have far more humanity than previously expected. On one hand, there’s nothing too novel to a story that shows we misunderstood a good person for something horrible — after all Frankenstein’s Monster is a character on the show. On the other hand, the further context gives us more insight into the DC Universe that Gunn is making with DC Studios co-head Peter Safran.
It’s been remarked by many that Gunn’s superhero movies, excellent as they are, tend to be edgier and nasty. Remember, one of the high points in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 involved Yondu slaughtering a bunch of people. So it’s a bit odd that he would take the reins on Superman. And even though the first trailer to Superman looks (and feels!) amazing, the guts and insults in Creature Commandos revives those questions.
Yet, Creature Commandos is as much about our limited judgments as it is everything else. As “Chasing Squirrels” shows, with its reveal of Princess Ilana’s true plan, goodness and badness isn’t skin deep. And if that’s not something Superman would say, I don’t know what is.
Creature Commandos streams every Thursday on Max.
The post Creature Commandos Just Redefined Weasel’s Suicide Squad Origin Story appeared first on Den of Geek.
