In a short amount of time, James Gunn and Peter Safran have gotten their DC Universe (or DCU) up and running. Yes, threads of the narrative they are telling extend back to Gunn’s work on both The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, which will continue in the upcoming Peacemaker Season 2. But things officially launched in 2024 with Creature Commandos, the animated series available with a Max subscription, and will continue this summer when Gunn’s DC feature Superman blasts into theaters. From what we understand, these stories are independent, and you don’t have to see them all to understand what’s happening in one of them. Still, I think there will be links between the narratives, and I think one surfaced in Creature Commandos.
For the bulk of its season, Creature Commandos dealt with an assassination attempt against Princess Ilana Rostovic (Maria Bakalova), heir to the throne of the fictional country of Pokolistan. Initially, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) puts together a team to stop the witch Circe (Anya Chalotra) and save the Princess. By the season finale, The Bride (Indira Varma) has discovered that Rostovic was the threat this whole time, and had been pulling strings to launch a plan that would have had Pokolistan defeating the heroes of the DCU and taking over the planet.
The Bride stops Ilana Rostovic by putting a bullet into her brain. But that doesn’t fully stop Pokolistan’s plan to take over the world with the army of robotic guards that are at the nation’s disposal. If anything, The Bride’s actions create a power vacuum in this fictional country, probably leading to more conflict in the region.
Which brings me to Superman, and the first trailer we got for James Gunn’s upcoming DC movie. Watching that footage, I’m trying to understand the tone, specifically when it comes to the way the world reacts to Superman. There are definite scenes of the public being angry at Kal-El (David Corenswet), though we don’t know why. And in set photos, we have seen that one key member of the Creature Commandos, Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), actually detains Superman and assumedly brings him before a higher authority to answer for some actions.
Could that be Amanda Waller, for whom we know Flag is working?
What would Superman do that annoys Waller? Well, that’s the bridge I think I have found. Throughout the Superman trailer, we see a young boy calling for help from the Man of Steel. He raises what looks to be a homemade flag with Superman’s emblem on it. War rages around him, and people flee for their safety. And on a monitor, we see a report that the troops from the fictional nation of Boravia are amassing at the border, because of some unseen conflict.
Does Boravia border Pokolistan?
Did things go sideways in Pokolistan after The Bride killed The Princess? Was there a power grab, and has it bled into Boravia? I could easily see Superman getting involved in a conflict of that size, then having Waller send her goon, Rick Flag Sr., to apprehend the alien. For audiences that follow Creature Commandos, it would be a very cool nod for Gunn to continue the narrative from that show, and have The Bride’s actions create ramifications that Superman has to deal with. But for casual audiences coming into Superman with no knowledge, it can be sold as an international conflict between warring, fictional nations, and Superman got involved.
Easy enough to swallow. And both audiences are satisfied.
Like James Gunn has been saying, it will not be imperative for audiences buying a ticket for Superman to have seen Creature Commandos. They are standalone stories that happen to take place in the same universe. But Gunn also knows enough about world building to connect dots like this, so I’m willing to bet that the questions about Boravia, and the military conflict that surrounds this innocent young boy, are answered by the death of Pokolistan leader Ilana Rostovic, and all of these DC events are somehow connected.
We will find out for sure when Superman soars into theaters on July 11.
