In throwing up one of the biggest red-flags possible regarding the project’s creative direction, Creature Commandos voice actor Alan Tudyk says that James Gunn’s writing on the animated series is extremely reminiscent of Firefly creator Joss Whedon’s humor-heavy style of storytelling.
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Tudyk, whose voice brings to life the series’ incarnation of the eternally-burning Doctor Phosphorous, provided this worrying insight into the first official entry into the new DC cinematic universe while making a panel appearance at the recent 2024 Boston Fan Expo.
Kicking off his discussion of the series with a brief recap of his character, the voice actor explained, “Doctor Phosphorus. He kind of looks like a Ghost Rider. He’s a skeleton on fire. He’s a DC character. He was a doctor. [Laughs] That’s why they call him doctor.”
“He was an obstetrician,” Tudyk joked. “No, he wasn’t. He was…I don’t know what the comics say, so I don’t wanna say what his origin story is because it is covered in the series, the animated series.”
From there asked for his thoughts on the series’ overall quality, the voice actor assertively declared, “It’s very good”.
“It’s a group of villains and it’s like, ‘Well, how the hell do all of these people fit together?’” explained Tudyk of Creature Commandos‘ premise. “When [Gunn] asked me to do it. That’s all I saw.”
“We’ve got like, Frankenstein is in there and some lady with a— she’s like a fish face, and she’s got some kind of fish tank on her head,” he added. “It was like, ‘How do all—’ And then, like a robot, and the [art] seems a little bit different on each, each one has their own kind of style. I don’t know how all of this is gonna fit together.”
Circling back to the initial question, Tudyk then admitted, “When I read it, it was the best thing I had read in so long, and it was moving. And that is what James Gunn does so well. I can’t wait for people to see it. I’ve now seen some of it and it looks really great.”
To this end, following a brief detour to discuss his uncertainty regarding a live-action Doctor Phosphorous appearance, the voice actor would further praise Gunn’s writing on the series as “so good.”
“It’s so good,” he beamed. “I’m personally, I realized I’m the perfect audience for him. He does that thing that Joss Whedon did so well where it is…There’s humor in everything. So you have these moving touching stories about these extraordinary characters who can sometimes be meta humans and sometimes just be you know, just interesting people around meta humans, and robots, and animals.”
Drawing his praise for Gunn to a close, Tudyk ultimately affirmed, “He’s funny, and somehow it’s the way in for me to get to some deeper feelings as well.”
“Like when something’s making you laugh and then it pulls the rug out from under you,” he concluded. “Like, maybe some people have seen Serenity. When the rug gets pulled out of you. Sometimes it comes in the form of a huge telephone pole-sized stake through all of your major organs because that’s big, big stake. Anyway, James does that.”
For better or worse, Creature Commandos is currently set to rise from the dead and kick off Gunn’s DC Studios reboot this December.