The Creature Commandos are a team of monsters that were active during the Second World War, led by Lieutenant Matthew Shrieve.
History
By 1941, Europe had already been fiercely embroiled in the Second World War. It was only a matter of time before America would be forced to recognize the atrocities of Nazi Germany and commit itself to the Allied cause. The United States government collaborated with all branches of the armed forces to create a special program specializing in psychological warfare. Their program became known in covert circles as Project M.
In the spring of that same year, Project M established itself in a secret laboratory annex beneath the Statue of Liberty. One of Project M's most eminent scientists, Professor Mazursky, realized that psychologically, all humans were viscerally frightened by images of ghoulish, ghastly monsters. Taking advantage of such a paradigm, he labored to create a team of super-powered soldiers whose physical visage would inspire terror in enemy forces. At first, Mazursky recruited soldiers on a strictly volunteer basis. Three army officers named Warren Griffith, Vincent Velcoro and Elliot "Lucky" Taylor were transformed into horrifying warriors that resembled a werewolf, a vampire and the Frankenstein Monster, respectively. Later joined by a fourth female member, Dr. Myrra Rhodes a.k.a. Dr. Medusa, these monstrosities became known as the Creature Commandos.
Led by the only human in their group, Lieutenant Matthew Shrieve, their first mission was in France, where they destroyed Nazi androids duplicates of world leaders.[1] They often based themselves out of London, as in their next mission to France to free scientist Dr. Renee Frederique.[2] They found that she had been captured and replaced by a Nazi agent. The Commandos ultimately found her in a death camp, but were given orders to kill Frederique, as her knowledge of a chemical nerve gas was too risky to fall into the Axis' hands. For his part in such a senseless killing, Taylor attempted suicide. When the doctors "repaired" him, he was left with rudimentary vocal cords.[3] In another morally dubious mission, Shrieve impersonated Nazi Colonel Emil Kruger and they sacrificed the lives of dozens of super-soldier children.[4] They redeemed themselves and won Metals of Honor when they saved a group of blind French children from the Nazis.[5] Shrieve ultimately decided that his personality clashed too much with the Commandos, but he was assigned to a desk job and no one else would volunteer to lead the Commandos. They were brought back together and saved a gathering of French civilians.[6]
The Commandos were later given broader assignments across the globe. In 1943, the Commandos ventured to the mythical Dinosaur Island in the South Pacific, where they were supposed to solve the disappearance of several Allied spotter planes. They discovered a Japanese naval fleet near the island and were able to turn the dinosaurs on the Japanese ships. Shrieve took pictures of the dinosaurs for his commanders as proof of the island's existence. However, Velcoro destroyed them as he reasoned that the war could only bring destruction to the dinosaurs.[7] The Commandos would later return to Dinosaur Island, where they met J.A.K.E. I, the first G.I. Robot. J.A.K.E. I had been left in the ocean after attacking an enemy ship. It was there he met the Commandos when their plane was attacked by a dinosaur and crash landed. Together, the Commandos and J.A.K.E. I discovered a supposedly lost colony of Atlantis that was situated in the Pacific. The lost colony had created a group of robots to carry on the work of Atlantean conquest, and these androids took control of the G.I. Robot's mind. J.A.K.E. I ultimately overrode their commands and sacrificed itself to destroy the colony.[8] The Commandos soon met J.A.K.E. I's successor, J.A.K.E. II in which, together, they saved a Scottish princess from the Blitz and J.A.K.E. II became an unofficial member of the Commandos.[9]
At the end of the war, the fate of the Commandos and J.A.K.E. II were (supposedly) spared from a government-directed death sentence to man a rocket aimed at Berlin. Instead, the rocket went radically off course and headed deep into outer space, its destination unknown.[10]
Notes
- Action Comics #872 establishes that the Creature Commandos have not regained their senses since being placed in a rocket into space near the end of World War II, so all of their appearances since Weird War Tales #124 would be considered apocryphal, including their miniseries. However, later stories left everything confusing. Justice League: Generation Lost #15-17 shows the team active as part of Checkmate with different appearances and even abilities, and including the presence of Aten and the Bogman, who were introduced in the out-of-continuity miniseries and, therefore, would not even exist in the mainstream continuity.
See Also
- 40 Appearances of Creature Commandos (New Earth)
- 13 Images that include Creature Commandos (New Earth)
- Team Gallery: Creature Commandos (New Earth)
Links and References
Footnotes