James Gunn is breaking my heart again with Creature Commandos episode 4, yet I can't get enough

Weasel looking strangely upset
(Image credit: DC Studios)

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:James Gunn, I'm begging you, please ꦕstop breaking my heart. Please stop making me fall in love with weird little guys who have the most traumatic backstories possible before showing me that things are even more tragic than I thought. Please stop enlisting actors like your very own brother Sean to decimate my emotio♊nal peace.

I'm literally begging you.

Please stop crafting emotionally resonant, deeply affecting port🌱rayals of strange characters who wiggle their way into our consciousness before laying bare some greater truth of the human condition. Please stop making superhero fiction that transcends its form with its focus on character development.

I🌸'm actua🌌lly, sincerely, very seriously begging you.

Because if there are two things James Gunn has proven he's great at in superhero storytelling, it's bringing together a group of misfit anti-heroes who gradually reveal their hearts of gold as they become an unlikely f✱amily, and torturin🍌g my emotions.

See, I just watched episode 4 of Creature Commandos, 'Chasing Squirrels,' which digs into the backst♛ory of the notoriously animalistic Weasel, showing the real truth behind the child murders of which he's accused. And goodness gracious, I don't think I've cried t♋his much over an irascible anthropomorphic animal since Rocket's brutally sad backstory in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

Here's your customary spoiler warning as I exp♊lain exactly why this episode is so heart-wrenching.

In 'Chasing Squirrels,' we flashback to Weasel's pre-Task Force X days, when he was living in the wilderness. We catch up to him spying on a group of children playing on their school's playground, wh🏅en the kids catch sight of Weasel. Though it first seems like he might be a threat to them, given his reputation as a child murderer, instead he starts playing with them, quickly bonding with the children.

Things go awry when they realize their school is actually unlocked and they begin playing inside. The kids wind up the basement with Weasel, where a groundskeeper spots them all frolicking inside the school. Mistaking Weasel as being a danger to the kids, he folloꦏws them in with his gun, leading to a series of events in which the schoo✃l's boiler explodes, burning most of the kids alive as Weasel desperately tries to save them.

Weasel trying to save a little girl from a fire

(Image credit: DC Studios)

It gets even sadder, and of course, Weasel, who has done no actual wrong and who is incapable of defending himse📖lf, is cap📖tured by the police and blamed for the tragedy, leading to his enlistment into Task Force X in The Suicide Squad, and his return in Creature Commandos.

I'm admittedly a little bit sensitive when it comes to kids and animals in danger, but jeez louise… poor Weasel and his li❀ttle pals. First my special guy GI Robot gets blasted into smithereens, now this?

It's the most gut-wrenching story yet in a series that is shaping up ꦿto be all about how tragedy and trauma shape our perceptions, and who among us in society is dubbed a "monster" and why. In other words, it's exactly the kind of story that Gunn and his co-creators excel in telling.

I've been laying it on pretty thick here, but it's the powerful emotional dichotomy of showing us a little monster guy who makes no sense and then showing us exactly how he reflects o🍌ur humanity and our fragility that made The Suicide Squad work so well, which made Peacemaker such a terrific follow-up, and which is perhaps most effective yet in Creature Commandos.

So yes, please, James Gunn, stop breaking my heart. Or, you could ignore my fraught emotional state, my abiding pleas, and continue on filling your little superhero shows and moviꦚes with a deeper emotional core that gives them a special resonance and a viewing quality beyond all the cool guys flying around. I guess you know best at this point.

Creature Commandos is streaming weekly on Max. For our verdict on the new show, check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Creature Commandos review. For more, check out our list of all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming DC movies and shows you need to know about, or, check out our guide to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Max shows to stream right now.

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book histori𝐆an since 2011. I'ꩵve also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)