The Creature Commandos comic by Late Night with the Devil star David Dastmalchian will run separately from the animated series and feature Zatanna as the main character

DC’s Creature Commandos are making a big comeback this December with the release of a brand new animated series written by James Gunn. The show (the first trailer for which was recently released) marks the new DCU series’ first appearance on the big screen. Before that, however, the monster team is returning in a brand new comic book written by Late Night With the Devil star (and creator of Count Crowley) David Dastmalchian and drawn by artist Jesús Hervás.

We recently caught up with Dastmalchian to talk about his film career, but also took the opportunity to learn more about the comedian, which the actor describes as “something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid.”

A lifelong comic book fan, Dastmalchian says the tone of DC Horror Presents: Creature Commandos is “a pretty serious and dramatic military monster story,” inspired by JM DeMatteis and Pat Broderick’s Weird War Tales comics. He also revealed that the title will feature a familiar face from the larger DC Universe. “Luckily, I have access to these characters that I’ve always wanted to play with and incorporate, and I felt like Zatanna would be a really great heroine for the story. I’m so excited! The art is so cool!” He also described Jim Lee’s alternate cover as “the sickest thing I’ve ever seen!”

Dastmalchian further confirmed that the series not a connection to the new animated series. In fact, he was worried for a while that the existence of the show might lead to the cancellation of his comic. “James is one of my best friends, and when he told me he was going to work on the animated series, I was pretty sure my comic would never see the light of day. But he said, ‘No, they can exist in separate worlds.'”