The episodes of “The Venture Bros.” that always seem the most ridiculous are the ones that could probably be called the most meaningful.
Take “The Bellicose Proxy,” in which the show once again dives deep into the idea of a highly regulated bureaucracy of secret agents, supervillains, mitigated collateral damage and a whole lot of rules — and actually manages to offer up a vision of a world working in a way you can’t help but wish the real world did.
The episode finds Augustus St. Cloud (Christopher McCulloch) about to begin officially “arching” his nemeses, Billy Quizboy (Doc Hammer) and the Pink Pilgrim AKA Pete White (McCulloch) — they’ve fought before, but now it’s sanctioned by the organizations that oversee superhero and supervillain conflicts. All the while, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch (Hammer) helps turn a double agent, by promising to help him reconcile with his estranged girlfriend, and actually follows through on that promise. And Billy and Pink must prepare for the coming battle despite being utterly terrified.
The last few seasons have really been digging into the nitty-gritty of how a universe full of costumed heroes and villains actually works without the entire world falling apart. One key idea is that everyone involved wants to engage in “organized hatred,” but nobody wants to show up at their next battle only to get vaporized by a ray gun that’s well outside their capability to deal with.
Several groups exist to keep things organized — including Office of Secret Intelligence (O.S.I.) for heroes (“protagonists” is the official terminology) and the Guild of Calamitous Intent for villains (“antagonists”) — so villains and their heroes don’t greatly out-match each other. It’s a world of heroes and villains that respects people’s time, respects the rules, and understands its place in society.
These concepts are usually played for laughs, making fun of comics and movie tropes by injecting banal reality into them. Workplace interpersonal conflicts and awkward romantic and sexual disappointments often impact things far more than the most fantastic super science. But though “Venture Bros.” skewers the idea of superheroes and villains at its core, it still imagines a kinder, gentler world through costumed aggression.
Even the scariest villains are relatively cordial and mostly in it for the performance of the battle of good against evil, rather than the actual, uh, evil. And the show is constantly tussling with themes of masculinity and failure, and in a major way, the existence of the Guild and O.S.I. provides an outlet for what would otherwise be a toxic cycle of hatred, violence and greed.
And a major theme is how that theatrical push-pull actually helps people of “The Venture Bros.”
For example, in “The Bellicose Proxy,” we discover that the Guild even has a mentorship program similar to Big Brothers and Sisters, called “Big Villains.” This program matches St. Cloud, who is currently a level one villain, the guild’s lowest rank, with a pair of mentors: The Mighty Monarch (McCulloch) and 21 (Hammer). Meanwhile, Rusty Venture (James Urbaniak) and Brock Samson (Patrick Warburton) similarly offer advice and training to Billy and Pete.
Monarch and 21 have selfish reasons — joining Big Villains will help them rise through Guild levels (they’re currently a graded-on-a-huge-curve five), and put them closer to once again being able to officially arch Monarch’s chosen nemesis, Rusty. It also allows Monarch to arch Rusty by proxy, since St. Cloud’s nemeses happen to live with him. But they also do a lot in the Big Villain program to help St. Cloud be cooler. A cool villain helps make for cool heroes.
The best and most important line in “The Bellicose Proxy,” also the last one, sums it all up. Rusty watches Billy and Pete regale Hank (McCulloch) and Dean (Michael Sinterniklaas) with the stories of their triumph over St. Cloud. Unfortunately, the epic battle was actually just a nitrous-induced hallucination. But then Brock asks if Rusty will ever tell Billy and Pete the truth.
Rusty’s answer: “Never.”
Because these guys need a win sometimes — even if it’s a fake, costumed one. Having a nemesis, even one as bumbling and ostensibly minor as St. Cloud, gives both a sense of purpose and by the end of the episode, heroism.
Billy and Pete’s company, Conjectural Technologies, has failure and scamming built into the name — neither of them has ever been able to really get their lives together. And St. Cloud similarly is implied to be a lonely, angry nerd. But all three gain something from their arching; the sense that somebody, somewhere, cares enough to put on a costume and shake their fist at the sky, just because they’re thinking about you. And for all the complaining characters like Rusty do about their world, even he gets how much better, and easier it is to deal with villainy that respects the rules, and aren’t always so bad. If only for the self esteem.
Compared to the free-range, unstructured villainy by both heroes and villains of the real world, where people are largely hurt by callous greed, indifference, or straight malice, the supervillains of “The Venture Bros.” are positively altruistic.
Or put another way: even The Mighty Monarch wouldn’t jack up the price of cancer medication 500%.
14 Times Video Games Continued the Stories of Movies (Photos)
Video games based on movies have a long history of being terrible. But there are a few licensed games that don't just ride the coattails of successful films, they actually expand and add to them. Here are 12 video games that picked up the torches for stories started on film.
"Alien" (1979) James Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's classic "Alien" puts 57 years between the two movies. The original film saw a group of what were, essentially, space truckers accidentally picking up a deadly organism after investigating a distress call. At the end of the movie, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), the lone survivor, goes to sleep hoping someone will pick her up.
Fox
"Alien: Isolation" (2014) "Alien: Isolation" takes place between the first two "Alien" films, jumping 15 years ahead to tell the story of Ripley's daughter Amanda. She hunts for evidence of what happened to her mother and her crew, but the search for the Nostromo leads unlucky salvagers to accidentally bring the original alien back to a space station full of people. Amanda discovers the creatures haunted both Ripley women, as she fights to survive.
Sega
"The Warriors" (1979) Gangs from all over New York attend a giant meet-up where Cyrus, one of the gang's leaders, proposes that together they outnumber police and could take over the city. When he's assassinated, the innocent Warriors are blamed, resulting in a night of brawling as the gang fights its way back to its home on Coney Island.
Paramount
"The Warriors" (2005) "Grand Theft Auto" developer Rockstar Games created a game based on the 1979 cult classic "The Warriors," and it's notable for its fidelity to the original movie. It brings back the original cast to voice their roles again as the Warriors fight their way across New York, and expands backstory of each of the gang's members.
Rockstar Games
"The Thing" (1982) John Carpenter's 1982 horror movie finds a group of scientists trapped in an Antarctic research facility with an alien threat that takes over and imitates them. The film ends with awesome ambiguity: MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Childs (Keith David) staring each other down, neither sure if the other is actually a horrific alien in disguise. "The Thing" got a 2011 prequel, but never a film sequel.
Universal
"The Thing" (2002) It was a video game that answered the Childs and MacReady question when soldiers appear at the camp to rescue the team. They find Childs frozen but apparently human, and then plenty more Thing monsters to fight (MacReady actually comes to the rescue at the end). The game’s story wasn’t as inspired as the film’s, but it did manage to introduce a system that made characters distrustful of each other - and of the player - forcing you to constantly wonder if your companions were really monsters waiting to pounce.
Konami
"Scarface" (1983) "Scarface" chronicles the rise of Cuban immigrant Tony Montana (Al Pacino) from street thug to cocaine kingpin. He's also incredibly paranoid and violent, gunning down friends and family members when he perceives them as turning on him. All of it catches up to Tony in the end, when a kill squad sent by rivals takes Tony down in his mansion.
Universal
"Scarface: The World is Yours" (2006) What if Tony Montana survived the climactic, cocaine-fueled battle in his mansion at the end of 1983's "Scarface"? That's where the 2006 video game comes in. The game features Pacino's likeness for Tony but not his voice -- the actor believed his voice had changed too much over the years, so he personally selected Andre Sogliuzzo to take over the role. Other original cast members, including Robert Loggia and Steven Bauer, voiced new characters in the game.
Sierra
"Ghostbusters" (1984) Before there was the all-women reboot of "Ghostbusters," fans hoped for a sequel to the original and its sequel, 1989's "Ghostbusters II." Rumors floated around of a "Ghostbusters III" for years before Harold Ramis' death in 2014. A third film in the original continuity was not to be, but that doesn't mean there was never an attempt.
Sony
"Ghostbusters: The Video Game" (2009) The closest thing to the long-awaited "Ghostbusters III" is a video game. Most of the original cast returned to their roles, and Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd helped with the story and script. Players joined the team as a "rookie" fifth ghostbuster, revisiting locations from the movies and exploring a story that continues the first two films.
Atari
"Back to the Future" (1985) The original "Back to the Future" trilogy wraps up a pretty cogent story of time travel shenanigans. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) manages to get himself stuck in, and then freed from, 1985, save his son from jail in the future, and rescue Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) from certain doom in the Old West. It's a trilogy that doesn't really need a sequel, but then again, everyone loves Marty and Doc.
Universal
"Back to the Future: The Game" (2010) Before it made a name for itself with its phenomenal adaptation of "The Walking Dead" comic series, developer Telltale Games continued the story of "Back to the Future" beyond "Part 3." The video game finds Marty traveling all through Hill Valley's history, interacting with a young Doc Brown and accidentally altering the course of time to make a totalitarian version of 1985. "Back to the Future" writer Bob Gale helped with the story, but it's ultimately too messy to make as strong an impression as the films.
Telltale Games
"Aliens" (1986) In James Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's "Alien," instead of a small crew encountering the aliens, a whole colony is taken down, and Ripley accompanies a group of marines to the planet to find out what happened. Most of the marines are killed, and fans were famously disappointed when survivors Newt (Carrie Henn) and Hicks (Michael Biehn) were killed off-screen in "Alien 3."
Fox
"Aliens: Colonial Marines" (2013) Like "Alien: Isolation," "Aliens: Colonial Marines" adds more story between the existing "Alien" films. The game focuses on the marine rescue team that would have come to save the characters from the film. Of course, the marines find more aliens, plus human bad guys from the Weyland-Yutani corporation, just to make exceedingly sure the game completely misses the point the movie was making. But it does retcon "Alien 3" to save Hicks from his untimely off-screen death, so it's not all bad.
Sega
"Jaws: The Revenge" (1989) By the time the "Jaws" franchise got to its fourth film, the frightening great white shark was somehow specifically targeting the family of its one-time nemesis, Chief Brody (Roy Scheider). Once you've got a monster shark going after literal, premeditated revenge, where do you go from there?
Universal
"Jaws Unleashed" (2006) In "Jaws Unleashed," you don't play as the poor residents of Amity, New York, as they fight to get their beach back -- you play the shark, bent on eating a variety of corporate folks as they try to set up an oil refinery near the island. Not a great game, but a funny take on the killer shark idea.
Majesco
"Hard Boiled" (1992) Chow Yun-Fat starred in director John Woo's final Hong Kong movie, "Hard Boiled." The story follows hard-drinking, gun-slinging Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, as he battles Hong Kong gangsters. While rumors of a sequel bounced around Hollywood about a decade ago, a film follow-up never materialized.
Golden Princess
"Stranglehold" (2007) John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat teamed up again for "Stranglehold," the official sequel to "Hard Boiled." It attempts to translate Woo's "gun fu" or "bullet ballet" aesthetic from his movies into a video game format. With another sequel to "Hard Boiled" apparently never materializing despite some rumors around 2009, "Strangehold" remains the only official continuation of the film's story.
Midway
"Jurassic Park" (1993) The classic Steven Spielberg thriller about a corporation, InGen, cloning dinosaurs to create a theme park is a pretty tight story, and its sequels actually take place on a completely different island -- the one where InGen had its dino clone factory. The movies don't revisit the original island until "Jurassic World."
Universal
"Jurassic Park: The Game" (2011) Telltale took on another movie sequel in video game form with "Jurassic Park: The Game," a parallel story that takes place at the same time as the original movie. The game follows a minor character from the film, veterinarian Gerry Harding, and the contacts Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) was supposed to give his stolen dinosaur embryos. This sequel is mostly a chance to revisit the 1993 film from a different perspective -- and watch dinosaurs eat a few people.
Telltale Games
"From Dusk Till Dawn" (1996) Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's movie "From Dusk Till Dawn" starts out as a crime film before taking a hard left turn to become a gory vampire flick. It's become something of a cult classic, spawning a pair of movie sequels and even a series.
Miramax
"From Dusk Till Dawn" (2001) Before the film, continuations of "From Dusk Till Dawn" was a video game that directly followed the events of the 1996 film. Although it doesn't employ the likeness or voice of George Clooney, it does follow his character Seth Gecko, as he fights off a hoard of vengeance-seeking vampires, this time on a tanker ship for some reason.
Warner Bros
"The Matrix Reloaded" (2003) When the Wachowskis prepared their two sequel movies to 1999's "The Matrix," they created an experience that included several media. "The Animatrix" was a series of short films that filled out the story of the world, for instance. The movie also left some things untold with side characters Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Ghost (Anthony Wong) that could be filled in with the tie-in video game "Enter the Matrix."
Warner Bros.
"Enter the Matrix" (2003) Players took part in the story of "The Matrix Reloaded" by taking on the roles of either Niobe or Ghost. "Enter the Matrix" is full of live-action scenes with the actors, directed by the Wachowskis, that look and feel like a full expansion of the movie.
Warner Bros. Interactive
"The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004) Vin Diesel turned his character, Richard B. Riddick, from director David Twohy's sci-fi horror film "Pitch Black" into a franchise with "Chronicles of Riddick." The murderer-turned-anti-hero got some intricate backstory, as he battled a death-worshiping, planet-invading space cult.
Universal
"The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay" (2004) Vin Diesel worked closely with developer Starbreeze on "Escape from Butcher Bay," a prequel to "Pitch Black." Diesel and Twohy worked on the story for the game, which fills out Riddick's backstory with the prison break discussed in "Pitch Black."
Atari
"Wanted" (2008) Based loosely on the comic of the same name, "Wanted" sees white collar office drone Wesley (James McAvoy) suddenly finding out that he's from a long line of super-killers. Recruited by Fox (Angelina Jolie), he's brought into the fold of assassins who try to control the flow of human history.
Warner Bros.
"Wanted: Weapons of Fate" (2009) "Wanted" never got a film sequel, but the story was continued in video game form a year after the movie's release. Jimmi Simpson of "Westworld" fame provided the voice for McAvoy's character Wesley, with the game bringing more assassins from around the world for him to battle, while it fills out the backstory of his father from the movie.
Warner Bros. Interactive
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If you want more of these movies, you’ll have to get good with a controller
Video games based on movies have a long history of being terrible. But there are a few licensed games that don't just ride the coattails of successful films, they actually expand and add to them. Here are 12 video games that picked up the torches for stories started on film.
Fox
