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DACK FAYDEN posted:I just kind of assumed the Monarch hired her again and she showed up in the Stanza. And yeah, it goes down with the cocoon - I think there's a line about it at some point after? "No! My Stanza!"
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Aug 1, 2017 16:22
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They do later bring up a few deaths, one where they tried to do a Fantastic Voyage into Doc's brain and ended up dying in there when their submarine got stuck and caused a clot, and another where they were beaten/mauled to death by the Groovy Gang.
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Aug 4, 2017 05:51
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Well, they had a whole season specifically establishing that the Venture compound is a total deathtrap. The Monarch probably did the world a favour.
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Aug 4, 2017 08:35
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It seems they considered Brock's talents wasted in the wild goose chase for the GCI until whoops, after SPHINX was crushed the OSI went public and Hunter Gathers was right all along.
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Aug 6, 2017 07:23
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I think it's implied that they were lovers as Shore Leave and Mile High in the OSI, went undercover as Holy Diver and Sky Pilot, and when they joined up properly with SPHINX, Shore Leave resumed his old identity while Sky Pilot actually liked his new one.
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Aug 9, 2017 11:17
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Can't wait to see Wide Wale's reaction to realising that he maybe shouldn't have antagonised a supervillain with an on-record body count of heroes, especially if/when he realises the Blue Morpho the Guild is terrified of is the Monarch and his mentally unstable nerd sidekick committing semi-accidental massacres.
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Aug 10, 2017 07:02
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On a note of discussion, was pondering the nature of nephewism in cartoons, very relevant to Ducktales, and how so few adult-adventurer-and-kid-sidekick media actually has a parent-child team, at least in the old days, with Johnny Quest being the only exception I could think of. Then I realised, aside from uncles having way more leeway in how they can behave and have lives of their own outside the wholesome expectations of mid-20th century parents, there's an entire show about how insanely irresponsible and cruel a parent forcing their child into an 'adventurer' lifestyle actually would be. Surprised there hasn't been some parody of such with parents leaving their children in the case of an 'uncle' who then goes to drag them on extremely inadvisable adventures. Hell, Col Gentleman and the Action Man are surprisingly decent babysitters.
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Aug 13, 2017 15:25
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And I think when having dinner the Action Man goes into some more horrific abuse of Rusty. He was hopped up on Go-Juice all the time back then.
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Aug 17, 2017 09:24
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twistedmentat posted:I love his intro in the attack on Spider-Skull Island, where the henchmen are already pretty much defeated, he comes in and head shot and executes them all. Action Man seems like former OSI, they're all about the experimental drugs and executing people on a whim.
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Sep 18, 2017 06:30
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You know, it seems like the OSI are actually kind of crap at their jobs, taking the long view. If getting slightly better under Hunter Gathers.
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Sep 23, 2017 07:59
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I was thinking more that the OSI tend to be portrayed as a bunch of bumbling fascist thugs with unlimited authority who casually murder people for stumbling on secrets they don't put much effort in hiding. SPHINX at least used the memory eraser, albeit a bit too liberally. (Reminded of how Gravity Falls had use of a memory eraser portrayed quite rightly as horrific and easily abused, especially by people who use it on themselves) While the Guild is by comparison professional and outwardly friendly, if a bit too caught up in red tape. Which, given the footage of the Pyramid Wars is a montage of war crimes to a spoof of the GI Joe theme song, is probably entirely on purpose. Being unfamiliar with Hunter S Thompson's public image (Closest I got is reading Fear and Loathing and Transmetropolitan) I find that Hunter Gathers fits perfectly into the Venture Bros world as someone who's insane and paranoid enough to usually be right about the crazy poo poo that's happening constantly. Going on with the above post; the OSI seems to be a cynical/realistic view of SHIELD and GI Joe (given GI Joe were a lawyer friendly modification of SHIELD in the first place...); basically the CIA and general American security apparatus but even more unaccountable, brutal and power-mad, and it doesn't really help that there are legitimate threats to the world they have to deal, especially when it literally takes a rogue operator to actually start paying attention to them rather than focusing exclusively on their PR-friendly feuds.
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Sep 24, 2017 08:44
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Kramer Henchman.
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Sep 25, 2017 18:37
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The Monarch was more on the money though; your most blundering henchmen are nearly immortal.
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Oct 6, 2017 05:43
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21 is pretty self-aware about it too, given their whole villain spiel involved mentioning he mimics the monarch butterfly. Wondering if they're going for anything in particular with the butterfly motif; certainly the Monarch's gone through more than one period of defeat and revival in a different form, the classical cycle of death and rebirth.
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Oct 9, 2017 08:02
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Dermott would absolutely be wanting to get in on his dad being rich as hell now. (especially before Rusty seemingly inevitably squanders it) Speaking of, wasn't there a running side plot this season of Doc trying to come up with an invention to impress some tech conference? And Hatred seems to be in a role that suits him perfectly now, being Doc's head of security and basically day-to-day right hand man; Brock Samson is his bodyguard and responsible for his and his family's direct personal safety (when he's not busy gettin pegged) but Hatred's responsible for the overall security of his company. (and suffers for it) Kind of a theme with the latest season is the cast adjusting to a new status quo and new opportunities, with both successes and failures; Hank gets a girlfriend who lives in the same world he does, Dean gets a bit of a taste of normalcy, Doc fails miserably at attempts to ingratiate himself with the NYC elite but turns out to be a pretty good host to the superhero/villain crowd he's grown up around. (the Guild and Monarch subplots being another story)
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Apr 10, 2018 11:32
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I think it's safe to say that Dermott's advice would mostly be hilariously terrible either way.
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Apr 10, 2018 13:49
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The pilot definitely isn't what I'd sell people on the show with, but it's still pretty good on its own, and does a decent job at establishing the start of the characters' status quo.
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Apr 12, 2018 13:44
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Was a bit of a plot hole when Casino Royale changed it to Texas Hold-Em poker or whatever, because that's more luck-based than the card-counting skill that Bond's strategy in the original book relied on, iirc. Of course, Brock enjoys poker more, as you can experience for yourself.
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Apr 14, 2018 04:21
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Hasn't poker always been the more popular card game in televised media?
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Apr 14, 2018 11:24
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Billy's kind of a funny case given he was taken for a child prodigy (and basically kidnapped by Pete) but struggled when put into a university environment that wasn't based on just memorised trivia, then there's a bit of a gap between that and being the Venture family's resident doctor, basically. (and iirc, Pete White is a pretty good computer scientist, at least in being well beyond the surprisingly tech-illiterate adult cast, but doesn't seem to keep in practice. Hell, the pirate captain is more useful at the software company than he is) I figure there was a lot of offscreen misadventures and opportunities to learn by trial and error on various unfortunate subjects. He was already skilled enough to pass as a doctor at a prestigious hospital until they started checking his credentials, though we haven't heard much of whether he actually made use of the forged degree and license Monstroso gave him. (Presuming SPHINX let him keep it, hard to tell with that lot) Billy and Pete didn't really tag along much with Rusty's escapades with only a few exceptions, right? (Spanikopita!) They do at least qualify as a protagonist duo in presumably the Level 1 rank of the Guild heirarchy, but otherwise they seem to mostly get involved in shenanigans in and around the Venture compound (and now VenTech) which, to be fair, is quite a lot.
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Apr 30, 2018 15:50
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It is strongly implied Billy's mom is Triple Threat, she's been hanging with Team Venture since the old days and knows Colonel Gentleman, I think she'd by used to it. Also Broadway.
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May 1, 2018 06:05
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Mr. Nice! posted:It's not implied. She is Triple Threat. That's not news at all. I don't think it's actually been stated out loud, though of course it's obvious.
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May 1, 2018 13:45
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Pretty much, yeah. Pete's basically been a substitute parental figure or maybe big brother for Billy all these years. Plus they have Pete keep an eye on Billy for whenever he starts to remember how bad the OSI screwed him over.
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May 1, 2018 23:40
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reignofevil posted:Worse assuming the technology has gotten better would imply anyone had ever fixed a superscience thing that turned out to not work as advertised and ah ha ha ha ha Would be funny and fitting if half the OSI's toys were built by Jonas or some other probably long dead super-scientist who left no notes or manual and they've forgotten what most of them even do, see the Nozzle.
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May 2, 2018 08:43
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The OSI are blundering fascist thugs. This isn't subtle.
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May 4, 2018 00:19
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There is the persistent theory that Rusty has all the natural talent to be an evil scientist and doesn't realise it, or refuses to. Probably because Jonas was the worst role model for morality among many other things.
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May 4, 2018 03:23
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pnumoman posted:I always read it as Rusty has all the capability of being a super scientist, but instead of his dad actually raising him and teaching him, he just raised him as a Team Venture mascot instead, instilling in him a sense of inadequacy, misplaced confidence, and zero knowledge of how to actually be a super scientist. Which is why he was a perfect villain without realizing it, since that's essentially a villain backstory, only his entire identity is tied up in this whole being a super-scientist hero successor to his dad. And notable that the pattern repeats with the boys, as well as variants with the other boy adventurers; Jonny Quest has no idea how to function in society and is used to being dependent on adults to function, the Astro Boy spoof has basically spent his existence as a child soldier (which is rather fitting given the original character's backstory would fit right into Venture Bros), the Hardy Boys parodies seem like the equivalent to children who've suffered under a stage parent and have been denied a normal life despite seeing it in front of them (going on with the ongoing metaphor of boy adventurers to child actors, with Rusty being a washed-up former child actor who never recaptured his glory) and so on. The Venture Bros themselves are a bit different, having been basically raised in isolation, I figured it was pretty rare for them to leave the compound except for adventures until about around when the show starts, and they live in bumfuck nowhere (til the most recent season at least, where you see both of them begin to develop considerably because they have the opportunity to go out and live their own lives now) with nothing to do except make their own fun. (I can identify with that) Doc being way less successful and (successfully) sociable than his father ironically means that the boys are less exposed to dangerous adults and crazy people at home than Rusty had to deal with (getting killed by supervillain rampages aside) and Brock has basically been a way better guardian to them even in his old remorseless killing machine days than Jonas Venture's pack of pet psychos. (again, getting killed all the time aside, though that also has the effect of most of their worst trauma memories dying with them) Suddenly I'm wondering how many comparisons you can draw between The Venture Bros and Bojack Horseman.
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May 4, 2018 13:49
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theflyingexecutive posted:Themes of depression, failure, and self-sabotage should cover all the bases there Was thinking more cycles of abuse and trauma, and burnout after fame, but that too.
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May 4, 2018 14:09
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Hatred's been on both sides and has plenty of reason to hate both of them, no wonder he's happiest when trolling the poo poo out of supervillains. Though the Monarch on his good days is a terrifyingly effective arch, Brock is just one of the strongest henchman he could be put up against. (and he had the best defense mechanism against Brock; hordes of expendable henchmen to keep him occupied) Ghost Leviathan fucked around with this message at 04:57 on May 6, 2018 |
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May 5, 2018 06:24
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I love that Dermott is first to realise that he and others can understand HelpER after spending enough time around him, but can't figure out how and no one else knows.
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May 10, 2018 06:51
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Younger than I thought.
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May 16, 2018 10:41
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The Technodrome is a funny thing because in the original show it's basically a world-conquering superweapon that's in horrible condition and that Shredder and Krang have absolutely no idea how to properly repair, it's held together with constant bodge jobs and mad science. It even is shown in Turtles Forever that when competent 2003 Shredder (who is also the Krang of the show, long story) gets his hands on it, he immediately fixes it up and ugprades the Foot-Bots to be way more dangerous and creates a universe-ending superweapon out of it. And 80s Shredder after all that seems to decide that his own brand of cartoonish supervillainy will suffice for him. (there's also an episode set in a world where the TMNT never existed and he did successfully conquer the world... and he's miserable and the world is in shambles since he's so incompetent at running it)
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Jun 5, 2018 10:42
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twistedmentat posted:I used to work at a record store in the suburbs, and I met a ton of guys like Doc who basically stopped paying attention as soon as Yes stopped putting out new material. Sounds right, though he was at least familiar with Angry Birds (though dismissively of how JJ's tech business was so successful), so I figure he pays casual attention to things. And the Monarch at least is into Game of Thrones. (which of course puts the show's timeline into even more weirdness than usual. Just Archer it a little) Is rather fitting with how many characters basically froze at a certain point in their lives. I think for Rusty it was pretty much when his dad died.
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Jun 7, 2018 11:51
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While it's certainly not the same, the new DuckTales is coming off a bit as a more kid-friendly Venture Brothers. Complete with the kids entering an already established adventure dynamic and between Beakley and Donald you have Brock Samson with a beak. And Webby is very Hankesque. A bit recursive given the original Scrooge McDuck comics are very much of the style of adventure fiction that Venture Bros is based on and lovingly lampoons. (along with Jonny Quest and all) Speaking of, I think Jonny Quest had a cameo in Incredibles 2.
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Jun 20, 2018 09:43
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I'm kinda amused by the idea that whether or not he actually sexually abuses his sidekicks is almost academic because as is obvious from Self-Medication, being a superhero sidekick ends up almost as traumatising an experience anyway. And the supervillain/hero/scientist community being both full of sex creeps and likened to the celebrity and show business community (and mingling with it) turned out to be depressively prophetic.
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Jun 23, 2018 07:22
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Alfred was the real villain.
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Jun 23, 2018 09:17
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Reminded of how the OSI treated Ghost Robot like a civilian. I suppose most of the super-spy types probably treat all superhero types as powerful idiots.
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Jun 24, 2018 06:19
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RandallODim posted:I take umbrage with the notion that Doc was motivated by anything other than a desire to extend the time he got to goof off without the boys. The possession episode implies that Rusty has a shitton of repressed guilt for all the tines the boys have died. The guy has no idea how to deal with his emotions, see how Spanikopita is his retreat.
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Jun 26, 2018 01:58
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Sgt. Politeness posted:Yeah, it's not safe to wander aimlessly around here. Don't impugn my general way of life.
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Jun 28, 2018 13:34
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And likely still nowhere near the mass grave at the compound. Ventures are dangerous to be around.
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Jul 2, 2018 10:21
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