WARNING: Spoilers For Venture Bros. Season 7 ahead!
Where can The Venture Bros go in season 8? With "The Saphrax Protocol" The Venture Bros. has ended its seventh season and left its fans with more questions than answers, along with numerous cliffhangers. This seems an oddly fitting bookend, given that the season opened with a three-part story that unexpectedly resolved many of the show's biggest mysteries, such as whatever happened to Jonas Venture Sr. and the original Blue Morpho. Yet even apart from the events of the finale, there are still a number of storylines from season 7 that await resolution.
This complexity is par for the course for The Venture Bros. While the series started as a straight-forward satire of boys' adventure fiction in general (and Johnny Quest and The Hardy Boys in specific), it has developed a mythology as detailed as the Marvel Comics universe it frequently parodies. Such is the level of care creators Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick have put into developing the series, which is as famous for the long delays between seasons (the result of Hammer and Publick handling every aspect of the show, including animation, in house) as it is for its intricately crafted world.
Related: Venture Bros. Season 7 Review
Here are some of the biggest questions fans have after "The Sephrax Protocol" as well as some other questions raised earlier in The Venture Bros. season 7. Though some of these may seem to have been resolved, not everything may be as it seems - a truism that is particularly true in the world of The Venture Bros.
What Is Sheila's Status In The Guild?
Sheila has worn many hats and many costumes since joining The Guild of Calamitous Intent, but she's always been proudest of her role as Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, despite the unwieldy name. Her marriage to The Monarch has suffered, however, since her promotion to a command position as part of The Council of 13 that rules The Guild. The responsibilities of her new job left her with no time to join him in his villainous scheming and barely any time to be supportive of his work as a spouse.
Though things did get better between the two career villains in The Venture Bros. season 7, the episode "The Terminus Mandate" introduced a game changer for The Council of 13. While reading through The Guild's bylaws, Sheila discovered a long-neglected statute which stated that any supervillain wishing to take on a leadership role in The Guild's command structure had to retire from active villainy and give up any claim on an official arch-nemesis. This meant that if Sheila was to continue in her current position, she would have to give up any chance of ever being able to work alongside her husband in the field ever again.
This led to the council members being given a "last hurrah" before making their decision - one night to menace their respective arch-enemies one final time. When The Council of 13 next met, most of its membership swore an oath to forsake their former "arches" in favor of helping to facilitate the hatred of others. "The Terminus Mandate" ended before a clearly hesitant Sheila could state her decision one way or the other. Though Sheila was later among The Council leaders organizing The Monarch's trial to prove his worth as a Level 10 villain in "The Sephrax Protocol" we still don't know for certain that she decided to swear the oath.
Is The Peril Partnership/GCI War Over?
One of the major plots of Venture Bros. season 7 involved a brewing conflict between The Guild of Calamitous Intent and the Canadian supervillain union known as The Peril Partnership. Several episodes centered upon the search for a PP mole within The Guild and the revelation that Councilman Wide Wale has been paying off The Peril Partnership in order to limit their attempts to push into his territory in New York City. The penultimate episode of the season, "The Forecast Manufacturer", saw The Monarch and Henchman 21 being dispatched to deal with The Creep, a costumed villain who was said to be leading a rogue faction of The Peril Partnership.
Though the threat of The Creep was ended, it is unclear if it was this rogue faction that was responsible for the breaking of the peace between The Guild and The Peril Partnership or if the main body of The Peril Partnership was aware of what was going on. It's also unclear if the real mole was captured or if there might still be someone within The Guild working to undermine it to help The Peril Partnership out in Venture Bros. season 8.
Is Wide Wale The Peril Partnership's Real Mole?
Inspired in equal parts by The Kingpin from Daredevil and Tobias Whale from Black Lightning, the crime boss Wide Wale was introduced into the world of The Venture Bros at the start of season 6. One of the most respected villains in New York City, he agreed to take a position on The Council of 13 and help to lure more independent villains into joining The Guild in exchange for the exclusive arch-enemy rights to Doctor Rusty Venture. Shockingly, he seemed to give up both without much of a fight in "The Terminus Mandate" where he refused to take the oath to give up his role as an active villain. He did, however, agree to consider a special role as an ambassador, saying that while he couldn't be part of The Guild's ruling council, "I ain't goin' nowhere."
Given that it was Wide Wale who started the conflict with The Peril Partnership by sending them pay-outs and stopping them, some wonder if Wide Wale might be the true mole within The Guild. Keeping himself in a position of respect where he didn't have any real responsibilities would be a good way to keep his webbed-hands clean in any coming conflicts. And while Wide Wale may largely keep to the rules of respect that govern classic gangsters, he hasn't shown any hesitation to press any advantage he can get in a business negotiation. And negotiating a better deal with The Peril Partnership may ultimately be "just business."
Page 2: More Venture Bros. Season 7 Finale Questions
The End For Agent McManus and Stranger S-464?
One of the season's stranger subplots involved a romance between Office of Secret Intelligence Sniper Kimberly McManus and Guild of Calamitous Intent Stranger S-464. The forbidden love between the two agents started as a one-off gag in The Venture Bros. season 6 finale "Red Means Stop" after the two met during a joint operation between the OSI and the GCI to kill the new Blue Morpho. Agent McManus ended the relationship, however, when she discovered that Stranger S-464 was a double agent working for The Peril Partnership, who lack the GCI's code of ethics when it comes to organized villainy.
Surprisingly, Sheila made an effort to help the two love-birds reunite in "The Bellicose Proxy" after S-464 agreed to act as a triple agent for the GCI but requested help in getting his would-be girlfriend out of harm's way. S-464's efforts to win Agent McManus back apparently failed, however, as "The Forecast Manufacturer" saw him stealing a GCI Weather Control device as part of a misguided effort to impress his ex. Despite this, Kimberly agreed to meet S-464 again in a Guild-run hospital, though she was warned that The Guild had "adjusted his temperament." To her horror, Stranger S-464 denied knowing her and called for back-up against the strange OSI agent in his room. It's unclear if this was an accidental side-effect of the temperament adjustment or if S-464 was honestly reprogrammed to try and kill the woman he once loved.
What About The Teleporter?
"The Unicorn In Captivity" saw Team Venture develop a working teleporter. The OSI was as quick to move in to try and convince Doctor Rusty Venture to destroy it for fear of destroying the global economy as The GCI was to try and steal it. The episode ended with The Monarch and Henchman 21 successfully stealing the two teleportation pads, even as Doctor Venture was being treated to a virtual reality simulation of an Eyes Wide Shut-style party meant to keep him complaisant with the promised of greater pleasures if he kept his discovery a secret.
The teleporter emerged again in "The Sephrax Protocol" as The GCI used it to infiltrate Ven-Tech Tower as part of an operation to kidnap Doctor Venture. Though they managed the abduction with ease, the GCI soldiers were still ordered to subdue OSI Agent Brock Samson - a decision that ultimately ended with over a dozen GCI grunts being locked inside Ven-Tech Tower with no way out save for the sweet release of death. While Brock's never happier than when he's slaying henchmen, he's unusually cavalier about the fact that The Guild of Calamitous Intent still has this world-changing technology he was trying to destroy several episodes earlier. He even uses the teleporter to send the GCI soldier's bodies back to The Guild with a note demanding they return Doctor Venture rather than using it to teleport himself to them.
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What Is The Deal With "Coma Town?"
Lapsed into a coma after the events of "The Forecast Manufacturer," Hank Venture spent most of "The Sephrax Protocol" in an icy world seemingly based on the movie Barbarella. This would be strange enough, even ignoring the fact that Hank has never seen Barbarella and he thought he was on the ice-planet Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. Hank is joined in this strange psychic landscape by his godfather, The Action Man, who lapsed into a coma earlier in the season in "Arrears In Science." They are both later joined by Council of 13 member Dr. Phineas Phage, who claims to have come to this strange place following a mishap testing Doctor Venture's stolen teleporter.
While it would be easy to write this off as one of Hank's more imaginative dreams and just assume he had forgotten seeing Barbarella at some point, Hank had never met Dr. Phineas Phage before and would have no reason to picture him as a combination of an AT-AT Walker and the blind angel Pygar from Barbarella. So why did Dr. Phineas Phage's shape change to partly resemble a character from Barbarella, which he also claimed to have never seen?
It's worth noting that The Action Man thought that he was in Purgatory before he ran into Hank and that the icy realm does resemble the Purgatory where Dr. Orpheus traveled in search of Hank's and Dean's souls during the season 2 episode "Powerless In The Face Of Death." Is it possible that the three of them wound up in the real Purgatory? Or might Hank honestly be "channeling dead crazy people" - an explanation Brock gave for some of the random things Hank has said over the years, in the first season episode "The Trial Of The Monarch."
Who Is Scare Bear?
First appearing in the season 4 episode "Bright Lights, Dean City", Scare Bear was a potential recruit for The Revenge Society who proved too unsettling for even hardened villains like Phantom Limb and Baron Ünderbheit to cope with. Scare Bear appeared in "The Forecast Manufacturer," discovering a frost-bitten and concussed Hank Venture in the snow, pleading for help in finding his missing girlfriend, Sirena. Scare Bear obligingly carried Hank to his brother Dean's dorm room, where they found Sirena in bed with Dean. We still have no idea who Scare Bear is, how they knew where to find Sirena or why they would care to help Hank out in the first place.
Page 3: Even More Venture Bros. Season 8 Questions
Who is Bobbi Saint Simone?
As Hank and The Action Man traverse the frozen wastes of what they eventually agree to call "Coma Town" in "The Sephrax Protocol," Hank tells his godfather about his troubles with his girlfriend Sirena. The Action Man comments that Hank sounds just like his father, who also latched onto women until he drove them away with his neediness. Hank asks if that was what happened to his mother and The Action Man confirms it before saying that isn't important and that he can't tell Hank anything about the mother he never knew. He does, however, let two facts slip as he badgers Hank about his need to grow up - his mother was an actress and her name was Bobbi Saint Simone.
The question of who Hank and Dean's mother was is one of the few major mysteries The Venture Bros. has yet to address. It seems likely that this will be explored in Season 8, though there's still so much we don't know. Was Bobbi Saint Simone a stage name, as The Action Man implies, or was it her real name? Was she an actress before she met Rusty Venture or did she change her name and become one in her efforts to start a new life?
What's Next For Hank and Dean?
Season 7 of The Venture Bros. saw Dean Venture trying to build a new life for himself apart from his family, moving into the dorms at his college and dropping all but one of the science classes his father had put on his schedule. Of all The Ventures, Dean has been the one who struggled the most with life in a world full of super-science and costumed aggressors and seemed to be trying to build a normal life, with some success. "The Sephrax Protocol" saw Dean making a tearful confession to a comatose Hank - that he misses the simpler times when it was just the two of them against a crazy world - a sentiment shared by many fans of the show, who have noted there has been very little of The Venture Bros. in The Venture Bros. in recent seasons.
"The Sephrax Protocol" ends with Hank escaping the hospital after awakening from his coma, apparently having regressed into his persona as "The Bat" while still seeking to go into the world, find himself and grow up, ironically mirroring the journey Dean seemed to embark upon only to regress in this episode. Where this leaves them heading into The Venture Bros. season 8 is anyone's guess, though it seems likely Hank may start a search for their long-lost mother and Dean may get dragged along as he searches for his missing brother.
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What About The Other Venture Bros.?
The biggest revelation in The Venture Bros. season 7 finale was confirmation of a long-held fan theory: The Monarch and Doctor Rusty Venture are brothers. A blood test administered by Guild Of Calamitous Intent Agents Watch and Ward confirmed that the two were related. The Monarch was informed of this shortly after completing the ritual that affirmed his status as a Level 10 Villain in the GCI, which gave him the opportunity to kill his arch-enemy once and for all.
This had been hinted at earlier in the season, in flashbacks taken from the memory of the cyborg Vendata, who was revealed to have been the original Blue Morpho. Grief-stricken by an affair he'd had at Jonas Venture Sr.'s prompting, The Blue Morpho was blackmailed into acting as Jonas Venture's private assassin and eventually was transformed into the cyborg Vendata. It was also revealed that Jonas took a hand in helping his "dear friend" when he and his wife were having trouble conceiving, though it is unclear if Jonas artificially inseminated The Blue Morpho's wife using his own sperm or if he impregnated The Blue Morpho's wife the old-fashioned way.
In either case, it seems that The Monarch isn't truly the son of The Blue Morpho as he thought and is only the latest in a long line of bastard children produced by the Venture family. It also means, ironically, that there is another pair of Venture Bros who have been a part of the show since its first episode. It remains to be seen how this may change the dynamic between Doctor Venture and The Monarch, assuming it changes anything at all.