Venture Bros.- Season 3 - Episode 1 - "Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny"

Yay! Venture Bros. is/are back! It kind of sneaked up on me. Actually, I knew it was going to be returning near the beginning of June, it's just that the whole month of June kind of sneaked up on me. In any event, its return comes not a moment too soon, what with the season finale of Lost and the series derailment of Battlestar Galactica.

This episode had nary a glimpse of Hank or Dean, and only a couple of moments of Dr. Venture and Brock. But that's okay. The Venture Bros isn't a show about the characters themselves, it's about the whole Venture-Bros-iverse. As long as they bring the funny, and this week, they did.

Basically what we had was a sort of origin story for the Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend as they apply for membership into the League of Calamitous Intent. Lots of fun moments, too many to recount. Nothing gut-busting, but all of it good. What I'm sure will become a fun quest is figuring out who the shadowy members of the Council of Thirteen are. I haven't done any Googling to see if any of them have been identified, but the only one I think I've figured out is that the main one that was speaking is Wile E. Coyote. (okay... now I'm going to go Googling... nope... so far only Wile E. Coyote).

One of my favorite things about this show is the codifying of Supervillainry that they've done. My favorite of these is the term "arching", which is what you do when you have an arch-enemy (which I have!)

Anyway, Venture Bros. is always more about the sum of the whole, rather than the individual parts. This was another solid episode in what looks to be a great season. Can't wait to see more of Manotaur and his Malevolent Murder Maze. And I want to see more of Truckules.

Because it's going to be such a long long time before anything good returns to the airwaves, it might be a good time to revisit The Venture Bros. from the beginning.