The Marvel Cinematic Universe has gone through its share of ups and downs since it debuted with Iron Man in 2008. It became the most profitable movie franchise in history thanks to smash hits like Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, went through a fallow period thanks to bombs like The Marvels and disappointing TV series like Secret Invasion, and may be on the upswing again thanks to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is breaking box office records left and right.
The innovation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was that it gave people not just one story to follow, but a complicated network of stories, and found they were willing to do it. But there was another show that was onto this idea before the MCU even got started.
The Venture Bros. is a forgotten classic
What is The Venture Bros. about?
The Venture Bros. is an animated show that first premiered on Adult Swim in 2003. It’s about a middle-aged scientist named Rusty Venture (James Urbaniak), who himself is the son of a much more famous, much more successful scientist named Jonas Venture, deceased. As a kid, Rusty traveled around the world with his father having adventures, which was as exciting as it was traumatizing. Now, he inflicts the same lifestyle on his twin sons Hank (Christopher McCulloch) and Dean (Michael Sinterniklaas), who are innocent homeschooled kids who act younger than they are.
Similar to an animated comedy like Futurama, The Venture Bros. would stay on the air for decades, only wrapping up in 2023. But because the show was never very popular, it released episodes slowly, with many long gaps in between seasons. In the end, it produced seven seasons, a number of specials, and ended with a movie called The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart.
But in that time, it expanded on its premise in unexpected, surprising ways. In the beginning, the show is mostly a parody of old Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Jonny Quest, but as it goes on, it becomes a parody of nerd culture in general, with a lot of attention reserved for superheroes. We learn that the various foes Rusty has to deal with on his adventures are part of a villainous bureaucracy called the Guild of Calamitous Intent, which exists so heroes and villains can play out their rivalries with some measure of safety and security. At one point, the Ventures move to New York City and are irritated by thinly veiled versions of popular superheroes like Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and Captain America. A pair of henchmen for the Monarch, Rusty’s greatest adversary (at least in his own mind), slowly become main characters, pulling focus from the main story in a way that evokes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
The Venture Bros. vs the MCU
A whole cinematic universe in one show
Maybe referencing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is going too far. I’m not trying to compare the show to Shakespeare, but I am saying that it has layers you wouldn’t expect at a glance. The Venture Bros. premiered at a time when Adult Swim was becoming known for irreverent, terminally edgy shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, and Sealab 2021. And The Venture Bros. absolutely has that strain of humor in it, especially in the early years; there are plenty of jokes that rely on shock or cringe.
But there’s also an underlying commitment to consistency that becomes more impressive the longer the show goes on. Events that are casually referenced in the first season are revealed to be important plot points seven seasons later. Minor characters introduced in passing — a captain of a ghost pirate ship; a supervillain inspired in equal measure by Henry Kissinger and Mary Poppins; an annoying townie named Dermott Fictel — have full arcs that happen mostly in the background.
By the end of the show, The Venture Bros. has created a dense, complex mythology that never contradicts itself. That’s the most obvious point of comparison with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, only while Marvel Studios was able to draw on decades of comics to construct its cinematic universe, The Venture Bros. built one from the ground up.
The Venture Bros. is a masterpiece of worldbuilding
And also pretty funny
Worldbuilding is often a hallmark of good fantasy and sci-fi. Fans of these genres enjoy exploring the complexities of invented worlds ; that’s one of the appeals of huge, multi-book fantasy series with a whole network of invented nations and hierarchies and magic systems and what-have-you.
That’s also part of the appeal of something like the MCU, which asks you to remember what characters are doing from movie to movie and show to show. And it’s part of what makes The Venture Bros. so absorbing, and in this case you only have to watch one series to enjoy it.
Where to stream The Venture Bros.
The Venture Bros. has spotty availability on streaming. If you happen to be reading this before August 15, 2026, you can watch the first three seasons on Netflix. Some are available on Hulu, and the finale movie can be watched on HBO Max.
Your best bet for checking out the seven main seasons of the show is to seek them out on Sling TV, where you can watch them all for free.
