Summary
- The Venture Bros. received a feature-length finale that tied up loose ends and pleased fans, leaving them wanting more.
- The movie provided satisfying endings for each character, showcasing their growth and personal arcs.
- Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart captured the essence of superhero stories by focusing on emotional struggles rather than epic showdowns, making it the perfect place to end the series.
Although Adult Swim sadly canceled it, The Venture Bros. was thankfully given the chance to end properly. Instead of an eighth season, The Venture Bros. got a feature-length finale in Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart. The movie was well-received by critics, and especially by fans of the cult favorite. The movie left fans wanting and hoping for more, even if it was as concrete a finale could be.
Given The Ventrue Bros.' enduring fandom, plus how it became better and more relevant now in light of the modern superhero zeitgeist, the desire for more is understandable. More adventures starring Dr. "Rusty" Venture, his family, and The Monarch would not only water down the movie's impact, but it would also defeat its point. Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart was the cartoon's fitting swan song, and it should stay that way.
This article contains spoilers for The Venture Bros. grand finale, Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart.
How the Venture Bros. Movie Wrapped up the Series
Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart tied up The Venture Bros.' loosest threads and put its biggest mysteries to rest, like who the Venture Brothers' mother was, but it still ended on an open note. The movie ended with Mantilla's threat being peacefully taken care of and The Monarch swearing to continue his one-sided blood feud against Rusty even after they learned that they were clones of the original Rusty Venture Jr. and, therefore, technically the same person. Hank and Dean Venture reconciled, and learned the most important things about their family. Meanwhile, the returning characters either maintained their current statuses, or moved on to better pastures.
Although Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart resolved The Venture Bros.' most pressing concerns, its world was far from over. Rusty, his sons Dean and Hank, and Brock Samson got back together in time for yet another big Venture Family adventure. The Monarch's vendetta was given new life, and his loyal supporters backed him up. Many of The Venture Bros.' supporting characters were still alive, off on their own eccentric and exciting adventures. The shaky truce between the Guild of Calamitous Intent and the Office of Secret Intelligence was preserved, promising more superhero and supervillain rivalries to come. Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart ended the series' main story, but left the door open for a possible revival. It's easy to see why fans wanted more. Co-creator Doc Hammer's eagerness to tell more stories in The Venture Bros.' world gave fans' hope more credence.
The Venture Bros. Movie Gave the Characters the Endings They Deserved
While it would be fun to see Rusty Venture and company return, doing so would undo the imperfect yet happy endings everyone got. Even if VenTech Industries was still teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, Rusty couldn't ask for more. His biological and found families were back, and he just helped save the world again. After seven seasons of wrestling with his deep flaws and insecurities, Rusty overcame his worst impulses and finally found himself content. The same went for the cast, who all went through similarly tough coming-of-age arcs during The Venture Bros.' tenure. Everyone buried their hatchets and found new zests for life by the movie's end.
Despite its open ending, Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart was what The Venture Bros. built up to over a decade. Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart left everyone at the highest points of their lives. The characters' arcs were completed, and the world-building's biggest blanks were finally filled in. A revival of The Venture Bros. would have no choice but to undo these milestones to justify its existence, or it would needlessly challenge them for the sake of mandatory escalation. Forcing the characters to return for a nostalgic kick would undermine their growths, recycle conflicts, deny them of finality, and renege what made them special in the first place (i.e., their emotional growth). If The Venture Bros. returned even after a concrete finale, nothing in Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart would matter.
The Venture Bros. Movie's Open Ending Captured the Essence of Superhero Stories
The Venture Bros. is probably best known as an adult-oriented deconstruction and parody of superheroes and boys' fiction, even when it's one of the most sincere and straightforward depictions and understandings of contemporary genre fiction. Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart demonstrated this paradox by continuing the series' embrace of superhero conventions, and ending the same way most pulp adventures would—but with a heartfelt twist.
Like any crisis event in DC and Marvel Comics, Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart used its world's most significant existential threat to reboot everything, cement the status quo, and put everyone back on square one. The movie even ended with the Venture Family returning to Colorado Springs, the original Venture Compound's location. Given the movie's overall anti-climactic feel and how its supposedly world-ending menaces were dealt with peacefully, it may seem that The Venture Bros.' finale deconstructed or spoofed superhero comics' devastating yet inconsequential crises.
The lack of an epic showdown plus an open ending with dangling threads were glaring mistakes in a typical superhero story. Conversely, they were the perfect ways to end The Venture Bros. Besides continuing the series' signature sardonic satire, the movie did this not to mock the genre, but to emphasize what was really important to the people living in a world where would-be world conquerors were the norm. In brief, a rogue supervillain paled in comparison to mending broken trusts or discovering one's real family tree. Life continued as is.
Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart continued the series' tradition of using superhero clichés and pop culture references to tell an emotional story that just so happened to be set in a bizarre sci-fi world. Doing so helped it embody the best of superhero fiction – namely, fantastical adventures still grounded by compelling human struggles. The best superhero stories championed humanity's ideal. The Venture Bros. subverted this with its deeply flawed and troubled characters, but still found perfection in their imperfections. The movie brought this theme to its logical conclusion by pitting the cast against their most difficult challenges yet, and having everyone overcome them to be better people. While most mainstream superhero stories tend to get lost in the shuffle of multiverses and spectacle, The Venture Bros. never forgot that its very human heroes and villains were its heart. The world of super-science will go on, and so will the cast's adventures, but their present story has come to a close.
The Venture Bros. Movie Was the Best Place to End the Series
While The Venture Bros. was one of the best-written serials of its kind, and even if creators Jackson Publick (aka Christopher McCulloch) and Doc Hammer came up with a genius premise for a follow-up to Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, the Ventures' story would've become aimless and stale if it went on any longer. This was just the unfortunate reality of any long-running franchise, especially one as beholden to formula as a superhero series. There was no better place to close the series than with a movie where the characters were at the top of their lives and their world at its safest and most realized.
Of course, The Venture Bros. could return in the future. For better or worse, no franchise truly ends in today's media landscape. Even something as self-aware as The Venture Bros. isn't exempt from future audiences begging for a revival thanks to their nostalgia for Rusty's brand of super-science. But in the meantime, Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart should be accepted as the heartfelt farewell to Rusty and everyone else because, for them, life couldn't get any better than this.