Monarch (The Venture Bros.)

VBCharacter


caption = The Monarch in his lair.
character_name = The Monarch
debut_ep = The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay
voiced_by = Christopher McCulloch
real_name = Malcolm (last name unknown)
char_alias =
profession = Aspiring supervillain and sworn enemy formerly of Dr. Venture now The Phantom Limb and Dr. Jonas Venture Jr. on a trial basis
characteristics = Semi-mechanical suit equipped with a grappling hook, poison darts, tranquilizer darts, a gas gun, and collapsible wings which enable flight; obsessed with Monarch butterflies
alliances = The Guild of Calamitous Intent; commands a set of henchmen, Doctor Girlfriend.
prev_alliances =
relatives = Dr. Mrs. The Monarch (wife)
a Mother ("deceased")
a Father ("deceased")
a Mother-in-Law ("via Dr. Mrs. The Monarch")

The Monarch is one of the main characters and the primary antagonist on the Adult Swim show "The Venture Bros.". He is a parody of a supervillain, who has modeled himself after the Monarch butterfly. He is voiced by Christopher McCulloch.

Character outline

The Monarch's primary trait is his butterfly theme. His base of operations is a giant, floating cocoon (characters have commented on how illogical this is), and all of his weaponry is modeled (often erroneously) on physical traits of butterflies. In spite of his fascination with them, the Monarch remains oblivious to the actual biology and physical capabilities of butterflies; he believes them to be poisonous insects ("The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay") (which, in fact, they are) and is ignorant of their migration patterns. His henchmen dress in yellow and black attire with butterfly wings. The costumes are equipped with a wide array of gadgets, and the wings even allow flight, but the henchmen are ignorant of this fact much of the time. They are commonly known by ID numbers ranging from 1 to 83, and the Monarch is prone to killing them when angered. The henchmen are passionately loyal to the Monarch, and it is suggested many of them were down on their luck or troubled when he recruited them and gave them a purpose.

The Monarch is aided by his sidekick/lover Doctor Girlfriend, a gravelly voiced woman with a striking resemblance to a young Jackie Kennedy; the Monarch seems oblivious to the fact that her very deep voice is abnormal, while most of the other characters on the show believe her to either have had a sex change operation or is an extremely heavy smoker. In spite of the Monarch's homicidal tendencies, he and Dr. Girlfriend share a bizarre parental relationship with the henchmen. In the third season, the two get married and Dr Girlfriend becomes Doctor Mrs. the Monarch.

The Monarch's arch-rival (to him, at least) is Dr. Venture. The Monarch (in costume) has been trying to kill Dr. Venture ever since they were in college, despite the fact that costumed villainy is a licensed profession in the "Venture Bros." universe. A recurring theme in the series is that despite the fact that the Monarch clearly hates Dr. Venture, people are either unable or unwilling to explain just what the source of this hatred is. Dr. Venture himself doesn't even know. Doctor Girlfriend, when questioned about it by her Murderous Moppets, refuses to give a straight answer. The Monarch is eventually forced to give up "arching" Dr. Venture in order to wed Doctor Girlfriend, but makes repeated attempts to rekindle their one-sided rivalry. He also hates Hank, Dean, and Brock Samson to a lesser extent because of their affiliation with Dr. Venture. However, he is aware of how Dr. Venture neglects the boys, and seems to have some respect (if merely a loathing one) for Brock.

The Monarch was apparently the only child of a wealthy couple who died when their private plane crashed in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The Monarch lived in the forest amongst a colony of Monarch butterflies, which he claims adopted him. As he was ignorant of their migration patterns, the butterflies eventually left, and the devastated Monarch hitch-hiked to the city and collected his sizable inheritance. The rest of the childhood was likely spent in New York City as "The Trial of the Monarch" revealed Monarch's connection with the 1980s New York punk scene. With the money, the Monarch was able to go to college, where he shared a creative writing class with Dr. Venture; apparently, the Monarch devoted all of his assignments to butterflies (which led Venture to initially assume he was a "closet case").

Like many of the characters in the show, the Monarch is a failure at what he does. He overestimates his own lethality, and often takes time out to "remind" people how dangerous he is ("Home Insecurity"). In the series' pilot episode, Monarch was initially portrayed as being evil yet incompetent; as the series progressed, his character is shifted towards vanity and bravado rather than evil, though he is still incompetent. He has had the opportunity on numerous occasions to significantly harm, but when faced with the prospect of actually succeeding at one of his goals, he loses interest, preferring to live out an unending hero/villain fantasy than actually be victorious. When the Monarch doesn't abandon his plans, they end up failing anyway for a number of reasons — amongst them henchmen incompetence, bad planning, and bizarre circumstances.

Character history

According to "", the Monarch became a henchman known as "Shadowman 9" for none other than Phantom Limb. During this time, he moonlighted as his "Monarch" alter-ego, unsuccessfully arching on a young Dr. Venture. He also worked as a henchman for three other villains during his erratic non-guild approved career as the Monarch: the Sea An-enemy, Helicoptro, and Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Nightmare Coat. During this time, he seduced Queen Etheria, the scantily clad sidekick of Phantom Limb; she changed her alias to Doctor Girlfriend and became his lover/sidekick. Both of them immediately left Phantom Limb, as the Monarch had apparently been waiting for his trust fund to come out of escrow.

Somewhere along the way, the Monarch joined the Guild of Calamitous Intent (for the "full dental and partial health package") as a supervillain and used his vast fortune to build a giant, floating military base from which to launch his attacks on Dr. Venture. Near the end of the first season, he and Doctor Girlfriend have a falling out over a tell-all book published by the Monarch's henchmen (according to the Monarch, "filled with lies and pictures of also-lies"), which brought to light her salacious past with a variety of other supervillains. She left him and went back to Phantom Limb, who in turn framed the Monarch for murder so that he could have Doctor Girlfriend to himself. The monarch manages to escape from prison and rebuild his career, eventually winning Doctor Girlfriend back after Phantom Limb's lifestyle bores her. The Monarch is married to Doctor Girlfriend in an official Guild ceremony in the third season. He is also forced to stop arching Dr. Venture, a fact which he has trouble coming to terms with. He recently raided the Venture compound and found "GUARDO," a robotic guardian with the face of Dr. Venture. He proceeds to have sexual relations with the robot, in order to give it chlamydia, however he is caught by Dean Venture. The Monarch then tricks him into not telling and quickly leaves. To help adjust to the transition, the Guild reluctantly allows him to become the arch-nemesis of Jonas Venture, Jr. on a trial basis. After finding a loop-hole in the guild's rulebook that allows him to go after the family of Jonas Jr if Jonas Tries to kill him while doing routine arching, The Monarch uses this opportunity to get Jonas Jr to try and kill him with a giant ray gun. The episode ends with the Monarch ordering his Cocoon to head to the Venture Compound to seek revenge on Jonas Jr's brother, Rusty Venture.

After a little practice on the holodeck-like simulator, Dr.Mrs.The Monarch allowed him to carry out this plan. The Mission was going smoothly until Henchmen 21 needed to use the restroom, which only got worse as not only was the Venture Family not home but another enemy Sergeant Hatred who wishes to be personally killed by Dr.Thadeus Venture was holding himself up in the bathroom. The Monarch finally tracked down the location of the Venture's Jet the X1 to find H.E.L.P.eR, which he proceeded to torture and then let his wife sweet talk the actual location of the Ventures out of the robot. This led to the middle of a large city where Brock convinced him they would have a full on fight to the finish at the venture compound. The next morning they arrive at the compound to find not Brock Samson but a fully armed and armored troopers of the O.S.I. With this turn of events he suits up with an experimental power suit that he can't even move anything but his face in. After being suited up and literally dropped onto the battlefield where his obviously underpowered troops are getting demolished. He activates the suit sending him into an uncontrollable flying spin, even beheading the trooper who activated it, shooting wildly killing his men, the OSI Troopers and Dean and Hank clones indiscriminately by accident. The spinning soon makes the Monarch pass out, vomiting as he does and falling to the ground appearing lifeless. He is last seen being revived by his men.

Equipment and abilities

Though the Monarch has no powers, his costume is equipped with a variety of gadgets. His costume conceals large butterfly wings crafted by Doctor Girlfriend that allow him to fly, and he also has two wristbands that shoot out a number of darts (variously depicted as either tranquilizers or lethal), which he depends on extensively. In the episode "Dia De Los Dangerous", he explains that he was raised by butterflies, which involved living off milkweed, "ensuring his toxicity to this day," though it does not appear to have any bearing on his performance.

All of the Monarch's equipment is based on butterflies. His base is a giant flying cocoon. It has a hilariously hideous pink-and-purple color scheme inside and he refers to the central workstation as his "throne room." The master bedroom's bed doubles as an escape pod, shaped like a smaller cocoon. Its internal defenses were personally designed by him, which may explain why Brock could easily nearly take it out single-handedly ("Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean"). He also has a car, the Monarch-mobile, also decked out in purple, as well as a butterfly-shaped aircraft (with cargo/henchman room in the abdomen) that was only shown once. The cocoon's engine may run on antimatter ("Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part 1)").

The Monarch commands a set of henchmen all known solely by number (except for junior henchmen), which he frequently kills when in a bad mood, resulting in what appears to be an inexhaustible supply. These men are not particularly bright or capable, and most, with two notable exceptions (#21 and #24), are liable to die within a month or upon meeting Brock Samson when he was the Venture body guard.