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Dr. Byron Orpheus
The Venture Bros. character
Dr Byron Orpheus
Dr. Orpheus debut
First appearance

Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!
Last appearance

Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
Voiced by

Steven Rattazzi
Information
Aliases Dr. O
Dracula
Count Freud
Count Chocula
Occupation Necromancer
Relatives Triana Orpheus (daughter)
Tatyana (ex-wife)
Notable
characteristics

Mystical powers include resurrection, shapeshifting, invisibility, illusory powers, teleportation, offensive magic, telekinesis
Alliances

Order of the Triad
Prior
alliances

Team Venture

Dr. Byron Orpheus is a supporting character on the Adult Swim television series The Venture Bros. Dr. Orpheus is a parody of, and reference to, Marvel's Dr. Strange. He is voiced by Steven Rattazzi.

Personality

Dr. Orpheus is an expert necromancer and wizard. He is headstrong, tends to be unaware of the perils of most situations, and is melodramatic even in everyday situations. Orpheus' actions and speech are usually accompanied within the show by overly suspenseful string music which adds to his melodramatic presentation. Unlike some more conventional characters, Dr. Orpheus sometimes uses his great powers in very mundane ways; he can be seen using telekinesis to help prepare dinner in the episode Ghosts of the Sargasso. He seems to be somewhat self-conscious of the fact that despite his abilities, he leads a rather ordinary life. Perhaps this is best illustrated by his proclamation that although he only holds a Bachelor's Degree in communications from a community college (with a minor in women's studies), he has been granted a Doctorate from "a higher power than a mere college professor" - his master admits Orpheus is his "greatest student". Dr. Orpheus mentions in that he teaches "conjuring" at The New School.

Despite his imposing personality, Orpheus is actually one of the more benevolent and morally balanced characters in the series, contrasted with the cynical and amoral Dr. Venture. He is helpful, pleasant, and genuinely cares about people. He also acknowledges his job is to help preserve the fabric of reality from supernatural forces, suggesting that he has given up a normal life in order to serve others. However, like all characters in Venture Brothers, he has his moments of failure. He is clueless about relationships, which is only somewhat mitigated by his affable nature. His pomposity is legendary and often off-putting, driving away people he likes or tries to like. He is very insecure as people don't seem to take him seriously, and often longs for a more adventurous life, not appreciating the work he does. He also has a dark side - when he or those he cares about are threatened, he has no problem using magic in horrifically excessive ways; he trapped the souls of two rednecks in a Homeboy figurine because they wouldn't stop teasing him, repeatedly erases his daughter's memories of his more shady activities (such as the portal to the Necropolis he hid in her closet), threatens anyone who is wooing his daughter, and once predicted The Action Man's exact date and cause of coma in response to being shot in the shoulder unprovoked. His casualness about magic and lack of appreciation for himself seems to lead him to casually use his abilities.

He has rented out a section of the Venture compound, where he lives with his teenage daughter Triana. Dr. Orpheus' age has not been specifically mentioned. While his birthplace is to date also unknown, his preference for referring to carbonated drinks as "tonic" and attempts to order Moxie and birch beer in Return to Spider-Skull Island may indicate he hails from the northeastern U.S. His graying hair implies Orpheus is at least in his late 50s or early 60s.

In the episode Powerless in the Face of Death, he mentions several celebrity "clients" he has resurrected specifically; magician David Blaine, stuntman Evel Knievel, and former President Ronald Reagan (until he bounced a check). With the second, Orpheus shows he is willing to help stuntmen keep up their charade of invincibility if they pay him for it.

Orpheus and Triana have one pet, a female cat named Simba. He owns a classic, black, Volkswagen Bug.

Character History

Very few details of Dr. Orpheus' early life were revealed. What is known is that he was once an aspiring hero, studying under The Master to be an even more powerful magician, while going on adventures with his teammates The Alchemist and Jefferson Twilight under their team Order of the Triad. After he married Tatyana and had Triana, the Triad broke up, as Orpheus focused his full time on his tutelage under The Master. However, he overworked and focused too much on his magic and studies which caused him to neglect his family. That would lead to Tatyana leaving Orpheus for one of his students, another necromancer known as The Outrider. While he managed to keep custody of Triana, he lost his home and most of his possessions.

His first appearance on the show comes soon after he begins renting property from Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture on the The Venture Compound. He moves into a remodeled section of the compound, previously unused since its days as an arachnid research wing. He intervenes in trying to rescue Brock and the boys from the Joy Can, but Dean's feelings for Triana prove the key to their freedom. Disgusted by the revelation that the machine is powered by an orphan's heart, he destroys it with bolts of mystic power.

In Ghosts of the Sargasso, he finds Jonas Venture's notes regarding Major Tom and puts the boys in contact with the pilot's widow, and Tag Sale – You're It!, in which he helps the Ventures with their yard sale. The original Team Venture briefly mistook Dr. Orpheus for a villain in Past Tense. When Action Man grazes his arm with a bullet and attempts to attack him again after learning that he is a friend, Orpheus predicts the elderly hero's death from a stroke in the near future.

Orpheus played a pivotal role in The Trial of the Monarch, using his powers to view the past in serve as a witness. Before he can testify to The Monarch's innocence, however, Guild agents led by the Phantom Limb immobilize everyone in the courtroom and erase their memories of the intrusion. Strangers inform Phantom Limb that memory wipes don't work on necromancers, but Limb says that necromancers take to subliminal messages "Like cancer to a prostate". Limb tells frozen Orpheus that if he claims that the Monarch is guilty then Orpheus will get an arch nemesis from the Guild much sooner. Orpheus complies and the Monarch is sent to jail.

In Return to Spider-Skull Island, Orpheus is asked to take care of Hank and Dean while Brock attends to their father during a medical emergency. When the boys run away in a mistaken fit of jealousy, Orpheus decides to watch over them from a distance and keep them out of trouble. Although he fails to prevent their arrest, he drives Dr. Venture and Brock to and from the prison to bail them out. Orpheus allows the boys to drive several hundred yards ahead of them to give them more freedom, but two of The Monarch's henchmen accidentally kill the boys in a fiery explosion. Orpheus is wracked with guilt and misery over his perceived role in their deaths, and finally resolves to resurrect them. He is unable to locate their souls in the astral plane, however, and is horrified to learn that the boys have been repeatedly cloned by their father. He and Dr. Venture then go into a debate over the merits of science versus magic which sets the tone for their relationship for the rest of the series.

In Escape to the House of Mummies Part II. Venture reluctantly calls Orpheus for help when Team Venture is trapped in a room with closing, spiked walls. Later, Orpheus' offers of help are met with resentment and open hostility from Venture, leading the two to agree to a duel of sorts to compare their abilities: whoever can shrink himself more than the other will be declared the winner. In concentrating on the challenge, both doctors completely forget their original intent-to rescue Brock and the boys from the clutches of an Egyptian cult. After consulting with his master and much soul-searching, Orpheus philosophically concedes that he can make himself no smaller than he is already - his master had pointed out many of Orpheus' failings and pretensions.

In Fallen Arches, Orpheus' petitions to the Guild of Calamitous Intent are finally fulfilled and he is granted an opportunity to select an archenemy. He reassembles his former team The Order of The Triad containing friends The Alchemist and Jefferson Twilight. The Order is ecstatic at their chance to finally fight supervillains and the publicity it will bring and begin screening every applicant at Venture Industries (much to Dr. Venture's chagrin), with the fiery fiend known as Torrid winning out as the Order's archenemy due to his kidnapping of Triana.

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills, Dr. Orpheus assists Rusty in retrieving the boys that were kidnapped by Myra Brandish. Venture, recently returned from Japan, complains of a Japanese Oni hanging above his head. He is relieved that Dr. Orpheus can also see the Oni, since Brock Samson could not see it and was convinced it was merely a side-effect of Dr. Venture's use of diet pills. Orpheus's initial attempt to exorcise the demon fails, and he announces he must consult The Master.

In Assisted Suicide, Rusty is possessed and put into a coma by The Monarch, who enters his brain and psyche in order to kill him. Orpheus uses his magic powers to enter Rusty's psyche and encounters Eros and Thanatos. Together they meet with Rusty's Id, Ego, and Superego in trying to stop The Monarch. Orpheus defeats The Monarch by confronting him with the horrible memories of all Hank and Dean's deceased clones, which causes him to flee from Dr. Venture's mind. This is the only time in the series where Orpheus and The Monarch come into conflict with each other.

The season four episode The Better Man introduces The Outrider. Orpheus is initially incensed at the Outrider, who he claims was a terrible student, having apparently outshined him in necromancy, going so far as plotting to kill him. He later learns that the Outrider was cheating via a mystical amulet implanted in his brain. At the end of the episode, he learns that Triana has visited with The Master and has learned she will one day be a great sorceress if she is allowed to go live with her mother and train. According to The Master, Orpheus knew this about his daughter but kept it from her because he was afraid that if she pursued a life in magic that she would end up as unhappy as he is. However, The Master says that this will not be so and that Orpheus can rid himself of his unhappiness if he can come to accept the fact that while he may not have been a good husband or father he is still a great necromancer. For that reason, he allows Triana to move in with The Outrider and Tatyana to study under them and become a sorceress.

In the Season 5 special, A Very Venture Halloween, Dr. Orpheus, asks Dr. Venture if he could host the 331st annual Brimstone Assembly in his quarters, to which Dr. Venture agreed. During the ceremony where The Outrider and Tatyana reenact a scene from Hellraiser, a visibly upset Dr. Orpheus expressed his concern that this kind of magic was happening in the home where his daughter was being raised. At The Alchemist's urging he stepped outside to get some air. The Alchemist whom Orpheus had left in charge, then convinced everyone to raise some zombies.

In the season 6 special All This and Gargantua-2, as a result of The Monarch setting the Venture Compound on fire. Orpheus The Alchemist, Jefferson Twilight and Sgt. Hatred attempt to put out the flames but to no avail as the compound is burned to the ground. At the end of the special, he attends the funeral of Dr. Jonas Venture, Jr.. While there, he tries to comfort Dean by telling him he has used his powers and brought back someone special to him. Dean assumes Orpheus means his late uncle when it turns out that Orpheus meant his stuffed giraffe which he burned in Season 5.

With the Venture compound destroyed, Orpheus and the rest of the Triad relocated to the Rancho Feo Motor Home near the ruins of the compound. This causes some jealousy and friction when Orpheus and the rest of the Triad visit the Ventures in their luxurious penthouse in the 7th season opener The Venture Brothers & The Curse of the Haunted Problem, leading the Triad to begin seeking a home of their own in New York City. In that episode after the VenTech Tower appears to be haunted from experiencing some technical problems that scare Brock and The Ventures, Dean Venture asks for Dr. Orpheus's help in investigating the matter. While Orpheus correctly surmises that the PROBLEM machine in the lobby is the source of the building's issues, he uses the wrong spell on it, instead unleashing the ghosts and spirits of all the people who had died in the building in the past. However, the ghosts awaken Jonas Venture, Sr.' that was frozen inside the PROBLEM machine. While confronting Jonas, The Action Man has the stroke that Orpheus had correctly predicted would happen back in season one. After that incident, in Arrears in Science the group purchased a former synagogue turned studio building at 58-60 Rivington Street in New York City for use as their new headquarters. The Alchemist noted that it had three floors, a garage for the Triadmobile (AKA "The Blood Vessel"), and a "Dr. Strange window".

In Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, Dean, frustrated at his father and the OSI for not helping him find Hank, turns to Orpheus for help and visits him at their new headquarters in New York. Orpheus agrees to help him, and using his powers, he deduces that Hank is going back to the Venture Compound in Colorado. With Jefferson Twilight, they set off there in The Blood Vessel. During a stopover at Jefferson's old hideout in Chicago, they are attacked by Blacula's led by Nuno Blood. Despite Jefferson telling him that his magic doesn't work on blacula's, Orpheus fights back and saves Jefferson and Dean by summoning the Pants Golem that they had contained earlier in their headquarters. The Golem subdues Nuno and they are able to escape. Orpheus, Twilight, and Dean successfully locate Hank with Bobbi St. Simone. Using their combined powers, Orpheus and Twilight enter purgatory and successfully rescues Hank. Orpheus is present when The Monarch is gravely injured by the Jonas Venture statue and tries to help him by conjuring a liver that he can't use. He is present with the rest of the Venture family when Ben announces that Rusty and The Monarch are clones.

Relationships With Other Characters

Family

Triana Orpheus

Triana is Dr. Orpheus's daughter. Though he loves her dearly, Orpheus' relationship with his daughter is deeply strained by a combination of his flair for dramatics and his profession as a Necromancer, frequently clashing with Triana's desire for a more normal life. After he divorced his wife Tatyana, Triana lived with him up until the episode the Better Man when she went to live with her mother on advice from The Master. Orpheus is very protective of her, especially shown in Fallen Arches and A Very Venture Christmas. Although Dr. Orpheus seems out of touch with reality at times, and tends to embarrass his daughter at least as much as any typical teenager's parents do, the two have an apparently good relationship with each other. He displays the ability to detect when others are lusting after his daughter, specifically using it to track Dean at one point and (in a dream sequence) sternly burning the mistletoe above Pete White's head from afar during the Venture Christmas party. Triana is apparently uncomfortable with her father's ability to raise the dead; she actually began to sob when he discussed his attempt to resurrect the Venture boys. He ends up responding to complaints like this by mind wiping her memory clean of such events; this explains why she was until recently unaware that the Venture boys were clones. In spite of this being a somewhat heavy-handed method of dealing with the problem, Orpheus' master reveals that Orpheus does this so as to spare his daughter from having her life end up like his.

Tatyana

Not much is known about their relationship other anecdotes from him, The Master, The Outrider, and Triana who say that she left Orpheus for The Outrider due to his neglect of the family. The two never speak and are never together which seems to indicate that they are still on bitter and acrimonious terms. Despite this, they seemingly worked out an custody agreement with Triana where she lived with Dr. Orpheus full time.

Friends

The Master

The Master is Dr. Orpheus' mentor and teacher. The Master taught Orpheus everything he knew since he was an apprentice. Orpheus holds his mentor in high esteem often going to him for advice over problems he may come across. The Master does not seem to carry much respect for Orpheus showing very little patience with him and sometimes taunts and mocks him by once posing as Tatyana. Despite this, he does view Orpheus as his greatest student and sometimes tries to get him to relax more. The Master shows this caring side again when he tells Orpheus that even if he may he may have failed as a husband or father, he is still a great wizard.

Dr. Venture

Rusty is Dr. Orpheus's former landlord and friend. They get along quite well and Orpheus refers to Rusty as "Mr. Venture". Despite their friendship, they would frequently clash and debate over science versus magic, as Rusty doesn't believe in magic at all and thinks that Orpheus is a charlatan. For the latter reason, Rusty tends to only see Orpheus as an absolute last resort, and even then, is deeply cynical and dismissive of Orpheus's methods, even when it works and proves Rusty wrong. Otherwise, Dr. Orpheus has admitted that he frankly envies Dr. Venture's more adventurous and exciting life and is eager to join The Ventures on adventures. In Assisted Suicide, Dr. Orpheus enters Rusty psyche and learns the truth about his personality and motivations, but decides to keep it to himself in order to protect Rusty and the family.

Dean and Hank

He is quite protective of Hank and Dean, and seems to bear more fatherly feelings towards them than does their own father. Dr. Orpheus was utterly devastated by the boys' deaths in Return to Spider-Skull Island, suffering under a great deal of self-imposed guilt. He was shocked to learn that they were clones, despite his own plan to resurrect them. Dr. Venture goes so far to suggest that Orpheus is hungry for a cut of the Venture inheritance, though this may be more a creation of Venture's cynical nature than anything else. In All This and Gargantua-2, at the funeral of Jonas Venture Jr. Orpheus "comforts" Dean by restoring his stuffed giraffe. He had previously stated he brought back someone close to Dean.

Orpheus is well aware of Dean's past infatuation with his daughter, even exploiting it to aid in rescuing Dr. Venture from a trap by tracing back his heightened emotion. Despite this, he seems to consider Dean harmless to the point he takes no action to it. Because of this, he is seemingly closer to Dean than he is Hank as it is mutual, as Dean always tends to seek out Dr. Orpheus's help frequently whenever he or the family encounters problems.

The Alchemist and Jefferson Twilight

Orpheus's partners that form The Order of the Triad. The group once defended the world from supernatural threats, and was founded before Dr. Orpheus met his wife Tatyana. The group disbanded some time after Orpheus had Triana, leaving The Alchemist to continue his research on the Philosopher's Stone and Twilight to continue hunting blaculas. The Order reunited when the Guild finally approved Orpheus' numerous petitions for a supervillain archenemy under the mistaken impression that he was a member of a team of heroes. All of the Triad's members seemed happy to reunite, with the Alchemist stating that a high-profile nemesis would bring him greater publicity and support for his research on a cure to AIDS. They get along very well and work well as a team even if they have their occasional arguments. Despite being old friends, he did not introduce them to The Master, who they don't meet until A Very Venture Halloween. He states the Alchemist's homosexuality is why introducing him to the Master wasn't an option; while Jefferson soiling himself after a major psychic scare was the sole reason at the moment he wasn't allowed to tag along.

The Outrider

Years ago, The Outrider was once Orpheus' pupil, but was described by the latter as a "slacker". Outrider paid little attention to Orpheus' teachings and often searched for an easier way to learn magic which he eventually found and became a better wizard than his teacher much to Orpheus' envy and anger. Orpheus' dislike of the latter increased when Outrider managed to win over wife Tatyana. In The Better Man, Orpheus discovered that Outrider has discovered a way to enter the underworld while Orpheus struggled for years increasing his jealously. Later on, when trapped in said place Orpheus apologized to Outrider for being jealous of him while the latter admitted he admired Orpheus for his abilities and wanted to find a shortcut for achieving what Orpheus did since he didn't want to sacrifice every else for magic like his mentor did.

Episode Appearances

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

Season 6

Season 7

Movie

Christmas Songs

Trivia

  • Doctor Orpheus with his grandiose personality and powers stemming from the mystical realm heavily resembles Marvel Comics superhero Doctor Strange. He also bears a passing resemblance to Christopher Lee's portrayal of Dracula in the Hammer Films of the 60s and 70's. In particular, his theme music resembles the overture from the 1958 Hammer Film Horror of Dracula. He also has a similar behavior and appearance to the Batman villain Ra's al Ghul.

Gallery


References




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