Colonel Lloyd Venture

Col. Lloyd Venture
The Venture Bros. character
Col. Lloyd Venture with the ORB
First appearance	O.R.B.
Voiced by	Christopher McCulloch
Information
Occupation	Adventurer Super-scientist Milliner Grand Protector of the Orb
Relatives	Jonas' father (son) Jonas Venture Sr. (grandson) Dr. Thaddeus Venture (great-grandson) Jonas Venture Jr. (great-grandson) Hank Venture (great-great-grandson) Dean Venture (great-great-grandson) Dermott Fictel (great-great-grandson)
Alliances	The Guild (original)
Enemies	Nikola Tesla and the Avon Ladies Fantômas

Colonel Lloyd Venture is the grandfather of Jonas, the great-grandfather of Dr. Thaddeus Venture and Jonas "JJ" Venture Jr., and the great-great-grandfather of Hank and Dean Venture and Dermott Fictel. He was the founder and leader of The Guild, a precursor to the modern Guild of Calamitous Intent. He first appeared in the season 3 episode, ORB.

History

As a member of The Guild, Colonel Venture protected and studied the fabled Orb. He was also a close friend of his bodyguard Eugen Sandow, and has an unfriendly rivalry with his fellow member Fantômas. When the Orb became the center of The Guild's battle against Nikola Tesla and the Avon Ladies, Lloyd argued against using the Orb against their enemies too soon while in favor of proceeding slowly with it. However, due to the increasingly dire situation, Lloyd later considered activating the Orb much to the dissatisfaction of Sandow, who pleaded with Lloyd not to use it.

When Lloyd began fiddling with the Orb, Sandow begged him once again to stop what he is about to do but Venture ignored him by stating that "I must!" But to Lloyd's dismay, Sandow broke the Orb and calmly explained to Lloyd that he was assigned by his employers to kill him if he attempted to activate the device. Relieved that Sandow didn't do as commanded, Lloyd nervously gave his thanks to his bodyguard. He and Sandow then decided to keep the Orb's damage a secret in which Venture only repaired the Orb's outer casing.

In The Venture Bros. & The Curse of the Haunted Problem, Sergeant Hatred gives a tour of VenTech Tower and mentions that Lloyd Venture was part of the first landing on the moon in 1902. Lloyd's supposed spacesuit is held in the museum in the Tower.

In the same episode Dr. Orpheus performs a group ritual to contact the spirit possessing VenTech Tower (later revealed to be Jonas Venture Sr. via the PROBLEM machine.) He inadvertently summons the spirits of hat factory workers who died in The Great Venture Millinery Fire of 1907. Sergeant Hatred, referencing the guided museum tour, informs the group that "the deadly blaze began in the attic when a dumpster full of felt straps was struck by a zeppelin." Workers were apparently unable to escape the fire because Col. Venture had locked the doors.

Episode Appearances/Mentions

• Escape to the House of Mummies Part II (Thaddeus Venture mentions Lloyd Venture, though not by name, as a super-scientist or a milliner)
• ORB (first appearance, flashback)
• The Revenge Society (flashback; The Sovereign refers to Lloyd as the Grand Protector of the Orb)
• Hostile Makeover ("Col. Lloyd Venture Millinery & Automata Co. Building" appears above the front entrance to the VenTech Tower)
• Maybe No Go (Dr. Venture refers to the VenTech Tower as being built on his great-grandfather's building)
• The Venture Bros. & The Curse of the Haunted Problem (mentioned)

Trivia

• In Escape to the House of Mummies Part II, Thaddeus Venture mentions he thinks his great-grandfather was a milliner.
• In the 2018 book Go Team Venture!: The Art and Making of The Venture Bros. , creator Jackson Publick refers to Colonel Lloyd Venture as "great-grandfather of Dr. Venture". This would make him the grandfather to Jonas Venture Sr. and great-great-grandfather to Hank and Dean Venture, as well as Dermott Fictel. Colonel Lloyd Venture's son--the father of Jonas--has not been revealed.
• Colonel Venture bears a strong physical resemblance to Richard Henry Savage, a real life Victorian-era adventurer and author whose life is believed to have inspired the character of Doc Savage, upon whom Jonas Venture Sr. is partly based.
• The Great Venture Millinery Fire of 1907 referenced in The Venture Bros. & The Curse of the Haunted Problem is based on the real life Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City. 146 garment workers died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling or jumping to their deaths. They were unable to escape because the factory owners had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits – a then-common practice to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft.
• In The Saphrax Protocol it is revealed that The Monarch is a blood relative of Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture. Earlier in Season 7, a scene in Arrears in Science implied that Jonas Venture Sr. impregnated Mrs. Fitzcarraldo, making him The Monarch's real father. If that is the case, The Monarch would be Col. Lloyd Venture's great-grandson.
• According to Jackson Publick on the creator commentary for The Venture Bros. & The Curse of the Haunted Problem, Lloyd Venture automated his factory after The Great Venture Millinery Fire of 1907, replacing his dead workers with robots to avoid labor laws. His pragmatic decision to go into robotics eventually made super science the Venture family business.

Goofs

• In the Season 4 episode The Revenge Society, The Sovereign refers to Colonel Lloyd Venture as Dean Venture's great-grandfather instead of correctly identifying him as Dean's great-great-grandfather.