Myra Brandish

Myra Brandish
The Venture Bros. character
Myra Brandish with her supposed sons Hank (left) and Dean
First appearance	I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills
Last appearance	Momma's Boys
Voiced by	Joanna Adler
Information
Aliases	Powerkat
Occupation	None (clinically insane) Formerly O.S.I. Agent and/or American Gladiator
Relatives	Numerous Cats ("children")
Notable characteristics	Athletic Skilled combatant Clinically Insane
Prior alliances	Team Venture(formerly) Office of Secret Intelligence (formerly)

Myra Brandish is a supporting character on the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros. First appearing in the late season 2 episode I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills, she is revealed as Dr. Venture's former bodyguard and the possible mother of the titular Venture brothers, Hank and Dean.

Myra has a pathological obsession with Rusty Venture, as well as her "children" Hank and Dean Venture. She is willing to kill anyone who might get in the way of reuniting her "family", particularly Brock Samson and Dr. Byron Orpheus. Because of this obsession, Myra is clinically insane. It turns out Thaddeus used her vulnerability to manipulate her into thinking she was the boys' real mother.

Character Description

Myra is a leather-clad, buxom, physically fit woman in her 40s or 50s, though her losing her job at the OSI and her subsequent descent into insanity left her with a haggard look. She is prone to muttering insanely to herself, and dotes/obsesses on the Venture brothers when they're in her possession to the point of trying to breast feed her teenage sons.

Character History

Young Myra Brandish piloting the X-1.

While Myra and even Rusty and Brock has concocted many different versions and stories of her past, what is confirmed and official is that Myra was once an agent of the Office of Secret Intelligence. Her first assignment straight out of the academy was to serve as Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture's bodyguard, to protect him from his various enemies and those who would seek to steal his inventions. During this time, Myra fought The Monarch and Middle Eastern terrorists in her job as bodyguard. As time passed, Myra found herself falling in love with Rusty, culminating in what is known to be the last time Rusty would have sex with another woman. Rusty and Myra's relationship went downhill as Myra's obsession with him caused Rusty to leave his family compound to get away from Myra. The situation between the two would ultimately collapse, with Myra being fired and arrested. As she was being led away from the Venture Compound, she was tasered unconscious by an O.S.I. agent after beating up a security detail of fellow O.S.I. agents. Myra would later claim that Rusty used his political contacts to terminate Myra's parental rights to the twins and had her institutionalized, as Rusty "wanted the boys all to himself". The shock of Rusty's ultimate rejection of her and being arrested and dismissed from the OSI, caused her to have a complete and utter nervous breakdown and become mentally insane.

Under her own version of events, the sexual encounter left Myra pregnant and nine months later she gave birth to twin boys, Hank and Dean. What followed next is unknown. In the version of Myra's backstory that Rusty and Brock Samson tell Hank and Dean, in order to try and discredit Myra's version of events, Myra is recast as a mentally unstable American Gladiator, known on the show as "PowerKat". According to Venture and Samson, when the show was canceled, Myra drifted in and out of insane asylums as she began stalking Doctor Venture, with her modus operandi varying depending on her medication.

However, in an aside to his children when an Oni lured Rusty to the same motel where Hank and Dean were being held prisoner, Rusty sarcastically asked Myra if she told the boys about how she burnt down the Venture Compound several years earlier (an event Brock refers to when he's telling the boys the fictionalized version of Myra's backstory).

Regardless, Myra was shown running a motel outside of town where she lived with many cats, which she refers to as her children—Hank and Dean's "brothers and sisters." Her main focus in life is to take total custody and control over Dean and Hank from Dr. Venture, resorting to forcibly kidnapping them if necessary, which she does in I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills. While holding the boys hostage, she tells them lies about how she is their real mother and attempts to breastfeed them. They are rescued by Dr. Orpheus, Brock, and Dr. Venture, while Myra seemingly escapes.

Myra appears again in Momma's Boys where she tricked Dean into visiting her at the mental institution she is at by pretending to be his real mother. Coincidentally Hank, Dermott, H.E.L.P.eR., and Henchman 21 end up in the same asylum after they pretend to rob a bank in a scheme to look for Teddy, an insane criminal they plan to use to trick Dr. Venture. While Hank and 21 are sent to the asylum for dressing up like the "villains" Enrico Matassa and The Viceroy. Myra had taken over the asylum and had all of the inmates under her control. She holds Dean hostage with the intent of having one of the inmates travel in time to his birth in order for her to finally give birth to him, revealing she is not the Venture brothers' real mother. Overhearing this, Hank exposes Myra as a liar and with 21's help they incite the other inmates to rebel and escape the asylum. As this happens, Hank and 21 retrieve Dean and slip outside where Dean laments once again not knowing who their real mother is. Hank then cheers him up by mentioning it was good that their mother was not really a lunatic like Myra. They quickly flee the area as Guild Wasp helicopters searching for the escaping inmates appear. It is unknown what The Guild did with Myra and the inmates.

In the same episode, Dr Venture makes a "death confession" to Sergeant Hatred telling him that he convinced Myra (assumed it's Myra by context, but he never says the name "Myra" in the episode) she was the boys' mother and "messed her up pretty bad". This happens just after the scene where Hank comes to believe that Myra was lying about being his mother because Myra (who is attempting a birthing ceremony on Dean) states she never carried the boys in her womb. Later, Thaddeus confirms this to the boys as he wanted Myra to give them free daycare and that he wanted to continue having sex with her.

Despite her history with him, Rusty still seems to find her attractive, as Myra is shown in the harem of women in Rusty's Id.

Trivia

• Myra is likely based on Jackie Shorr from Captain Marvel (Marvel, not DC) comics. In the comics, Rick Jones is visited by his self-proclaimed and insane mother who proceeds to murder Rick's girlfriend Marlo Chandler.
• Judging by how she referred to her cats as Hank and Dean's "brothers and sisters", going on about how they were hungry and attempted to nurse the boys with her milk, it is likely that she breastfeeds her own cats, which can further emphasize her insanity.

Episode Appearances

Season 2

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills

Season 3

• Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny (flashback)
• The Invisible Hand of Fate (flashback)

Season 4

• Assisted Suicide (imagination)

Season 5

• Momma's Boys

Gallery