Robert Robertson VS The Monarch (Dispatch VS Venture Bros)

“Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.”

-Mattie Stepanek

Robert Robertson, the retired Mecha Man and Dispatcher for the Z-Team.

The Monarch, arch of Rusty Venture and ruler over the Fluttering Horde.

What does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to be a villain? So many questions so little time. What really matters though is that you find your people in a world where heroics and villainy have been corporatized. Rebuilding yourself from the ground up to become something more.

Before We Begin

Both series are really simple when it comes to what to use. For Dispatch we will be using the main game and the few tie-in comics released. It is also important to note we will be using every single path in Dispatch to see the full potential of the entire Z-Team as there’s not one canon to the game (at least not yet) and the characters stay the same in the end all the same.

For Venture Bros it will be all 7 seasons of the show, the movie, the artbook, and any flash game we could manage to find. However, when it comes to cut content, or anything said by the creators that is not in the main show, will not be taken into consideration at all as it is not considered canon by the creators.

Finally thank you to Triple and Kaiser who did most of the original calcs for this blog along with any calcs done by various users on VSBW.

Background

Robert Robertson

“Most people would look around this room and see a bunch of villains. Not even the super kind, just plain ass, run of the mill vanilla fuckin villains. But that’s not what I see…cause lucky for you, I’m not most people. When I look around this room what I see is…”

You know the trope. In a world full of super powered individuals, there is always one hero who is a normal man like you and I. At least, as close to normal as a dude in a giant mech suit could be. For the city of LA, this was the legendary Mecha Man or Robert Robertson. However, that’s not who we are discussing as, unfortunately, he died protecting the city from evil. Luckily, his son stepped in to take on the mantle. This was Robert Robertson… THE SECOND! Robert would rebuild the Mecha Man suit and become the leader of the hero group known as the Brave Brigade. With fellow heroes Track Star and genius Elliot Connors there was nothing that could stop them. But, to make sure, Robert worked with Elliot to create a new power source for the Mecha Man suit called the Astral Pulse. While Mecha Man Astral was an incredible hero, he was not so great as a father. His constant hero work left him estranged from his son. And eventually, just like his father, Robert died. This time at the hands of his former ally, Elliot.

But history tends to repeat itself when it comes to Mecha Man and the son of Astral was ready to step up to the plate. Taking over for his father Robert Robertson… THE THIRD… would take up the mantle as Mecha Man Blue. While this Mecha Man was obviously a great hero, it wasn’t his main priority. Robert instead wanted to find Elliot, now going by Shroud, and avenge his father. However, when Mecha Man got into Shroud’s hideout, the suit was badly damaged and, when he tried to escape, an invisible assailant planted a bomb on his suit, destroying it. Yet, somehow, Robert survived at the cost of becoming a failure in the eyes of the public. If only he was given a second chance…

Enter Blonde Blazer, a high ranking hero at LA’s Superhero Dispatch Network. Blazer would hit it off with Robert (potentially as a love interest if you chose the worse of the two routes) and offered him a job at SDN as a Dispatcher. Accepting the position, Robert became the Dispatcher for the Z-Team, a group of ex-criminals who were attempting to turn over a new leaf as heroes through the Phoenix Program. Things started out rocky, but Robert slowly gained the trust of the team. Depending on if you chose the better route he even falls in love with one of the team's members, Invisigal. With the help of his new found family and a few of SDN’s other hires (Royd the goat), Robert would defeat Shroud and restore faith in the public that both he, and the Z-Team, were worthy of being called heroes.

The Monarch

“That sweet loathing just poured out of me whenever I saw his pathetic face. I just…I just wanted to kick his ass! I wanted to build a machine to kick his ass! I wanted to build an empire to house the machine to kick his ass!”

Action! Adventure! Super Science! Decades ago, these were the words that defined the lives of Team Venture, led by fearless Dr. Jonas Venture! Parodying the show Johnny Quest and 60s comics, the famed adventurer led various harrowing missions and came across dastardly villains constantly surrounding the team with danger… which is why it’s odd that his son, Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture, tagged along. For in the world of The Venture Bros., villainy and heroism are curtailed by shadow organizations hoping to keep the unexpected frequency of such dynamics equally matched and reined in through the power of bureaucracy! With his own superhero connections at the time, Jonas came to know Don Fitzcarraldo, the vigilante known as the Blue Morpho, which allowed their sons, Malcolm and Rusty, to meet for the first time as early playmates. But, poor Rusty had little moments of reprieve like this. Traumatized by the near-death experiences and maniacs his father introduced him to, these life experiences cast a heavy shadow over Rusty’s life as Jonas focused on the lucrative field of unrestricted superscience under Venture Industries, something he was already proficient in. This included questionably ethical fields like human cloning and more ambitious areas such as Space Age technology, massive research projects which saw his family name tons of profit.

The Blue Morpho, however, was not so lucky. In 1976, he and his wife were killed in a horrific plane crash, a disaster only survived by their eight year old son, who developed retrograde amnesia from this overwhelming trauma. As Malcolm wandered from the wreckage, he came across a small colony of monarch butterflies, a moment in his life that imprinted on his vulnerable, impressionable mind. He now believed himself to have been raised by butterflies, and he would dedicate his life to this theme as his obsessive mind clung to an inexplicable level of hatred for Rusty Venture as the supervillain, The Monarch! After reaching civilization, the young Monarch inherited his father’s wealth and, upon meeting Thaddeus in university once again, wasted dedicated his life to just one thing: being the archnemesis to Rusty Venture!! Having worked under the Phantom Limb as a henchman through the villainous red tape of the era, the Monarch’s hater energy didn’t allow him to stand around as someone’s lackey, and his impatience led to his first early days as his own villain! It wasn’t all bad though, since his job as a henchman allowed his fateful encounter with the future love of his life Dr. Girlfriend to happen, an ambitious, hypercompetent villain in her own right.

After dating and realizing their diabolical compatibility, the Monarch became a full-time villain with Dr. Girlfriend, a team set on “arching” Rusty Venture, a one-sided rivalry that floundered more than once in the face of the grown boy adventurer’s bodyguard, Brock Samson, during various misadventures with Hank and Dean Venture, Rusty’s sheltered sons. Using up most of his inheritance, Monarch hired a veritable army of Henchman, such as the accidental kidnapping and hiring of Gary Fischer, the ever-loyal 21st Henchman. This jumpstarted the development of the Cocoon, a massive flying fortress to scheme and steeple his fingers menacingly in. But, nobody took him seriously! After bumbling through failed revenge plot after failed revenge plot even with the emotional support of his girlfriend-turned-wife, who had rebuilt the ashes of the fallen villainous Guild of Calamitous Intent, the Monarch hit bureaucratic rock bottom after the Cocoon was destroyed and he lost all lackeys aside from Henchman 21. However, with his wife on the Council for the new Guild, he was given the opportunity to pull himself up by his bootstraps to rise through the ranks from an absurdly low EMA threat level that officially prevented him from arching Rusty.

It was only upon finally reaching the long sought-after EMA Level of 10, partially thanks to a less-than-honorable stint as Blue Morpho first, that a forbidden arching mission against Rusty revealed the truth to him. All those years ago, Dr. Jonas Venture Sr. developed a cloning project using both his grandfather’s DNA and baboon DNA, one that led to the creation of an extremely aggressive boy. Through his father and mother’s pleading from being unable to conceive a son, this boy was adopted by them, thus revealing that the Monarch and Rusty were, in fact, clone brothers, both crafted by Dr. Jonas Venture. While a revelation such as this would rattle any supervillain, this did not change the Monarch’s mind in the slightest. No matter what you tell him nor what you reveal, he will do what he does best and do one thing and one thing only: HATE Rusty Venture with all his heart and bring about his downfall! With a wicked found family sticking by his side more than ever, the Monarch had more than earned his villainous stardom!

Experience/Skill/IQ

Robert Robertson/The Z-Team

The Z-Team at first might not seem the most competent at hero work, but when you look at their history they become an impressive crime fighting group. When it comes to experience, Robert (aka Mecha Man) has been doing hero work for, at most, 15 years before the main story of the game and became a very respectable hero because of it. This is shown with his leadership during the missions in the game, knowing which members are best for the job and even giving them advice on how to complete the task given to them. As for the actual members on the field, they are just as skilled as Robert for the most part!

Before Robert joined, most of the Z-Team themselves had been working there for a few months, with members ranging from 20 years old to 43 years old. One member, Malevola, is officially listed as 33, but she’s made comments about a crime family going after her for three generations. Members such as Coupé had been a regularly hired assassin before being caught, and with the help of Punch Up both of them have even won a fighting tournament together. Additionally, Invisigal is listed on the record to be proficient at hand-to-hand combat. There is also Phenomoman who, before joining the Z-Team, was arguably one of if not the most respected and powerful heroes and was part of a superhero team, even if the one Z-Team has is a super depressed version of his former self. This also goes for their intelligence. As mentioned before Robert being in hero work for as long as he has always guided the Z-Team in the right directions to ensure the mission is successful. Even without him members such as Sonar have good intelligence given he is very proudly a graduate from Harvard University, being able to track down people, run historically successful investment fraud schemes, and outsmart other foes thanks to his intelligence.

The team, in general, have been able to find secret hideouts for crime rings and stealthily infiltrate them, and others like Coupé, Sonar, and Flambaé can improve their flight capabilities at SDN flight school. Various members regularly train at the gym, teach a jiu-jitsu class, fight assassins, reprogram aggressive robots to become docile, and host combat training, with Robert himself even being capable of holding his own in hand-to-hand combat out of his Mecha Man Suit. Throughout their careers, they’ve had experience against organized troops of villains like the Red Ring, even going up against wackier ones that controlled bugs or constructing traps in advance to deal with an overwhelming number of automatons.

And lastly but most notably is the teamwork everyone has when they fight together. This is shown with the team's synergy with other members such as Punch Up with Coupé, Flambaé with Prism, Visi with Golem, and Sonar with Malevola. This is even shown a lot during the bar fight the team was in, showing them using their powers together, such as Melevola using her portals to get Golem and Punch Up into the fight, Golem using his powers to trap a dudes arm up, and Punch Up punching a dude’s dick so Robert and Visi can finish the job. Punch Up has even done this with Coupe so that they could take out 12 guys in 2 minutes with nut shots. Overall while it might not seem like it at first, the Z-Team is one heck of a superhero team.

The Monarch/The Fluttering Hoard

Despite his buffoonish nature, the Monarch is actually a relatively successful and resourceful career criminal. While he’s certainly got a temper thanks to the baboon blood in his bloodstream, he’s been able to rob people, kick-spins knives,  scale the side of buildings, make chest armor out of license plates, and orchestrate a prison break. Malcom’s used his villainous tools and schemed so often that he can fire darts into guards’ necks without looking, set up a karate class for kids with 21, abuse the technicalities of arching with Dr. Mrs The Monarch so JJ stops attacking his Horde, and psychologically breaks Rusty’s spirit in incredibly clever ways by attacking his character. It’s honestly really hard to actually intimidate him if you’re a dangerous person, such as how the Moppets are actually put off by how unafraid the Monarch is of them. If that doesn’t scare you, he’s also fine with sending innocent people into potential death traps ahead of him as a precautionary measure.

As far as his official capacity in being a supervillain, his main archenemy is Rusty Venture, one of the foremost super-scientists on the planet. It’s implied that they’re around the same age, meaning he should be around 40 years old given Rusty’s twin brother is at least that age. While he didn’t begin unofficially arching Rusty until his university days, he was actually working as Phantom Limb’s Henchman first and got his first arch that wasn’t Rusty (despite secretly hating him on the side). His irrational hatred of Venture runs so deep that his years of experience arching him allows him to analyze Rusty’s behavioral patterns when heist planning. Although this often leads to tunnel vision, this actually leads Monarch to be more prone to simply efficiently or basically killing someone that isn’t Rusty since he’s so disinterested that he views them as an obstacle to his true archnemesis. He’s similarly held back by the red tape in this hero-against-villain society, as characters like Brock and other villains are disallowed from going all out during missions as a result of bureaucracy and stalemates between organizations.

This is summed up best by Malcom and 21’s time as the unofficial vigilante Blue Morpho when the Guild of Calamitous Intent didn’t allow him to arch Rusty. Thus, he decided to sabotage and kill other villains that got tasked to go against Venture instead, which earned the renown throughout organizations as a “villain killer”, even taking down groups of 10 villains at a time. They were so competent in their Blue Morpho work, in fact, that nobody could fathom them being a suspect, which allowed them to fly under the radar through underestimation and coverups. After this stint, the Monarch’s EMA Level, the in-universe ranking system to determine the threat, power, or danger level of a hero or villain according to their overall potential for chaos, violence, and how potent their resources are, was beginning to climb. By the end of the series, they reach EMA Level 10, the highest rank seen on the series, and gain all the benefits that come with it, presumably meaning access to equipment.

Arsenal

Robert

Mecha Man Suit

After the explosion that put Robert in a coma which also destroyed the original Mecha Man Suit, SDN were able to repair it with all the money in the world and thanks to Royd’s smarts giving Robert an all new and improved Mecha Man Suit! The Mecha Man suit is powered by the Astral Pulse, a device of powerful energy created by Shroud. It’s so powerful in fact that Royd could not create a copy of it without it causing the suit to malfunction. It’s through the Pulse that Robert is able to harness the many items Robert has at his disposal.

This includes the likes of energy blasts, energy nets, energy buzzsaws, missile shot clusters, cluster bombs, energy-nullifying wrist energy blades, force fields, spotlights, grappling hooks, amplified punches, energy and regular shields, a jet pack, and a freaking giant sword (why does this suit have so much stuff). The only downside to the suit (at least, the original one anyway) is that it runs on a limited charge when it comes to things like its force fields and is vulnerable to being overloaded with shocks. But, when the upside is you can do a freaking Spirit Bomb, I think it’s more than worth it.

Cattle Prod

After the Red Ring broke into SDN, Royd lent Robert a personal cattle prod to tase people with.

SDN Computer

When Robert isn’t in his suit, he is in the cubicles of SDN with his computer to help dispatch his team. Through the computer, Robert is able to keep track of his team thanks to their trackers, and everyone can freely communicate with earpieces, with Robert even able to fix the trackers if they get disrupted. Not only can he keep a live feed of their current locations, but he can use the SDN work computer to scan the county it’s in to detect alarm systems, in-progress crimes, or find Z-Team members that are outside of SDN’s official coverage area. Despite how old and clunky these PCs look, they can use security cameras that Robert has access to in order to perform information analysis on devices or even entire security systems in buildings. In fact, if a villain has ever been put in a database, the cameras can use facial recognition software to instantly find information on them. Thankfully, it can even operate if plugged into any location with available internet, like Robert’s apartment, and its range gets as far as most of LA County.

However, the most useful aspects of his computer are the hacking capabilities Robert has with it. As long as it’s within Robert’s city or area, he can freely hack any device he wants, which includes simple stuff like a sprinkler system for a donut shop or security cameras. It even gets to a lot more random stuff like a sensory deprivation tank Flambaé got stuck in or a random safe in an abandoned ship that’s in the middle of a warehouse. Other examples of things he’s hacked into through the SDN computer include, but are not limited to: security systems, lights, locked doors, self-driving cars, and other computers to delete data, locate evidence, or pinpoint hidden locations. Robert’s skills can lock out and identify other hackers, zap away anti-virus systems, or trace energy signals and how big they are. If the entire power grid goes down, the SDN building has a backup generator and Robert can hack the power grids to eventually get one portion of the city back up and running at a time. Even Shroud knew that the best way to deal with SDN was to set up jammers to mess with the comm lines for dispatchers.

SDN Pharmacy Items

Straight from the SDN Pharmacy, Robert has 3 helpful items he can use to pick up his team when the going gets tough.

Second Wind	Acts as a boost to any Z-Team member who is resting after a Dispatch. This immediately takes them off the bench and ready to be thrown into another assignment.
Patch Up	If a member of the Z-Team is damaged they can receive a Patch Up. This quickly heals their wounds and puts them in tip-top shape.
Phoenix Up	Not to be confused with a Phoenix Down, this item immediately brings a Z-Team member back from a knocked down state.

The Monarch

Armors

Behold! The Monarch’s regular suit that you see him wearing in most episodes is far more well-equipped than you might expect! It’s made of galvanized rubber and is fireproof to protect against pyrotechnics, for one, plus it comes with a sweet grappling hook and a beam of sorts that can produce smoke for a getaway. His wings are also notably fully functional, capable of activating and deactivating at will for specialized flight via gliding or slowly descending from great heights. On more lax days, he does own a set that’s just a cape for show, but, in a simulation he ran, his wings were sharp enough to decapitate Brock after the latter leapt at him. Plus, his wrist-mounted guns always come equipped with some tranquilizer or poison darts.

However, when he needs to get serious and in the field himself, Monarch has a vast arsenal of superarmors for combat scenarios. One comes equipped with sharp claws, and another based on Death’s Head features rockets on his heels to fly with beams he can shoot from his wrists. In the movie, Monarch and 21 gained some new suits from ARCH for themselves, which come equipped with a grappling hook fired from their belly button and headlight goggles but for some reason no ammo in its wrist launchers.

The Cocoon

When Monarch and his men need to take to the skies they use The Cocoon! The Cocoon is The Monarch’s main ship and acts as the Death Star for him, with it being powered by an antimatter power engine. It has a giant interior for all the henchmen to sleep in, a battle simulation which is realistic enough sometimes it can trick people, a dungeon which The Monarch can send people to and much, much more! Besides the booby-trapped rooms, the Cocoon can also aid The Monarch and his army with its escape pods for a quick getaway, a cloaking device so that The Monarch can go incognito, and many weapons they can use like a lighting cannon, a disintegration ray, Monarch Bots which can shoot out sharp razors, and a giant hand which can shoot out strings to control people like a puppet. However there do come some downsides when it comes to the cocoon. For one it does require almost the entirety of The Monarch’s army to control it as it is a giant battleship. Another major downside comes in with if the cocoon is damaged enough the ship is basically a giant sitting duck and will require many repairs before the ship can regain power in order to pilot again.

Vehicles

Naturally, the Monarch owns various custom Monarch-mobiles modeled after his own branding and image! Although, in a pinch, Henchman 21 can always bring out his own decked out car to chauffeur his boss around the city, which is extra helpful considering his car can hover through the air. After his stint at the Blue Morpho, Monarch inherited the Morphomobile, a car his dad used to own that easily flies through the air.

Butter-Glider

If Monarch is in need of a personal transportation device, he can use his Butter-Glider! With this, The Monarch can fly into the clouds at high speeds and even take someone hostage with a built-in grappling hook.

Dart Guns

Witness perhaps one of the most standard issue weapons in the arsenal of the Fluttering Horde, especially given every member owns one of these guns! These dart guns, upon hitting their target and piercing their skin, will inject either sleep-inducing poisons like instant-acting tranquilizers or simply deadly poison like neurotoxin. Although, obviously, their ammo is limited and bounces off of hard surfaces. The Monarch himself has these on him at all times via his wrist-mounted tranquilizer and poison dart shooters.

Butterflies

Naturally, what would a butterfly-themed supervillain be without a swarm of butterflies at his beck and call? They act as a diversion, with the Monarch releasing clouds of hundreds of monarch butterflies. Upon closer inspection at some particular butterflies, however, a few of them turn out to be…

Robotic Butterflies

These robotic butterflies are pretty simple, as The Monarch uses them to relay information and spy on his targets.

Butterfly Serum

This innocuous little serum was used by Dr. Girlfriend in order to incapacitate Dr. Venture by causing him to turn into a giant caterpillar. Upon getting injected, Dr. Venture felt a weird compulsion to start spinning a cocoon and he was unable to stop once he started. Luckily, Dr. Girlfriend had an antidote.

Mechapillers

As shown with his attempt to ransom money out of Rusty, The Monarch has robotic caterpillars. The only really notable thing it did was web up Hank and Dean allowing no escape attempt.

Sunlight Cannon

After doing research on the hero Captain Sunshine, The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend created a machine that shoots out the same sunlight beams the sun would produce in an attempt to get back at Sunshine…but it actually just gave Sunshine his power back and led to The Monarch and his army getting blinded by him.

Henchmen Tracker

Monarch and his henchmen like Tim-Tom and Kevin have access to a tracker device they can use to keep tabs of his men’s location.

Perfect Disguises

Both Monarch and Dr Girlfriend have perfect disguises as entirely different people, including rubber, form-fitting masks that appear as real faces. They’re basically Scooby-Doo masks.

Fluttering Horde Armaments

Thankfully, being a supervillain is a fully fleshed out career! That and the Monarch’s inheritance from the Blue Morpho has granted him way too much money than someone of his temperament should ethically be allowed to have. He and his Henchman have regular access to some classical villainous tech like surveillance drones, explosives (which includes tons of C4 that might be accessible since this special’s dream sequence is partially canon), grappling guns, hidden cameras, wires to swing from, and special rifles and launchers. Malcom’s even got some special torture equipment, like a bell that rends flesh if you’re inside it or a classic Bond villain-style laser if he can get the extension cord to work. Or, when he’s not feeling fancy, he could always use a back-mounted energy blaster that he previously used to shoot Dr. Dugong’s head to smithereens.

Meteor Majeure

After the original Guild of Calamitous Intent fell apart during the events of the destruction of the Gargantua-2 space station, a handful of remaining villains, including Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, banded together to form the next generation of the Guild. Their main headquarters would be located in the Meteor Majeure. Much like every Guild HQ, this location is secret, now held within an asteroid that orbits the Earth for the Council to meet up covertly without prying eyes. These meetings were usually inconvenient thanks to them being done in outer space, but this was made easier thanks to the acquisition of…

Venture Teleporter Plates

Upon being the sole survivors of a chaotic heist on the VenTech Tower, Monarch and 21 managed to snag both halves of a set of teleporters, miraculously developed by Rusty Venture, for the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Naturally, this can be used for instant transport or troop deployment from one plate to the other, even when used from orbit back on Meteor Majeur. While Monarch had them in his possession, he was able to use them to escape death via freefall and to block incoming bullets.

At the moment, the Guild’s Council uses these plates for whatever they deem convenient, which is obviously helpful considering that Dr. Mrs. The Monarch is one of their council members. Both she and Monarch are more than aware of the other danger that comes with using the teleporters recklessly or clumsily. This is, of course, referring to the spatial cutting that occurs when bodies are improperly aligned with the plates upon passive activation. This has led to one of Phage’s body parts getting severed and Ramburglar’s head getting instantly spatially decapitated.

Mind Invasion Device

In another attempt to kill Rusty Venture, The Monarch tried breaking a few guild rules by using his mind invasion device. With it The Monarch can go into a person's mind from the comfort of his own cocoon, however it is not nearly as easy as it sounds as minds in Venture Bros are actually unique in how they’re structured.

Through Rusty we can see that minds in these worlds are broken up into floors and every inch of one’s psyche is broken up into several doors in which one could explore. But ahead of it all is the Master Control room which if one were to reach there could control the body of the person whose mind The Monarch invades and even cause their body to shut down and die. However that doesn’t mean it’s perfect, if The Monarch is in a person's mind for too long he could likely kill himself like he almost did if it wasn’t for the help of Dr. Girlfriend and 21 reviving him.

Guild of Calamitous Intent Weaponry

The Guild of Calamitous Intent is the main faction in The Venture Bros for villains to join if they want to be official archenemies or supervillains, previously led by the Sovereign and the Council of 13 before their downfall. Nowadays, a smaller Council runs it, including Dr. Mrs. The Monarch as one of their members, meaning her high authority gives her access to any and all equipment available at the time of the new Guild’s formation with a single phone call and delivery.

Monarch himself and Henchman 21 ended up attaining EMA Level 10 status at the end of Season 7 with “all the benefits that come with it”, implying that he can use Level 10 equipment or below should he ask for it too. That being said, some equipment is hypothetical given nobody in the Fluttering Horde used it yet, and it may take an indeterminate amount of time for them to be delivered mid-combat. But, it should also be noted that Dr. Mrs. The Monarch can order Guild workers to upgrade weapons to higher EMA Levels on a whim.

Destructive Weaponry: An OSI member once used a Level 8 pulse cannon capable of leveling a city block against a Level 5 Guild member in the Sovereign-run days, hypothetically implying this level of destructive power could be available to Level 8 or higher ranked villains now too.

Lightning Rifle: While Monarch and Henchman 21 were tutoring Augustus St. Cloud in villainy, their order for a Level 1 lightning rifle for him was secretly upgraded by Dr. Mrs. The Monarch to a Level 6 one. This rifle, as the name suggests, fires arcs of artificial lightning that can carve deep gashes into buildings.

Smoke Grenades: Ordered to be supplied to Augustus St. Cloud by Monarch and 21, he was given access to colored mist and laughing gas grenades that choked characters, obscured their sight with a wide smokescreen cloud, and caused them to hallucinate from the nitrous content.

Helicopters: The Guild has access to countless helicopters that Dr. Mrs. The Monarch makes use of for air transport fairly regularly whenever she or other Council members require it.

Poisons: Regular Guild troops have access to syringes filled with instant-acting sedatives. Should they ever be cornered, they also have cyanide tablets to bite down on like spies to avoid being captured for information or brutally murdered by Brock Samson.

Guns: Nearly every Guild troop carries pistols on hand during infiltration missions.

Insular Swimming Gear: Monarch and 21 have made use of swimsuits provided by the Guild that provided potent enough cold resistance that they were able to traverse a frigid body of water during a blizzard without any adverse effects.

Hypnosis Techniques: Regular Guild agents are given hypnosis training that can put people to sleep with a single hand gesture or an extended pendant ritual, so it may be possible that Dr. Mrs. The Monarch knows how to do this. But, this isn’t personally confirmed outright for her.

Weather Machine: The Guild owns a weather machine that was once stolen and used to blanket Manhattan and the surrounding NYC boroughs with an artificial, spherical radius of a blizzard over an unknown amount of time. This weather was so potent that it was difficult for Rusty’s jet plane to fly through the generated winds and lightning of the snowstorm. At the epicenter and above the storm’s clouds is where the weather machine can be found, shaped like a UFO and surrounded by a thick cloud of silver nitrate that’s dangerous to breathe. Tarnishing the intake port in some way can shut it off, but it’s always got a pilot inside that operates it. Once shut down, the weather machine dissipated the storm relatively quickly, getting rid of it from at least sometime in the late afternoon into the evening when it got dark.

The Morpho Cave

Unbeknownst to Monarch at the time after losing the Cocoon, his old family home in Newark prior to the plane crash housed a number of secrets. His father was, in actuality, the original Blue Morpho, a vigilante that operated outside of the established red tape in the show. Thus, below this home was the Morpho Cave, the old, secret hideout of his father that came equipped with all of his leftover gadgets. This came in handy when Monarch adopted the Blue Morpho persona with Henchman 21, making full use of all of it. Here, the Monarch stores a lot of his own arsenal next to various pieces of Blue Morpho equipment, and he also ends up installing a “Monarcomputer” here for his own personal nefarious use.

The Teams

Z-Team

Sonar

“You gonna eat those twinks?”

When you need a crypto scam there’s only one bat who’s your man. Victor, also known as Sonar, is an intelligent and charismatic half-man, half-bat hybrid. However, randomly (or when emotions are running high) he will embrace the bat within and become a Mega Bat, swapping out his Intelligence and Charasima stats for Combat and Vigor. In his free time he enjoys hanging out with Malevola and taking copious amounts of drugs. Even after abusing substances he has plenty of useful abilities such as…

Instincts: After returning from a call, Sonar will transform into his Mega Bat form, swapping his in-game Intellect and Charisma stats with his Combat and Vigor stats.

Strong Back: In Mega Bat form, Sonar can fly to call locations and carry non-flying heroes.

Bat Shit: In Mega Bat form, Sonar is immune to typical injuries on the job and his resting time is reduced by half overall.

Talk Shit: In Hybrid form, if Sonar fails a call, he can re-negotiate in order to reattempt it.

Bat Physiology: Since he is part bat Sonar gets all the perks a bat would have. This includes enhanced hearing and echo location. He can also see in the dark. His Mega Bat form also gives him sharp enough teeth to chew through enemies.

Sonic Scream: Sonar’s screams can be used as a directed sound blast. This works in both Hybrid and Mega Bat.

Flambaé

“I'm a bitch, my name's Robert

Such a bitch, whose name is Robert

I'm a bitch, yeah I'm a bitch

I'm such a fucking bitch

I have no hopes, I have no dreams

And a tiny little peen

And it doesn't even function anyway

BecauseIhaveerectiledysfunction!”

Also simply known as Chad, the devoted uncle and self-absorbed ex-villain Flambaé was a thorn in Robert’s side during his Mecha Man days, but now he makes ends meet at SDN. It’s perhaps no surprise with the way he dresses, but Flambaé has control over fire and is entirely unharmed by flames (aside from his hair). Using his fire, he’s able to propel himself through the air and carry teammates with him on missions through his flight. While these flames can be used to, of course, commit arson with out of control infernos, he can synergize with teammates such as Waterboy to create blinding steam with his Hydro Breath or create massive fiery tornados with Chase’s endgame superspeed and flight. On his own, Flambaé’s fire can incinerate explosives before they go off if he finds them in time, and he can use his flaming flight to swirl around enemies to catch them in a personal little tornado to burn them alive.

On Fire: After succeeding on a job, Flambaé’s in-game Combat and Mobility stats are boosted, stacking continuously with each subsequent successful job like a combo and resetting upon a failed job.

Supernova: Succeeding two jobs in a row will max out Flambaé’s Combat and Mobility stats and remove rest time, but after a failure all his stats will be reduced as low as possible.

Comet: After a success, Flambaé will reduce call completion and travel time. If after two successful jobs Flambaé fails a third, he is downed and taken out of commission.

Flybae: Flambaé can fly over to call locations to reduce travel time.

Invisigal

“I’m gonna be insufferable about this!”

Previously known as Courtney or her self-assigned alias “Invisibitch” before being sanitized by SDN’s own Blonde Blazer, Visi’s a messy and abrasive person (and one of Robert’s potential love interests). Originally having a self-sabotaging outlook on “fate”, she was also held back by the fact that her invisibility power requires her to hold her breath, something difficult to do for extended periods of time for an asthmatic even with her inhaler. While visible, however, Invisigal is still an expert at hand-to-hand combat, weaving through massive attacks, and covertly taking out groups of people on her own while carrying a combat knife just in case. She’s also implied to be faster on foot than other heroes, suggesting that she has to wait up for teammates.

Obviously, having invisibility powers help with stealth, such as how she was able to place a bomb on the original Mecha Man Suit undetected despite it having a function to detect attached foreign devices. This could’ve been due to another aspect of her power, since anything she’s holding onto at the moment of activation will also become invisible with her. However, this does not defend against having liquids or items tossed onto her body to reveal her location, nor does it help if her asthma acts up and incapacitates her when exposed to choking smoke hazards. Depending on certain choices, Robert can help guide Invisigal to heroism in order to earn a permanent spot on the Z-Team again.

Lone Wolf: When sent on a call alone, Invisigal’s call completion and travel time is reduced.

Wolf Pack: If sent on a team, Invisigal’s XP upon call completion is doubled.

Ear to the Ground: Using her criminal underworld connections, Invisigal can reveal the number of slots and crime type for certain calls before they happen.

Lung Augmentations: Before joining SDN, Visi was the one working for Shroud to plant that fateful bomb on the Mecha Man Suit in order to acquire an augmentation that would increase her lung capacity. After quitting upon seeing Robert struggling inside the suit, Shroud ended up shutting these down. But, during her time as a triple agent in the finale, the big boss either ends up dead or arrested after they were reactivated, implying that she got to keep them.

Explosives: While the original Mecha Man Suit bomb likely belonged to Shroud, the finale had Visi plant a personal explosive she has onto Shroud’s mech with assistance from Golem.

Punch Up

“Thought these seemed salty.”

They turned Jackcepticeye into an intoxicated, murderous, tournament-winning leprechaun. Funniest shit I’ve ever seen. Originally Colm, Punch Up was a carnival strong man who let the alcohol get to him a little too much and he made a deal with a witch. This deal gave him the strength of 10 men and super dense skins at the cost of also making him a short king. This may seem bad on the surface but it gave Colm the perfect size to… “Punch Up” with Susan and Theresa. This led to Punch Up gaining quite a reputation, causing an enemy of his to hire the assassin Coupé to take him out. However, this encounter didn’t go quite as planned and started a romance between the two.

Hard Head: Punch Up doesn’t receive stat debuffs when injured on the job and cannot be downed conventionally.

Harder Head: When injured, Punch Up will receive a boost to his Combat and Vigor stats and will have a reduced rest time.

Squeeze In: On a call with less than 4 slots, Punch Up will create a special slot exclusively for him to be able to join on a job.

Picokensis: Punch Up is listed to have the abilities of Picokensis, meaning he can change his density at will. The most prominent example of this is when he hardened his skin enough to shatter one of Coupé’s knives on contact.

Regeneration and Pain Immunity: Even when Punch Up isn’t at his max density, he can still handle pain so well he doesn’t even notice he’s been impaled. He can then simply flex out the glass and heal the wound.

Prism

“Fuck you mean ‘temporarily’? Bitch, you blind foreva!”

An extraordinarily popular influencer and pop star, Alice came to be known as Prism, ex-villain manipulator of lightshows. Her main power involves manipulating light or lasers to be fired as burning beams or flashbangs to permanently blind close range targets or crowds of people. These rays can be used in a variety of ways, like making herself glow in the dark or shooting rapid fire energy blasts with them. However, these use cases go far beyond simple beams:

Doppelgänger Illusion: When assigned on a call, Prism creates one copy of the hero to her left with an illusory duplicate that has half of their stats.

Perfect Copy: The illusory duplicates Prism creates now have the character’s full in-game stats.

Long Range Illusion: Once per shift, Prism can create a long range duplicate at a job that’s about to expire to keep the call up for Robert for a little while longer.

Illusions: By manipulating the color spectrum of light, Prism can create holograms and light rays to make extremely detailed illusions that can be made as far out as across the county she works in. With this power, she can make illusory duplicates of both herself and her teammates, up to dozens of them at a time mid-combat.

Hardlight Constructs: Prism doesn’t just stop at illusory holograms, since she can physically materialize her light as hardlight models in any shape or form she wants, like various shields, platforms in midair, and several ramps. For example, she once made a hardlight prism in the air in order to amplify and redirect the power of Blonde Blazer’s enchanted light blast. Even more impressive is how she can make previously only illusory duplicates out of solid hardlight, which are capable of interacting with tangible objects on jobs and replicating teammate voices to the point of fooling Shroud’s precognitive predictions.

Malevola

“I mean, we’re friends right? Make your friends some money.”

Unlike everyone else, Malevola Gibb is legitimately her real name! With infernal blood coursing through her veins, Malevola is a half-demon with a prehensile tail and a magic sword. During combat, she can use her tail as an extra limb while fighting and stab people with the pointed hilt of her sword if it’s more convenient in the moment than using the blade itself. During lowkey operations, she’s also an expert when it comes to “sniffing out” paranormal phenomena.

However, the bulk of Malevola’s utility comes from using her portals to assist her team and her own mobility by using them for certain situations such as catching up to criminals she’s chasing, creating self-sustaining portals that last for 45 seconds to provide shortcuts to job sites around the county she was just at, save teammates from falls from deadly heights, or use them mid-fight to BFR foes out of buildings or invite allies into buildings. She’s also used them to launch team members at other enemies or increase an ally’s unpredictability in close combat. Or, if you’re lucky, she’ll toss you her sword for a close range combo.

Life Trade: When placed on a job with an injured team member, Malevola can demonically absorb their injury to heal one ally and boost her Charisma and Vigor by +1, something that can stack over time with each use.

Life Trade Visions: After healing a hero, Malevola will reveal the relevant stats needed to successfully complete a call that she’s assigned to next.

Portal Ritual: After healing a hero, Malevola will create a portal at the call site once per shift that lasts for 45 seconds in order to provide a shortcut across the county for allies.

Portal Creation: Not only can Malevola’s portals reach across LA County and even up to a low orbit space station, but this provides immediate access to SDN headquarters, Robert’s apartment, or items stored at SDN. Their strongest use case, however, is that she’s used portals to close onto the Shroud mech’s limbs, spatially severing them, and transport Boeing planes. She can even use these to shunt things like swarms of bees to another dimension, presumably.

Possession: When being asked to aid an artist, Malevola off handedly mentions she can possess people.

Half-Demon Physiology: Not only does Malevola’s anatomy give her a prehensile demon tail, but she’s able to see in the dark without issue and simply walk through flames without having to worry about getting hurt, implying an innate demonic resistance to fire.

Golem

“That’s the gravy baby.”

Born Bruno, Golem is a super chill sentient magical construct made of adhesive mud, clay, and dirt who is, by far, the youngest ex-villain on the Z-Team. His body is described as morphological, something that’s malleable, regenerative, and can incorporate substances like cement into his body on a whim. This allows him to do things like manifesting pointed, hardened clay constructs from the ground in combat or manipulating his body to redistribute in-game stats. He can even expand to boost his current distribution of his stats. Other notable abilities of his include:

Diamond in the Rough: On a call with more than 2 slots, some slots can increase one of Golem’s particular stats by +2 and decrease others by -1. Based on the art shown when the ability is active it seems Golem can create mud summons to help him on calls.

Spread Thin: Golem can expand to fill all the empty slots in a job to increase his stats by up to a maximum of 200% potency.

Found Himself: Golem is able to redistribute his stat point allocation once per shift.

Absorption: Much like how Golem can incorporate substances into his body, he can absorb acid or items (like bombs) that are lodged into his body, sometimes deliberately, like stop signs, chairs, or pool balls. He can then expel these items in turn, firing them out of his body with force.

Adhesive Body: Golem can forcefully expel portions of his body, firing pieces at foes to stick them against surfaces mid-combat or to aid allies by providing an adhesive glob from himself.

Inorganic Digestion: Despite being a construct, Golem apparently can still eat and digest things, even to the point of being able to feel the effects of sleep aid gummies. And, because of his physiology, he can harmlessly eat typically dangerous, inedible material such as glass.

Coupé

“Fuck, I need this job.”

Also known as Janelle or simply “Coop”, Coupé was a former ballerina and an absurdly talented ex-assassin. Having performed international assassinations and never failed at a single one of her 68 jobs (until meeting Punch Up, that is), Coop’s talents grant her almost superhuman competency in the field. This leads to her easily disarming other assassins, having superhuman accuracy to the point of hitting multiple bullseyes in a row while playing darts, and her synergy with Punch Up led to her supporting him to help win a fight club tournament. However, the bulk of her usefulness amongst other heroes and villains comes from her main abilities:

En Pointe: For jobs with 2 slots or more, placing Coop in the first or second slot will boost her Combat or Mobility stat by +1 respectively.

Pirouette: If Coop’s job fails, she’ll have the opportunity to reattempt it.

À la Seconde: A straight upgrade to En Pointe, boosting the Combat and Mobility bonus from +1 to +3 on their respective slots now instead.

En L’Air: Coop’s able to reduce travel time by flying over the county to jobs instead.

Umbrakinesis: Coupé has an ethereal power over shadows, which lets her manipulate it into tangible shadow blades or manifest it over her armor to create working wings that can fly freely through the air. Additionally, these shadow constructs can be detonated either as black smoke bombs or have her shadow blades remotely blown up whenever she wants.

Waterboy

“My I’m really— jizzed to join you.”

Hermann or “Herm” is a janitor at SDN who has the ability to make things wet and involuntarily produce water. Unfortunately due to his cowardly nature and position as a janitor, Herm was stuck on the sidelines. A “Waterboy” if you will, hence the name, Waterboy.  However, on one fateful day (either after cutting Sonar/Coupé or during the Red Ring’s attack) Waterboy was picked up by Robert to join the Z-Team. While he’s not very skilled, he is eager and pretty good at working with others. For example he and Flambaé can combine their elements to create blinding steam. His powers consist of…

Eager Sponge: If Waterboy feels like he isn’t being sent on missions enough he will automatically assign himself to a call. Unfortunately he can only be talked out of it once. However, it might actually be best that he goes on the mission. This is because Waterboy will get a stat increase to whatever the most required stat is for the assignment .

Eager Super Sponge: Increases the stat boost Waterboy gets from assigning himself.

Holy Water Spit: Waterboy stops assigning himself to calls and will instead heal up to two allies sent with him.

Water Expulsion: When attacking and cleaning Waterboy’s main move is to shoot water from his mouth. This can come out as a single shot or like a hose. This water can put out fire, conduct electricity and even propel Waterboy into the air. He, unfortunately, also has watery diarrhea.

Phenomaman

“Thank you. I wish to make love to you again.”

Back on his home planet, he was mocked and ridiculed for his dashing good looks and physique as the lowly alien Katon-Ur. But, upon arriving on Earth, he received his current alias: Phenomaman! Working under a superhero team, he made a name for himself as the posterboy for SDN, with typical flight to carry allies or throw items into space, super strength, ability to see in the dark, and phenomenal speed to the point that his initial takeoff into the sky can stun nearby smaller people. However, after Blonde Blazer broke up with Phenomaman, he quickly grew severely depressed and lost his job, where he was then offered a spot on the Z-Team. However, his mental health was so poor that he would often grow vastly unmotivated and do nothing on the job whenever the team failed calls, or he’d simply ditch allies after a call assignment to go mope. He can medicate this with antidepressants, thankfully, and he can still act as a reliable team member when necessary.

Easily Depressed: Normally Phenomaman only needs 2 seconds of rest after a call, but upon any call from the Z-Team failing, he will grow depressed and rest, doing nothing for 45 seconds.

Heavily Medicated: Implied to be through the use of antidepressants, Phenomaman will no longer be stuck in a depressed state for 45 seconds, but he’ll need 10 extra seconds to rest and can no longer fly over to call sites.

Phenomenal Motivation: Heroes sent with Phenomaman on successful jobs only will have their rest time cut in half.

Energy Absorption: During a severe depressive episode, Phenomaman claims that he can fly to the sun and absorb all of its energy to extinguish it. This ability is also listed in his SDN bio.

The Fluttering Horde

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch

“Yes, I'm trying to make you a bad guy! We're both bad guys! We're professional bad guys! Ding! Hello?!”

Working as quite possibly the most competent villain from the Horde, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch was the glue that kept the operation running for the longest time and built the Guild of Calamitous Intent up from its ashes as one of its most levelheaded and experienced Council members. Previously known as Dr. Girlfriend (as in, a legitimate doctor with a PhD), she’s been working in villainy ever since she was 19 years old either as the bank-robbing Lady Au Pair or as the Number Two to other supervillains. Every villain on the show is more than aware that she’s tough as nails, which is physically shown off by how she can endure bullet wounds for a long time before passing out. Skilled through her dexterity in getting past security systems and efficient delegation of top tier minions, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch understands the red tape of villainy in The Venture Bros. being rooted in exponential retaliation to threats.

Thus, she’s adapted to this world by being an expert at talking her way into getting what she wants, which allows her to negotiate herself out being a hostage, thoroughly intimidating Guild moles into giving information by describing torture methods, or seducing guards to get the jump on them with close-up punches and kicks to knock them out. Of course, her past experience under other villains also grants her miscellaneous skills like being able to hotwire any car. As for what she has on-hand, Dr. Girlfriend always carries hidden knives and handguns on her person, along with spy-like gear courtesy of her Guild Council privilege like sniper rifles, laser cutter pens, or Colossurveillance tracking devices disguised as small makeup mirrors. This lets her locate people registered via implanted chips under the Guild to detect their threat level or if they’re currently armed.

Speaking of which, this makeup mirror tracker can also locate the Monarch’s current location via a tracker she planted on him as well. She also carries a special perfume that can reveal invisible laser security systems, and, at the end of the series, she was lent Mantilla’s blood, which allows her to be invisible for a day or so. But, it’s unclear if this was a one-time use. Needless to say, she’s the smartest member of the Horde and one of its most capable leaders. Additionally, her status in the Guild would allow her to order any equipment available to the organization, granting the team a large amount of available resources.

Henchman 21

“This is like Christmas, my first BMX bike, and meeting the cast of Firefly all in one! Let's go!”

You wouldn’t know it from his harmless, nerdy disposition in early seasons, but Gary Fischer, later known as Henchman 21, would end up growing into the Monarch’s most competent and powerful Henchmen after Henchman 24’s traumatic death. This death would spur him to train his leadership skills and fighting techniques in LARPing and battle simulations to ensure other Henchman under him thrived. Initially kidnapped as a teenager after being mistaken for a senator, Gary came to prefer this life and admire his leader, pledging utmost loyalty to him. Early on, all he and 24 really did was use their dorky awareness of minion fodder and comic book tropes to adapt to and expect the danger that comes with being sent on missions. This even comes somewhat close to a barebones level of fourth wall awareness while giving season recaps, and he’s more than capable of simply researching people online.

Little did he know at that time, but his training and character development would pay off after he was able to fight on par with Brock Samson, a professional licensed killer for the O.S.I., former secret agent, Pyramid Wars veteran, and expert in judo. He’s even teamed up with Brock to take down big villains like Monstroso, a Kingpin parody, and has been compared to Harangutan and Sergeant Hatred in strength via scaling chain by the show’s creators. With this newfound strength and ruthlessness, 21 can kill people in a single punch, claims to have cat-like reflexes, does parkour, rescues people from the Monarch himself, sneaks onto the Venture Compound and bypasses its security systems, darts and kills tons of people like Wandering Spider, and trains other Henchmen in boxing. In fact, by the end of the series, Gary ends up as an EMA Level 4 villain and Level 10 Henchman.

Aside from carrying around 24’s skull and bloody glove (don’t worry, Gary’s doing better now), 21 has a lot of mundane equipment, like a car, body armor he bought online, or a replica sword from Lord of the Rings. However, his employment under the Monarch grants him tons of lethal weaponry, like a hidden wristblade, butterfly-themed Batarangs, jetpacks, petablades, grappling guns, batons, nunchucks, pistols, spray cans, gas masks, brass knuckles, powerful explosives that can knock over the Cocoon, and deployable wings from his suit to fly around with! As the Blue Morpho duo, he even has a knockout gas gun on his person to take out other villains.

Henchman 24

“I'm not an alien, dillweed. I'm a henchman!”

Yes, Henchman 24 did die despite being about as genre-aware as Henchman 21 of minion fodder tropes. But, after this happened, his ghost was actually real and haunting 21, reading magazines and communicating with Gary constantly. Because of this, he’s even been able to scout ahead and provide information he finds to his old buddy, acting as an asset post-mortem.

Kevin & Tim-Tom

“We can take out his tongue…” “...with a knife!” “Or remove ‘is heart…” “...Yeah, with a knife!” “...A bigger knife!” “Fuckin’ knife!”

These horrid, bloodthirsty little men are Tim-Tom and Kevin, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch’s former henchman back when she was a supervillain, Lady Au Pair, that got grandfathered into the Fluttering Horde. Formerly known as the Murderous Moppets but rebranded to the Pupae Twins, none of the Horde really like these guys, but their killer aliases are not unearned. They both carry deadly weapons on hand like ninja stars, pistols, grenades, daggers, knives, switchblades, and energy beam launchers. For utility, they have access to night vision goggles as well, and they have motorcycles for quicker ground transportation if needed.

Tiny Joseph

“Oh, that was close.”

Despite debuting in the Christmas special that ended up being a dream, “A Very Venture Brothers Christmas”, the creators have confirmed that this tiny man and parts of that episode are, in fact, real and did canonically happen. During the aforementioned episode, Monarch had Tiny Joseph covertly infiltrate the Venture Compound in order to help carry out his plan involving a prepped pile of C4 to set off a chain reaction of explosions once Baby Jesus was placed inside the manger of a nativity scene. Later on, Joseph appeared in canon after Monarch shot him out of a gun at some guards during his attempted prison break.

The Fluttering Horde Henchmen

“Honey, they're henchmen. You don't explain to them, they do your bidding. When you say ‘jump’, they say, ‘what shark?’.”

We talked a bit about the Horde but that was only the important members, what about the large bulk of henchmen? Well then you get the Fluttering Horde! In total there are 85 Henchmen that do The Monarch’s bidding, all with dart guns they can shoot out to take down foes, a net gun to capture targets, real guns, explosions which they can throw from a safe distance, uniforms that, while don’t have any body armor as noted by 21, still have wings which they can use to fly around, and night vision goggles to use at night.

But what makes the horde so deadly is their natural skill to be a somewhat stable army. This is shown with the horde being able to capture and take down foes like Brock Samson and somewhat keep up with other organizations like OSI. However the main issue with the horde is…they just suck at fighting on their own. It’s noted by 21 that none of the other henchmen really know how to fight and again the henchmen don’t really have body armor, but who cares about that when you have 85 grown men beating the crap out of you!

Resistances

Robert/The Z-Team

Due to some of the more out-there physiologies and superhuman bodies of the Z-Team, various elements of the world that SDN sends them to confront and obscure villainous powers are resisted by the squad as a whole or individually to an extent.

• Robert
  • Hacking: Robert can lock out other hackers and zap away anti-virus programs.
• Phenomaman
  • Extreme Cold: Casually able to survive in the vacuum of space on the moon.
• Punch Up
  • Piercing: Punch Up can manually increase the density of his skin to shatter knives against his body when they try to stab at him.
• Z-Team (All)
  • Acid: Every Z-Team member can withstand acidic vomit.
  • Mind Control: All of the Z-Team are able to resist brainwashing techniques.
  • Fire: All Z-Team members can use their bodies to smother flames. Additionally, characters such as Flambaé, Malevola, and Golem no-sell and are unharmed by flames in general. The original Mecha Man suit was able to shield against Flambaé’s fire too.

The Monarch/The Fluttering Hoard

While the Monarch and his crew are all meant to be portrayed as normal humans to an extent, their equipment every so often grants them specific types of resistances to certain dangers.

• The Monarch
  • Fire: States that his normal suit is fireproof to protect against pyrotechnics.
• Via Equipment
  • Extreme Heat: The Cocoon’s fake meteor is stated to be heat resistant.
  • Extreme Cold: Monarch and Henchman 21 swam through frigid waters during a blizzard while wearing specialized Guild swimsuits and came out fine.

Stats

Robert/The Z-Team

Feats

• Worked with Royd to successfully build a successor model to the Mecha Man Suit
• Manually brought the power grid for an entire county back up after a blackout.
• The Z-Team manage to fight off kaiju, catch planes, and halt trains during SDN shifts
• Surprised Shroud’s nearly perfect calculated predictions more than once.
• Reformed all the former villains on the Z-Team, including Invisigal in some endings
• Avenged his father’s death by defeating Shroud and the Red Ring with the Z-Team

Attack Potency

• [ Robert ]
  • Deadlifts 60-pound weights at the gym
  • Tears out a villain’s bionic eye with his hand and bites off fingers
• [ Mecha Man Suit ]
  • The new Mecha Man Suit can do an enormous Kamehameha energy blast
• [ Invisigal ]
  • Planted the bomb that took out the original Mecha Man Suit (0.17 Tons of TNT)
  • Her on-hand explosives can finish off a weakened Shroud mech
• [ Golem ]
  • Golem simply opening a door launches Robert across a room
• [ Mega Bat Sonar ]
  • Mega Bat Sonar (without activated augmentations) can tackle the new Mecha Man Suit out of the sky
• [ Malevola ]
  • Overturns a knocked over car.
• [ Flambae ]
  • Deadlifts 145-pound weights at the gym
  • Strong enough to knock back Shroud’s mech
• [ Punch Up ]
  • Smashes through a wall in his concept sketches
  • Rolls Golem around like a Katamari
  • Knocks around and Ground Pounds a weakened Shroud mech
• [ Phenomaman ]
  • Lifts a large boulder and school bus with ease
  • Able to crush cars
  • Punch Up jokes that Phenomaman leaves craters whenever he takes off into the sky from ground level
  • Throws a lamppost so hard that Shroud’s mech slides back when catching it, and he can punch or throw a weakened Shroud mech through the air
• [ Z-Team (All) ]
  • Able to remove giant monster parts from the beach
  • Capable of physically halting a train
  • Destroyed the remains of a dilapidated house through an unknown method
  • Capable of catching an airplane
  • Can push cars out of the way of the road
  • Capable of hauling 25-ton beached whales off of the beach
  • Everyone can work on a dispatch to take down a kaiju at the beach
  • Can destroy a blockade of stolen cars, firetrucks, and tanks
  • Can assist fellow hero Brickhouse in holding up a bridge

Durability

• [ Robert ]
  • Survives the explosion that rendered the first Mecha Man Suit beyond repair after it was planted on the outer hull, which was implied to take most of the blast (0.085 Tons of TNT)
• [ Mecha Man Suit ]
  • In the new Mecha Man Suit, endures being crashed through the SDN building
  • Survives getting pushed through a concrete pillar
• [ Mega Bat Sonar ]
  • Gets pushed through a concrete wall
• [ Prism ]
  • Able to block concentrated energy from Shroud’s mech with her shields
• [ Flambae ]
  • Smacked through a wall by the OG Mecha Man Suit
• [ Golem ]
  • Absorbs the blast of a bomb inside of his body by eating it
• [ Phenomaman ]
  • Implied to be able to endure attacks from kaiju in the SDN simulation
• [ Z-Team (All) ]
  • Withstand various bombs of unknown size blowing up if they fail a job
  • Endures explosions at a refinery on different occasions.
  • Survive being on a speeding train as it crashes if failing the job
  • Everyone can withstand being in the outer radius of the Red Ring bombs that Sonar and Coupe help plant and set off in Torrance (3.8 - 24.9 Tons of TNT)

Speed

• [ Robert ]
  • Tilts his head away from an incoming energy shot
  • Reacted to a villain’s fiery vomit breath
• [ Mecha Man Suit ]
  • The new Mecha Man Suit blocks Shroud’s mech’s fired energy beams
  • Avoids energy shots from Shroud’s mech
• [ Invisigal ]
  • Dodges electrical blasts from Lightningstruck’s gauntlet
  • Avoids energy blasts from miscellaneous villains
• [ Mega Bat Sonar ]
  • Avoids attacks from the new Mecha Man Suit
• [ Phenomaman ]
  • Abruptly sitting upright can launch nearby shards of glass into Robert’s chest
  • Implied to fly faster than planes at supersonic speed
  • Implied to have returned from the moon to work his shift back in Los Angeles at SDN while listening to Robert’s speech on Chase (Mach 1245.45)
  • With 10 seconds on the timer, Phenomaman flies high enough that he’s able to chuck a bomb into space for it to detonate harmlessly (Mach 29.15)
  • After getting knocked into space by Shroud’s mech, Phenomaman is shown returning to the fight later with a satellite in a little under 5 minutes

The Monarch/The Fluttering Hoard

Feats

• Began unofficially arching Rusty Venture during his college years.
• Singlehandedly broke himself out of prison
• Murdered countless supervillains that were assigned to arch Rusty as the Blue Morpho
• Henchman 21 grew strong and skilled enough to contend with Brock Samson
• Dr. Mrs. The Monarch built the new Guild back up as one of its council members
• Monarch attained an Equally Matched Aggression Level of 10 by the end of the series

Attack Potency

• [ Monarch ]
  • Easily moves a heavy, vending machine-sized Problem Light off of Vendata
• [ Henchman 21 ]
  • Has powerful explosives which were able to knock over the Cocoon
• [ Dr. Mrs. The Monarch ]
  • Destroys competent Blackguards
• [ The Fluttering Horde ]
  • Enough Henchmen, while drunk, overpowered and captured Brock Samson

Durability

• [ Monarch ]
  • As a boy, survived a plane crash that killed both of his parents
  • Monarch’s wing gets trapped in an NYC subway door and he gets dragged through the subway system
  • Survives the explosion that resulted from a collision with the Cocoon's escape pod and Phantom Limb’s jet from within the escape pod (0.05 Tons of TNT)
• [ Dr. Mrs. The Monarch ]
  • Endures a bullet wound for an entire evening before passing out
  • Survives the explosion from the collision of the Cocoon’s escape pod with Phantom Limb’s jet from within the jet itself (0.007 Tons of TNT)

Speed

• [ Monarch ]
  • Reacts to bullets fired at him after they’re shot by blocking them with a teleporter (Mach 0.67)
  • Monarch and 21 avoid bullets fired at them by Sergeant Hatred
• [ Dr. Mrs. The Monarch ]
  • Dr. Girlfriend leaps out of the way of telegraphed, incoming minigun rounds.

Scaling

Z-Team

SDN

The Z-Team aren’t the only group of heroes getting dispatched on mission, but thanks to SDN (Superhero Dispatch Network) you can rest easy knowing anyone is there at any time! Now as far as scaling goes there should be very little reason to not assume the Z-Team can’t tangle with the likes of Blond Blazer, especially when the team has Phenomaman who is treated as her equal or above. Even then as shown with the final fight against Shroud everyone on the Z-Team was shown to be equal to a threat like Shroud’s mecha spider who can match the level of Blonde Blazer.

• SDN Employees
  • During the SDN simulation, Brickhouse can break through walls
  • Royd lifts around heavy pieces of the original Mecha Man Suit on one shoulder
  • Royd could physically hold back the in-progress second Mecha Man Suit and survive its explosion
  • Royd smacks a weakened Shroud mech back with its own metal arm
• Blonde Blazer
  • Blonde Blazer easily kicks a metal door off of its hinges
  • Knocks back Shroud’s mech with a punch
  • Reacts to Mega Bat Sonar’s amplified sound blast (Mach 0.23)
  • Moves in-tandem with gunfire (Mach 2)

The Red Ring

The main threat of the story and number 1 crime organization in California is The Red Ring led by an old acquaintance of Robert’s father, Shroud! When it comes to scaling it should also be really simple as everyone on the Z-Team (yes even Waterboy surprisingly enough) has taken down the many many lackeys of The Red Ring with little issue and even stopped them from blowing up a bomb in the final dispatching section of the game. They also take on Shroud’s giant mech relatively well, showing they can actually damage it and toss it around from time to time with the only issue in the fight being Shroud’s inhuman level of predicting every move.

Impressively, Blonde Blazer herself believes that enough of the Red Ring’s goons can beat her and resorted to bluffing what she believed to be her own capabilities to avoid a confrontation. Later in the game we’re shown that whoever is cut from Z-Team, Coupe or Sonar, ends up matching Blonde Blazer through their Shroud enhancements, lending credence to the idea that Shroud’s criminal goons likely are relative enough to Blazer to pose a serious threat in enough numbers.

• Minions
  • Miscellaneous villains can fling entire shipping containers
  • Armstrong can knock around Golem
• Toxic
  • Survives being punted or crushed by Robert’s first Mecha Man Suit
  • Lifts a giant steel support structure with ease
  • Was crushed under a giant metal vat and lived
  • Jumps to a news helicopter from ground level in seconds (Mach 0.6 - 1.8)
• Shroud
  • Shroud’s mech can throw the entire new Mecha Man Suit
  • Blasts Phenomaman into the sky while creating a shockwave
  • Knocks Phenomaman out of the sky with a flung car

The Monarch

Team Venture

When your entire character revolves around tormenting and “arching” Rusty Venture, it’s only natural that the Monarch and his crew, who have captured or physically threatened the titular family in some way, should scale to them. Be it through capturing Hank and Dean, being depicted as about as tough as the lanky scientist himself, or having access to tech that should be about as advanced as those made by Venture Industries, the Fluttering Horde is a natural constant threat (and nuisance) to the current Venture family. Really, they just want to live their lives and some maniac in a butterfly outfit keeps attacking them.

• The Venture Family
  • Rusty survives a disco ball falling on top of him
  • Rusty gets kicked into a wall by Molotov, which cracks it
  • Brock, Rusty and JJ survive a large oil explosion (0.092 Tons of TNT)
  • Hank and Dean easily stomp and thrash H.E.L.P.eR
• H.E.L.P.eR.
  • H.E.L.P.eR. survives atmospheric re-entry and colliding with the ground after being jettisoned from an orbital space station (3.78 Tons of TNT)
• Venture Industries Technology
  • The Venture Compound’s security includes laser sentries that once shot arriving firetrucks and launched them with great force
  • Rusty Venture’s X-1 is a supersonic jet plane
  • Gargantua-2 robots shoot down incoming asteroids with lasers

Brock Samson

There’s nobody else on The Venture Bros. that comes as close to the description of “killing machine” as the ever-iconic Brock Samson, Rusty’s bodyguard and a professionally licensed killer! Consistently demonstrated and emphasized as being a tier above normal humans on the show and practically always on demon time, he’s only really matched by other heavy hitters like Sergeant Hatred, Harangutan, Baron Ünderbheit, and, later on, Henchman 21. While most of Monarch’s minions are typically fodder to Brock, enough of them working as a team can actually overwhelm him. He’s definitely the biggest asset on Team Venture and someone that Monarch knows he needs to be wary of during his arching plots.

• Bashes through a wall butt naked
• Throws a bunch of people through a wall
• Outmuscles an alligator/crocodile and its jaw strength before killing it
• Shatters a giant stone pillar by throwing a flashlight at it
• Resists the pull of the vacuum of space and survives its chilling exposure after an airlock is opened on a space station
• Avoids an electrical magic blast from a minion’s staff
• Brock avoids shots from a harpoon gun
• Survived a massive car explosion though in later episodes it’s revealed he needed a surgery done to help him survive
• Face-tanks a C4 explosion (245.13 Kilojoules)

Faction Affiliates

Whatever fancy acronym or team name they end up organizing under, heroes and villains alike throughout The Venture Bros. are all tied down by bureaucracy in some way. Be it through treaties, responding to supernatural threats, or simply being big enough haters, almost every character on the show is part of a syndicate or agency.

Naturally, they’ll eventually butt heads with other organizations or deal with threats that spin out of control, leading to characters needing to fight or confront one another at some point in the series. Considering how the Monarch is a top tier threat according to the Guild of Calamitous Intent by the end of the series, he and his team should reasonably be capable of dealing with or having dealt with certain characters from other factions.

• The Brimstone Assembly
  • A fire demon dodges some of Orpheus’ magic beams
  • Orpheus with his magical staff created a lightning blast so powerful that it caused a blackout over the Venture Compound
• The Revenge Society
  • Baron Ünderbheit parries Monarch's disintegration lasers after they were fired.
  • Phantom Limb survived the lab explosion that gave him his powers (0.0002 - 0.002 Tons of TNT)
  • Professor Impossible swallows a bomb that is implied to be able to destroy Spider Skull Island (Debatable, See Before the Verdict)
• The Guild of Calamitous Intent
  • Red Death easily lifts a grown man with one arm over his head
  • The Sovereign (as David Bowie) dodges a soundwave blast (Mach 8.65)
• The Office of Secret Intelligence
  • Molotov Cocktease dodges a tank-missile (Mach 4.13)
  • One past confrontation with an EMA Level 5 villain, Furious Red, resulted in a city block being leveled by the hero’s, Dr. Deep’s, O.S.I. EMA Level 8 pulse cannon. Furious Red, as a result, had his ribs shattered by this cannon and died (At Least 11 Tons of TNT)
    • The Fluttering Horde don’t own hypothetical equipment of this caliber, so their best theoretical bet would be to order something like it mid-battle.

Weaknesses

Z-Team

While Mecha-Man and his team have shaped their ways into moving away from their flaws, that doesn’t mean they still don’t have them. When it comes to Robert, he can’t dispatch and fight in his mecha-man suit at the same time. Sure he can keep comms with his team but compared to the level of surveillance he would have with his SDN computer he would have no way of fully knowing about a threat or properly guide his team with the right decision. His hacking would also be limited if he’s in his suit compared to at his desk as his mech doesn’t have access to everything in his area like his computer does.

When it comes to the entire Z-Team though it does present a lot more issues. For one is that no matter the member, all of them can get hurt to the point they can be out of commission for the whole shift. Sure Robert has access to medical supplies the team can use but it’s not unlimited meaning they will run out. There’s also the issue that not every hero is able to complete every single mission on their own and are more suitable for different types of missions. You wouldn’t really send Waterboy to take down someone like Goku on his own compared to Phenomaman.

The Monarch

Despite having a massive army of minions and what are basically two extra leaders, the Monarch himself is notably fairly shortsighted, has a hair trigger, and is not really too smart. For example, rather than buying his minions tons of enhanced armor, he buys himself a Green Goblin glider. And if Rusty Venture is involved, Malcolm is guaranteed to develop tunnel vision to the nth degree and make hasty decisions. Also, for all intents and purposes, everyone but Henchman 21 on his team aren’t really portrayed as superhuman throughout the series.

Additionally, some of his tech, most notably the Cocoon itself, can sometimes break down or not work as intended for a gag about its inefficiency on the show. Now, the Monarch by the end of the series is not nearly as incompetent as he is portrayed to be at the beginning of his series, but his leadership skills compared to Dr. Mrs. The Monarch and Henchman 21 are lacking as well. This is especially so given that his Henchmen have been led to be more efficient under other people like Brock Samson, as otherwise they don’t really know how to fight well.

Before We Decide

Phenomaman Episode 1: The Conversational Blackhole

In the 4th Dispatch comic released we see the date which ended Phenomaman’s and Blond Blazer’s relationship. During this comic we see a panel where both Phenomaman and Blazer are flying in space and being really close to a black hole. So would this indicate any possible black hole feat? Well put simply not at all. There are two main issues that this comic presents that make any possible scaling not good. The first issue is that neither Phenomaman or Blazer do anything to the black hole with the panel showing them just viewing it and most likely not even near the black hole in the first place. But the second and most blatant issue is that the black hole isn’t even real! Context is everything and when reading the comic it shows that the black hole is just Phenomoman talking about how he sees him and his relationship with Blazer ending with them fighting and the world being destroyed by a cosmic force. Sorry Dispatch bros no planet or MFTL level Phenomaman-

Phenomaman Episode 2: Seasonal Depression

Another argument Phenomaman has for cosmic level Dispatch revolves around his interaction with Robert in episode 4 where while contemplating life he says this.

“One moment we were savoring uni straight from the urchin, the next moment…I’m contemplating flying into the sun, absorbing all its energy and casting this planet into infinite darkness so that I never have to see her or anyone again…”

So what can we get from this line? Some have argued this suggests that Phenomaman has star level power due to him being able to absorb the sun. However that is not the case due to several issues. The first being is that Phenomaman isn’t the most reliable source when it comes to this, he’s severely depressed after his breakup with Blazer and isn’t thinking straight (I mean who wouldn’t if you fumble someone like Blazer) which is supported with his route in the game giving him purpose again and becoming the Phenomaman he once was. Now Phenomaman is anything but a liar. He's extremely honest to a fault and doesn’t understand earth's various traditions. However, it is completely possible he could simply be overestimating his own ability. Not out of malice, but out of his emotions getting the better of his rational thought.

Yet one could argue that we are “reading too deep into it”. So consider this backing for a more solid point. It’s an outlier.

Many may already be shuttering at the blasphemous claim of calling something an outlier but genuinely just take a look at every other feat in the verse and tell me this isn’t a little odd. Phenomaman is above most of the verse for sure but there are still plenty of moments where Shroud’s mech was able to bat him around. There is also the infamous moment of him getting held back by Armstrong. Even without these moments, it’s still an incredibly far jump to make for his stats compared to everyone else.

It’s also possible for Phenomaman to be injured like any other hero as shown by the transcript for the train crash during episode 8. The reason you just never notice it in gameplay is because anything that would harm Phenomaman also puts him into his depressive state, which has the same art as his injured state. Phenomaman even acknowledges how much his body hurts after the train crash. Usually anti-feats like this wouldn’t mean much and would be written off as such. However, when there are way more opportunities for Phenomaman to be injured by basic bombs and trains, compared to a statement we never get to see any backing of, it’s way more likely that this statement is an outlier.

Professor Impossible’s Impossible Feat

In the episode “Now Museum Now You Don’t” the Mr. Fantastic expy Professor Impossible swallows a bomb that was heavily implied to be able to destroy Spider Skull Island if he had not eaten it. It’s a pretty straight forward feat. However, the issues roll in when trying to scale people to it.

The only time someone has ever physically “harmed” Professor Impossible is a blink-and-you-miss-it attack from Baron Ünderbheit that takes him to the floor. That is all we see of this exchange and have nothing else to go off of. The other times where characters from the main cast of the show have to fight Impossible they have to use his elasticity against him. Very rarely is anyone ever shown actually meaningfully damaging Professor Impossible.

There is also the fact that it’s heavily implied that out of everyone on the island he’s the only one who would be able to survive it and stop its blast, based on everyone else there making it their mission to get out of dodge. The fact that the bomb is written off as a failed suicide attempt for Mr. Impossible should likely clue you in that his powers simply put his durability far beyond the damage the cast of Venture Bros can deal out. Even if it was scalable it would be a massive outlier compared to the other feats in the show.

Verdict

Strength/Durability

Both Dispatch and the Venture Bros aren’t known for their insane feats of strength and durability. However, they definitely aren’t human level either. So let’s take a look at the best feats for either team.

On the Z-Team’s end their best feat of durability is surviving the bombs used by the red ring which gets about 3.8-24.9 Tons of TNT accounting for surface area. Seeing as the Z-Team can harm each other and fight evenly they also should scale to each other (Minus Phenomaman and Mecha Man, who should likely upscale).

For the Fluttering Hoard, their best feat comes from scaling to H.E.L.P.eR surviving atmospheric reentry, getting around 3.78 Tons of TNT. Seeing as even early Dean and Hank can thrash Helper and cause him significant damage, everyone on the Fluttering Hoard should be able to scale their AP to Helper’s durability, giving 21 a pretty massive upscale.

So with both of their best feats on the table how do they stack up? Seeing as both are put at 3 tons of TNT we can assume they are equal right? Well sort of. If you assume the lowest end for the bomb feat and only look at the H.E.L.P.eR. feat then yeah. However, the 3 ton end is only using the lowest possible estimates for that feat. Seeing as the bombs only happen during the larger assault on LA county it would make more sense to use the size estimates using the larger LA county map presented in the game. With that the Z-Team would be 8 times stronger than the Fluttering Hoard. Plus, any upscaling you can give Henchman 21 you can likely give to Phenomaman, who was SDN’s #1 hero before his emotional breakdown and Robert in the Mecha Man Suit, who beat Flambaé in a worse version of the suit.

Finally, while technically possible that Monarch could order a high level weapon capable of city block destruction similar to the Red Ring bombs, we have no idea how long orders take in the Venture Bros. universe or even what these weapons look like. All we know is that an unregistered pulse cannon was able to level a city block and nothing else. So looking at it realistically, the Z-Team takes strength and durability.

Speed

Speed-wise, both Monarch and Z-Team actually have a number of similar feats that members of both sides perform putting them at somewhat close ranges.

For Z-Team, we’ve got essentially everyone being able to avoid or react to gunfire and react to the many other superpowered people in the verse. Notably Toxic, whose powers aren’t even focused around superhuman physique, can leap from ground level into the sky in seconds. A feat that comes out at Mach 0.6 to 1.8. This is quite consistent with Blonde Blazer’s own speed feats, herself struggling with upper tier Red Ring members like a defected Coupe/Sonar or when facing a group of them, like reacting to and firing an attack before Sonar’s sonic waves reach her which get to Mach 0.23, or her own movement speed being relative to bullets at Mach 1.9. As all of Z-Team can easily take on several of Shroud’s goons at a time and can react to Shroud’s mech suit, which itself can tag Blazer, almost everyone should scale to or at least downscale from her feats to some capacity on top of being able to take on similarly fast characters like Toxic.

So how does Monarch and his posse stack up? Well… quite well actually. Monarch himself can move relative to bullets at Mach 0.67, and other villains on his caliber have very direct reaction feats such as Molotov Cocktease dodging tank missiles and The Sovereign avoiding sonic attacks, which get to Mach 4.13 and 8.65 respectively. This is on top of the same general feats of avoiding firearms being shot at them as Z-Team, leading to a pretty clear advantage for Monarch’s side. They match the Z-Team on the low-ends to being up to 4.5x faster in combat and reactions…

…with the exception of Phenomaman, of course. Phenomaman is demonstrably faster than everyone else on the team and likely all of SDN, besides maybe debatably Chase. His ability to reach space in a few seconds and flying to the Moon and back puts him at double to quadruple digit Mach speeds, faster than any other calculable speed feat mentioned for both thus far. It’s also important to note that only the high ranking members like 21, Mrs. The Monarch and The Monarch would scale to Mach 8. As a result, he carries the Z-Team to victory in this category as he absolutely more than makes up for the ~5x speed gap.

Z-Team VS The Fluttering Hoard

The Monarch: When it comes to the Fluttering Horde, a natural starting point is the Monarch himself and all the gadgets he personally has at his disposal. Much like all of his soldiers, he wields tranquilizer and fast-acting poison darts on his person through his gauntlet gun so he can keep his hands free. Just to get it out of the way, his main weapon here is his most valuable asset, one that’s widespread amongst all of his Henchmen. With a wide volley or hail of darts that can incapacitate or kill anyone they pierce, the Z-Team will be working extremely hard to avoid getting hit by those. Characters like Robert in his Mecha Man Suit, Golem with his physiology, and Punch-Up’s dense skin are natural counters that stonewall these threats, alongside Phenomaman’s speed making him an absurd target to try to land a shot on. However, with the aforementioned advantage in speed that Monarch’s high-end soldiers and himself have, it’s going to be a problem for other members like Flambaé, Sonar, Invisigal, Malevola, Coupé, and Waterboy to avoid getting shot when they’re not expecting it given they’re all vulnerable to these shots. Luckily, once they see what one dart does, the rest of the team will be able to know to anticipate this threat. Prism will be able to set up shields or an army of duplicates, Malevola will be able to escape or redirect shots with portals, Flambaé will know to incinerate shots, and Invisigal will know to stay invisible for most of the fight. The main issue will be the sheer number of shots coming their way, really.

As for Malcolm’s other weapons, he and his army can all fly or use vehicles to fly, meaning they’ll be tough targets to reach for any groundbound Z-Team fighters. Thankfully, flight-capable members can carry teammates and guarantee safe landings with Malevola’s portals too if no one can catch them. So, there’s methods to reach flying soldiers either way. Specifically, Sonar, Flambaé, Prism (with platforms), Coupé, Mecha Man, and Phenomaman can get off the ground. This would leave Golem, Punch Up, Invisigal, Waterboy, and Malevola in need of assistance if necessary. Other armors the Monarch has are able to use grappling hooks and smokescreens, along with his normal suit being naturally fireproof, which definitely helps if he catches any flames from Flambaé. But, the real meat and potatoes come from gadgets and supplies. Unfortunately for him, his swarms of butterflies and butterfly drones are super specifically taken care of by Malevola, who’s been able to BFR swarms of bees to another dimension.

However, nobody on the Z-Team has ever shown resistance to transmutation, which Monarch can supply through the use of his injection gun’s Butterfly Serum. The only issue is that he has to get up super close to actually inject someone (which is dangerous, given this runs the risk of permanently blinding him through Prism or opening him up to getting killed with a good hit), and he’s only demonstrated one use of it, meaning he can’t do it multiple times to other Z-Team members. Much like the darts, Punch-Up, Mecha Man, Phenomaman, and Golem have the same aforementioned counters to being injected with a syringe too. Ironically, the Sunlight Cannon would also simply be absorbed by Phenomaman much like how it was countered in the show, so he could block other teammates from it with his travel speed if needed. Other equipment like the Mind Invasion Device and his hideout at the Morpho Cave aren’t exactly going to be gamechangers either. Not only did the Mind Invasion tech nearly kill him, requiring defibrillators from outside supervision, from staying in a mind for too long, but almost every Z-Team member has a form of Mind Manipulation Resistance… except for Robert who could hack the device to not work anyway. This same issue would extend to the Morpho Cave given it has a “Monarcomputer” that would be vulnerable to hacking, or it could simply be located by Robert’s computer. And, if it’s out of range, a character could just tail him as he retreats there.

The Cocoon, however, is a big elephant in the room. With a hideout the size of a building full of tons of deadly traps, weapons, a cloaking device, and the ability to act as a veritable fortress, this is something that the Z-Team would need to have an answer to. The lightning cannon it has could even overload the Mecha Man armor, and it’s been shown to be vulnerable to this kind of attack before. Thankfully, they have every option they could possibly need to deal with it. Not only does running the Cocoon at all require a solid chunk of Henchmen to run it, thus taking away from the numbers advantage on the field, it also keeps them all in one place. Here’s where Robert’s bread and butter comes in. The SDN Computer should not only be capable of hacking nearly every piece of tech on the Cocoon, but it could entirely map it out for anyone that wants to infiltrate it like Malevola, Invisigal, or just let Phenomaman know where to crash through to reach the control room. This is something Robert’s achieved at numerous points in the game, where he could also analyze security systems to check for trapped rooms with, say, deadly gas or disintegration rays. Or, he could figure out what a weapon does and shut it down. Even if he’s not at his computer, the Cocoon shuts down after receiving too much damage, such as, say, from a giant cluster of bombs or a giant beam attack from the Mecha Man Suit. Not only would this leave the Cocoon entirely inert, but it’d make everyone inside sitting ducks since Robert could just shut down the escape pod functionalities too.

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch: But, what about the brains of the group? Dr. Mrs. The Monarch is certainly on par with brains like Robert and Sonar, perhaps more so given she’s an actual doctor and charismatically intimidating and competent. It’s not unrealistic even for her to fake-seduce Sonar and take him out with a borrowed dart gun given she’s used seduction sneak attacks in the past and Sonar’s been similarly duped before, for example. But, her best asset are her Guild connections, which allow her access to not only high caliber weapons like sniper rifles, hallucinogenic choking gas, helicopters, and lightning rifles, but it gives the Fluttering Horde access to a giant, floating Weather Machine. The only issue is that if she places the order, the army would need to stall for long enough for, say, a helicopter to deliver the care package, assuming it doesn’t simply get shot down by any flying Z-Team members.

Even if they do manage to receive something huge like the Weather Machine, any subsequent blizzards would not just affect the flight of the Z-Team, but of her own allies too. And if they receive something powerful like a device comparable in destructive power to the O.S.I. pulse cannon that can destroy city blocks, they would not start off immediately with it. The hallucinogenic choking gas, however, would be a natural counter to Invisigal’s asthma if it catches her offguard, as this is similar to how Shroud incapacitated her in the story and it allowed him to kick away her inhaler. Though, with her high lung augmentations, if it doesn’t affect her at first, she’ll know to hold her breath if she sees any smoke grenades coming her way. On the field, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch’s invisibility, should she use the blood received at the end of the movie, is actually countered by Sonar given that he’s a bat with echolocation. This would mean that usage of the blood would only really be dead weight unless Sonar is already out of the picture, and even then it’d just even out with Invisigal.

Her best bet in the fight would be to act as a leader to delegate minions or take potshots with rifles or guns, or try to infiltrate SDN on the side if Robert is at his computer. But, this is already hard to accomplish given the building has security cameras and nobody on the Monarch’s team has any jammers, so Robert could easily call for help or get into his Mecha Man Suit if he needs to. Another net positive she can offer is the Meteor Majeure, which can act as a safe haven through the use of the Venture Teleporter Plates, which can also double as projectile redirection or spatial cutters if any Z-Team members land on it the right way. Although, admittedly, Malevola’s portals are a far more inherent and easy way to achieve both of those use cases. However, the Meteor Majeure’s biggest advantage is that it’s mostly disguised as a meteorite, meaning Robert’s not going to be able to locate it. And, even if Phenomaman scouts the Earth’s orbit for whatever reason or Malevola looks to try to portal to anything in near orbit, they won’t be able to easily immediately suspect to look there or investigate a random asteroid unless they really give it a closer look.

Henchman 21: Gary here is probably the most efficient member on the field from Monarch’s side. Not only does his upscaled speed allow him to outmaneuver basically everyone aside from Phenomaman and likely the Mecha Man Suit, but this would mean he has an even easier time landing those darts than the Monarch does. Adding to this, he also has access to a knockout gas gun from his Blue Morpho days, which would even affect Golem given that he’s been affected by drowsy gummies before. This would imply that something he would breathe in would also have a similar effect, since this means he has a digestive system and organs of some kind. With hidden wristblades, high mobility across surfaces or through the air, extensive comic book knowledge to know what to expect from superheroes, and fighting skills good enough to handle Brock Samson, a multi-talented killer and fighter, he’s the biggest threat on his team and someone the Z-Team would need to take out quickly.

Any explosives he’ll try to set up, however, are liable to just getting incinerated by Flambaé, tossed into space by Phenomaman, or eaten and contained by Golem given that these yields aren’t enough to do serious damage to him. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, his speed wouldn’t really protect him if the team notices that he’s a threat and sics Phenomaman on him to snatch him out of the fight or target him with the Mecha Man Suit’s variety of AOE attacks. And, given Phenomaman’s flight speeds, the knockout gas is liable to simply get carried away by the wind. Additionally, there’s nothing stopping him from being too focused in battle to notice Invisigal secretly planting a bomb on him or getting forcibly stuck against a surface by Golem.

The Fluttering Horde: We’ll mush Henchman 24, Kevin & Tim-Tom, and Tiny Joseph in with the rest of the army’s coverage here. Henchman 24’s scouting as a ghost is definitely super helpful, although he would take far longer than the SDN Computer, which can process entire locations in less time than it would take to do so manually. Malevola would probably be able to sniff him out, but she doesn’t actually have any on-hand ways to deal with a spirit. Though, 24 can’t really interact with anything anyway. Kevin and Tim-Tom don’t really have any game-changing equipment that Henchman 21 can’t use as well and with more fighting prowess, so they don’t bring anything noteworthy to the fight. Tiny Joseph could, in theory, be used to infiltrate the SDN building fairly easily given his size. But, we don’t know how long this would take him, even more so for however long planting any explosives would take too. And, even if he took out the power or Robert’s computer, the building has a backup generator or he could just fall back to using the Mecha Man Suit. As for the actual Horde of 85 Henchman, even if they don’t fully scale in speed or physicals to the rest of the main named characters on the team, that’s still a massive number of mooks, all armed with darts that could take a decent number of the Z-Team out, to deal with.

They have even demonstrated the tactic of focusing a ton of these darts on big threats like Brock, so Mega Bat Sonar is definitely going to be a priority target. Even so, the Z-Team has fought plenty of armed gangs in large battles before, like the Red Ring, while under immediate fire. The main issue is that all of these guys can fly too, so if a decent chunk of them start to go down in droves from Punch Up, Golem, or Prism blinding tons of them at a time, they can always take to the skies. Unfortunately for them, not only is there a Superman expy blitzing them up there, there’s also a giant mech immune to their main form of offense with giant AOE missiles and energy beams that they can’t really do anything about. Other more esoteric powers, like Malevola’s spatial cutting and dimensional BFR, along with Prism’s ability to simply manifest yet another Phenomaman duplicate, will mean that their numbers are going to be whittled down fairly quickly. They’ll also need to deal with Coupé and Flambaé in the air, who aren’t as easy of a target as Sonar that are armed by fiery blasts and explosive knives launched with superhuman precision. And, with SDN Pharmacy being able to bring back a key Z-Team member from the brink of exhaustion with stamina restoration, they’ll be hard-pressed to try to whittle down a big threat that can resist their primary weapons.

Now that we have discussed what the Fluttering Horde has against the Z-Team, let’s look at the flip side and see how the Z-Team specifically counters the Fluttering Horde.

Robert: Despite physically being just a normal guy, Robert is probably one of the biggest pieces on this chessboard. His leadership is what the entire premise of the game is centered around, which allowed him to forge tight bonds with and coordinate a group of rowdy, messy ex-cons into a well-oiled machine of a superhero team. Because of his guidance, the Z-Team is able to handle themselves even without his explicit advice from back at his work computer, and he knows all of his team members’ strengths like the back of his hand. So, if he sees that something is causing a particular problem, such as a volley of darts, he’ll know to send in Prism with tons of duplicates to face that kind of onslaught. Hell, in some endings, you can even manage to dupe Shroud with two energy cores. As in, Robert can dupe someone that knows him well and has absurd, calculated precognition. But, we need to separate Robert into basically two kinds of team contributors, being the man in the chair and Mecha Man.

In his giant mech suit, not only will he gain fantastic aerial maneuverability, speed, and an immunity to all those darts and gases, but he’ll be able to launch clusters or bombs and giant energy beams that can take out tons of Fluttering Horde members at a time. In fact, that giant beam is probably enough on its own to put the Cocoon entirely out of commission. It’s just gonna be generally too tough for anyone to put a physical dent in this thing, so he’ll have lots of opportunities to slice through the army with energy weapons or take a problem like Henchman 21 into the air or shoot down flying vehicles. Simply put, the Z-Team has a giant mech suit that most of the Monarch’s army is going to be scrambling to do something about without an equivalent of their own. Plus, with his size, forcefields, and shields, Robert would be able to step in to guard one of his teammates if they’re getting ganged up on. And, considering the story of the game he’s from, he’s going to be extra wary of anyone trying to plant a bomb on the suit.

Believe it or not, Robert can be just as dangerous as a guy sitting at his work computer. The SDN console allows Robert to hack just about anything in a countywide radius, along with scanning entire layouts of structures to entirely ruin the traps as elements of surprise in the Cocoon. What this hacking radius means is that anything tech-based on the Monarch’s side is just entirely shut down, be it computers, security cameras, tracing energy signals, or detecting in-progress crimes. This would not only render the Monarch’s mindscape entry machine worthless, but, because it leaves him vulnerable to fatal bodily failures, it could kill him outright. With backup generators, the capability to bring back a county from a blackout overtime,  and the ability to ask Malevola to portal him to his apartment if someone comes after him at SDN to plug in, there’s contingencies ready for any sabotages. This could even, due to the hacking abilities displayed that lets him mess with esoteric tech like safes, locked doors, and sensory deprivation tanks, allow him to hack the teleporter plates, trackers, flying cars, and anything and everything in the Cocoon, including if it tries to cloak. This means, whether Robert is at his desk or on the field, that the Cocoon is in danger of going down or being compromised because of him.

Sonar: Victor is one of the Z-Team’s most dynamic members, able to use intelligence and charisma for strategy before swapping into his Mega-Bat form for strength and vigor. While his planning could help the Z-Team early on, Sonar’s biggest help comes in the form of the Mega-Bats fight and strength. This would allow Sonar to go around easily taking on weak Fluttering Horde members and likely allowing him to deal significant damage to the Cocoon. He can even carry fellow members of the Z-Team around as he flies to move them into advantageous positions. Combine this with his echolocation to detect cloaked enemies like the Cocoon and Mrs. The Monarch and you have a pretty solid recon expert for the Z-Team. To add a little more in his favor, Sonar’s sonic scream could disorient and disrupt anyone on the Fluttering Horde who hears it.

Unfortunately, Sonar is also one of the only heroes without any resistances to any of the hoards hax. He has nothing against sleep darts, transmutation, the weather machine and is even susceptible to Dr. Mrs. The Monarch’s seduction. Overall Sonar has his perks but he is not a key player for the Z-Team and can be taken out commission early on.

Flambaé: In this match Flambaé has one job. That being to deal high amounts of AoE fire damage. Flambaé’s ability to quickly ramp up his power level along with his very solid AoE would allow him to easily handle weaker members of the Fluttering Hoard. His fire can even burn up some of the bombs the Fluttering Horde carry. His flight and speed could also cause some issues for the Fluttering Horde and the cocoon but…

Similarly to Sonar, he has no resistance to some of Monarch’s best resources like transmutation and sleep darts. Specifically, Flambaé has mentioned how much he hates flying in the rain, making the weather machine extra effective. The only thing he could likely counter is the Mechapillars, burning away their binding threads. As a whole, Flambaé is a powerful fighter but a glass cannon who can be taken out if caught off guard.

Invisigal: Invisigal brings one of the most unique powers to the side of Z-Team. With her invisibility Invisigal can avoid most of the Fluttering Horde’s attacks through stealth. This could allow her to sneak up on anyone and take them out. She might even be able to sneak up and place her bomb near the Fluttering Horde or their technology, dealing  massive damage.

Of course this invisibility isn’t perfect, and between blood splatters and her asthma Invisigal could get caught in a bad spot and is susceptible to everything the Horde could throw at her. Because she can’t fly, she also is the first Z-Team member who can be affected by gas, which is especially bad due to her asthma. So, while Invisigal may have some small utility, she generally is one of the weakest members on the Z-Team.

Punch Up: Colm is easily one of the Z-Teams best defensive tools in this match up. His super dense skin makes him immune to the darts and other piercing weapons that the Fluttering Horde has. His compact size also allows him to be thrown by strong heroes like Phenomaman through synergy, making up for his lack of mobility. He also is able to fight at full strength through injury, making him even more deadly once he gets close.

Of course, he isn’t perfect and can be taken out by the Fluttering Horde’s gas. Punch Up also (and most obviously) has no way to reach the Cocoon or hit any Fluttering Horde members in the air without his teammates’ assistance. As a whole, Punch Up is a great defensive asset to the Z-Team in spite of his lack of range.

Malevola: Easily one of the Z-Teams best combatants in this match up. Molevola’s portals are incredible tools that give her team the ability to reposition and get in close against the Fluttering Horde. Most importantly, she could easily teleport her team inside to Meteor Majeure and the Cocoon if she has the location to these bases. This means that the Fluttering Horde and The Monarch cannot retreat to the meteor base and stay safe. But, Malevola also provides plenty of other benefits like trapping threats in an inescapable pocket dimension like 21 or Dr. Mrs. The Monarch. Plus, if she wants to ensure a kill, Malevola can spatially cut members of the Horde in half.

This isn’t even mentioning her ability to heal damaged Z-Team members and become stronger off of their pain. Malevola even has really solid experience with her time as a criminal, fighting a crime family for 3 generations. Her night vision may even allow her to see through the smoke grenades and gas on the battlefield. For a final point, she can potentially match the possession that the Monarch has. While it’s unknown how she does it and how effective it is Malevola did state it was something she could do, meaning it can’t be ruled out as a potential way to take a key player out of the fight.

The only thing that really holds Malevola back is a lack of resistances to the Fluttering Hoard’s main armaments like darts and gas (though she could likely portal away the attacks). In conclusion, Malevola’s battlefield control, spatial cutting, healing and many wincons are incredible in this fight.

Golem: Golem is in a very similar spot to Punch Up in this fight. He resists darts and serums but falls victim to gas. However, what makes Golem unique are his abilities. Being able to absorb and trap enemies with or in his mud body would allow him to take out members of the Fluttering Horde quickly. Along with that, Golem can create clones of himself and completely shape his body to change his stats to fit the situation. So while Golem may seem slow to start, his adaptability, mini army and unique tool kit are very valuable to this matchup. Speaking of an army…

Prism: Prism is another one of the most important members of Z-Team. For one, her illusions could easily distract the simple minded Fluttering Horde, with only Dr. Mrs. The Monarch really being smart enough to potentially figure out what’s going on. These hard light illusions likely could not be affected by the incap options the Horde has and would allow the Z-Team to make up the numbers gap and attract attention away from the real members. She can even make a full-stats doppelgänger of any member of the Z-Team, which could be incredibly powerful if used on someone like Phenomaman.

But that’s only looking at her illusions, as Prism’s hard light constructs can also be used as barriers and ramps, giving her team protection and the ability to reposition. She can even incapacitate enemies by blinding them.

The only downside to Prism is that she doesn’t have any impactful resistances if the Horde catches sight on her. She is susceptible to darts if she isn’t behind a shield, and gas would get her regardless. Still, Prism proves to be one of the most effective members of the Z-Team in the battle.

Coupé: What Coupé lacks in hax, she makes up for in raw skill. Coupé’s assassin skill easily goes above that of the average Fluttering Horde grunt, which would allow her to dismantle them with ease. Her precision with her knives would also give her a bit of range that not all of the Z-Team has. For her biggest advantage though she is the stealithest of the flying members of the Z-Team, meaning she could perform recon and drop on enemies from above with her flight while avoiding gas.

Of course, her skill can be somewhat matched by 21 and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, who are also highly skilled and experienced fighters. Along with that, Coupé is weak to, say it with me now, darts. While Coupé lacks any sweeping wincons, she is very good at dealing with the small time mooks of the Fluttering Hoard given she gets the drop on them.

Waterboy: Surprisingly, Waterboy isn’t the most useless member of the team. Though, that’s only because of his support abilities. While he isn’t very tough Waterboy can heal his teammates with Holy Water Spit and disrupt some of the Horde’s technology with his water if he gets it wet (pause). Not to mention his team up attack with Flambaé, creating blinding steam that can blot out the vision of the Fluttering Horde.

However, as we know, Waterboy is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed and is clumsy to a fault. Not to mention his lack of resistances against the hoards darts, gas, transmutation, etc. Still, Waterboy is not half bad in the fight against the Horde.

Phenomaman: Finally, the man of the hour, Phenomaman. Safe to say, it’s very obvious the advantage he brings to the table. Phenomaman is just… much much faster than the Fluttering Horde while flying. Combined with the Z-Team’s overall strength advantage, he can easily take down anyone and everyone on the team. He can probably destroy the Cocoon just by himself through speed and strength alone. His low rest time also means he can be in the fight for a long period assuming he doesn’t “lose”. He can even decrease the rest time of the Z-Team as a whole giving him invaluable support as well.

Phenomaman’s only real weakness in this fight is his own naïveté, or if The Monarch can somehow get off one of his more abstract wincons like transmutation or mind control. However, with his speed, it’s pretty hard for these wincons to land before Phenomaman takes action, making him the Z-Team’s most effective wincon.

So how do we actually determine who wins the category? There are so many factors and different pieces at play with almost every character bringing SOMETHING to the table. Well let’s rapid fire some points.

• When it comes to numbers, the Fluttering Hoard is rocking at least 80 members that can be split between the Cocoon and battlefield. Easily out numbering the Z-Team at a maximum of 11 members…
• Yet when it comes to valuable players, Phenomaman, Prism, Malevola and Robert are way stronger and more impactful than the high ranking members of the Hoard (Arguably minus Dr. Girlfriend).
• Mecha Man and Flambaé have good AoE that can hit groups of the Fluttering Hoard all at once
• The Cocoon is a double edged sword, on one hand its interior has plenty of traps that could catch the Z-Team off guard… if they enter it instead of taking it out from the outside via hacking or brute force. The Cocoon also leaves The Monarch and most of his forces trapped inside if he wants to use it during this match.
• The Z-Team’s members counter most of the Monarch’s best wincons with most of them being able to avoid either gas or tranquilizers. However, most members do not resist both and can be incapacitated by one or the other.
• The SDN Pharmacy items could likely heal back and counteract some of Monarch’s effects like sleep from darts and gas.

What does this all mean? Well to put it simply the Z-Team is able to cover their weaknesses to the Fluttering Hoards wincons and has more valuable members in spite of the large numbers gap. The Hoard doesn’t have much to handle Malevola’s portal trickery, Prism’s doppelgängers, Robert’s hacking and of course, the overwhelming might of Phenomaman. There’s also the point that Robert and Flambaé have really good AoE, which helps a lot to clear out the weaker Hoard members. This isn’t to say the Hoard is useless and that The Monarch, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch and Henchman 21 can’t do anything. But the Z-Team just gels so well together power wise that it’s hard for the Hoard to manage them all. Point to the Z-Team.

Tertiaries

When it comes to comparing the sum total of experience both sides have, it’d make sense to look at the overall careers in heroism and villainy to see if one of their teams have a solid leg up on the other. Looking at the time that Robert Robertson III acted as Mecha Man, we have a solid timeframe of 15 years when we look at how Robert began nearly immediately after his father was killed. After that, the entirety of the game’s main plot shows his time as an SDN dispatcher where he quickly shows great proficiency in leadership after a rocky start with the Z-Team, who had only been working there for a few months so far. The in-game timeline doesn’t offer much to suggest it takes place more than a few weeks. And, while some Z-Team members are in their 30s and 40s, there’s not a lot to go off of for how much “active” time they spent being menaces to society. We do know, however, that Coupé was an extraordinarily successful assassin, Phenomaman was part of a relatively famous hero team for some time, and that Sonar ran absurdly notable finance schemes. But, numerically speaking, Robert has the most years under his belt. Fitting, given he’s the leader and mentor figure for the main squad.

Let’s compare this to the Monarch’s career, which is less clear from a timeline-exacting perspective, but we have a lot of solid context to work with. It’s confirmed that he didn’t start arching Rusty Venture unofficially until he was attending university, where he began to work as a Henchman for Phantom Limb (where Dr. Mrs. The Monarch similarly got her start in villainy at 19 years old). Given we know that Rusty Venture, JJ, and the Monarch are around the same age, Malcolm should be around 40 years old now. Therefore, he should have around 20 years in villain work. We don’t exactly know how old Henchman 21 is, just that he was taken as a teenager, but he’d certainly have less years compared to his bosses. On paper, the Monarch has about 5 years (maybe a little less depending on the small age gap between Dr. Girlfriend and Monarch) on Robert. Though, the difference is somewhat negligible given Malcom’s own short fuse and shortsighted low showings when you look at Robert normally being able to keep a cool head. So, let’s check out their skills.

Despite being incredibly clever when he needs to be and competent enough to kill off tons of other villains with 21 as the Blue Morpho, even late series Monarch is still shortsighted and impulsive enough to have his poor judgment sometimes be an issue. Thankfully, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch is by far the most competent player on that team, having the leadership skills to act as a Council member for the new Guild, being a legitimate doctor, delegating tasks more consistently to top tier Henchmen, and generally having a more rational approach to rein in the Monarch’s outbursts. Additionally, Henchman 21’s fought Brock Samson, a licensed killer and absurdly skilled bodyguard and secret agent, and held his own. Alongside his mobility through parkour, genuine fighting skills in fending off judo users, teaching karate, and having comic book trope knowledge, he’s definitively one of the most skilled members of the Fluttering Horde. This isn’t to say that Monarch is a detriment, per se. He’s gotten to EMA Level 10 through his own cunning approach as a covert vigilante and by taking advantage of the bureaucracy within the faction systems of the world. Plus, he’s skilled enough to land dart shots without looking and charismatically recruit tons of people to his cause.

Comparatively, however, Robert’s ability to delegate tasks, boost morale, and know teammate synergies like the back of his hand allows him to be a strong leader even just from his computer. By the end, Z-Team members are flawlessly working to save each other in big group battles against the Red Ring gang, where they’re comboing attacks and using powers to create opportunities for their team. You can see this in action without Robert’s direct input via Golem’s adhesive body acting as glue for Invisigal’s bombs, Waterboy and Flambaé creating steam smokescreens, and Malevola saving Prism from falling from great heights or lending her sword to Invisigal. Speaking of which, Robert being able to assist the already stealthy Invisigal on infiltration missions makes her sneakiness an incredible asset during such a large and chaotic fight. With how often an expert Dispatch player can succeed in nearly every call in the game to take care of the variety of issues that get called in, the whole team dealt with a bunch of different scenarios and thought quickly on their feet to come up with solutions on the spot for them.

When you look at this coordination compared to the general lack of fighting experience the Fluttering Horde have, especially with their consistent losses to Brock, it’s not unfathomable to see that the Z-Team can handle themselves even when outnumbered. Of course, with enough leadership skills, the Horde is not exactly helpless under the right leadership, especially when they’re all able to fly, spread out, or focus dart shots on heavy hitters when necessary. But, admittedly, Monarch doesn’t truly give as much attention or care to his normal Henchmen the way he does to the more noteworthy members like Dr. Mrs. The Monarch or Henchman 21. Even then, 21’s performance against Brock is more than enough to contend with an assassin like Coupé. Plus, there is a definite possibility that Dr. Mrs. The Monarch could outsmart Sonar’s own, more academic and finance-focused intellect, and her competency could contend with Robert’s own skills on the field when it comes to negotiations and bypassing security systems.

But, this can definitely be matched by just how absurd of a hacker Robert is, which allows him to contribute without even being out in harm’s way. He’d almost certainly want to maximize his time as the man in the chair before hopping into his mech, where he can analyze layouts of structures and formulate plans of attack with his team without the added stress of being in active danger. Although, despite the Fluttering Horde having a lesser amount of competent members overall, three of them are able to step up as leaders if one of them falls, while Robert being taken out would be a big detriment to the Z-Team. With how much back and forth there is with skill advantages in differing areas per person on each respective team, it’s kind of a hard call to make. With general comparable career experience and tons of different areas of expertise handled on either team, it’s safer to call this aspect of the battle a tie.

Conclusion

This match up has a lot of different moving parts and different ways it can go. Both teams have a wide variety of arsenal and abilities that allow them to do some crazy stuff. But when it comes down to it, the Z-Team is almost always coming out on top. While the Fluttering Horde has a lot more people in its ranks, most of them are weak, inexperienced Henchmen with very little going for them minus their dart guns. The Z-Team, who are used to fighting large groups of the Red Ring’s thugs, are going to have very little trouble with them in the short term. And, while the Cocoon is a very powerful battle station with some traps and tricks that could catch the Z-Team off guard, it centralizes a lot of the Fluttering Hoard and leaves them open to getting destroyed by something like the Super Spirit Bomb. This is assuming the Cocoon isn’t just hacked and infiltrated by the stealthier members of the Z-Team. Even with the high ranking members of the Horde having faster reaction speed, they have no way to match Phenomaman’s flight speeds. And, when it comes to strength, not even 21 can close the gap between the two teams. Coupled with Z-Team’s incredible teamwork and Robert’s leadership, the Fluttering Horde simply doesn’t stack up.

The Monarch may have ventured far for a win, but he and the Fluttering Horde have been dispatched. The winner is the Z-Team.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Z-Team

“There's no such thing as fate. It's bullshit. It's just something we cling to because we think we're the main character of life. We're not. We're a bunch of flesh blobs with depression on a floating rock.”

Advantages:

• Generally stronger
• Phenomaman has far faster travel speed than anyone else
• The Mecha Man Suit’s weaponry can take out multiple members with AOE attacks
• Robert’s hacking or Mecha Man Suit shut down the Cocoon and various tech either way
• The SDN Computer’s scanning and analysis allows safe combat assessment from afar
• The Mecha Man Suit, Punch Up, and Golem are immune to darts
• Prism can create tons of duplicates as decoys and blind various mooks at once
• Prism and Golem can duplicate to make more members with similar stats
• Malevola’s portals can spatially cut and BFR better than the Venture Teleporter Plates
• Sonar can detect cloaked or invisible opposition with echolocation
• Actually have healing options
• More coordinated as a team
• Experienced in fights against groups of villains

Equal (If necessary):

• Comparable career experience
• Various shared skillsets
• Generally similar reaction speeds

Disadvantages:

• Outnumbered
• No leaders to fill in if Robert goes down
• Some team members are vulnerable to poison darts, tranquilizer darts, or gases
• Vulnerable to transmutation serum
• Less members that can fly
• Lacks the hacking range to affect Meteor Majeure
• The Cocoon’s lightning cannon could affect the Mecha Man Suit
• He’s a bitch whose name is Robert

The Monarch

“What did you just say to me, you insolent, soon-to-be corpse?”

Advantages:

• Has the numbers advantage by a big margin
• Has weapons that could take down some of the Z-Team
• High ranking members are faster, 21 more due to upscaling…
• Henchman 24 can scout ahead with zero risk
• More years of experience on the field
• The Monarch, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, and Henchman 21 can fill in as leaders
• Henchman 21 has better showings of maneuverability, skill, and upscales his own team
• Dr. Mrs. The Monarch has access to Guild weapons and is highly competent
• Meteor Majeure is a safe haven if not discovered
• Almost every member can fly

Equal (If necessary):

• Similar career experience
• Numerous shared skillsets
• Generally comparable reaction speeds

Disadvantages:

• Generally weaker
• …However, they are blitzed in travel speed by Phenomaman
• Only a select few members are noteworthy combatants
• Normal Henchmen are inexperienced fighters
• The Cocoon gets shut down or analyzed by Robert whether he’s in the Suit or not
• The Mind Invasion Machine could prove fatal if hacked
• Only one injection of the transmutation serum
• No way to deal with duplicates or Prism’s blindness inducement
• Darts are ignored by Punch Up, Golem, and Mecha Man
• Gases are ignored by flying characters
• The Monarch can be shortsighted and impulsive
• Has an absolutely abysmal memory

Votes

Team Z-Team [7]: (Tru, TheCardinalKing, SpaceJellO, Garf, Spidey, Hi Hi, Tario)

Team The Monarch [0]: (Rusty Venture rigged the votes)

Thank You/Announcement

Thank you to the amazing team we had for this blog. Shoutout to SpaceJellO not only for introducing me to the matchup, but helping a ton on this blog along with Garf, Spidey, Hi Hi and more. This match up is really fun and unique so getting to research it was a blast. I would also like to thank Kaiser and Triple for being calcers/calc checkers for the blog!

Now for the “annoucement”. Unfortunately, we are cancelling Booker DeWitt VS Corvo Attano. To put it bluntly there was a lack of interest and motivation to get the blog done leaving it limbo for multiple months. As such we will be moving on to a new project. Apologies if you were looking foward to the blog. In its place will be..

Parasite VS Malware

(DC VS Ben 10)