A new theme this season was that a good man can make a difference. For most of its run, Venture has presented good vs. evil as a primarily bureaucratic struggle. OSI and the Guild of Calamitous Intent battled each other for decades, each side regulated by red tape and paperwork. There was nothing really at stake, since each organization existed only to oppose the other. But this year, Brock joined SPHINX, a secret paramilitary group that neutralized the real threats – the people who planned to harm civilians. Brock Samson made a real difference, whether it was slitting the throat of some guy building a dirty bomb or stabbing the Hitler dog. This wasn’t presented cynically either – Brock did good work that helped people and he felt good about it. The key to his arc comes in his season finale speech to Molotov Cocktease.
