Brown Widow

Brown Widow
The Venture Bros. character
Brown Widow
First appearance	Bright Lights, Dean City
Voiced by	Nathan Fillion
Real Name	Jared (last name unrevealed)
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Superhero College student Waiter Actor Dorm resident advisor University mascot (Beaver)
Relatives	An unnamed aunt
Current Alliances	Dean Venture (roommate) Stuyvesant University (college/employer)
Prior Alliances	Sirena Ong (ex-girlfriend)
Enemies	The Monarch The Revenge Society

Brown Widow (real name: Jared) is a spider-themed superhero based in New York City on The Venture Bros.

Character History

Background

Brown Widow used to be into super-science until an accident occurred while he was working on his irradiated spider thesis, giving him his super powers. As a result, he is now capable of shooting webs out of his lower back. He also gained two extra pairs of eyes, which he conceals in his civilian identity under long hair and/or a headband.

Season 4

Brown Widow's true face

Brown Widow first appeared in the episode Bright Lights, Dean City. In the episode, he thwarts the Revenge Society's attempt to kill Dr. Venture. Later, he tries to help Dean, whom he initially mistakes for a prostitute. Dean explains that that is not the case and he is just worrying about following in his father's footsteps in super-science. Brown Widows says he can relate to the situation. He then tells Dean about his own background in super-science and how he gave it up to become a superhero. He continues talking with Dean as the young man tells him he wants to be a reporter but Brown Widow's attention shifts from the conversation when he notices Dr. Venture is writing a musical inside the apartment. He ends up singing a duet with Dr. Venture, earning him the role of "Rusty" in Dr. Venture's musical, Rust!

Season 6

He appears again in the season six episode Hostile Makeover, where he is seen giving a group of people a tour of the Stuyvesant University campus. He encounters Dean Venture who had plans to enroll at the University. At first, Dean does not recognize him (due to Brown Widow being out of costume) until after the latter is humiliated by a rival teacher, Tosh Tompkins, which caused Brown Widow to accidentally deposit a load of webbing inside his clothes. This prompts Dean to remember him.

In Tanks for Nuthin', Brown Widow's civilian identity is shown attending Think Tank's philosophy class, seated next to Dean.

In It Happening One Night, he helps Dean try to make his brother Hank's date perfect. He gives Dean the name of restaurant which turns out to be the name of a ninja themed restaurant where he is waiter. He serves Hank and Sirena Ong, inadvertently revealing he once dated Sirena, spurring the two to argue about the nature of their relationship before he leaves to get their order. When Brock Samson and Rocco (Sirena's bodyguard) burst in the restaurant, Brown Widow confronts them and recognizes Brock from a description he heard from Dean. He explains that everything is okay and that Sirena and Hank are on a date. When he returns to the table, however, the couple have already left.

Season 7

In The High Cost of Loathing, Dean Venture and Jared become roommates when Dean moves into the dormitory at Stuyvesant University, where Jared is the Resident Adviser. Brock and Dean walk in to find Jared naked, carefully cleaning his spinneret with a cotton swab. Embarrassed, he quickly turns to cover his exposed crotch with the closest item to hand: the Beaver head from the mascot costume Jared wears for Stuyvesant University wrestling matches. Brock asks Jared if he's having sex with the mascot head, which a flustered Jared quickly reassures the bodyguard he is not.

Brown Widow foils a bank robbery attempt by The Monarch and gives him a good thrashing. Brown Widow makes extensive use of his webbing in said endeavors.

Powers and Abilities

Brown Widow seems to have similar powers to Marvel's Spider-Man.

Organic Webbing

• Whereas Spider-Man traditionally engineers his own webbing and shoots his webs from cartridges connected to his wrist, the Brown Widow seems to be able to produce the webbing himself, from his own body, which he projects from an anus-like aperture (spinneret) in his lower back. Brown Widow carefully cleans his spinneret with a cotton swab.

Singing (Absolute Pitch)

• Brown Widow tells Dr. Venture that he has "perfect spider pitch".

"Spider Sense"

• Brown Widow has a "spider sense" that alerts him to impending danger, as shown when Tosh Tompkins, a character much like Spider-Man's bully Flash Thompson, throws a can of sports drink at his head.

Superhuman Strength

• Brown Widow possesses superhuman strength, evidenced when he effortlessly ripped the car door off a taxi cab.

Supernumerary Eyes

• Brown Widow has four supernumerary eyes on his forehead, like the multiple eyes of a spider, which he generally covers with his hair or a headband while in his civilian guise. The mask of his costume has eyeholes for all six of his eyes.

Wall Crawling

• Brown Widow has been seen adhering to walls and freely climbing about on them.

Episode Appearances

Season 4

• Bright Lights, Dean City

Season 6

• Hostile Makeover
• Tanks for Nuthin'
• It Happening One Night

Season 7

• The High Cost of Loathing
• The Forecast Manufacturer (mentioned only)

Trivia

• The brown widow (Latrodectus geometricus) is a spider that is slightly smaller and generally lighter in color than the black widow. Its bite contains a neurotoxic venom, but is usually not very dangerous to humans--far less dangerous than the black widow.
• Brown Widow is essentially an anatomically correct parody of Spider-Man. Alongside the various callbacks such as being bullied and having to maintain a day job, unlike Spider-Man shooting webs from his wrists, Brown Widow shoots web from the spinneret located in his lower back.
  • Brown Widow's name is also a pun name to Marvel superhero Black Widow, who is also named after a venomous spider.
  • Ironically, Dean historically has worn Spider-Man themed pajamas in the show, proving the actual Spider-man exists as a fictional character within the show itself.
• In Hostile Makeover, Tosh Tompkins ridicules Brown Widow's headband and hairstyle by calling him "Loverboy" and "Mark Knopfler".
  • Loverboy was a popular Canadian music group in the 1980s whose members wore their hair long and often wore headbands.
  • Mark Knopfler was the lead singer and guitarist for the British rock band Dire Straits, whose members had a similar aesthetic in the '80s.
  • Jared uses his hair and headband to disguise the supernumerary eyes on his forehead.
• In It Happening One Night, he is addressed as "Jared" and reveals that he once dated Sirena Ong.
• Brown Widow is apparently an aspiring actor in his civilian identity as Jared. He is likely Canadian as he has a Canadian flag on the ceiling above his dorm room bed. This could also be an in-joke based on voice actor Nathan Fillion being Canadian.
• In Bright Lights, Dean City, Brown Widow claims to have acted in a stage version of The Sound of Music, a reference to Nicholas Hammond, who played both Friedrich von Trapp and Peter Parker in the 1977 Spider-Man series.

Goofs

• In the original concept sketches for Brown Widow he had eight eyes, not six, with an extra eye on each side of his head near his temple. The mask on his costume has eight eyeholes as a result. That design was included in a deleted scene in Bright Lights, Dean City, though he only appeared to have the four extra eyes on his forehead in the episode itself.

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