The Investors

The Investors
The Venture Bros. character
The Investors (Lips, Caecius, and Skiron)
First appearance	Pomp and Circuitry
Last appearance	All This and Gargantua-2
Information
Occupation	Contractors Supervillains Lesser Anemoi
Relatives	Dr. Henry Killinger (brother)
Notable characteristics	Mystical powers Sinister nature
Current Alliances	The Guild of Calamitous Intent
Prior Alliances	Monstroso The Sovereign
Enemies	Dr. Henry Killinger O.S.I. The Sovereign
Death	Killed by Dr. Henry Killinger aboard Meteor Majeure

The Investors are a trio of mysterious men in business suits who possess mysterious powers and abilities that can, as described by Monstroso, "make dreams come true." They primarily do this by making "contracts" with certain people, promising them their desired dream in exchange for a hefty price--usually their lives. Their behavior and appearance is almost demonic in nature, being able to make unholy deals with others and then collecting their "fee" in a rather horrific manner. They can hide their presence from others and change their forms at will, making them a formidable and deadly trio.

History

The Investors first appeared in the episode Pomp and Circuitry, silently sitting on the podium behind Professor Impossible during his speech at State University.

The next time The Investors were shown they were working with Monstroso, who was in dire need of a new heart. The Investors took the dying King Gorilla's heart and kidnapped Billy Quizboy, who was pretending to be a doctor even though he did not have a degree. Billy was terrified at first, thinking the Investors were vampires. Instead of drinking his blood, they gave Billy a legitimate medical license so he could perform the heart transplant for Monstroso as a real doctor, having only operated illegally in the past. The Investors quickly left when S.P.H.I.N.X. showed up.

Months after saving Monstroso's life, The Investors proceeded to murder him while he was in O.S.I. custody. They did this by phasing him through the wall and out of the airship, sending him plummeting to the ground. They then changed their forms to appear as Mister-level O.S.I. agents investigating the incident, possibly to determine if anyone knew about their involvement.

In All This and Gargantua-2, The Investors were revealed to be the financial backers of Jonas Venture Jr.'s space station Gargantua-2 and attended its grand opening. It was also revealed that they were responsible for allowing The Sovereign to become leader of The Guild for an unspecified contract, a debt which The Sovereign was terrified of repaying. Fearing for his life, The Sovereign attempted to have the Investors killed by destroying Gargantua-2. The Investors, however, learned of The Sovereign's plans through contact with Phantom Limb and his Revenge Society. They purposely sabotaged the space station's controls, leading to its meltdown, before escaping to Meteor Majeure. There they confronted their brother, Dr. Henry Killinger, intending to kill him for not siding with their agenda. Instead Killinger prevailed in killing two of the Investors (Lips and Skiron) in a psychic duel. Following the helpful interruption of The Monarch, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, Henchman 21, Watch, and Ward, Killinger broke from their psychic standoff and finished the remaining Investor (Caecius) by stabbing him to death with his umbrella.

Powers

• Phasing: The Investors have shown they are capable of phasing through objects such as walls and bullets.
• Shape-shifting*: The Investors are able to disguise themselves as shown when they disguised themselves as government investigators.
  • Mimicry*: In addition to shape-shifting, they are fully capable of copying the mannerisms and personality traits of others when transforming into them, making their shape-shifting abilities all the more convincing.
• Levitation*: The Investors are able to slightly float over solid ground and can seamlessly hover over floors.
• Selective Invisibility*: The Investors can't be seen by cameras, also in All This and Gargantua-2, wherein Brock can see them, even though they don't show up on O.S.I.'s video feed.
• Psionic Powers: The Investors have the ability to harm others on some sort of psychic plane as seen in All This and Gargantua-2, where their duel with Dr. Killinger is shown as a flashy lightsaber fight from their perspective, but is almost tranquil from the perspective of the non-psychic observers who interrupt it.

* The fact that the investors are possessed of psionic powers makes it is unclear as to whether they actually possess most of the other powers listed above, as any or all except causing other objects to phase through things could be approximated by illusions.

Enemies

• O.S.I. - Possibly afraid of them discovering their secrets.
• S.P.H.I.N.X. - Originally afraid of them discovering their secrets, but are no longer a threat to them due to it being disassembled.
• Dr. Henry Killinger - Their brother, who went rogue as Killinger mentions that the Investors supposedly lost sight of their way when they tried to rule over humanity. The Investors attempted to kill Killinger aboard Meteor Majeure, but the latter defeated and killed them easily.

Episode Appearances

Season 4

• Pomp and Circuitry
• The Silent Partners

Season 5

• O.S.I. Love You

Season 6

• All This and Gargantua-2

Notes and Trivia

• The very first appearance of The Investors was in the episode Pomp and Circuitry, sitting on the podium behind Professor Impossible during his speech at State University.
• The Investors were repeatedly described as vampires when they first appeared in The Silent Partners and their otherworldly abilities did little to discredit that notion.
• During Sergeant Hatred's flashback nightmare in Venture Libre, a trio of O.S.I. soldiers resembling The Investors pull a crazed Sergeant Hatred (whom the flashback reveals as being named C. R. Haine) off his victim during what appears to be a super-soldier experiment with a vaccine labeled "Soldier-X". These three O.S.I. soldiers first appeared in a flashback in the season three episode The Invisible Hand of Fate where they attempted to subdue Myra Brandish on the lawn of The Venture Compound.
• When The Investors arrived on the O.S.I. Hover-Quarters to investigate the disappearance of Monstroso in the episode O.S.I. Love You, they took the guise of two Mister-level O.S.I. agents similar to Mr. Doe and Mr. Cardholder and a Master-level agent (apparently a training rank in Mister-branch whose members are recognizable by not yet having been issued their signature Mister-branch fedora). They definitely impersonated Misters Frost and Sample, and impersonated Master Yourname if there is such an agent (an actual Yourname never actually having been shown).
• It is revealed in All This and Gargantua-2 that the Investors are the brothers of Dr. Henry Killinger and are respectively named (from left to right in the captioned photo) Lips, Caecius, and Skiron, which are references to the Greco-Roman gods of the southwest, northeast, and northwest winds, respectively. This also implies that Killinger is Apeliotes or Eurus, the god of the southeast wind.