Penelope Spectra: Manipulative Witch
VOICE ACTOR: Tara Strong
AGE: Unknown. With her vanity, Spectra would never tell
EYES: Green (Human disguise), Red (True Form)
HAIR: Red with light orange streaks (Human Disguise), Black (True Form…though she’s black everywhere)
STATUS: Psychologist, Self-beautician
LIKES: Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and above all, Love...okay, just the beauty, youthful part, having potential gay dudes as her partner in crime, a nice cup of coffee
DISLIKES: Wrinkles and old age
PERSONALITY: Cruel, sadistic, ironically optimistic, confident, manipulating, vain
POWER: Able to absorb the energy out of youth to keep her young, Standard ghost powers
STRENGTH: Her optimistic nature can shield her manipulative side which she uses as advantage. Posing as a psychologist, she is able to pinpoint a person's weakness and use it against them, lack of morality causes her to reach any horizons she wants to get what she wants
WEAKNESS: Too obsessed with her own damn appearance
FIRST APPEARANCE: "My Brother’s Keeper"
GOAL: Gain youth, Make Snow White’s vain stepmother her bitch
HISTORY: Her first onscreen appearance wouldn’t have your Average Joe thinking twice that she’s one of the most gleefully sadistic villains in Danny Phantom’s Rogue's Gallery. Penelope Spectra, Casper High’s new teen psychologist is a peppy, cheerful, attitude adjuster adult who intends to perk up the emotional and jaded teenagers. What the naïve students don’t suspect is that she manipulates and feeds their drive to cause more insecurity unto themselves, rendering them further depressed. With it, she sucks up their energy which keeps her forever young.
To make sure she doesn’t raise ghost sensing suspicious, she cranks up the AC, preventing Danny from figuring out until it’s almost too late. By that point, he, too was undergoing his own emotional distress, as well as an ongoing conflict with his older sister who secretly discovered his secret. Her unwavering spirit gave Danny the gumption he needed to counter Spectra before she could set her ultimate plan in action: kill Jazz in front of the entire student body during the Casper High Centennial Pep Rally; the combined might of their sadness enough to keep Spectra going for ages. Though Danny managed to subdue her enough, it is Jazz who delivers the finishing blow.
She makes her bold second appearance by actually reminding incognito for the first half of the episode. When multiple ghost bugs phases into the students of Casper High, they endure a mixture of sickness and ghost powers they cannot control. Danny infiltrates as one of the kids by presenting his own powers, eventually discovering Spectra and her eternal partner Bertrand is behind all the mess. She planned to suck up all the children’s best qualities as well as Danny’s powers to strengthen her human skin, creating an all-powerful Spectra. Unbeknownst to her, Danny quickly substituted his father’s booger-filled handkerchief, turning her into a fat, snot-covered version of herself. The battle ends in an enormously gross mess.
Her last major role has her sharing the spotlight with Ember and Kitty. When the three worked together to banish all men (and succeed in spades), they possessed the rest of the females of Amity Park and had themselves a ball. For some reason, Spectra host a cooking show. Their only opponents were Jazz, Sam, and Maddie who after numerous failures managed to take the three down. ("Girls’ Night Out")
She makes minor cameos where she runs away from Pariah Dark, helps Danny save Christmas, and save the world from an Ecto-Asteroid. ("Phantom Planet")
PERSONALITY: To call Spectra a villain would be a grave understatement. Spectra is a sadistic foe in every true sense of the word. Her deadly persona is only matched with her manipulative fox-like behavior. She only appears to be a happy, cheerful person. She assumes a type you could easily relate or rely on, but by that point, it’ll be too late. Her optimistic outlook masks the inner deranged psychopath within her.
The worst part is how she often uses a slow, painful method to end the lives of others. Vain and youthful, Spectra has no concerns—no hesitations—using even children for her own selfish reason. She takes what she needs from them, and then lets them wither in their own traumas or worse: death. There are no moral grounds for her.
OPINION: Spectra is dangerous. While most villains and characters in the series have some form of strict rules or moral codes within themselves, Spectra is nearly unlimited in her expertise. Murder, selfishness, torment, whatever her wily mind conjures, there’s little reluctance when she pulls it off. Adults or kids, nobody is an exception in her eyes and she’ll likely leave you to die a disoriented death as she would a quick one. She’s unpredictable and slinks in the shadows until she’s usually discovered. Spectra’s complication and incredulous dark personality makes her one of my favorite villain. With the limits of a children’s show, her dangerous recommendation remains subtle. Artistically, that works so much better; we can still see she’s not assing around.
Though Vlad remains the pivotal big bad, Spectra has just as much clever and trick smarts as the Armani-cladded one and should the two meet, the results would be goddamn epic. Who would win in a battle of brains could result in some serious consequences; any team-up between the two would end in violent backstabbing—Spectra only thinks for herself and Vlad would see her as nothing but a pawn. Danny should count his lucky stars such a concept did not happen.
The only downside she ever suffered was her third main appearance. Somehow, she turned into a complete man hater who found annoyance in Bertrand when previous episodes established a close bond between the two (they were clearly friends, not just partners). If they also wanted to give her a live show, shouldn’t a pop psychologist be far more appropriate then a cooking show? Really? It's like the writer just dumped her there because he probably couldn’t think of other chicks to fill the trio.
Also, Penelope Spectra is an awesome name. And she's got legs that reach the heavens!
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