“I’m still here, I still exist, that means you still turn into me…”


Phantom: Or Dark Danny because Dan Phantom is NOT canonical!
VOICE ACTOR: Eric Roberts
AGE: I'm gonna assume he's 24 if the timeline works out right
EYES: Red
HAIR: Flamin’ white
STATUS: World powerful ghost of the Vlad/Danny variety
LIKES: Power, mind-raping, destructions
DISLIKES: His younger self, Valerie, people trying to mess with his life via time traveling this side of a Bill and Ted movie
PERSONALITY: Ruthless, dark, powerful, confident, sadistic, heartless--he’s basically a personality fusion of Danny’s will and gumption and Vlad’s intelligence and cleverness
POWER: Basic Ghost Powers just amped up to the nth degree--including the Ghostly Wail
STRENGTH: Can and will kick your ass faster then you could blink
WEAKNESS: Underestimates the people who he deems weaker
FIRST APPEARANCE: “The Ultimate Enemy”
GOAL: To secure his future, take over and destroy the effin’ world

HISTORY: Phantom’s life is rather complicated, his motivations even more ambiguous. In an alternate future, a time where Danny’s loved ones were brutally killed by a Nasty Burger explosion, sends the former hero into a state of depression, so much so that he lures himself to Vlad’s manor out of desperation, knowing he would understand his ploys and dilemma.

Indeed, stepping out of his usual villainous role, Vlad gave Danny a comforting hand, enough to honor the boy’s wishes--to do away with his humanity and end the hurt. By that, he means rip out his ghost half from his human self. This apparently didn’t sit well with his ghostly counterpart who quickly grew aggressive, slamming Vlad away and using his Ghost Gauntlets to rip out Plasmius from Masters. For some reason, he fused into Plasmius, resulting in the birth of possibility the most powerful ghost since Pariah Dark.

He’s first cruel act of evil was to murder Danny in cold blood, then blow up Vlad’s manor. From then on, he spends the next ten years honing destruction on both Earth and the Ghost Zone. It is a battle no one has won and is slowly struggling to do so. Amity Park is a thriving city that can’t go any further, trapped, but secure under a protective ghost shield away from Phantom with Valerie and her father as sole guardians. Phantom however has only gained and honed his new power: The Ghostly Wail, quickly destroying the structures holding the shield and easily knocking Valerie down.

She returns to get her revenge, mistaking Danny as Phantom when he and his friends traveled to the future to escape Clockwork (sent by the Observants to kill Danny to prevent his future growth as Phantom). The real deal arrives, smacks Valerie away, tries to kill Tucker and Sam (who luckily removed their tie medallion, sending them back to their present), and then fuses Danny’s time medallion inside him (making it unreachable) before whisking him away into the Ghost Zone to keep him busy while he secures his future. Taking one of time medallions Tucker and Sam left behind, Phantom returns ten years to the past, turns into his past self, and maneuvers his way into cheating on the CAT that would cause a chain reaction to lead to his family and friends’ death. Indeed, that’s how it worked and how Phantom existed (resulting in a time cycle). Even when Danny returned to his present via Future Vlad and combated Phantom (catching him off guard by gaining his Ghostly Wail), Danny could not prevent the death of his loved ones: his becoming was inevitable…until Clockwork came and manage to undo the time period, giving Danny a second chance.

As for Phantom, Clockwork holds the Fenton Thermos containing him, now existing in his own time period, however trapped, yet struggling to exit…

PERSONALITY: Ruthless, powerful, dark: Phantom is a walking pile of destruction. Everything he’s touched has withered and died and nothing can stop his grasp of evil. Why he does so is unknown, what is clear is that he maintains a level of power and enjoys it immensely. There is no reason for him to feel guilt, what he wants, he’ll do whatever it takes to get. He is cruel, sadistic, heartless, and he lets it known in the best way he can.

Because he is a fusion of Vlad and Danny, he has both their personalities: the clever and intelligent motives of Vlad Masters, his “evilness” flowing inside of him that causes him to turn the world into his whipping boy--even possessing his level of sneakiness by manipulating as his past self. Though he’s gumption, he’s spirit and drive to do what he does for his own good is clearly Danny’s part, driven by the boy’s courageous and powerful will. It also gives him a sense of overconfidence, one that ultimately was used against him.

NEO YI’s OPINION: Sweet Zombie Jesus, is it nice to actually write more then three sentences on how I feel for a certain DP character (till now, I've spent the majority of the last few months on Season Three characters). Words can’t describe how much he is the awesome. The walking awesome. One of the prime factors why “The Ultimate Enemy” was so utterly brilliant was this villain on display. He’s no-nonsense attitude topped with a sense of humor (he can be pretty sarcastic and joke-y if he wants to be) and his willingness to do anything, no matter how questionable that may be, has won my heart.

Gruesome with little hesitation nor frequent villain speeches, Phantom has manage to single-handedly have a place in nearly every characters’ lives: He killed his friends and family, set up a prime rivalry with Valerie whom struggles to combat him, destroyed or ruined the lives of Danny’s ghostly foe, waltzed as a ticking time bomb for the people of Amity Park, captured the eyes of both the Observants and Clockwork, and turned the brilliant billionaire Vlad into an old, recluse hermit of his former self.

Unfortunately the only glaring problem to him is the motivation behind it. While it’s clear his goal throughout the episode was to secure his own future, the question on why he decided to be full blown evil outside of Plasmius’ “evil” half is nothing short of ambiguous. Why did he split Masters and Plasmius and overtake ‘em? What reason would he have outside of theories a whole bunch of DP fans and I have been pondering over?

As for his equally ambiguous name, Phantom is what Val called him, Dark Danny is his name listed in the credits, and Dan Phantom is his video game name. For all intents and purposes, I always call him Phantom--if not because it sounds more mysterious and cool.

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