Vlad Masters, better known as Vlad Plasmius, is the main antagonist of Danny Phantom. He is Danny's arch-nemesis, Jack Fenton's former best friend, and Maddie's former love interest, the former two's rival. He later becomes one of the most hated men on Earth after he finally reveals his true nature as a ghost.
Overview[]
Vlad Masters was the best childhood friend of Jack Fenton, the father of the series' main protagonist, Danny Fenton. They were working together on a science project, trying to create a portal able to take them to the ghost world, when the project exploded and infected Vlad with "ecto acne". Believing himself to be hideous, he assumed he was unworthy of his true love, although Maddie never truly loved Vlad as revealed in Masters of All Time. He held a grudge against Jack Fenton since, believing his infection to be Jack's fault. In the final episode, a TV special titled "Phantom Planet", he gets hit by an asteroid. It is unknown if he survived, though since it was rather comical it was implied that he did.
Goals[]
Aside from trying to gain a family by winning back his college love and even get Danny to be his adopted son, he tries to gain power, in all ways he can. Throughout the series he makes life hard for Danny, hoping to break his will. Vlad had even made attempts to clone Danny as well in order to sate his desires for a family. At the beginning of the third season, Vlad seems to lose interest in having Danny as a son and simply sought to torment Danny. He even goes so far as to become mayor of Amity Park and start a campaign against ghosts despite being half-ghost himself. In "The Ultimate Enemy" special, he accidentally creates Dark Danny in an attempt to help ease the emotional pain Danny had been going through.
Appearance[]
As a human, Vlad has gray, curly, long hair tied into a ponytail, as the result of being infused with ecto-acne, and a matching goatee. However, he has black eyebrows and a pointed nose. He has midnight blue eyes and his eyes are heavily outlined in black eye bags, showing his evil nature and implying that he maybe wears eyeliner. He typically wears a black suit with a red handkerchief in his left breast pocket and a matching red bolo tie.
The suit has three rows of white buttons, a total of six. He also wears a white undershirt and black pointed shoes. In his alter-ego of Vlad Plasmius, he retains little resemblance to his human form, although some features remains the same.
Plasmius is more vampiric than Masters, as this was the producer's original intention, although it was rebuked by Nickelodeon, who considered it too "occult."
He is more muscular in this form, has sky blue skin, and pointed ears and fangs. His hair is black and pointed in a U-shape and he has a black goatee. He wears a mostly white outfit consisting of white trousers and a white long-sleeved shirt covered in black gloves. His shirt is connected via a black belt and stems up to his neck. There is a black collar on his shirt like Danny's, although it does not extend up the neck. He wears black boots. Finally, he accessories with a high collar cape connected around his neck that has a white exterior and a red interior lining.
Personality[]
Vlad's general outer appearance showcase him as a well to do man: rich, debonair, obsequious, charming, suave, creative, diabolical, manipulative, knowledgeable, intelligent, and mysterious, but deep down he has narcissistic personality disorder as he shows all of the signs such as being highly entitled . He plans out his well-strategized ideas to get what he wants, when he wants it, showcasing patience as well as a slick side. He isn't above using others as his pawn in his well-played game of chess to reach further into his goals, never giving up when he is down and going into another phase of his multiple plans. To compensate for his losses, Vlad savors the small personal victories (such as in "Bitter Reunions" where he lost the battle but pointed out Danny's blackmailing before leaving). When under stress, he frequently shouts out snack names ("Oh, butter biscuit", "Oh, sugar cookie", etc) instead of curse words. He usually works alone but has required help from Skulker several times, as well as the vulture ghosts, ectopusses, and the failed clones of Danny he created, like Danielle Phantom. It is also probable that he struck a deal with the Fright Knight.
However, he is a complicated soul, often a double-edged sword as he uses the wrong methods (killing, stealing, etc.) to gain the right, namely his painful loneliness and wanting acceptance of love which he frequently shares with Maddie and especially Danny or to try and gain the things that he can't have (Maddie and Danny). Unfortunately, this is also used to his disadvantage when his emotions were often used to trick him into losing a battle. However, the fact that he retains such emotions shows that he is not above redemption.
Though he is completely influential and powerful, (having more than 20 years of ghost experience as compared to Danny), Vlad is not invincible. Like other ghosts (and half ghosts), Vlad is emotional and vulnerable to the various (Vladco, Guys in White, and Fenton) ghost gadgets. Danny's Ghostly Wail (a powerful sonic scream) and Ghostly Ice (Cryokinesis) are also clear advantages, seeing as these are powers that Vlad seems to lack, giving Danny a substantial edge, while Vlad's powers have remained consistent throughout the series, but only grew a little bit. His arrogance has also proven to be a significant disadvantage; on one occasion when he fought Jack as Plasmius- Jack, naturally, being unaware of his identity as Vlad Masters- part of the reason for his defeat was the fact that he was so surprised at Jack's ability to successfully battle him that he didn't launch any effective attacks as he assumed that Jack wouldn't stand a chance. He (like all ghosts) is also powerless against the anti-ghost element Ectoranium, which ultimately leads to his downfall and the realization of his own foolishness. However, despite showing remorse after his actions almost destroyed the Earth, Vlad shows that he is incapable of letting go of his grudge against Jack. Furthermore, while he claims that he loves Maddie and has respect for Danny, it is merely because he detests Jack for having a family of his own and out of sheer entitlement. That said, it is possible that he did care about them deep down. Interestingly when Vlad attempted to create the perfect clone of Danny out of loneliness despite his massive amount of wealth which resulted in the creation of Danielle Phantom, the only clone of his to be given a mind of her own, he faked his parental behavior as he would eventually dispose of her when he managed to create the perfect clone as he still saw her as a failed experiment despite her being the closet thing to a perfect clone that he desired, his arrogance once again here brings him down as when he furiously snaps at her to overshadow Danny, this only causes Dani to turn her back on him, free Danny and destroying everything in his lab, including the prefect clone resulting in Vlad attempting to kill her but is stopped by Sam and Tucker's rescue at the exact moment. Thus that shows that had Vlad actually treated her like an actual daughter instead as a pawn he would of had succeeded in one of his most ultimate goals, which is creating the loving family he wanted.
Trivia[]
- Vlad is similar to Danny with several differences:
- Danny uses his powers to help people and defeat evil ghosts while Vlad uses his for selfish reasons.
- In humans form, Vlad has white hair (black hair as a teenager) and wears a black tuxedo, while Danny has black hair and wears a white T-shirt in humans form. Vlad's ghost form has black hair and his suit is white, Danny's ghost form has white hair and his suit is black.
- Vlad has wealth and power while Danny has friends and family. Danny values them while the one other person Vlad cares about, Maddie, is because he feels entitled to have her and that he resents Jack for "taking her from him.”
- Danny has greater potential while Vlad has greater experience.
- Whenever they transform, Danny has white rings, has white hair and green eyes in his ghost form, and green ectoblasts (blue ones are the strongest), while Vlad has black rings, has black hair and red eyes in his ghost form and pink ectoblast (blue ones are the weakest).
- Whereas Vlad's love interest ultimately chose another man due to him believing that his ghost powers would draw her away from him, Danny successfully managed to hook up with Sam despite her being aware of him being half-ghost. Furthermore, Danny learns to overcome his jealousy while Vlad shows many signs of using his lust for Maddie as an excuse as he commits many crimes unrelated to his jealousy.
- Danny always stopped himself from giving into corruption while Vlad kept falling off the deep end and embraces his evil side.
- Danny was branded as a criminal while Vlad was hailed as a hero while they kept their true identities secret. But after being exposed, Vlad became an outcast to humanity to the point where he couldn't return to Earth while Danny was hailed as a hero.
- Despite Vlad gaining money through possessing millionaires and getting them to sign over their assets to him, he has yet to achieve one of his goals legally or illegally, to own the Green Bay Packers. Apparently, Vlad has been unable to possess or bamboozle the Packers' shareholders into surrendering ownership, or he could view it as a challenge to legitimately acquire the football team.
- He began robbing banks to make himself rich since June 1983.
- Vlad's food-based outbursts is very similar to Mr. Lancer's literature-based outbursts.
- As of "Phantom Planet", Vlad now lives in space for all eternity. Creator Butch Hartman said that Vlad survived the Disasteroid impact in the final episode and he was soon abducted by aliens In a video of future concepts for characters. Hartman depicts Plasmius as possibly having been found and enslaved by aliens after the events of "Phantom Planet." He speculates that after ten years of being prisoner, Vlad escaped, yet still wears a broken chain on his wrist and is more driven than ever to get revenge on Danny.
- It is unknown on who would've become Danny's new arch-nemesis if the series was renewed. Vlad does not return ever again afterwards.
- He appears in the mobile game Nickelodeon Pixel Town (only available in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines); you can get him if you merge Tommy from Rugrats and Eliza from The Wild Thornberrys in the memory cent.
- Tim Curry and Sherman Howard originally auditioned for the role of Vlad Plasmius before Martin Mull was cast.
- Vlad is a massive fan of the Green Bay Packers, but is angry he can't buy the team.
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