#danny phantom criticism

[mechanicaltrickster]

The fact that the Fenton parents are shown to love Danny despite being a ghost not once but TWO TIMES is more important to me as a queer adult than these people who want to turn them into inhumane monsters to project their own parental issues onto

Maybe we all just cope with stuff in different ways, but this fanon thing really goes against one of the few actually well written things in DP: Danny's ride-or-die family

THE FACT THEY DO IT TWICE IS WHAT GETS ME!!! they didn't just accept Danny once they did it again!!! In canon!!! They accept him both times! And so many people are like, "No! They're monsters! They wouldn't accept him." LIKE HONEY??? THEY DO IT TWICE IN CANON? Like AGHHHHH *scraps hands over face* I can only filter out so many "Bad parents Jack and Maddie Fenton" tags on my ao3 and still see these OOC takes on the characters. And yeah write whatever- I just wish I could fucking filter it out correctly so I don't have to see it! Tag it CORRECTLY please!

Now honestly, I do think talking about Canon Jack and Maddie they'd fall into the "cares but says dumb shit sometimes" category of accepting parents. But I do also believe that if Danny Phantom happened today's time and Danny was queer then Jack and Maddie would be the most embarrassingly pride parents at the pride parade. They would cover the fucking ghost assault vehicle in pride flags and blast how proud of their son they are at the pride parade on the things megaphone. While Danny wishes he could fucking die right there again before the embarrassment takes him.

No cops at pride, only the Fentons in the decked out assault vehicle.

[terrestrialnoob]

Okay, but...

If there's a reboot, I don't want a "Darker Danny Phantom", I want "Danny Phantom Taken Seriously". Because every issue and criticism I have of the show is because it's supposed to be, first and foremost, a comedy. I know it's an "action comedy", but it never had a good balance (and very few of the jokes were actually funny).

It was supposed to be a silly show with silly characters and silly episodic villains. Characters and Lore aren't just inconsistent, they're supposed to be inconsistent, because it's all either a joke or an excuse for a fight scene. Even it's "serious" villains are surrounded by silly, unserious plots and characters, The Joke still takes precedent. Literally, if you think of all the best episodes they're all the "serious" ones, and they still have bits that are just unfunny or completely undercut the episode. Seriously, cheating on a test isn't the end of the world and making that The Point of the episode is both unserious and unfunny despite how cool the core concept of "fighting your evil future self" is; Danny isn't a bully for using his powers to punish a different bully, no matter how interesting Sydney is as a character. Danny Phantom rarely, if ever, managed to not make a lazy joke at the expense of a serious moment.

If there's a reboot, it can still be funny, there can still be jokes, but it should be serious about the characters, the world, the plots, and the jokes themselves! Comedy is a tool. Jokes can be extremely useful in managing tone, expectation, and character. Danny Phantom just never did that very well.

[flwrkid14]

Casual Chaos: Tim Drake’s Makeup Stream

Danny, known to the internet as Nebula, had been teasing a special stream for weeks. Fans were buzzing with excitement and theories, especially when the announcement popped up: “Doing My Boyfriend’s Makeup!” Naturally, the chat erupted into chaos. Danny was pretty private about his love life, so this reveal had the fandom on edge.

When the stream finally went live, Danny greeted his audience with his usual laid-back grin. “Okay, today’s the day. Let’s see if I’m any good at this,” he said, spinning a makeup brush between his fingers. “But first, let me introduce you to my boyfriend.”

The camera panned, and there he was—Tim Drake, sitting there as if this was the most normal thing in the world. No big introduction, no fanfare. Just Tim, giving a small, nonchalant wave.

“WAIT. IS THAT TIM DRAKE???”

“Like… THE Tim Drake??”

“No way he’s dating Nebula, what is happening???”

Danny, fully aware of the chaos brewing in the comments, didn’t even acknowledge it. He just turned to Tim. “Ready for your makeover, babe?”

Tim shrugged, totally calm. “Let’s do it.”

As Danny started applying makeup, the chat kept freaking out, but the two of them acted like it was just another Saturday. In Gotham, though, it was a different story. The Bat's group chat was blowing up:

Dick: “TIMOTHY JACKSON DRAKE-WAYNE, EXPLAIN YOURSELF.”

Jason: “How does a nerd like you land Nebula of all people???”

Steph: “I AM CRYING. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS?!!”

Damian: “This is unacceptable. Drake, I demand an explanation.”

Bruce: [Typing…]

But Tim? Unfazed. He ignored the constant buzzing of his phone and sat still as Danny carefully lined his eyes and added a touch of mascara, keeping up casual chatter with the stream.

“You know,” Danny said, holding up a shade of lipstick, “Tim’s got this effortless model thing going on. I’m just enhancing what’s already there.”

Tim raised an eyebrow, smirking. “I didn’t exactly sign up to be your runway star.”

“Wait… he’s actually REALLY pretty??”

“Tim Drake is hot, confirmed.”

“LOOK AT HIS CHEEKBONES OMG.”

As Danny finished the look, adding some extra blush and a light gloss, the reaction was immediate. The chat was losing it. Tim glanced at himself in the mirror, barely reacting. “Well… I don’t hate it.”

Danny leaned back, admiring his work. “Not bad, right?”

Meanwhile, back in Gotham, the bats were still going wild.

Steph: “Tim, you better show up to every gala looking like this from now on.”

Jason: “You’ve been holding out on us with this face, man.”

Dick: “This is ICONIC.”

Bruce: “We’ll need to discuss this later.”

Tim finally glanced at his phone and snorted at all the messages. “They’re never going to let this go, are they?”

Danny just grinned at the camera. “Probably not. So… next time, you'll do my makeup, right?”

The chat, of course, exploded all over again.

[astronnova]

tit joke(s)

[liketolaugh-writes]

The other thing about Sam being such a teenager - a headcanon that is nonetheless supported by many canon elements - is that her being a baby activist is... not necessarily a good thing.

It's very promising in the long run! It shows that she cares about other people, she cares about ethics, and she is trying very hard to think about her impact on the world, and those are all good things.

But she's also extremely bossy, extremely self-righteous, and when you're a fourteen year old with two best friends that just... aren't very good at asserting themselves, it makes it really, really easy to hurt people by accident. I think, given what we see about Sam and how she interacts with them, it would be easy for her to dismiss them as Boys™️ and therefore The Oppressor Class.

Because Sam... kind of reads like a terminally online Tumblr kid. And that wasn't an archetype that existed in the 2000's, obviously, but Sam fits it to a T. She seems like someone that would know all the terminology, who would know who all the 'oppressor' classes and all the 'victims' were, who would be really into identity politics in the way where she weaponizes them, because she's fourteen and nuance is still hard for her.

She seems, in other words, like someone who would chew Danny out for using the word 'dysphoria' if he wasn't trans (but was maybe trying to find a word for why his body post-portal felt so bad sometimes.) Like she would demand room to express her emotions without remembering to give Tucker and Danny room for theirs, because they're Boys (even though Tucker is black and Danny is abused and getting space for their emotions is just as hard for them.) Like she would have a list of Social Justice Facts that she applies uncritically, and won't realize what she's doing for years.

And to be honest, I think this would be a really fun character arc for Sam! The sort of thing I would have loved to see in canon. Where she realizes, suddenly, how much she talks over people, how much she talks over her friends, and that maybe sometimes she's... not right, even though she knows All The Right Words.

(But until she realizes that, I also think that Sam could do a lot of damage to Danny and his guilt complex in particular.)

[stars-obsession-pit]

So, the Danny Phantom “Hazmat AU” basically refers to Danny having a full hazmat suit.

But I just had a realization… the Fenton suits are already decently close to a certain type of hazmat suit, and one that actually fits their work pretty well!

The stereotypical type of bulky hazmat with the enclosed face shield is specifically a “gas/vapor protection suit” (called a “Type A” hazmat suit in the US). They’re airtight, are connected to an air supply, and usually maintain a positive pressure environment (i.e. the air pressure inside suit is slightly above the surroundings - so if there’s ever a puncture, air will flow outwards rather than inward and reduce risk to the wearer. This also causes them to puff up and thus contributes to their bulkiness) to keep the wearer safe from gas or dust particles.

But that level of protection isn’t always necessary. Thus, lower-grade “splash protection suits” also exist (types B and C in the US).

These suits are designed to prevent against the risk of liquids splashing onto the skin, but they’re not fully airtight and look pretty different from vapor-protection suits.

If you think about it, this is probably what the Fentons would want to use, since ectoplasm generally seems to act like a liquid.

And aside from the face mask part, these actually look a decent bit like the Fenton suits!

Full-body coverings, including around the sides of head, with goggles to protect the eyes. Sure, the Fentons’ are skintight (well, Maddie’s certainly is, Jack’s is harder to tell), but I don’t think that’d necessarily reduce their effectiveness since the whole body is still covered. As I previously mentioned, they’re basically just missing the face mask part.

And like, the face mask is a very important part of it in real life but A) it’s a cartoon and they presumably want to show their expressions, B) the face protection is a separate piece IRL too so it’s believably possible the Fentons could have them but just not as part of their general wear hazmats, and C) I’m not claiming the Fentons were good at lab safety. Skipping the mask feels wholly on brand for them.

[tailsfromthecrypt]

Danny, Tucker, and Sam 1000% have Danny a funeral for funsies. They made him a grave marker and everything (grave marker is a rock decorated with sharpie). One of the A listers def stumbled upon them doing it and it went like this:

Danny, Tucker & Sam wearing all black (Sam has a veil) holding candles: may he rest in peace

Kwan catching sight of the name written in the rock: what the fuck

Danny, Tucker & Sam looking up in complete unison: death has come for him

[peppermintkandy]

A Royal Summons

DC X DP

-------------

Bruce watched as Constantine started drawing something on the ground. They had found a magical artifact on a mission, a pen that can make anything it writes into reality. The villain who had obtained it was relatively easy to outsmart, just a guy who had gotten out of hand trying to fix a mistake. The had part was reversing all the damage he had caused.

They had called the JLD to help with the cleanup, seeing as it was a magical atifact that had caused it. Constantine was the only to come as he had been free at the time.

They showed him the pen that caused the damage. He used some sort of spell on the pen, and everything the villain had changed was reversed. He then offered to take care of it for them.

Bruce had assumed he meant hide or destroy it. That pen could be disastrous if it ends up in the wrong hands.

Then he took out a piece of white chalk and started drawing a circle on the ground.

Now, Bruce may not be magical savy, but he knows what summoning circle looks like. Before he could say anything, though, Superman spoke up.

"What are you doing?" He had stepped closer to get a better look at the circle, which now had the beginnings of a complicated looking symbol in the middle.

"Callin' a friend." Constantine replied simply.

"Who, exactly, are you summoning?" Bruce questioned, also stepping closer. Constantine was almost done, adding a few sigils in the rings at the edge of the circle.

Constantine grunted, standing up and backing away from the finished circle. Before Bruce could ask any more questions, a blinding green light suddenly spread from the circle. Bruce, as well as the rest of the league, was forced to look away.

Soon, the light dimmed to a small glow. As Bruce turned back to the circle, he saw a black liquid start to bubble from the center and spread to the edge. The liquid bubbled and moved, taking shape into something Bruce didn't know the name for. The thing had seemingly infinite eyes that all glowed bright green, and the liquid that made up its form was dotted with small white specks, making it look like a starry expanse.

Bruce was mesmerized and terrified at the same time. It was everything and nothing. It felt like death and rebirth. He wanted to enter it's endless embrace and run in the opposite direction. He wanted to stare into the void and look away, never to see it again.

Before Bruce could do anything, the form shifted, becoming smaller and more human like. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the transformation stopped, revealing a young boy. He was still otherworldly, with unnaturally white hair and glowing green eyes, just one pair, and a semi-transparent tail instead of legs. He wore a black skin tight suit with white gloves and boots, and a white D on his chest.

Bruce, feeling only mildly dazed at the display, looked around to find that the rest of the League pressent, excluding Constantine, also looked confused and a little nervous.

Looking back to the kid, Bruce noticed he also seemed mildly confused. Spotting Constantine, he smiled and flew over.

"Constantine!" The kid floated to a stop in front of said man. "Miss me already?"

Constantine huffed a laugh, "You wish, Kid. Actually, I summoned ya cause the League here found someth'n that feels like your deal."

"Awe, and here I thought you might actually like me." The kid's attempt at sounding disappointed was betrayed by the smile on his face. Bruce had to resist the urge to call Alfred and tell him to get the adoption papers ready. "What have ya got for me?" The kid's expression shifted to something at least resembling serious as he circled around Constantine.

Constantine pointed to Bruce, who still had the pen in hand, "Bats over there's got it. Ask him." The kid turns to look at Bruce. Not his body, just his head, which turns almost 180 degrees. Bruce tenses slightly as the kid's body soon follows, and he floats over to him.

Bruce holds out the pen, and the kid takes it, holding it up to his face to inspect it. "What exactly did this thing do," the kid asked.

Bruce explained everything about how they found the pen and how it was used. To his surprise, the kid listened intently. Only when he finished did the kid finally speak.

"Sounds like something Ghost Writer would have," the kid opened a small portal and put the pen on the other side, "I'll ask him about it." The portal closed as he pulled his hand out.

[pengold]

Danny's parents planned for him to go to the same school as Jazz, Casper's School of Conjuration. He ended up becoming a squire when he flicked out of the school. He failed because his spells were not actual spells, and yet they worked?

Jazz never wanted Danny to follow in her footsteps, she knew his heart was in the stars. However, strange things start happening around Danny, that has Jazz researching their family lineage. It was through this that she learned of Vlad's involvement with her family. And that he was not the kind Lord her town believed.

However, this is all learned after Jazz sends Danny, Sam, and Tucker off to find Dani's remains. In the hopes that Danny could commune with her and get help with his powers. When they return to town they see Vlad kidnapping Jazz. Vlad succeeds in this and leaves the party distraught, especially Danny who feels as if his powers are useless.

Danny looks for a way to kickstart his powers to 100%, and though trepid Sam and Tucker try to help him. Using some of his parent's developing technology the jerry-rig something to do just that. What Dani wasn't able to mention was how their powers come from the spirit realm and thus in order to garner more power you must die.

And thus Danny dies....or does he?

[aro-ace-fangirl]

Shout out to people who know Jack Shit about their hyperfixations. Shout out to folks who will just get so into something to the point that they just can’t interact with it because they like it too much.

Shout out to the collective that don’t care about the media as a whole but really REALLY like One Character from it. Shout out to the ones who won’t read or watch or whatever the things they like in favor of just inhaling a single wiki page.

Shout out to the kids that couldn’t care less about the media but will read endless fan works about it because frankly, that’s what you wanted in the first place.

[mechanicaltrickster]

I say this as a young mentally ill queer person but so many young mentally ill queer people are projecting onto Danny and want his parents to be these horrible abusive monsters with no redeeming qualities so we can have the catharsis of writing stories where he’s rescued from them and they get punished which like, everyone can do what they want in fic and headcanon but like. Stoooooooop trying to act like his parents are like that in canon it is a complicated relationship which is what makes it INTERESTING

OMG IS THIS ABOUT MY DANNY PHANTOM TAGS?? but yeah!!!! As a queer person myself I think the whole Fandom trying to one to one equate the being a ghost to being queer is so fucking tone deaf. Like- most the ghosts in the show are kinda fucking disastrous and a danger to the general public? This is not a one to one metaphor and the fact that people treat it as one is kinda nuts tbh. I think this take could maybe be interesting in like maybe a Beastars sorta way (via yeah the danger is very real but yknow) but not whatever the hell is going on in the most popular spaces.

AND YES, THEY ARENT MONSTERS THEY'RE STUPID!!! THEY DO ACTUALLY LOVE DANNY GENUINELY!!! These two things coexist in canon!!! Which makes the angst more fun! They don't know! That's the fun part! And they do genuinely love Danny! This shits more interesting then the cartoonish "my parents locked me in the basement and beat me and starve me" type shit on God.

The best I could hope for/ask is if people tag that stuff as ooc. Cause at this point it's so overdone and over dramatic at this point my eyes are gonna roll outta my fucking head.

[threewaysdivided]

compared to the other hero's in YJ how do you think Phantom stands up power wise. like Future Danny ripped the world apart and i know in some fanfiction that it is used as an indicator that he is high up there, but i'm interested in your thoughts.

This is an interesting question nonnie!

I generally agree with the idea that Phantom is in the upper-tier of crossover superhero powers, but I do have more specific thoughts so let’s break it down:

Danny’s power level

Just looking at the variety and strength of ghost-powers that Phantom displays in his show, I would put him in the higher rankings of most heroes when it comes to raw ability.  I alluded to this in my main DP x YJ Deathly Weapons fanfic, but to me Phantom shows signs of a pretty common power-scaling differential that happens when a solo-protagonist hero gets transplanted into an ensemble setting.  Within his own setting, Phantom had to be (or become) powerful enough to solve most problems/ fights all by himself – and some of those ghosts he ended up facing towards the end of his canon were impressively strong.  By comparison ensemble heroes are generally less-powerful because working as a collective means they don’t have the same need for aggressive self-sufficiency and also so that no one character upstages or outmodes the rest of the group from a writing perspective.

There’s also the nature of ghost powers.  Phantom needed to develop the raw strength to fill the role of solo combat heavy-hitter, but his base powers are versatile to the point of unsettling.  He has to physically fight against other ghosts because they have (and to some extent are immune to) the same abilities as him, but in a fight against other species he could potentially avoid, manipulate or exhaust an opponent with strategic use of invisibility/ intangibility/ overshadowing.

The back of Dinah’s neck prickled.  With flight to mask footsteps and intangibility rendering them undetectable by touch…  Nonthreatening as Phantom generally appeared, she was starting to understand why his kind had developed such an unsettling reputation.  The idea that a ghost could be present at any time - eavesdropping, spying, interfering - without any of them being the wiser was… disquieting to say the least. - Deathly Weapons, Chapter 17: Assessment

On top of that, he seems to be in a similar boat to Superman when it comes to physical weaknesses – he doesn’t have that many, and they’re often quite specific or hard-to-find.   The most easily-exploitable one is that Danny can run out of power, be slowly starved of ectoplasm or be knocked unconscious; all of which would forcibly revert him back to his weaker human state.  After that, he’s vulnerable to certain magics and ghostly-artefacts, which are more likely to be accessible to various DC/ Marvel heroes (although they might not know exactly which spells/items will be most effective or why).  Beyond those two, most of his weaknesses need to be specifically known about and actively sought out – anti-ecto-technology is obtainable but not mainstream, blood blossoms naturally repel/hurt ghosts but they seem to be rare in nature (or even extinct in the modern day) and then assuming you acknowledge Phantom Planet there’s ectoranium which is basically ghost-Kryptonite in rarity (and possibly even the same mineral in DP x DC settings depending on the crossover).  Much like with Superman, the most reliable ways to take down Phantom require actively knowing what he is and having prepared accordingly.

Based on those metrics, I want to place Phantom in the same power-band as Superman or the Martian Manhunter.  I’d consider their powers to be equivalent incomparibles – it’s hard to stack their abilities side-by-side and say one is objectively better than the others.  A no-holds-barred, knock-down drag-out fight between those three could get very nasty but it would be hard to confidently call a winner without knowing more about the external factors around them.

That said, I think the thing holding Danny back from being fully at that level is his experience: or rather his lack thereof.   Danny hasn’t had much formal training (except maybe some basic self-defence instruction from Maddie/Jack) and he doesn’t have a proper mentor either.  His personal experience mostly fits the narrow niche of direct open combat with other ghosts, mostly throughout Amity Park and surrounds (although occasionally in the Ghost Zone or further from town). 

Phantom has enough raw power and innate talent as a strategic lateral-thinker to get by, but I think that hyperspecialisation and lack of guidance would leave him with a lot of blind-spots.  His hand-to-hand is self-taught and probably missing a lot of best-practice basic techniques.  He’s also never had an experienced third party to observe him in the field and offer suggestions on alternative approaches to using his powers/ keep him from developing bad habits.  This is something Danny actually comments on in canon; he can take a long time to identify solutions (even obvious ones) that deviate too far from his default throw hands approach to fighting.  His powers could be more effectively deployed as a precision-instrument but a lack of coaching means he tends to falls back on using them as a blunt hammer because that was the pattern that came naturally when he was first starting out, and no-one was around to keep that habit from ingraining.

The place where you can see this lack of experience hurting him the most is in his lack of soft-skills.  Phantom didn’t have anyone to advise him on de-escalation, damage control, comforting civilians, interacting with authorities etc.  Add in the naturally-frightening nature of many ghosts and it was easy for him to fall into a public perception of being “the town menace”.  Danny is pretty decent at rallying both humans and ghosts (even erstwhile enemies) to his side in crisis situations but no-one has taught him how manage public relations outside of that.  He says it himself: he needs a PR agent.

On the other hand, Phantom’s heroics have inadvertently earned him a decent amount of potential political pull in the Ghost Zone.  He has enough positive rapport that some regular rogues will take his side or even actively seek him out for help in the right circumstances, and other more antagonistic ones have at least developed a degree of grudging respect.  There are several powerful ghosts that either have direct debts of gratitude to him/his team (Princess Dorothea, Pandora) or who hold him in high esteem for re-sealing Pariah Dark (The Far Frozen).  It’s possible that defeating Pariah might even have granted him a potential candidature/claim to an official position, and judging by the way the Observants and Clockwork pay attention to him, it seems that Phantom’s slow accumulation of power/influence isn’t going completely unnoticed.  However, again, Danny doesn’t have the awareness, experience or training needed to leverage that effectively – heck, he’s not even doing it on purpose.

With all that taken into account, I think Phantom would rank very highly in terms of overall potential, but at his current level he’d be in the lower ranks of the A-tier.  He could become a much more powerful figure with the right guidance but in his canonical state he’s underutilising or outright overlooking a lot of his most effective tools.

TUE Future/ “Dark Phantom”

The “Dark Phantom” presented in the TUE Bad-Future is interesting to me because while he’s a very powerful figure within that story, I don't think he’s a very good reflection of canon-Danny’s potential to do harm.

Gonna complain about The Ultimate Enemy for a bit: I’ve tag-muttered about this before but I’m one of the Phandom members who finds The Ultimate Enemy to be a frustratingly weak episode.  It has a potentially fascinating core premise (the “evil future/alternate self”) but the execution is so convoluted and driven by improbable contrivances that the whole ends up being far less than the sum of its parts.   

One of the biggest problems is that, rather than being a straight future/alternate version of Danny, “Dark Phantom” is actually a hybrid of Phantom and Plasmius’ worse sides.  He’s a distinct, separate entity which means he can’t work as an effective dark mirror to either of them.  (Compare and contrast the Justice League episode A Better World in which the Justice Lords acted as a dark mirror of what the actual Justice League members could become if they chose to abandon their morals and compassion in favour of seizing control and instating a totalitarian system of draconian crime prevention.)

The episode also tried to graft on a really mismatched moral of “don’t be a cheat”.  Rather than being a lesson on choices/ values/ power/ responsibility, Dark Phantom almost ends up being an offhand biproduct of Danny getting caught cheating on a freshman/sophomore-year career-aptitude test.  Instead of learning a lesson about himself/ his ideals/ his personal faults, Danny comes away from the episode with a cool new superpower after deciding not to cheat on the test after all.  Not exactly satisfying.

That mismatch and the convoluted levels of moon-logic required to make it fit severely undermine the idea that this version of Dark Phantom is “inevitable”.  There are too many steps that are too highly-specific and too easily-avoidable for the threat to feel real: Danny has to care enough about an early-highschool CAT to want to cheat, he has to somehow get the answers which he wasn’t intending to do in the canon timelineand only does as a result of Clockwork’s meddling, making it a self-fulfilling situation, he has to get caught using them, Mister Lancer has to hold the resulting parent-teacher meeting at Nasty Burger rather than a school office for some reason, the Nasty Burger Sauce has to 1. be dangerously explosive and 2. coincidentally explode while not only Danny’s parents but his friends and sister are inside, Danny has to be placed in Vlad’s custody rather than with his Aunt Alicia or closer family-friends, Danny has to ask Vlad to remove his Phantom-half and finally, Vlad himself has to agree to do it.  Take away any of those steps and this version of Dark Phantom doesn’t happen.  That’s not inevitable, it’s contrived.

But anyway, let’s look at Dark Phantom as his own entity:

One of the things that makes Dark Phantom much more potentially dangerous is that he combines Phantom’s raw power with Plasmius’ experience.  Like I was saying before, one of Danny’s biggest handicaps is that he lacks training/guidance and tends to underutilise his most effective abilities.  Vlad meanwhile has had years of relative freedom to practice and finesse a lower raw-power level; he’s much more skilled at advanced techniques like duplication and overshadowing (which he canonically used to force through his fortune-making business deals), as well as ecto-constructs.  Plasmius is also a lot more tactical and manipulative in how he applies their common powers.  Plus, the TUE version of Dark Phantom is a full-ghost, which means he doesn’t have a vulnerable mortal state that can be exploited as a weakness.

This is why I think it would be possible for TUE!Dark Phantom to successfully decimate other heroes in shared-universe crossover situations where ghosts aren’t common knowledge.  He’d be an unexpected, unknown enemy that the heroes have no effective way to fight (outside of a few magic users).  Combine that with many of the most powerful heroes being visible as public figures, and Dark Phantom having inherited Plasmius’ strategic/manipulative traits and it could be very easy for Dark Phantom to basically launch a premeditated paranormal blitzkrieg attack, using Plasmius’ skill with duplicates and overshadowing to subjugate any hero he couldn’t overwhelm with Phantom’s raw power level.  It would also make sense that Amity Park would become one of the remaining bastions in any TUE-style future, since having advanced knowledge of ghostly abilities and access to anti-ecto technology would tilt the balance more evenly and allow them to at least keep the danger out.

Mentally, it’s also worth noting that Dark Phantom is a lot more dangerous than either Phantom or Plasmius.  He’s basically the most toxic traits from both of them, removed from their more moderating/ compassionate instincts.  Based on the canonical explanation given, TUE!Danny had Phantom forcibly removed in attempt to remove the pain/ rage/ grief he was feeling over the death of his family.  This isn’t a model-hero-persona conceptualisation of Phantom a la Splitting Images; the TUE-version of his ghost half is a big ball of churning negative emotion.  And what are some of Danny’s toxic traits when it comes to negative emotions: he lashes out, falls into self-blame and self-destructs.  Then we add in Vlad’s toxic traits: he’s egocentric to the point of narcissism, he projects negative feelings/ blame onto others rather than accept responsibility for his own actions and he has a controlling/ sadistic streak.   

TUE’s Dark Phantom is the worst possible combination of an emotionally devastated teenager and an emotionally immature adult.  He’s a ball of pain and rage that blames the world for that pain, lashes out at it, feels worse for doing so and then blames the world for making him feel worse because he doesn’t have the emotional capacity to accept that he’s the one causing it.  Grief is love persevering but the feelings of love, connection and guilt that contextualise his pain were left in the human shells that remained of Danny and Vlad.  It’s possible that the Dark Phantom presented in TUE might not have the capacity to feel positive emotions or compassion.  He was never meant to exist as his own entity – he was an attempt to destroy Daniel Fenton’s negative emotions which went horribly wrong.  In some ways it seems like his reign of terror could be an angrier version of Dracula’s scheme from Netflix’s Castlevania or Haliax’s goal from the Kingkiller Chronicles – a drawn-out suicide note from an undead being who’s been dead inside for much longer, destroying whatever peace/happiness he encounters in revenge for being denied it himself, until such time as he either attains catharsis or finally ends the pain by destroying reality and himself along with it.  That’s the final thing that makes TUE’s Dark Phantom more dangerous than either Phantom or Plasmius – he has nothing to lose and no “better nature” or personal dreams that other heroes could try to appeal to.

So yeah, the TUE version of Dark Phantom could absolutely rip the world and other heroes apart, but I don’t think he’s a particularly good reflection of Danny’s capabilities in terms of either powers or personality.  There’s too much Vlad in the mix, and even then he represents such a narrow and extreme edge-case for each of their personalities that it’s barely representative at all.  At best he’s a warning for what these kinds of powers could be capable of in the wrong hands.

Meta-question: What is “power” in narrative?

Alright, now that I’ve (hopefully) answered the question, let’s finish with a self-indulgent thought exercise for extra credit.

There’s an anecdote which I’ve heard attributed to the Stan Lee, in which a fan apparently asked him “who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk?”  To which Stan apparently replied, “whoever the writer wants.”

While it can be fun to make tier-lists and try to rank how strong different heroes/villains/creatures are based on the rules of their respective universes, I think it can also be helpful to consider that– like all things in storytelling – power is a narrative device.  It’s a tool that the character(s) and storyteller(s) can use to create and solve problems.

A character can be extremely physically strong/ skilled/ knowledgeable/ influential in a specific area but how much narrative power they have depends on how well their abilities allow them to influence or resolve story problems.   And, as the omnipotent god(s) of the narrative, the storyteller(s) can choose whether to confront them with challenges that play to their existing strengths, or that force them to find other solutions.  What’s the best way to kill a vampire?

This is actually part of what makes Lex Luthor such an effective Superman villain.  Objectively most versions of Lex are just A Guy™ – on a physical level he doesn’t have anything close to Kal El’s Kryptonian strength or superpowers.  But he feels like a serious threat because he often comes after Superman in ways that Clark can’t easily steamroll with that brute strength.  Lex uses manipulation, money, influence, connections, politics, public opinion; Superman can’t physically fight him without playing into Luthor’s plans, and trying to face him in those other fields requires tools that Clark wasn’t handed as part of his Kryptonian heritage.  An invading alien army is objectively a bigger physical threat to Earth, but a competent Lex Luthor scheme feels more dangerous because – while we feel confident that Superman can beat down a legion of monsters – when it comes to the question of whether he can outwit Luthor, the outcome is a lot less certain.

Situational disempowerment is another of the ways a narrative can reign in an otherwise “overpowered” character: placing them in circumstances where they either aren’t given many opportunities to showcase their best strengths, or are kept from using them because the drawbacks/ risks/ consequences of using their abilities makes their power(s) a liability.  I’ve mentioned it before, but this is actually one of the tricks I’m personally using to keep Phantom’s massive powerset balanced against the other proteges in Deathly Weapons.  It’s also something I’ve been struggling with when it comes to Conner’s place in that story since the stealth-mission plot structure doesn’t allow as much room to highlight his core powers and personal strengths.   

Stories can create additional stakes for powerful characters by giving them emotional arcs which their powers can’t resolve.   For a published example, consider the series One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100.  Despite how high-ranked Saitama and Mob are within the power-scaling of their respective stories, those powers don’t kill the emotional stakes because the things they actually want/ need can only be gained through self-improvement or making connections in ways separate from their powers (and in some regards their power level actively gets in the way of that).  This is also something I’m doing with Danny’s main grief arc in DW.   

Final Conclusion time

In terms of physical strength and range of abilities, I think Phantom would be pretty near the top of the power-scale in most superhero crossovers.  While the Dark Phantom presented in TUE might not be a particularly good reflection of Danny’s specific potential, a crossover version of the TUE timeline offers a pretty good litmus-test for how dangerous a strong ghost could be in a given universe: the combination of power level, ability range and highly-specific/ inaccessible weak-points poses a strong strategic threat.

On the other hand, physical strength isn’t the only strength.  Phantom has a decent level of potential political sway as well, but he also lacks a lot of the soft skills and experience needed to make use of his toolset to its full ability.

Stepping back further, the answer to how powerful Danny is in a narrative sense is really just “however much the writer wants”.  Phantom’s narrative power depends on the kind of story he’s in and the challenges placed around him – there are as many ways to situationally nerf our ghost-boy as make him OP, all without needing to alter his on-paper powers.

[astronnova]

post nasty burger explosion

[awesome-normal-heroes]

You're Steven Universe and you redeemed the Main Villains of your show 'because they're family':

I know that Finn's Dad isn't truly the main villain.

I also know that Devlin's Dad was rewritten to stop being a villain in the series sequels.

And I know that KO did hang out with his evil dad, before he lost control of TKO.

But my point remains valid!

[aliciasinferno]

Watching shows like Danny Phantom, Gravity Falls or Dead End: Paranormal Park, there's something that kinda bothers me

It's canon that characters are religious, we've see christian, jewish and muslim characters

And I really want to ask them, what the hell?

It's just really weird if you ask me

Like, you've seen what happens to souls after death, you know the supernatural forces that govern the universe, you've literal met other gods

I'm not a believer, but if I were a christian and I would see the Ghost Zone or met Axolotl, I'd smash the nearest cross on the ground and eat a rump steak every Friday just out of spite

I get it's already risky to mention real religions in american cartoons, but still

Am I the only one who thinks it would be interesting to see a cartoon dealing with the supernatural and seeing a formerly religious character rethink their life after finding out that their believes are all bogus?