#basically all of Danny's Rogues Gallery is there | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sil-and-seals-blog-something · 9 months

Text

I have DND in like, an hour and a half, so I gotta make this prompt/idea dump quick.

DPxDC ideas to dump on anyone who wants to hear!

This one is focus on a little piece of Jason and Danny’s revivals.

So, first, Jason. Jason has had multiple things attributed to his revival, so I gotta clarify his first. For this idea, I wanna focus on the one that is basically this; Superboy-Prime (alternate version of Superman from Earth-Prime, which is a world devoid of any superhumans. Superheroes are comic book characters there. He gets the powers of Superman and, over time, his morals twist into much darker and villain-like morals. There’s more to him, but I won’t get into that) basically punched reality hard enough (at some point) that a lot of things happened as a result, including Jason reviving, but the panel that shows this stuff makes it look like reality broke like glass. So, I imagine that that leaves some sort of mark of Jason. He’s alive because of reality literally getting broken. (Like, don’t get me wrong, I love the Lazarus Pits stuff and all, but I wanna see more about the reality shenanigans of Jason’s revival)

Danny is kinda in a similar boat of having a funky relationship with the fabric of reality. He died and revived WITHIN A HOLE IN REALITY OPENING UP INTO ANOTHER REALITY. That’s gotta have some funkier side effects than just being a powerful halfa. Vlad is a powerful halfa and he only had a blast of ectoplasm thrown at him. Danny had reality tear open on him.

(I only brought Danny up because this thought process technically counts for him as well. But, he actually has this used much more than Jason.)

I’d love to see these details used more. Like, are they walking tears or breaks in reality? Can anyone tell that they have funky reality stuff going on? Are they a danger to reality? Is the reality stuff a danger to them? Is it like an open wound? Can it be worsened? Can it be treated? Would they die (or worse, stop existing) from it being treated? Do they get anything from the funky reality stuff going on with them? Does it fade without causing problems? Or does it remain in the background in a way that they don’t even realize that something is off about them until something happens and now it’s this big thing they have to deal with? Would their reality funkiness be the same or different?

And for DPxDC? Jason could be a halfa or he could just be some undead (maybe not even a specific type of undead beyond having been revived) that feels funky, funky in a way similar to Danny that gets Danny’s rogue gallery thinking that Jason is like Danny and either decides to mess with him (like they would with Danny) or try to get him to meet Danny (whether that’s to make them friends or otherwise is up to the writer)

Why don’t we jump on other places in the DC universe as having high ectoplasmic levels? Like, (in some stories, like, I’m not sure if this applies to the common consensus honestly) Central City had that wave of energy from the particle accelerator that activated a bunch of peoples’ metagenes, and I’m pretty sure that it also killed some people. There’s also the Black Flash, who is basically a grim reaper for the speedforce, who’ll appear in Central Coty (due to the multitude of speedsters there). Central City can be reasonably stated to have, at least, rising ectoplasmic levels. The cities that face alien invasions would reasonably have a lot of deaths and therefore a lot of ectoplasm. We can use a lot of other cities as settings. Also, I’d love to imagine the different possible city spirits people could come up with? Like, I’ve seen Metropolis done a few time, but besides Metropolis and Gotham? No other location spirits. Like:

Themyscira: Probably an old/wise warrior. She’d be set in her ways (considering how Themyscira is), but like, who knows?

Central City: Probably a young one if existent (at least, younger than Lady Gotham)? I imagine this one changing to be like the Flash family or scientific because the two notable things about Central City, that I remember, is science stuff and the Flash family.

Metropolis AND Smallville: So, I’ve seen some people play with the idea of the spirit of Krypton going and becoming Metropolis’s, but like, what if they became Smallville’s instead? Since, that’s where the Last Son of Krypton was raised and all, and where Kryptonians go as a safe space, and the spirit of Krypton probably needs the retirement to a small town. Metropolis could probably get a city spirit that reflects both Superman and Lex Luthor (Superman and Lex are the big names for Metropolis and both shape Metropolis in different ways. Yeah, Lex isn’t the best person, but he does cause some good things to happen for Metropolis. I imagine that the two are equally defining characters for Metropolis) instead.

I just, enjoy the concept of city spirits and spirits that embody a place.

This idea here is less of a prompt and more of a thought. What if Boston Deadman had no idea about ectoplasmic ghosts? Like, imagine having to need someone to magically make you visible, and then finding out about a whole other sect of ghosts that can be both visible AND tangible that can also have the same powers as you, just as a common baseline. It’s just hilarious to me to imagine how vindicated Deadman would probably feel to find out that he could’ve become that type of ghost instead, but no, he just had to be a magically bound one instead!

Idea for those who don’t like Jason just casually being cured of Pit Madness. Genuine attempt to heal him leads to Jason going catatonic again. Play with that as you will.

Hope y’all have fun with these. Feel free to mix and match, or recommend pieces of work that already have these or something similar.

#dpxdc #prompt #If you can’t tell #I’m a bit of a Jason Todd fan #I honestly made this whole thing for the first idea #then I had more ideas #but that first way rotating in my head for a while

23 notes · View notes

cromaka3666 · 1 year

Text

a rant/series of ideas

So I've posted these on SB before but to put it simply, the phandom is stagnant. The same ideas are repeated over and over again mixed up but too similar to tell apart. Over on ao3s dp crossover section I've noticed a ton of these stories are created after the author reads a prompt here so I figured I'd gather the posts I've made on SB and post them here in hopes those authors can see them. I'm just copy/pasting these so they will look weird as they were originally posted on SB and I can't be bothered to edit them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So yall know how d.c. crossovers are really common. Well I just had a small idea to add to the list of why heroes don't usually kill, batman especially. Obsessions can help make ghosts and few people are more obsessed than villains, the heroes know this and don't want to risk powering up their rogue gallery more, especially since hell is real and as we saw with deathstroke/slade it's easy to make deals and return. Just another angle to add for those crossovers. Last thing anyone wants is a ghost/demon empowered joker running around.

We have tons of danny phantom dc crossovers but not a single one has Cujo join the super pets for adventures. This is a crime that should be rectified immediately. Best pup should be allowed to play with Ace and Krypto and fight animal crimes.

What aren't there any stories where danny is in the marvels zombies storyline, or dceased, or blackest night, or even the new dc vs vampires storyline.

Why are almost all horror stories about him being tortured when there are perfectly good zombie apocalypses he can fight in. I'd love to see danny wield a black lantern ring and be in total control because he's already dead and as such doesn't need to eat hearts to gain power.

I'd love to see danny get bite by a vampire only for them to taste what's basically deadmans blood. We need less secret sibling, torture filled, betrayal fics and more danny pulling a doomslayer and fighting trigons armies when he invades.

Pariah Dark pulling amity into the gz would have gotten international attention just like cannon. Something that's brought up but never really explored are meta humans rights clashing with the anti ecto laws, I'd love to see the various magic users testifying in congress, debunking the fentons beliefs that ghosts aren't people and as such deserve the same rights as everyone else.

Also I'd love to see walker put in control of arkham, blackgate, or Belle reve. He'd have those places on lockdown, and the thought of the joker trying to escape only for walker to toss him back in his cell is hilarious to me.

All these DC crossovers but not one shows an alternate danny in the justice lords, injustice, or crime syndicate version of the league.

I'm tired of rereading the same stuff, let me read about an evil crime boss danny or one who rules over the GZ like how the justice lords rule earth, or one that sides with superman after metropolis gets nuked. So many alternate worlds, timelines, and dimensions to choose from and they always pick the same ones.

Forget JLU, YJ, or TT let me see danny in the justice league dark apocalypse war movie as a trigon possed Dan Phantom and have him fight Darksied

The infinite realms is so underutilized in the dc crossovers, and just the phandom in general.

You have an entire dimension that can take you any when and anywhere you want/don't want and you don't use it to let superman meet his parents before krypton blows up, or any other orphan superhero for that matter.

Hell you don't have to save his family, you can set up a stable time loop where this meeting is what convinced them to send him to earth rather then any of kryptons dying colonies.

Have Pandora meet wonder women, I don't think I've seen anything more then a passing reference about her in any dc stories to date. The 4 armed ghost of a Greek Goddess would absolutely be something the Amazon's would want to meet.

I'd love to see more stories exploring the factions in the gz like make up a rivalry between the far frozen and Atlantis before the yetis died out and less stories about Lazarus pits being ectoplasm, and Danny bring the lover/secret brother to the entire bat clan.

Give me poison ivy possed by Undergrowth or the joker being terrorized by the box ghost because joker gas doesn't work on the dead. Hell weather wizard/ any other weather villain teaming up with vortex would be fun. Or have technus hijack brainiac/amazo, now that be a good threat.

Let's see Danny put on the helmet of fate and fight klarion because he's not at the same level as the cosmic forces of order and chaos rather then the gz being some super dimension that John "I sold my soul to 30 devils, 10 gods, an angel and a fae" Constantine is too scared to touch. Pariah was powerful, but he ain't Darkseid, Trigon, Child, or Nekron powerful.

Let's see more, superheroes deal with ghostly shit rather then Danny runs away/moves to Gotham for the 30th time. Like lets say the flash has to deal with Kitty and Johnny joy riding in Central city but he can't touch them or freakshow stops in Gotham and kidnaps Jason since the phandom is obsessed with making him a halfa or halfa adjacent. So much potential and none of it explored!

So, yall know how the phandom likes to make ectoplasm an emotional conduit. Where ghosts either can feel / feed on emotions and ectoplasm can have emitions without being a ghost, usually when talking about the pit rage Jason has in the DC stories. Well, let's roll with that and add the Emotional Entities that the lantern corps use.

If ghosts feed on emotions then the lanterns are basically walking snacks, if they sense emotions then the lanterns are walking flash bangs, and if ectoplasm can have emotions then let's have some ghosts get lantern rings simply because they are emotions given physical forms.

Also, yall know how the Danny defeats pariah and becomes king stories are a whole thing, why doesn't that apply to Dan?

Rant/prompt ideas done for now but I have so many more. Let's bring some life back to this half dead phandom.

#danny phantom #dc fandome #danny fenton #ghost zone #marvel #fanfiction #archive of our own #story ideas #crossover #phandom #young justice #teen titans

42 notes · View notes

brainwormsprompts · 1 year

Text

Danny Phantom x World Trigger

So what if the portal in Danny basement didn't lead to the Ghost Zone but to the Neighbor world? This could work considering I've seen lots of ideas that the Infinite Reals isn't stagnant and that the haunt doors move (I don't know if this is confirmed in the DP canon) and it's canonic that the different Neighbor Worlds move in a wacky sort of orbital system. This would make the ghosts Neighbors who are trying to yoink people for their own respective societies. Maybe the trigger that is allowing the void travel is very experimental/deadly/top-secret which is why other nations aren't using it. Or maybe other nations consider the idea foolhardy and something that would never work so they don't try it and actively shun the nations that are trying it. There's also the resource management/intensity that you could think about. Many ways that you can spin it so that the small regulars of Danny's rogue gallery fit within this explanation. In fact, you could have a handful of Neighbor nations separately come up with the idea if you want to have "in-fighting" within the Gallery (again, I don't remember if this happened in canon). Maybe some of the Gallery eventually move into Amity Park and become unofficial citizens.

In this case, the Fenton tech probably isn't based off ectoplasm, but trion. Whether or not Jack and Maddie are aware of this fact is up to you. I can totally see them stumbling across a trion soldier, defeating it with Fenton wacky logic and then completely mistaking it for a ghost instead of an alien/otherworldly entity. Maybe they saw one of their friends get taken by trion soldiers and that's what started their obsession. But this means that there are a few triggers laying around the lab. Maybe Danny and Jazz have been trained in a few of these triggers and have some that are highly specialized to them. If so, assuming that one is going with the "half-dead" thing that makes Danny a halfa, then maybe he has his on him and he makes a black trigger out of his death. Granted, this feels like a stretch in plausibility so one may or may not want to include it.

Now because of the long standing, open portal to the Neighbor-verse, more trion expeditions from other nations probably pop up around Amity Park when compared to a place that doesn't have it. This makes Amity Parkers really experienced with what to do when that happens. Maybe they start to believe the Fentons. Maybe the Fentons or the Undying Trio start to give out basic triggers and train them in how to use it. For example, if a Bamster comes through, then the Amity Parkers immediately form groups and go into smaller areas while also doing head counts on some sort of public server. But a Marmod makes them scatter in pairs or maybe groups of 3-4 at the most. The overall affect is that there is a tight bond between Amity Parkers. One moment, the A-listers could be bullying others and the next, they're all working together to get to safety. I imagine that it affects the younger citizens more than the older ones, but that's just me.

With this, you can also decide how or if you want any characters to have Side Effects. One could have Danny have something like Chika's and have him have a danger sense that changes as he grows. So a Marmod would set if off strongly when the portal first opened but maybe after half a year or so, it registers as a medium or low threat to him. Maybe Dash has enhanced strength while Paulina can affect how others perceive her to a degree. Maybe Sam can talk to plants while Tucker has a complete and total understanding of technology.

As for how this ties into the main series, it would likely come into play after the Aftokrator invasion. Osamu pushes Border into an uncomfortable position for them. With the Away Mission coming up and many of their heavy hitters leaving for it, they want to make sure that they're not left completely defenseless should something similar happen while it's happening. So they look to outsource (with a huge blow to their pride). Now when Neighbors became widespread knowledge, the US Government tried to "recruit" Amity Park. However, they rebuffed the government multiple times including and up to the present. Whether or not the GIW came about as a way to strong arm them before or after this is up to you. When Border reaches out to them, the US Government doesn't really want to give them resources because the US likes to hoard weapons. So they direct Border to small town Amity Park which has been dealing with Neighbor attacks for a while yet has a very small casualty rate.

The Border goes to investigate and try and recruit. Their success depends largely on who they bring. Old Border members are much more likely to have things go over smoothly, bonus points to Danny if Yuma is brought along. But if it's just New Border agents, then it's going to end with Border not getting any help from Amity Park with the residents being mildly antagonistic to them. Danny would go out to meet them because while the Mayor may make big decisions for them, being the main protector makes his opinion valued. If the Border mentions the fact that they are gaining temporary protectors for the Away Trip, Danny is going to consult with any of the Rogue Gallery that has moved to Amity Park and/or Team Phantom. If Danny has Danger Sense, it would be a great show of power to Border if an attack comes through and he just sighs and sends out an alert. It would not only show that Danny has a "powerful" side effect for Border, but it also shows just how normalized attacks are and how most people go about their day through it, which is mind-boggling to Border who has shut down an entire area because of Neighbor attacks.

If Border passes the trust test, then Danny would probably ask about which Nations they're going through. He would casually throw out names and be like "well so and so is a small nation so they're less likely to have people but this nation is getting bigger so they might have some new captures" which would reveal just how valuable Amity Park is as an information source if not a defense ally.

#world trigger #world trigger x Danny phantom #prompt #danny phantom #dp #world trigger x dp

10 notes · View notes

going-dead · 1 year

Note

HI!!!!! I ABSOLUTELY ADORE YOUR SERIES!!!! Honestly there should be more crossovers between DP and MHA.

But that's not the point.

Thoughts on Vlad (or any of the other rogues) finding out where Danny is because of CW and just jumping in and fucking everything up? Like full on randomly punting Danny into the ground and expositing some traumatizing shit before being beaten up and punted back into the infinite realms in front of the others?

Extra points for identity review?

(I'm not expecting any of this, but this is food for thought and only fuel my goblin brain)

Also, CONGRATULATIONS ON GETTING TO 100K WORDS!!! That's like, 1/3d of a novel :)))

Thank you so much!!!!!! From the looks of it it’s going to be ending up the length of a novel

There are multiple ways this could all go down in theory. I’ll go with the one that makes me laugh though.

If Vlad (or any of Danny’s rouge gallery) somehow made it cross universe, and had the dumb brilliant idea to fight Danny the man would be accosted by at least 5 pro heroes and then some the moment he landed a hit. No ecto-weapons be damned. Doesn’t help that Danny’s made it pretty clear he can take a serious hit without it affecting him too much, and some chump comes around and slams him into the pavement.

Imagine Vlad for a second and he finally finds his annoying nephew, hopefully eventually to be son, and he punts him into the ground because of all the trouble he’s put everyone though the past few months looking for him and his sister. Punting him into the ground is basically how Vlad says hello to Danny at this point, then as the boy is picking himself up off the ground more annoyed then hurt. Vlad turns around and come face to face with a group of very pissed off adults as well as a handful of kids. ‘No problem’ he thinks to himself he has powers that normal humans could only dream of having. Then one of them opens his mouth and he’s blasted back by a sound wave and can’t hear anymore because his eardrums are too busy bleeding. He thinks the attack is finally over after trying to ward off attacks from at least twelve superpowered humans, then a homeless looking guy walks up to him holding a Fenton thermos of all things. The only thing Vlad can think of in time is ‘would he even know how to use the thermos?’ Before he’s smacked upside the head with it.

Danny would be watching in pure confusion after picking himself up because he doesn’t know why anyone would be mad for him, especially when it was probably the weakest attack Vlad had thrown at him. He and Jazz are like “this is just another Tuesday” and their poor dads just have to once again realize that fact that these kids are seriously in need of a stable home life.

Todoroki adjusts his theory board for Danny’s origins. He’s going to have to buy a new one soon this one’s getting crowded.

#the idea of Danny’s new found family absolutely demolishing anyone from Danny and Jazz’s past is hilarious to me #like they’re all aware both of them can handle themselves but that doesn’t mean they should have to #asked and answered #dfiais #danny fenton is an invasive species

14 notes · View notes

tachvintlogic · 2 years

Note

If DP had a reboot, how would u write Ember?

So I don't really have anything bad to say about her current origin story. In her song, she went out with a boy who then ghosted her for 2 weeks, and then she died in a fire (and she might be blaming him for that).

From her episode, I would drop the entire subplot about the "love spell" because I like Danny and Sam better as friends than a couple, and also because it doesn't really complement her powerset. Her powers should be focused on her cause of death (fire) and her obsession/passion (music).

She can still be defeated by bad singing, but I want Danny to be the one who sings badly instead of Tucker. Many trans guys know that starting T means you won't be able to sing well until your voice and brain adjust to a new vocal range as you lose the old one. Having Danny be the terrible singer would be very relatable.

For other episodes involving her, I'd want one to explore her past. Are her parents still around? Did they recognize her as a ghost? If they didn't, why? If they do, how do they react? What does this say about Danny's parents given they don't recognize him as a ghost, and what his parents' reaction might be if they found out?

And that guy from the song? Is he still around? Does he feel bad about her death? Does he remember her at all? I think if he didn't, that would set it her off. That's some good angst.

Seeing these people from her previous life would force her to confront on a very real level, the fact that, like she sings in her song, their lives have gone on without her.

The song is very ambiguous about the details of her death, and how it relates to the guy ghosting her. The details should be slowly revealed to Team Phantom as they spent time with Ember and these people from her past.

Though, I don't really have any thoughts about what those details should be.

The Ember's Past episode should end with Team Phantom finding Ember in front of a burned down lot, implied to be the building Ember died in. Perhaps it can be turned into a memorial, where fans can leave food and gifts for her reminiscent of how some cultures give offerings to the dead.

I'm really into the idea of most of the main rogues gallery turning into allies, or at least neutral parties. She'd probably have an episode or two focused on finding a way to pursue her passion for music without the mind control or taking over the world. Maybe she finds gigs for her band in the Ghost Zone or in Amity.

I kinda want Sidney and Ember to be friends, if only because they died at around the same age. I imagine when they first start hanging out, they clash over their very different tastes in music. Perhaps this is part of an arc where Ember is learns about different music styles and broadens her horizons. Maybe she meets Aunt Alicia and learns to appreciate country music.

She would get more songs than just the one from the original. At least enough to fill an album. Having an episode where Ember learns about different genres of music would be a good excuse to fill the album with all the genres Ember encountered in the episode. (And said episode would double as marketing for the album.)

@five-rivers had a cool fic about Ember helping Danny practice his ghostly wail using proper voice exercises. I think that would cool to explore in a reboot, especially for a trans Danny. Pre-T Danny might dislike his singing voice because he thinks it's too high, even if it's descent. While on T, his singing voice sucks because his pitch is changing and he doesn't know how to adjust for that. While Ember helps Danny control the new power of his dying screams, she finds out why Danny is so good at singing terribly, and she forces him to practice and get better at singing in his new range.

That's basically all my thoughts on a reboot Ember.

#danny phantom #ember (danny phantom)#dp reboot #tach's asks

23 notes · View notes

lmtyl · 3 years

Text

Had a dream that was basically a Danny Phantom episode

So it starts with Danny doing something to piss off the Observants, fairly minor but they keep showing up wanting him to apologize and accept some kind of punishment. Except they’re the Observants so they phrase it in some scary legalese.

Cut to some kind of Thanos wannabe showing up in Earth’s orbit menacingly. Danny flies out to fight him and quickly realizes how screwed he is if he tries. Is given some villain monologue.

So Danny summons the Observants thru some completely unnecessary dramatic “spell” and they show up

Observant: Are you finally ready to face justice?

Danny: Yes, and I plead guilty on all charges

Discount Thanos: What?

Observant: Any requests?

Danny: Uh, a week of house arrest, with NO interruptions?

Observant: That will be sufficient

Danny: Wait really???

And then the Observants blast the invading alien force into oblivion like it’s nothing.

Episode ends with a montage of the Observants intercepting various members of Danny’s rogues gallery before they can cause trouble in Amity Park. Half of the time it’s the Box Ghost.

#danny phantom #danny phantom fic #i dreamed a fanfic #idea free to a good home #dreams

106 notes · View notes

avaritia-apotheosis · 3 years

Text

Phantom Children [DP x Batman Crossover] Ch. 2

In which: Danny thinks, Talia is concerned, and we finally see Ra's al Ghul's pride an joy: the Lazarus pit

AO3 | Prologue | 1 | [ 2 ] | 3 |

---

DANNY COUNTS THE DAYS by the hours he is in the monitor room. One hour is all that he is allowed. One hour after a day of learning and fighting, of ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no sir’ and ‘stand up straighter, boy’ and ‘remember that you have feet.’ Of being handed a sword only to have it knocked out of his hand (pickitup-pickitup-pick-it-up). Of ‘here’s eight plants, only one of them is the antidote to the poison you just ingested, and you better hope you remember the difference because this is the life you live now, Danny.’ This is what you agreed to for some time in front of a few television screen.

One hour. Sixty minutes. Three thousand and six hundred measly fucking seconds was all he got to see his family before he’s ushered back to his room. Dark. Barren. Windowless.

God, when was the last time he saw the stars?

He spent his multitude of ‘one hours’ simply watching. That was all he could do, really. Watch and collect snatches of Amity—of Before. Like torn pieces of an antique photograph, unable to be restored but too precious to throw away.

Talia would call him too sentimental. Danny would love to remind Talia that if it wasn’t for her and her freaky older-than-dirt dad, Danny wouldn’t even need to be fucking sentimental.

Breathe in for four. Hold for seven. Breathe out for eight.

Repeat.

Repeat again.

One more time.

There’s a voice in Danny’s head that sounded too much like Jazz telling him that this kind of behavior was unhealthy. The Jazz in Danny’s head didn’t exactly know why, though they’re both pretty sure that constantly watching your family and friends move on after your death probably isn’t good for one’s sanity. Especially since Danny isn’t really dead.

Well.

Dead-er.

He isn’t—

(family-love-mememe-why aren’t they looking harder-don’t they care-they care-for their own good-what about-happy-no-me-them-me-them).

Truth be told, Danny isn’t angry that everyone in Amity seemed to be getting on with their lives. God, he’s seen how his suppsed-death affected them. He can’t—he won’t be responsible for holding them back from living when he can’t even be sure if he’ll ever be able to return to Amity again.

(He’s seen what happens when someone refuses to move on. Hell, the Zone is full of it. It’s either you obsess with grief…or you try to rip it out of yourself entirely.)

Danny wanted them to live on. Be happy. (With him.)The FentonWorks portal remained under constant vigilance, and since Pariah Dark, most ghosts recognized Amity as his haunt and tended to stay away. With any major threats he could only hope that Clockwork would step in somehow and at least keep it contained. Tucker and Sam were more than capable enough to handle most of his regular rogues gallery, especially if Red Huntress was backing them up too.

Amity…didn’t really need Danny anymore to protect it.

(Family-happy-protectprotectprotect-what?-safe-not safe-not needed).

For all that they tried to find out, Danny, Sam, and Tucker never did manage to figure out what his ghostly obsession was. Sam went out on a limb and said Heroism which…wasn’t quite right but fit the bill well enough.

And what was the point of heroes?

To build a world where they aren’t needed.

------

There was a noticeable shift in her son’s demeanor after he learned of the true nature of his parentage. Though it should be noted that while Talia showed a photograph of her beloved to Daniel, she did not disclose his true identity as to Ra’s al Ghul’s orders. Her father reasoned that it was more advantageous for Daniel to develop a closer connection with the maternal side of his family as opposed to the Waynes—a name that would be more familiar and thus better viewed than the strange people who kidnapped him.

No; ‘Recovered’ would be the most appropriate term. Daniel was her child. Would always be her child, no matter who raised him.

Daniel was…quieter. Somber. His eyes glazed yet sharp—blue eyes bloodshot despite maintaining a regular sleep schedule. Like pit madness with neither the madness nor the pit; simply the look of rage that bubbles beneath the skin, close to boiling over yet never there.

He continued to watch his false family obsessively. Yet…he had taken to watching Talia as well. Quietly. Unobtrusively. Small glances at the corner of his eye. Contemplative looks with furrowed brows whenever he presumed she did not notice. He had even taken to meticulously check his reflection in the mirror; pinching cheeks and turning his face this way and that, cataloguing his features as if to find what parts of him was from her—or perhaps if there was any part of him that ever resembled the paranormal scientists he once called parents.

Even if the physical similarities were not there, the DNA testing—regardless of the anomalies found in Daniel’s genes—was proof enough that he was her son.

“You have been keeping with your diet regimen, yes?” Asked one of the League’s physicians. He pressed his gloved fingers against Daniel’s skin, brushing the ridges of his ribcage. Marring her son’s skin was a large, faint scars. Fractals branching across his torso like the branches of a gruesome tree. “You are still too thin.”

“Fast metabolism,” Daniel mumbled. He is sat on an examination table in their medical wing, black shirt neatly folded beside him. His figure, though not skeletal, per se, was gaunt. His ribs poking from his pallor skin, stomach still concave for a boy who ate double the portions than any other member of the League of Assassins. “I’ve had it since the accident, but it’s never gotten this bad.”

The physician hummed, jotting his notes down along side the results of Danny’s vitals. The exact numbers were unknown to Talia, standing as she was by the door, though she could infer the results from previous physical examinations. (Low blood pressure and core body temperature. Faint pulse, slight tachycardia,) “Do you have any ideas why?”

Daniel’s lips thinned, eyes darting to the side as he always did whenever Phantom was related in anyway. His face was too open; Talia needed to train him out of that. “My…” He took a deep breath. “Ghosts aren’t supposed to stay very long in the Material world. It lacks the ectoplasmic energies that helps them ‘stay alive,’ so to speak. Usually they can supplement some of this by filtering some of the ambient energy in the atmosphere to strengthen themselves—it’s why Amity was such a hotspot for ghosts because of the large concentration of ectoplasm in the atmosphere—but it still isn’t a good long term solution.”

He scratched the back of his head. “Since I’m still somewhat human, I’m able to spend way more time in the Material world and can substitute spending days in the Zone by instead filtering ambient energy and eating.”

The physician made another noise, the tip of his pen tapping against the side of the clipboard. “So I take it then that, as your other half doesn’t have access to this ‘ambient energy’ as you call it, it is forced to take what energy it needs from the calories you’ve consumed, yes?”

“Basically.”

“What will happen if you do not have enough calories to supplement this energy?”

Danny shrugged, a rueful smile on his face. “Dunno. Maybe this time, death will stick.”

Talia narrowed her eyes.

Such a thing will not happen. She had been forced to give up on Daniel once, and then later on she lost her youngest to her beloved. Never again.

This child was hers.

------

“Father, did you not say that the anomalies found in Daniel’s DNA were similar in composition to the Lazarus pit?”

Ra’s al Ghul did not pause in pause in his reading to look up at Talia. The bird shaped magnifying glass held steady above the ancient manuscripts spread across his desk, eyes focused on the words and figures carefully inked onto the page. “Yes.” He set aside the magnifying glass and gently flipped the page. “It is what strengthened my belief of the connection between the Lazarus pit and these spirits.”

Talia straightened. “With your permission I would like to place Daniel into the pit.”

Her fathered looked up, curious. “You forget what the pit does to those who are in good health.”

She placed the results of Daniel’s most recent physical exam on to of his desk. Ra’s sat back in his chair and idly flipped through the folder, reading the contents as if no different to reading the newspaper instead of how his grandson is slowly being starved by his own biology. “Well, well. This would be a problem.”

He closed the folder, a wry grin curling at his lips. “Have him ready for tomorrow. I am curious as to how the pit would affect one already half-dead.”

------

Danny is awoken by Talia sometime the next day. “Come,” she said. “You do not need to change, so come quickly.”

He got off the bed with a silent groan, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the heel of his palm. “Where are we going?”

“Not far. Somewhere that will help you.”

He snorted. “Letting me go home would help me.”

Talia doesn’t answer, simply waiting for him at the door. Danny groaned, combing away as much of his bedhead with his fingers as he followed her.

For the first time since being dragged to Nanda Parbat, Danny is allowed to venture beyond his small section of the compound.

He didn’t really know what to expect.

Still didn’t stop everything from being so…anticlimactic.

Beyond the steel door, normally kept locked and guarded by two of his shadow guards, was a hallway. Endlessly long with a wide pathway, lit enough by the fluorescent lights overhead but not enough to banish the shadows that clung to the stone walls. The hallway looked empty. ‘Looked’ being the key word, here. Even if he couldn’t see them, Danny would bet on his half-life that the shadows were teeming with life.

Talia led the way through the maze of twists and turns (were they underground?), a couple of shadow guards quietly following behind them.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

Talia looked at him from over her shoulder for a moment, then turned away. “Have you heard of the Lazarus pits?”

“Lazarus? Like the guy who came back to life?” Neither of his parents were really religious. His dad only really Baptist in name because he was born into a Baptist family that, too, wasn’t overly strict in their religion. The only reason why Danny knew of this Lazarus guy was because of Mr. Lancer’s unit on Greco-Roman and Christian allusions.

Talia nodded, turning a corner. “The Lazarus pits are natural pools with restorative properties, capable of rejuvenating the body, healing grievous injuries, and even bringing the dead back to life.”

Danny nearly tripped over his own feet. “What? That’s—” Impossible. He ran up to Talia, wildly gesticulating with his hands. “What’s dead is dead. Resurrecting the dead goes against the natural law of the universe!”

“Well, you seem to be doing fine.”

He frowned, crossing his arms. “That’s different. I’m still dead, even if my entire existence seems like the but end of a Schrodinger’s joke.”

“Be that as it may, what I speak is truth.” She stopped in front of a door and opened it. Then, stepping aside to usher Danny in first. “See of yourself.”

Danny stepped inside, Talia following behind him, and—

Oh.

Before he even saw the pit, he could feel it. A low and steady hum reminiscent of the ghost portal. But…different. Not necessarily fainter but garbled, like hearing someone speak underwater.

The room was a large, open space, with stone walls framed by red wooden pillars. It was dim, lit only by the green glow of the pit that consumed the majority of the space. A square pool of too-clear waters and toxic-looking steam rising from the surface.

The waters felt of the Zone but…not.

“Ah, Daniel.” He nearly jumped out of his own skin. Ra’s al Ghul stepped out of the shadows behind him, hands folded behind his back. The green glow highlighted the sharp contours of his face; the shadows that clung to him only making his visage harsher. “It is good to see you.”

Danny greeted the Demon’s Head with a League salute. “Grandfather.”

The word felt foreign on his tongue despite being in English. To formal for a boy who never really had the chance to interact with his own grandparents. But Danny was told to refer to Ra’s like this, and so he did. (He was only grateful Talia didn’t insist on calling her ‘mother.’)

Ra’s al Ghul was an enigma. Centuries old yet he looked only about a decade older than his mom and dad. (Jack and Maddie Fenton will always be his mom and dad. They raised him. Loved him, in their own eccentric, science-y way. No blood test or adoption or ninja-assassins could change that). Like Danny’s still-unnamed biological father, Ra’s carried himself with theatrical purpose. Comically villainous in his attire and grand gestures, though unlike Vlad, Ra’s had this overwhelmingly intimidating presence that engulfed whatever room he stepped in.

Ra’s was a man that commanded attention as opposed to demanding it. And now, at the focus of the man’s calculating gaze, Danny could not help but stand stiff at attention.

“You’re mother was right,” Ra’s said. Danny barely restrained himself from perking up at that word. “You are wasting away, Daniel.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

“Well, at least you still have that fire in you.”

Danny startled, slapping his hand over his mouth. Shit, he didn’t know he said that out loud. Out of the corner of his eye, Talia suppressed a small smile.

“You have that in common with the Detective,” Ra’s continue, circling Danny like a carrion that spotted its next meal. “That and the rather foolish notion on not properly reporting the extent of your injuries.”

“With all due respect, grandfather, I wasn’t expecting on staying here for this long.”

Ra’s gave him a knowing look. “But something is keeping you here, isn’t it?”

“Keeping my family and friends hostage is a pretty good motivator, apparently.” An insidious thought bubbled in Danny’s mind. But that isn’t all, is it?”

“I have consulted your mother and your physician as to the nature of your condition, and I have decided that the Lazarus pit would be a sufficient way to restore your health.” He gestured to the pool. “It appears that your DNA shares several similarities to the composition to the Lazarus pit.”

Danny crouched at the edge of the pit, hovering his hand above the water’s surface. “It’s because it contains ectoplasm. An impure kind, I think.”

“Will the impurities be harmful to you?”

He pursed his lips. “I don’t think so? My body can filter out the impurities just fine, it’s just that I’ve never encountered thistype of ectoplasm before. It’s so clear and—aqueous, I think is the word.”

There’s a strange glint in Ra’s eyes. Dare Danny say it, it even looked mischievous. It made him uneasy, and just as Danny made a move to step back, Ra’s al Ghul picked him up by the collar of his night shirt—

And threw Danny into the Lazarus Pit.

#danny phantom #batman #danny phantom x batman crossover #phantom children.txt

34 notes · View notes

cartoonfangirl1218 · 3 years

Note

I liked your ava post, do you have more aboout usm. The WHOle usm team?

I can’t say I have many many hcs but I’ll give you where I think they might end up after SHIELD, and two songs that fit them if that works.

Peter: I don't know why but I feel like Peter would want to look for his parents once he leaves SHIELD and while doing so, he ends up in a lot of team ups and building up more of his rogues gallery. Basically I imagine stuff from the comic with spider clones, dating MJ, briefly rejoins the Avengers then leaves. Yeah I don't have much for him since comic history leaves people to choose what they want. Imagine Dragon's Beliver because he does have such a heavy pain inside, but that's the thing, he keeps it inside until he snaps them into his fight for justice. "First things first, I'ma say all the words inside my head. I'm fired up and tired of the way that things have been, The way that things have been.Second thing second, Don't you tell me what you think that I could be. I'm the one at the sail, I'm the master of my sea...Taking my message from the veins. Speaking my lesson from the brain. Seeing the beauty through the pain!"

Danny: I'd like to think that he stays in NY to start Heroes for Hire with Luke as soon as they leave SHIELD. They're bros, and he justifies the absence that New York needs Iron Fist more than K'Lun for the moment. He also tries his hand at getting Rand Industries back on track. I also think he does return to K'Lun eventually as King and mystical head. After his work at Rand Industries, he feels more confident as a leader and is willing to stand up to the monks when it comes with changing some of the old ways. Allowing him to travel back to NY to see his friends while keeping the mystical origins of K'Lun sacred. I think Nature Boy rather fits him, soft and melodious and Danny learning he is not alone sort of. "There was a boy. A very strange enchanted boyThey say he wandered very far..Very far over land and sea. A little shy and sad of eye. But very wise, was he." Les Miserables’ Who am I mainly because I imagine Danny has some identity issues between feeling worthy of the Iron Fist, feeling torn between the US and K'Lun. Ideally, he would end up learning being one does not give up the other part of himself. As one would say they can coexist in a balance. "Who am I? Can I conceal myself forever more.. Pretend I’m not the man I was before?....How can I ever face my fellow men? How can I ever face myself again?"

Luke: As said above, with Danny, when they leave SHIELD, they create Heroes for Hire, they ride or die forever. Together they clean up their part of New York and Luke comes to terms with some of his past and the people he dealt with in jail. He also meets Jessica Jones during this time and she becomes his new partner (in more ways than one) when Danny leaves for K'Lun. He sometimes does freelance work for SHIELD, mainly at the behest of his parents, sometimes as a favor to Fury. He also sometimes comes by the Helicarrier to be a surprise mentor to whatever new hero they pick up. He is the main instigator of team reunions.

Adam Levine’s If I got locked away totally fits him after the time he spent in jail and scared of being seen as weak, it really fits him and his insecurities. "If I got locked away And we lost it all today. Tell me honestly, would you still love me the same? If I showed you my flaws. If I couldn't be strong. Tell me honestly, would you still love me the same?" One call away also fits him simply for his caring nature and how he'll do anything for his friends, "I'm only one call away. I'll be there to save the daySuperman got nothing on me. I'm only one call away/ Call me, baby, if you need a friend. I just wanna give you love...No matter where you go, know you're not alone. I'm only one call away."

Ava: I think once Ava leaves SHIElD, she has some trouble with the amulet whether form being on her own, knowing SHIELD isn't there watching her every move or just cockiness that she can handle it now. Either way, I see her as taking a break from the amulet. Reasoning her father wanted her to keep it safe, it didn't mean she had to put it on and be a hero. Ideally, she goes to therapy to work through all these issues before ever putting it on again. I imagine she goes home to PR too. I think she could go into bounty hunting, it's more freelance, she helps put baddies away and she can put her investigative skills to good use. Eventually she'd be White Tiger again but for more superpowered threats than every day patrolling. Just breathe from In the Heights not only for the spanish influences but also the utter fear of returning a failure, "Straighten the spine. Smile for the neighbors. Everything's fine, everything's cool. The standard reply: Lots of tests, lots of papers. Smile, wave goodbye and pray to the sky, "Oh God!" And what will my parents say? Can I go in there and say, "I know I'm letting you down..." Alyssa Greene from The Prom. The lyrics speak for themselves of the utter perfectionism and drive, "The hair has to be perfect. The As have to be straight...Trophies have to be first place. Ribbons have to be blue. There's always some competition or hoops for jumping through. Just have everything perfected by the time you reach eighteen"

Sam: Admittedly I don't know much about Nova lore or backstory as the others but I think he'll go back to space. Not necessarily as part of the Guardians because honestly I think they had enough members without him. Maybe as a solo act before he finds the other Nova Corps. I definitely see him as becoming a trainer there, finally being the leader he always wanted to be. I also want him to reconnect with his family so he does travel back to Earth to visit them and then swoops by NY for some reunion with his old team before heading back to space.

Bieber’s Lonely fits Sam because at the heart of it all, I think that's what he is. Lonely, he's still young and trying to navigate these powers and his place in the world and space and what his identity is. And no one else can quite get that. "Everybody knows my name now. But somethin' 'bout it still feels strangeLike lookin' in a mirror, tryna steady yourself and seein' somebody else. And everything is not the same now. It feels like all our lives have changed Maybe when I'm older, it'll all calm down. But it's killin' me now. What if you had it all, nut nobody to call? Maybe then you'd know me 'cause I've had everything. But no one's listening and that's just f- lonely." Shawn Mendes' Wonder works for similar reasons. Mainly I imagine him singing it to his missing father who inherited so much but knows nothing personally about him, "I wonder why I'm so afraid of saying something wrong, I never said I was a saint. I wonder, when I cry into my hands. I'm conditioned to feel like it makes me less of a man and I wonder if someday you'll be by my side and tell me that the world will end up alright. I wonder..I wonder." And then a party song for each

Sam: All I do is win by DJ Khaled "All I do is win, win, win no matter what. Got money on my mind, I can never get enough ('Nough) And every time I step up in the building Everybody hands go up And they stay there And they stay there, up, down, up, down, up, down 'Cause all I do is win (Win), win (Win), win And if you going in put your hands in the air, make 'em stay there"

Luke: Finesse by Bruno Mars, "We out here drippin' in finesseIt don't make no sense Out here drippin' in finesse You know it, you know it We out here drippin' in finesse It don't make no sense Out here drippin' in finesse You know it, you know it"

Peter: Another one bites the dust by Queen "nother one bites the dustAnother one bites the dust And another one gone and another one gone Another one bites the dust Hey I'm gonna get you too Another one bites the dust"

Danny: Normally, I don't think Danny would be into party music, too much cursing, too much noise to distort the mind, that stuff. But Rihanna is catchy. "I wanna take you away, let's escape into the music, DJ, let it playI just can't refuse it, like the way you do this Keep on rockin' to it Please don't stop the, please don't stop the music I wanna take you away, let's escape into the music, DJ, let it play I just can't refuse it, like the way you do this Keep on rockin' to it Please don't stop the, please don't stop the, please don't stop the music"

Ava: Woman by Ke$ha "I'm a motherfucking woman, baby, alright I don't need a man to be holding me too tight I'm a motherfucking woman, baby, that's right I'm just having fun with my ladies here tonight I'm a motherfucker" This other cool blog is much more into USM and has tons of hcs if you want more of this stuff, @im-rewriting-ultimate-spider-man

#ultimate spiderman #usm #peter parker #spider man #ava ayala #white tiger #danny rand #iron fist #luke cage #power man #sam alexander #nova #my hcs #my headcanons

20 notes · View notes

wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

Text

Psycho Analysis: The Rogues Gallery of the Powerpuff Girls

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

There are few rogues galleries I hold in higher esteem than that of the Powerpuff Girls. Aside from Spider-Man, Batman, and Danny Phantom, there are few heroes who can claim to have a more colorful and creative set of foes than the crimefighting superheroines of the city of Townsville. Previously I’ve talked about their archenemy, the wonderfully devilish Mojo Jojo, but they have a lot of other great villains worth talking about… so, why not just talk about all of them at once?

This one’s gonna be a little different, and will be divided into two sections: MAJOR ANTAGONISTS and MINOR ANTAGONISTS. Major antagonists will be villains that the girls fought most frequently, while minor antagonists will be notable one shot villains and lesser foes.

MAJOR ANTAGONISTS

These are the foes that the girls face most frequently in the series, and the ones that will likely come to mind when you think of the show’s rogues gallery. Aside from Mojo Jojo, and according to TVTropes, the major antagonists from the series are Him, Fuzzy Lumpkins, the Gangreen Gang, Princess Morbucks, the Amoeba Boys, Sedusa, and the Rowdyruff Boys.

Motivation/Goals: The major antagonists all tend to vary in what exactly they want to do, but they all have one thing in common: their motivations are broad enough that they can fit into a wide variety of plots. Him is the best example, because his goal tends to be a vague mix of “take over the city/world” and “be an absolute dick,” which leads to all sorts of battles such as the bad future where he rules the Earth or the episode where he sends the girls out on a series of ridiculous riddles as part of a bet with Professor Utonium to see if he has to pay his full tab at Him’s pancake restaurant. Considering Him is supposed to be a stand in for Satan himself and is the ultimate evil of the show (even if his power level doesn’t always reflect that), it makes sense he’d constantly be doing crazy, tricky schemes like this.

Of course, not all of these villains are massive threats like Him; others are simply nuisances, like the Gangreen Gang, who just love going out and committing crimes for the fun of it in between their leader Ace moonlighting as a member of the Gorillaz. While they are still dangerous, they tend to be motivated to do things just because they find it amusing, like when they snuck into the mayor’s office and crank called the girls into repeatedly harassing the other villains. Then there’s Princess, who is basically just a snotty superpowered bully who decided to turn to a life of crime because the girls wouldn’t let her become a Powerpuff Girl. She’s motivated entirely out of jealousy and spite, but she never really rises to the level of a truly world-threatening threat, though she did almost screw up Christmas one time to the point Santa decided to slap her on the permanent Naughty List. The final major antagonist who falls into this category is Sedusa, who true to her name, seduces men. That’s… about it. She also has prehensile hair.

The Rowdyruff Boys are kind of a mix of being super serious dangers and just being jerks, as they were created by Mojo to be the opposite of the girls and so have all of their powers but none of their good qualities aside from maybe their love for each other (which they rarely show, but it’s there). They’re mostly just jerks and love to cause chaos, but sicne they have all the same sort of abilities as Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, they’re a lot more dangerous than the typical foe would be, and that’s not even counting the fact that their two “dads” are Him and Mojo, which means they have the cream of the crop when it comes to bad role models.

The last type of major villain is perhaps the funniest, because these are the villains who are just so bad at being evil that it’s comical. Fuzzy is a lighter example, as he’s not exactly bad at being evil; he’s just more not evil to begin with unless provoked or manipulated by other villains. He’s entirely content to just sit about at his shack, strumming his banjo, but if you piss him off he’s gonna grab his gun or a big old rock and cause some mayhem. The crown emperors of being failure villains, however, are the Amoeba Boys. These guys are the most utterly inept dumbasses you will ever see, a group so utterly bad at being bad that no one in the show is able to take them seriously. Since they are amoebas, albeit rather large ones, they don’t have the mental capacity to do much more than the most petty of crimes such as – GASP! - standing on grass when there’s a sign that says not to! Or even… LITTERING! Those fiends!

Performance: Tom Kane portrays Him, and alternately is able to make him hilarious and terrifying. It’s pretty amusing to think that the guy who played Professor Utonium and Mr. Herriman is capable of playing such a messed-up villain (ok, maybe not so much for the latter, Mr. Herriman was wack).

Fuzzy is portrayed by everyone’s favorite Trump supporting Pooh bear, Jim Cummings, and that good ol’ ragin’ Cajun accent he’d use in The Princess and the Frog and Zombie Island fits this southern hick quite well.

Ace, Big Billy, and Grubber of the Gangreen Gang are voiced by series MVP Jeff Bennet, who manages to make all three characters very distinct and unqiue in their voices, capturing the lovable oafishness of Billy and the smug leadership of Ace very well, and obviously whatever it is Grubber is doing. Lil’ Arturo and Snake are Tom Kenny, though the former was in his first appearance voiced by Carlos Alazraqui, which means twice now Tom Kenny has usurped Alazraqui in a voice role (the other time being the title character of the Spyro the Dragon franchise). Tom Kenny, being Tom Kenny, does a great job.

Princess and Sedusa are both voiced by Jennifer Hale, but I’m gonna be honest, neither of them are my favorite roles. Princess just has a really shrill and unpleasant voice - which is the point, mind you, I just don’t love it. Meanwhile, Sedusa is just forgettable.

The Amoeba Boys are Chuck McCann, and he gives all of them the exact sort of goofy, cartoonish Chicago gangster accent you could hope for, though each boy has a distinct voice. The other boy group, the Rowdyruffs, are voiced by Rob Paulsen for Brick and Boomer (the man behind the legend that is Carl Wheezer) and Butch is Roger L. Jackson (Mojo Jojo himself). As can be expected, the RRBs have very distinct voices, though I can’t say they’re quite as memorable as the characters they’re directly copying.

Best Episode: So yeah, this time instead of individuals scenes, I’m highlighting the very best episodes of the various foes of the Girls. First, let’s get the obvious one out of the way: if we’re talking altogether for Him, Fuzzy, and Princess, their appearance alongside Mojo in “Meet the Beat Alls” is just utterly hilarious, ESPECIALLY Fuzzy’s rock, their breakup bickering, and just how they decide to come together and cause chaos. As far as villain teamups go, you can’t get better than one that is nothing but a constant string of Beatles references (though they lose some points for not drawing attention to the fact that Him is based on the Blue Meanie from Yellow Submarine).

Individually, for Him, it really depends on what you’re looking for, since he’s a very versatile villain. If you want him at his best and most serious, “Speed Demon” is the way to go, as it shows a bad future where he has completely won, which goes a long way towards establishing him as the single most dangerous enemy of the girls. But if you want funny Him, well, “Him Diddle Riddle” is an absolute riot which leads to one of the most shockingly ridiculous punchlines in the show. It’s a real treat.

For Fuzzy, I’d say his main series debut “Fuzzy Logic” is a great solo showing, firmly establishing the character and how he has changed from the initial pilot. Fuzzy is an amusing character to be sure, but I feel his best showings are in ensemble pieces, which is why I say his debut is his best work.

For the Gangreen Gang, the obvious answer is, of course, “Telephonies,” because this is them at their most hilariously petty. They just sneak into the mayor’s office and crank call the other villains, and in the end, the day is saved! ...By Mojo, Fuzzy, and Him. Even the narrator is baffled at this one, but you’ll probably be laughing too hard to care about that.

Princess gets one of the best Christmas specials ever with “’Twas the Fight Before Christmas,” where she scams Santa into giving her superpowers while every other kid in the world gets coal. Of course, the Girls don’t take this lying down, and Princess gets the most awesome comeuppance ever, courtesy of Santa: she gets her name carved into the Permanent Naughty Plaque which has such notable figures as Adolph Shicklgruber, who you may know better as fucking Hitler. That’s right, Santa came right out and said Princess Morbucks is as naughty as Hitler is.

The Amoeba Boys have their main series debut, “Geshundfight,” which does a firm job of establishing these guys as such utterly incompetent morons that you can’t help but love them. It also establishes that these guys could only ever be a threat by complete accident. It’s good to see the boys got better after the girls threw them into the sun in the “Whoopass Stew” pilot!

Sedusa has “Something’s a Ms.” While Sedusa herself tends to be a rather dull antagonist, this episode rules and is her best appearance for one reason and one reason alone: we get to see Ms. Bellum kick ass. Hell yeah!

“Custody Battle” is the best appearance of the Boys because, let’s face it, having Mojo and Him argue over who has the right to be called their dad (Mojo Created them, Him resurrected them) is absolutely hilarious, and a great use of the characters.

Final Thoughts & Score: Alright, let’s go one by one here:

Him

Him is easily the best of the bunch and, aside from Mojo, is the definitive Powerpuff villain. I think part of it is, much like Mojo, Him is capable of being a hilarious jerk or a genuinely intimidating threat in equal measure. You get showings where all he does is try and make the Professor pay a full tab on his breakfast or give everyone tooth decay or even just hang out in his house and do some aerobics, and then you have episodes where he decimates the earth in the future or torments the girls in their dreams. He kind of really fits a lot of the old folkloric tales of the devil, where he could be anything from a prankster to outright malicious, for all it’s worth, and being based on the Blue Meanie certainly doesn’t hurt either. He’s just a very fun character who fits into so many different situations, and so he easily gets a 10/10.

Fuzzy Lumpkins

Fuzzy is an odd one, because as I mentioned earlier, he’s not really a true villain in the sense that he goes out and commits crimes for the sake of it like the others. He’s more of a chaotic neutral force than anything, who goes on angry rampages or gets swayed over to the dark side whenever the mood suits him. It’s kind of interesting how he was a smarter and calmer character in the pilot, where he invented a gun that could turn things into meat… but in the show proper, he’s just a dumb, irritable hick. While he’s certainly not the best member of the rogues gallery, there’s something charming about Fuzzy, and I definitely love his design and voice; I think he gets a 7/10.

The Gangreen Gang

These guys are some of the more enjoyable antagonists in the rogues gallery despite typically not being a huge threat. I think, really, that’s what makes them so fun; they’re a lot more low-key and just in general more prone to just being dicks than doing anything on the level of Him or Mojo. They’re the fun kind of villains where you don’t ever really need to take them seriously, to the point you can fully accept their leader Ace joining the Gorillaz, which is a thing that actually happened in real life and it’s amazing. I think that alone is enough to edge these guys into a 9/10.

Princess Morbucks

So out of all the major antagonists, I think Princess is probably my least favorite, mostly because she’s just a snotty, entitled, rich little brat. That being said, I’m not overly opposed to her, nor do I hate her; I really can’t hate a character that Santa Claus deemed is the moral equivalent of Hitler. I can’t stress enough how much I love Santa came right out and said “Rich lives don’t matter” and just slapped this little girl with the most grievous punishment you could give. Overall, Princess functions as a casual reminder rich people suck, and I’m okay with that, even if she’s not particularly high on my favorites. 7/10 is a solid score for her, I feel.

The Amoeba Boys

Idiot villains wish they could be these guys. Literally, as far as idiotic harmless villains go, these lads are the absolute cream of the crop. The fact these are giant amoebas wearing fedoras and talking like stereotypical gangsters and yet are so incompetent they don’t even know how voodoo dolls work and think that littering and standing on grass is the greatest crime of all is just… amazing. These guys are perfect. And yet they are so incompetent and harmless that it’s almost unfair to call them villains, despite how desperately they want to be villains. The fact everyone in the show treats them as a mild annoyance at best really goes a long way to making these guys endearing. They’re certainly not the best foes in the rogues gallery, but I think an 8/10 is a good score for these single-celled suckers.

Sedusa

I’m frankly not sure why she’s considered a “main antagonist” on TVTropes; when I think of PPG villains, she really doesn’t come to mind. Frankly, if she is a “main” antagonist, she’s one of the most boring and forgettable ones there is. Sure, she has a couple of decent episodes, and of course the one where Ms. Bellum gets her time to shine is a classic, but overall Sedusa is just a mediocre villain who doesn’t do enough to stand out among the crowd. I’d say she’s a 4/10. I think if they had gone with the concept from her third appearance where she had all those cool Egyptian powers from the start she would have been a far more engaging and fun antagonist. But hey, she gave Ms. Bellum her time to shine, so I can’t really say she’s all too abysmal.

The Rowdyruff Boys

So… these guys. I’m not particularly sure what to really say about these guys. They’re some of the most popular antagonists the PPG have, and they have great interactions with Him and Mojo. But they’ve never quite struck me as being as amazing as others have hyped them up to be. Maybe I just don’t quite vibe with their concept. All that being said, though, they’re not bad antagonists in the slightest, I just kind of find them uninspired as a concept. It won’t keep me from giving them an 8/10, so don’t worry about that, I just don’t find the idea of evil versions of the PPG to be particularly interesting.

And now we go on to the lesser rogues, the one-shot or minor antagonists! They don’t have the major presence the villains above do, but remember, you don’t have to be a major reoccurring villain just to make an impact; sometimes you just gotta be good at what you do.

Also, this is by no means an exhaustive list; I’ve left off some minor antagonists and probably forgot some, and then there’s some that just don’t have enough info to talk about. Like, I would love to tell you all the wonders of Salami Swami, but there’s just not enough… oh well… let’s talk about these guys. And they aren’t going to have a best episode listed, because… well, they’re minor one-shot characters. By default their best appearance is their only appearance.

Motivation/Goals: Unlike with the major villains, there’s a lot more variety in the one-shot characters, with their goals ranging from simple robbery to revenge to chaos for the sake of it. And yes, sure, their major villains do that stuff too, but they tend to have a solid theme, whereas these folk tend to have one gimmick that they run with for a whole episode before vanishing, never to be seen again. For instance, Femme Fatale is a raging radical feminist; Abracadaver is a lich who seeks revenge for his violent, untimely death; the Gnome is a cult leader who commits mass genocide of other villains so that he can create a utopian society; and Mr. Mime is a mime.

What I think separates them from the major foes is that they have a singular gimmick and they need to really excel at it, because if they screw it up, they’re gonna go down in infamy. Femme Fatale is not a villain who is recalled fondly, for instance, because her gimmick was horribly botched. Meanwhile, characters like the Boogie Man or the Gnome are looked at more fondly because of their silly and cool gimmicks that make them stand out (being a disco-themed monster under the bed and being a gnome with a beautiful singing voice that sounds like a certain lead singer of Tenacious D, respectively).

Performance: Let’s go one by one on these:

The Gnome is voiced by none other than Jess Harnell, who you may know as Wakko Warner or the current (as of 2020) voice of numerous Crash Bandicoot characters, including everyone’s favorite Wumpa-loving title character. They couldn’t afford the real Jack Black, but I think that Harnell does a very impressive vocal imitation of JB, to the point where you’d be forgiven for assuming that it was JB in the first place. The fantastic singing voice is no shock if you’ve ever watched Animaniacs, but boy is it good to hear.

Jeff Bennet may be the MVP of the lesser rogues, as he voices Major Man, Dick Hardly, and Harold Smith. This is quite a variety of characters each with different personalities and goals, so it’s pretty great he was able to give them all the exact sort of vocal characterization they needed to be distinct. On the subject of the Smiths, though,

Femme Fatale is Grey DeLisle doing a very generic voice. Like, it sounds like a less cheerful Daphne or a less evil Azula. I think she may have just been talking in her normal voice for this one? It just doesn’t really have anything to it to make it stand out among her more notable roles.

Boogie Man is voice acting god Kevin Michael Richardson, who has voiced numerous characters I really should do a Psycho Analysis on such as Chairman Drek and Gantu. There’s really nothing else to say here, really; Richardson gives exactly the sort of glorious performance you’d expect for a funky blaxploitation pastiche boogeyman. Talk about black excellence!

Lenny is Tom Kenny. Tom Kenny really does a good job with weird geeks like this, and so what else can I say but he did a good job with this creepy neckbeard. Abracadaver is played by legendary voice actor Frank Welker, who is in literally everything, but who you mostly know as Fred from Scooby-Doo. Much like with Kenny, he kills it in the role.

Finally, our last speaking villain is Roach Coach, and he’s most notable because he is voiced by Roger L. Jackson, who would graduate from this starter one-shot to become none other than Mojo Jojo. I don’t find Roach Coach quite as memorable a performance, but Jackson certainly doesn’t half-ass it.

Final Thoughts & Score:

The Gnome

I think the Gnome is one of the single most fascinating one-shot villains in the series, and not just because “See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey” is a gloriously cheesy rock opera where he gets to be the villain. His philosophies are incredibly intriguing and are sort of the focus of the episode, and his effectiveness is frankly unmatched as a villain; he succeeds in killing every villain in the series for a time. And while he is a bit hypocritical in that he too wanted to rule over Townsville and transforms it into a cult, he does ultimately realize that he was in the wrong and not only graciously accepts his defeat, but allows himself to die to return the world to its natural order, stating:

“"As I descend to the earth and I view the universe above me, I realize that life evolves, revolves, and dissolves completely around the opposites. Therefore, I conclude that I cannot exist in my...utopian...mind."

That’s a low 9/10 if I ever saw one. They didn’t need to go and make this Jack Black gnome in a rock opera such a fascinating character, but there we have it.

Dick Hardly

Dick Hardly is one of the most “love to hate” characters in the show’s entire run, and it’s not hard to see why; he is the lowest of the low, the scummiest scum there ever was. Look at this excerpt from the PPG Wiki, which was a godsend when writing all this up:

“Despite appearing only once in the 1998 series and never in the various spin-offs or the 2016 series, Dick Hardly is among the franchise's most memorable villans [sic]. This is because he's the only member of the PPG Rogues Gallery who has absolutely no redeeming or comedic qualities. Most villains have lines they will never cross. However, Dick is ruthless enough to kill anyone in order to achieve his goals, even his own ex-friends. In fact, he actually manages to make HIM (who is nastier than Mojo Jojo) look like a saint in comparison.”

He’s a slimy, ruthless, unrepentant bastard, and the fact he’s one of the few villains to bite the big one just helps him stand out even more. Throw in his incredibly cool monstrous transformation, and despite his single episode it’s not hard to give this Dick a 9/10.

Femme Fatale

So not to be lazy, but I did kind of do a Psycho Analysis on Femme Fatale back when I did an Episodyssey on her sole appearance. And yeah, I stand by what I gave her there; she’s a 2/10. She’s just a really preachy, obnoxious, and poorly executed moralizing villain. I’m also gonna go out on a limb here and say that she probably hates trans people. I suppose that’s just a headcanon but… come on. Look at her. If this show was TV-14 and came out today, she’d be even less subtle in her contempt for trans people than every episode of South Park that featured Mrs. Garrison. Enough headcanons though; she doesn’t get the lowest marks possible because, quite simply, she has a pretty nice design and her voice acting is good enough since it is Jennifer Hale.

Mr. Mime

Oops, wrong picture.

There we go! Anyway, Mr. Mime is a really cool character with a frustrating resolution. Through no fault of his own, Rainbow the clown accidentally gets hit by a bleach truck and loses his color, becoming the evil Mr. Mime, gaining the ability to sap the color and sound from the world with a touch. He’s actually a seriously awesome concept, and the episode itself is good… and then comes the ending where, despite turning back to normal, Rainbow gets the crap kicked out of him and sent to jail, which is strangely cruel for the Girls to do. Apparently they later made amends, because Rainbow shows up at their birthday, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. A 7/10 is a good score for this guy.

Boogie Man

The Boogie Man is arguably the greatest villain in anything ever. He is entirely built around one of the most groan-worthy puns imaginable and plays that pun up for all its worth, being a monster under the bed who utilizes a disco theme to the point he blocks out the sun with a gigantic disco ball. The dude has funky style and if that’s not enough, he’s voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, who gives him the exact sort of voice he needs. The dude is just like something out of the craziest blaxploitation film ever, and he certainly brings the funk to the point where even though he only got one appearance in the series, I wouldn’t hate to bump this guy to an 8/10. What else is there to say but “Blame it on the boogie!”

The Smiths

These guys are just a very funny concept. I kind of like villains who do stuff for the pettiest, mundane reasons, and these guys take it all to the logical extreme. The patriarch of the family decides to dress up in a tacky supervillain outfit to get “revenge” on Professor Utonium because… he envies his perfect life. The rest of his family turn to villainy to avenge him, and are just as pathetic and ineffectual as he is. It’s so funny in a sad kind of way. I think a 6/10 is what they deserve, because while they aren’t particularly effective or groundbreaking, they’re at least good for a chuckle or two. Ultimately though they are a less impressive version of the Nelsons from Minions.

Major Man

Major Man is very interesting because he is very clearly an homage to Johnny Bravo; they’ve got the same hair, the same muscular body type (though Major Man is certainly beefier), the same voice actor! And yet, they couldn’t be any more different. Johnny, as much of a dense womanizer as he is, does have a hidden heart of gold beneath it all and usually means well; meanwhile, Major Man is a self-serving jerk who wants to play superhero. You know, he kind of reminds me of Homelander from The Boys in some ways. Anyway, I think a 6/10 is fair enough for him; he’d get higher if he wasn’t such an interesting concept for a major villain relegated only to a one-shot appearance. He’d have been a better entry in the rogues gallery than freaking Sedusa, for instance.

Abracadaver

So I wanna know how exactly this one got by the censors. This guy is unrelentingly dark, from his origin (he died onstage in front of a crowd which included children) to his absolutely ghastly appearance in which it is very much clear he is decaying and rotten. I honestly kind of love him, despite the fact he only ever appeared once, mostly because I can totally understand why they never used him again. This dude might actually be too scary. I’m giving him a solid 8/10, because I just love how unrelentingly dark he is. It’s definitely a low 8 since he never appeared after his initial appearance (for good reason!), but damn if he isn’t effective and memorable.

Lenny Baxter

Lenny is actually kind of impressive. On the surface, he’s just a gross, exaggerated take on Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons and loony dudebro manchild fans, which is all well and good, he’s pretty effective at being a “take that” and has stood the test of time pretty well/. But, I think what truly makes him memorable is the fact that he actually did manage to capture the Girls and would have won if not for the meddling townsfolk. Then of course there’s the Professor’s wonderfully tranquil takedown of Lenny’s ideology:

"Let me tell you something, Lenny. You may have all of the toys, all of the merchandise, all of the so-called “collector’s value.” But one thing you don’t have, Lenny, is true fandom. For a true fan wouldn't want to selfishly keep the girls to himself. A true fan would want them to be free."

I think that for a disposable one-shot villain, Lenny is surprisingly relevant even today. I think he deserves a 7/10, though obviously he’s not a very high one because ultimately he is just still a normal (albeit very greasy) guy.

Roach Coach

Look, not all villains are created equal. This guy? He’s not too impressive. Sure, he predicted the ending to Team America, and sure, he made a Papa Roach reference, but frankly I don’t think that’s enough to really elevate him into being an impressive one-shot villain. I’d say he’s a 4/10. He’s not lower because he is the starter villain, and his voice actor would go on to bring us the much better and more memorable Mojo Jojo. We all have to start somewhere, right?

The Robbing Leech

This guy is probably one of the freakiest one-shot villains in the series. Unlike Abracadaver, there’s literally nothing explained about this guy. There’s no origin, no explanation, he doesn’t even talk, and hell, the guy might not even be human at all! We the audience are never clued in, and the guy is never seen again, so we’re only left to ponder what exactly this guy is up to. I don’t think he’s quite as disturbing as Abracadaver, but he’s certainly got something going for him in terms of mystery; a 5/10 is fair enough. It would have been neat if they explained something, but I guess he’ll just have to be one of those riddles for the ages. We will never truly know how and why this man was capable of giving people the succ.

And just when you thought it would end...

Salami Swami

Ok, did you honestly think I was going to miss the opportunity to talk about this guy? His name is SALAMI SWAMI. And look at him! He controls MEAT! He only ever appeared once in the episode “Slave the Day,” where his mighty meat powers are no match for the appetites of the reformed Big Billy (formerly of the Gangreen Gang). But like… LOOK AT HIM. The idea and concept and literally everything about him is just so patently absurd and creative that I’m legitimately angry I didn’t come up with it first. He never spoke a single word, but he still managed to find a way into my heart and mind. Can I legitimately rate this guy who had a single joke appearance in the show? Damn right I can! 6/10, baby! If he appeared more or defined his personality a bit better I’d rank him higher but, come on. SALAMI SWAMI. Sometimes all you need to be great is a really incredible, stupid gimmick. And Salami Swami has that in droves; hopefully we can meat him again someday, and he can reignite his beef with the girls while remaining inextricably linked with sausage.

Ok, I’m done. Goodnight everybody!

#Psycho Analysis #Powerpuff Girls #Rogues Gallery #Him #Princess #Fuzzy #Amoeba Boys #Rowdyruff Boys #Gangreen Gang

27 notes · View notes

justgotham · 5 years

Link

On the eve of the show's farewell (and 100th episode), the duo open up about how the Warner Bros.-produced show came together, its biggest challenges, and how they succeeded despite "competing against 80 years of Batman history."

"Batman characters are like Beatles songs," philosophizes Danny Cannon, who has been a co-showrunner on Gotham (along with John Stephens and, until 2016, creator Bruno Heller) since Fox put it on the air in 2014. "You don't play them like the Beatles [did] — everybody does their own version of them."

His version — the one that follows Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) as a rookie cop and young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) as he learns to be Batman — will air its 100th episode, which will also be the series finale, on April 25. After five years of reinventing origin stories for villains like the Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor), the Riddler (Cory Michael Smith) and Catwoman (Camren Bicondova), and at its peak pulling in as many as 9.7 million viewers (as well as picking up a Creative Arts Emmy for visual effects), the Bat Signal is finally being switched off.

Stephens' future plans are unclear — for a time, he was developing a series about another city, Superman's hometown, Metropolis, for WarnerMedia's DC Universe streamer, but that project was scrapped. Cannon and Heller, though, will be staying near their old neighborhood with Pennyworth, an upcoming series they're shooting for Epix about Wayne Manor's trusty butler, Alfred (played on Gotham by Sean Pertwee and in the new series by Jack Bannon).

On the eve of Gotham's farewell, Cannon, 50, and Stephens, 47, sat with THR (their separate conversations are edited together here) to talk about how the Warner Bros.-produced show came together, its biggest challenges — like casting characters memorably played by the likes of Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer — and how they succeeded despite, as Stephens puts it, "competing against 80 years of Batman history."

You made Jim Gordon a centerpiece of the series. Why?

DANNY CANNON You see through the eyes of a new detective. He sees all the darkest stuff about the city. He looks into the corners and the alleyways of Gotham. Through all five seasons, Jim Gordon walks that thin line between the just and the corrupted. At any point, he could have left. There will always be corrupt people who attempt to control chaos in Gotham. Jim knew he was fighting the true nature of the city. That's good drama.

Batman's story has been told so many times in so many different ways. What version influenced you the most? Which the least?

JOHN STEPHENS I wish I could tell you that we had a really coherent point of view, but it was evolving. At the very beginning, it was a much more noir-inflected, boots-on-the-ground point of view of the city. Then it became more elevated as we continued on to the second season. There were flashes here and there where we probably went a little bit too far into some of the more supernatural elements that sometimes intrude into Gotham.

CANNON We called the show Gotham because that's what we wanted it to be about. We were basically asking, "What would have to happen to a city in order for someone like Batman to feel as though he was necessary?" You get to see all the darkness that Batman had to deal with. You look at him as a child and you get to see where all of his drive, his need to help the city came from. And I think that David did just an incredible job. We watched him grow up on the set. It was like watching Batman grow up.

STEPHENS The first time that Batman really impacted my psyche I was 13 or 14, when Frank Miller was working on the first run of the Dark Knight. Miller's Batman has a twofold element that we talked about bringing into the show. The first element was the sense of weakness and vulnerability Batman carried as an older man. We tried to inject some of that grave humanity, first into Bruce, then into the rest of the world. The second element of Batman that Miller captured really well was the joy he got from being Batman. We wanted to have that feeling of empowerment. I think those two things definitely played through.

Gotham is filled with such an iconic rogues' gallery. What was casting like?

CANNON Casting Gotham was the most fun I've ever had on a job. Those first few months before we started shooting, we had these characters on a board and basically said, "Here are 20 things we want to do this season. We can do five of them." I still think that the show evolved probably a little too fast. But it evolved naturally. And that's the way I wanted it to go.

What does it mean to you to hit 100 episodes … and how do you feel about ending the series?

STEPHENS You know, I'm not sure that reaching a hundred episodes means what it meant 10 or 15 years ago. But there is this weird sort of a milestone element to it for all of us that made it feel like we had run a marathon. Even though it would have been a huge chunk of our lives if the show only ran for four seasons, doing 100 episodes made it feel like we topped off that entire journey. I felt like I was pretty ready for a vacation at the end. We deserved it.

CANNON At the beginning of season five, it was determined that this would be our last. David was getting to that age [he's now 18] where he was turning into a man and we were heading into Batman territory. It's such an incredible fan base that stayed with us, and when the curtain closes, they'll have seen a 100-hour play. I hope that the world we created will remain in their consciousness. I know it's going to remain on Netflix.

And where would you like Gotham to fall in the long Batman pantheon?

STEPHENS I would hope that for this current generation, these iterations will be their canonical versions of the characters.

CANNON Gotham stands alone. There are many DC TV superhero shows. But Gotham had a specific feel. It was a different world. We wanted it to stand apart.

THAT TIME BRUCE WAYNE ALMOST KILLED ALFRED (AND OTHER CAST MEMORIES)

DAVID MAZOUZ (Bruce Wayne)

"I was standing on the top of a bar in a New York City nightclub with a bottle of alcohol-less champagne in each of my hands, surrounded by background actors who were 'OK with getting wet,' dancing my heart out to 'Thriller' and pouring bubbly all over my perfectly tailored Brooks Brothers suit. I looked around and thought, 'If being Bruce Wayne isn't the best thing that ever happened to me, I don't know what is.' "

CAMREN BICONDOVA (Catwoman)

"It feels like we've been on a five-year hike. And to see the work that we've all put in from the top of the mountain was a beautiful feeling."

SEAN PERTWEE (Alfred)

"My favorite memory would be asking Master Bruce to kill me. It shows Alfred's growth and his propensity to love so much as to be willing to die for Bruce, so that he may return from darkness."

BEN MCKENZIE (Jim Gordon)

"The best thing to come out of the series was meeting my wife," says McKenzie, who married Gotham actress Morena Baccarin in 2017.

ROBIN LORD TAYLOR (The Penguin)

"One of my favorite memories is when I learned that Carol Kane was playing my mother and then sharing a van ride home with her every night. She is a legend."

#Oswald Cobblepot #Robin Lord Taylor #Jim Gordon #James Gordon #Ben McKenzie #Leslie Thompkins #Morena Baccarin #Camren Bicondova #Selina Kyle #Bruce Wayne #David Mazouz #Alfred Pennyworth #Sean Pertwee

72 notes · View notes