Sunday, April 5, 2020

How they compare: Vlad Plasmius (Danny Phantom)


Vlad Masters was a normal college student who in colloboration with his best friend Jack Fenton and his love interest Maddie. The three worked together on a portal to the ghost zone, a metaphysical realm connected to the physical universe like the other side of a coin. However due to an unfortunate accident caused by Jack the portal activated while Vlad was examining it causing a burst of ectoplasmic energy to surge into his face, hospitalizing him and causing his face to be scarred with ecto-acne. This destroyed his social life and kept him from ever pursueing Maddie.

Jack and Maddie got married and had 2 children, which Vlad viewed as a betrayal and exaggerated his already boiling anger at Jack for what he had done. Unfortunately for them, and the whole world, the accident gave Vlad the ability to transform into a ghost state, which he dubbed "Vlad Plasmius". He would discover that the youngest child of Jack and Maddie, Daniel "Danny" Fenton was a similar half-ghost, the "Danny Phantom". Holding both love for the son of Maddie and hate for the son of Jack Fenton, Vlad would act as Danny's primary villain, sometimes reluctant ally as Vlad sought to humiliate Danny as he did to Danny's father, but also to try and win him over as his own son just as he tried to win over Danny's mother eventually reconciling these desires in his attempts in the third season to destroy the original Danny and replace him with a clone Danny who would be Vlad's "child".


Vlad as Vlad Plasmius is one of the strongest ghosts in the universe. He started the series massively stronger then Danny and even in season 3 could fight him well enough that with one hand he could equal a ghost ray from Danny using both hands. Vlad and Danny have both proven relative some of the strongest ghosts in the ghost zone including Vortex who could create a massively planetary storm, even a conservative interpretation taking trillions of tons of tnt. They were also both relative to the Fright Knight who could perform a similar feat. 

This is consistent with how they are both notably stronger then ghosts like Skulker who created his ghost domain consisting of an entire island (and Vlad can easily intimidate into doing his bidding), and Spectre who survived the ghost peeler that can tear a normal ghost apart on the atomic scale. 

It's possible Vlad is even more durable his attack power would suggest as he has taken hits from an angry Pariah Dark the Ghost King who by far and away the strongest ghost in the Ghost Zone, to the point that Danny even when multiplying his power by 100 could barely fight him. 

In terms of speed Season 2 Danny was able to move comparable to Technus' Rays which casually moved from space down to Earth in seconds at speeds around 12 percent the speed of light. Vlad should be somewhere from slightly to signifigantly faster then this putting him at solidly relativistic. 


Vlad has access to all the common ghost abilities. As a being made of ectoplasmic energy and counciousness, Vlad's body can interact weakly with matter allowing him to turn invisible shifting outside the visible spectrum of light, can pass through solid bodies without interference (intangibility). He can fly, and his body can hypotheticaly recover from being reduced to smoke, steam, or goo. 

His body is made of ectoplasmic energy that can be controlled to shift his form or which can be imbued into objects to allow for telekinesis, weather control or energy constructs. Like most ghosts Vlad can also overshadow other people, a form of possession. Ghosts can use overshadowing to enter into the dreams of others or to enter into video games by possessing their data. 

Vlad is known for several more advanced techniques developed over many years of practice and study. Vlad can duplicate himself, even dozens of times over to possess the votes of Amity to voting for him, though each individual body was weaker then he did this. He can teleport and he can absorb enemy energy and find it back to them.

More uniquely he has shown the ability to create miniture tornados with his ectoplasm and to charge lightning from his hand. He should also scale to lesser ghosts who erupted in a ghostly fire aura. 

Vlad is also a skilled fighter honed over 20 years of practice with his powers and an underatedly insane supergenius intellect. Vlad, Jack and Maddie made a Ghost Zone Portal when they were in college. Vlad later built one completely by himself and arguably has more advanced tech then Jack and Maddie who also built one. For comparison the Guys in White who can create missiles powerful enough to destroy the entire universe sized Ghost Zone could not build one and had to resort to buying Jack and Maddie's. And this is something Vlad was arguably able to build decades ago. He compliments this with a keen strategic mind. 

On the other hand, Vlad has numerous weaknesses. He has all the common ghost weaknesses to ectoranium, anti-ghost technology, blood blossoms, infrared vision etc. though Vlad can somewhat get around this by switching to his human form. Vlad also has a short-sighted impulsive possessiveness. He wants to own things and  when he can't he gets angry and short-sighted in pursuit of them. This when combined with his arrogance can cause him to bring himself to ruin as he several times caused a problem that could threaten all life on Earth that he thought he could stop that he couldn't.

Name: Vlad Plasmius, Vlad Masters, Vladdie, "Fruitloop"
Origin: Danny Phantom
Classification: Halfa (Human-Ghost Hybrid)
Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical Capacities, Body Control, Ectoplasmic energy control/constructs (can hit intangibles), Energy Projection, Elemental Projection (wind, fire, lightning, light), Flight, Intangibility, Invisibility, Possession (Arguably Spiritual Possession), Regen (At least High-Mid, possibly Low-Godly), Teleportation, Duplication, Energy Absorption/Redirection, Telekinesis, potentially Weather Control
Weakness: Anti-Ghost Abilities, Arrogance, can be stubbornly short-sighted in pursuit of what he wants
Destructive Capacity: Country Level
Range: At least hundreds of meters
Speed: Relativistic
Durability: Country Level
Stamina: Unknown, likely superhuman (body is made up of pure ectoplasmic energy)
Standard Equipment: Nothing Notable
Intelligence: Potentially High Metahuman to Low Superhuman Scientific Intellect (Vlad is signifigantly superior to the Men in White who can create Type 3 or 4 Kardeshev Scale technology), Clever and Strategic outside that


So how would he do in other verses?


In the Marvel-verse, Vlad Plasmius would be roughly the level of a Mid Meta level entitiy about as strong as the early Iron Man suits and corresponding heroes and villains similar in power like Namor and Torch, scaling from Iron Man violetly destroying a floating island with trillions of tons of tnt. He would be drastically above the Street Levels but below the Herald Level entities or the high Metas like Grey Hulk and most of the Fantastic Four in terms of stats.

Vlad's ghostly abilities would be pretty strong for his tier. There are individuals who can replicate some of his abilities like Shadowcat replicating his intangibility but the sheer versatility of intangibility, possession, duplication and regen would make his a credible threat. 

It would also be very dangerous that he has such a powerful scientific intellect. Vlad's intellect was strong enough to honestly rival some of the big Marvel Intellects at least technologically. That said he would have to be cautious of trying to hack into AI as the super AI of the verse would be able to sense Vlad and potentially dimensional BFR him, which would be dangerous for Vlad since his powers are mostly dependent on his ectoplasm interacting with matter.


In the DC Comics-verse, Vlad would place really oddly. He would place above the City-Scale Heroes and Villains but below the Planetary Scale Heroes and Villains. Especially in speed there's not many characters around the same level as Vlad. 

Vlad's spiritual regen and duplication could give him an extreme threat level quickly given the sheer preponderance of abilities but the verse is really good at protecting against spiritual threats with numerous spiritual entities inhabiting the Earth, and powerful mystics that can casually sense and banish any ghostly entity. 

On the other hand Vlad's technological genius would be incredible in DC, one of the best on the DC Earth. He would do best stealing powerful tech and improving it to add to his natural ghost abilities same way he did to the Ecto-Skeleton. 


In the Yu Yu Hakusho-verse, Vlad would place highly. Vlad's raw power would be roughly equivalent to a High A Tier to a Low S Tier in terms of power. This would make him incredibly powerful in the Human World, an S Tier being a force that Spirit World can't tell. That said even low S Tier entities are used as fodder in the armies of the Three Kings in Demon World. On the other hand, Vlad's speed would be the highest in the verse, as the verse only really scales to MHS, albeit much higher then baseline. Overall Vlad in terms of stats would probably be a Mid-ish S Tier in terms of stats, being High A to Low S Tier in terms of attack potency/durability but incredibly fast in speed.

Vlad's defensive hax wouldn't really do anything in the verse, as anti-intangibility and anti-invisiblity is everywhere in the verse, any spirit energy user can do it. On the other hand his offensive haxes would be incredibly strong in the verse. While the psychics abilities can be reasonable compared, Vlad's abilities are more versatile and instead of being a normal human, Vlad backs it up with his sheer stats. He's basically a Mid S Tier with hax on the level of the psychics but more versatile. While his tactical ability isn't quite as high as most tactical fighters in the verse like Yusuke and Hiei, and certainly not on the level of Kurama and Yomi, Vlad's scientific intellect is ridiculously high for the verse. 

Vlad if he acts patiently would be a credible threat to the YYH-verse, though given his character he may doom the Earth trying to create a portal to the Demon World and allowing the Demons to invade the Human World and overwhelm him. 


In Bleach Vlad would most comfortably fit somewhere between Lieutenant Tier and Captain Tier though within that range he would be somewhat inverted in his position compared to in YYH. Lieutenants can move comparable to negacion light which would put them at upper relativistic and would get blitzed by lower Espada who themselves can casually point blank light time suggesting they would be low ftl meaning that against the lieutenants Vlad would be several times slower and against the lower ranked Espada he would be an order of magnitude slower, the difference roughly between average human speed and peak human speed. 

On the other hand, Lieutenants only scale to Fullbring Ichigo's casual feat of dispering a raincloud calced at gigaton range consistent with a weaker character performing a feat near 1 gigaton. This would only be about the same power as Skulker who Vlad can casually glare at and make him do what he wants. Lower Espada can use the Espada's gran rey cero which can destroy all of Las Noches which has been scaled to the size of small countries based on how walking to one gate takes 3 days. This would be similar to low teraton feats of planetary storm making which means Vlad while slower would have raw power equal to the lower Espada's ultimate attacks, possibly higher in terms of durability given that Vlad was able to survive Pariah Dark's attacks. Against a higher Espada however Vlad might be able to survive their normal attacks a bit but is massively outspeed and weaker in power. 

Most of Vlad's abilities wouldn't be too broken for his tier in Bleach outside possibly duplication which can maybe help the speed gap though it would also weak him a bit which would lower his biggest advantage. He would alos deal with the verse's dimensional travel since he requires portals to do so and being BFR-ed really harms a DP-verse ghost. The only other ability that I think would be really helpful is his ability to move things telekinetically since he could hypothetically disarm an enemy Shinigami of their Zanpakto though given their super strength and how fast they're going that maybe easier said then done. Overall he'd be high Lieuteant to Captain Tier.


In the Ben 10 verse, Vlad would be strong, able to defeat some of the major powerhouses of the original series though would eventually get overwhelmed by the series increased speed meta. In the original series he would be an absolute MONSTER having power signifigantly superior to Four Arms (scales to the Great One's durability who can survive planetary explosions though surface area only makes this gigaton level) , speed signifigantly superior to XLR8 (who can run sub-relativistic speeds which is 1-10% the speed of light while Vlad scales to Technus ghost rays which were 12%), and with many of the same abilities that make Ghostfreak so broken. 

However as Ben develops as a superhero, he also gains forms that would obviously stomp Vlad and some that could fight him relatively even. His default form, Feedback, would have an interesting fight against Vlad as if Vlad gets close, Feedback could absorb the energy making Vlad up but Vlad could possess Feedback if he can catch him off guard. Vlad can duplicate himself but with his sensory abilities Feedback would know where all the clones are at all times and is himself several times faster then base Vlad. Both can redirect each others attacks unless Feedback got a sufficiently powerful energy source to throw that Vlad couldn't absorb.

Vlad using his ghostly abilities and his incredible technical expertise could probably do well in the wider Ben 10 Universe, maintaing stealth with his human form as a disguise and using his intangible invisible counterpart to steal tech to incorporate, halfway between Malware and Zs'Skayr, the latter of which has taken over whole planets before and the former having been a primary antagonist. That said he wouldn't do well against a sufficiently powerful magic-user as their magic can affect Ectonurites and can even force them out of their host bodies as per "From Hedorium to Eternity".


4 comments:

  1. I loved this one, it is possibly my favorite of these at the moment! Vlad is such a cool villain with such a surprisingly interconnected Arsenal of powers and talents, I’m happy I introduced you to him cause I’m blown away by how well you portray the guy! Every single series you compared him too was really well done and helped show what he is capable of with his diverse skill set. I was impressed Yu Yu Hakusho could fight against him as well as they did but he was still a massive threat. Also I was Really rather impressed with your knowledge on Ben 10! Some really interesting points and I’m curious what you did research wise cause I at first glance would not think Vlad could potentially hax quickdraw Feedback, but wow he totally COULD if he played his cards right

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  2. Groovy, I saw you use this guy in a different blog and thought he seemed like a neat character with a solid all-around kit. Now I get a deeper dive into what he's all about, thanks! Interesting backstory, it seems to toe the line between the tragic and comedic (ecto-acne? lol).

    But what I really dig is his wide collection of ghost powers! Energy absorption/redirection was the most interesting one to me; combined with his defensive hax and mobility, he could be a real nightmare to a lot of verses and characters! And you were right to call his intellect underrated; it's really something! I thought it was cool how that lead into a recurring theme of him stealing technology native to the verses you threw him into and turning them to his own advantage. Who knows what sort of dastardly shenanigans he could get up to?

    It was really cool how you included famous spirit-themed anime in this blog, I loved the East meets West flavor you got going on! It's always neat to see how they compare, and how they're stronger than each other in different ways. I guess that's the name of the blog series, so well done! It was very interesting that Vlad's speed stat was so high in YYH and then that got reversed in Bleach, where his other stats got a turn to shine. I forgot that Bleach was so fast! I think that's one of the best parts of these types of blogs, getting to highlight certain features of the verses and see the ways they're different from similar series by using a constant (Vlad in this case) as a measuring stick of stats, hax and abilities.

    Thanks for another great blog Imp, this was a very welcome surprise!

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  3. Great blog! Vlad is certainly a good villain and it was pretty cool to see how would perform in all these verses. I really like the thematics of the verses you chose too since it lead to some great comparisons; we got superhero verses (Marvel, DC), more spiritually based verses (YYH, Bleach), and a rival action series (Ben 10). From what I can tell, his intelligence actually makes up for a lot of his weaknesses, and makes him a significantly bigger threat than he would otherwise be (particularly in DC). The comparison of how he would do in Yu Yu Hakusho vs Bleach verses is probably my favorite part of the blog, because it also functions as a great comparison of the spiritual Shonen series. It was also a neat comparison of how he would handle in two different speed tiers.

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  4. Ben is immune to being possessed in alien from though.

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