Skulker (Danny Phantom)

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Skulker

Publisher	Nickelodeon
First appearance	" One of A Kind"
Created by	Butch Hartman, Mark Banker (writer)

Characteristics
Affiliations	Vlad Masters, Technus (although this alliance took place in the future), Ember McLain (girlfriend)
Notable aliases	The Ghost Zone's Greatest Ghost Hunter, Ghost-X (as Jazz once called him)
Abilities	Flight, invisibility, intangibility, various weaponry and devices built into his suit

Skulker is one of the villains that Danny encountered in the TV show Danny Phantom. He is the predator ghost hunter who hunts down rare and unique things, and sets his sights eventually on Danny. Skulker is a small ghost blob who wears a large battle suit. He is voiced by Matthew St. Patrick until "Life Lessons" where he is now voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson.

[edit] Appearance/History

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Skulker first appeared in "One of a Kind", where he planned to put Danny in a cage, seeing him as a rare exhibit to behold. Many daring chases for the ghost boy results in Skulker taking Tucker's PDA to power up his suit only for him to stick with Tucker's schedule ("...Which I CANNOT reprogram!...") which takes over his armor. However, he still pursued Danny to the Amity Park zoo where he nearly kills Danny (now wanting him dead and hung up his wall) until Danny summons the purple-back gorilla to attack Skulker, in which his battle suit is damaged to reveal it's pilot: a tiny little green frog controlling the suit from its head. In the end, Danny captured him with the Fenton Thermos.

Skulker's real form.

He briefly makes his second appearance in "Bitter Reunions" in which he was hired by Vlad Masters to disable Danny's powers with the power cube, leaving on Vlad's behalf (as well as the PDA from the previous episode still stuck to him and still unprogrammable.

Later, in "Life Lessons", Skulker (now free of the PDA) witnesses Danny and Valerie fighting. Seeing both their worth, he hosts a contest to find to see who can survive him long enough to be worthy to hunt. At Nasty Burger, Skulker uses the Box Ghost as bait. In Valerie's apartment, he gives the flour sack to Danny, which causes Valerie to hunt him. Then, Skulker decided to capture both of them, and takes them to his lair. In the end, Skulker gets paralyzed by his own darts (although technically, it would be impossible for the darts to affect him while he's in his suit).

He returns in "Reign Storm", leading numerous ghosts out of the Ghost Zone to find safe havens in Earth when Pariah Dark returns. Afterwards, with Sidney's convincing, Skulker relates the story of Pariah before ultimately rounding up various ghosts to help Danny fight off Pariah Dark.

Skulker's next appearance is "The Ultimate Enemy" where an alternate future version of him exists in which he has shared a robotic suit with Technus, now calling themselves Skulktech 9.9, with the PDA's influence once again.

In "Secret Weapons", Vlad again hires Skulker to scrounge around Amity Park for various devices, namely bloodstream nanobots from Axion Labs and the Fenton's new "Ecto-Converter" device. Although Danny tries to stop him, his well-meaning but inexperienced sister Jazz keeps tripping him up and letting "Ghost-X" (as Jazz knows Skulker as) get away. Later, Danny bumps into Skulker in the Ghost Zone just as the hunter finishes "borrowing" Technus's Electro-Rod weapon. Taking advantage of the chance encounter, Skulker captures Danny and takes him to Vlad.

In "The Fright Before Christmas", Skulker was one of the many ghosts to uphold the law of being friendly towards others during Christmas time, later helping Danny stop Ghostwriter and restore Christmas to normal.

Skulktech 9.9, a fusion between Skulker and Technus in an alternate future.

Skulker's most recent starring role was in the episode "Micro Management". Skulker, armed with a new suit, begins to hunt Danny again while the young hero is busy trying to put up with his "fitness buddy" Dash. However, the three of them wind up getting shrunk when Jack Fenton tries to test out his new "Fenton Ghost Crammer". As a result of being shrunk, Skulker is unable to use his ghost powers, but he is still able to use his weapon-laden suit. In his attempts to squash Danny, Skulker follows him and Dash throughout the Fenton household and all the way into the rooftop Opt's Center, where Skulker winds up in the center's freezer. The cold traps Skulker in ice and ultimately gets him consumed by Jack Fenton, who put the frozen Ghost Hunter into his root beer float.

In "Double Cross My Heart", Skulker briefly makes another appearance (now free from Jack Fenton, in his normal size, and back in his old suit) in which he is confronted by the Guys in White while hunting one of their decoy ghosts. When the GiW catch Skulker, he escapes by ejecting from his battlesuit, which the agents use to help receive information on Danny. Note that this is the first time since Skulker's premier episode (and the only other time throughout the series so far) that he leaves his battlesuit.

In "Girl's Night Out", he's Ember McLain's boyfriend and, because she criticized his hunting skills, tried to catch Danny to impress her, only to be defeated by Jack Fenton, whose competence as ghost hunter arises when his family is in danger.In Livin Large he teams up with Danny, Johnny 13, and Captain Youngblood to stop the Guys in White from destroying the Ghost Zone.

Given his persistence as a hunter, Skulker is bound to make future appearances.

[edit] Personality and Weakness

A rather confident ghost, Skulker is persistent and determined in his quest to hunt down rare ghosts for his growing collection, one of which being Danny himself. Because of that, Skulker has become one of Danny's frequent enemies. Knowledgable in the ways of the hunt and often blunt (he has a habit of calling Danny "whelp" or "ghost child"), Skulker at rare times has a bit of a lighthearted side (enjoying Danny's compliment on his new weapon in "Bitter Reunions" for example), and should the issue ever arises, he easily teams up with Danny to fight together, usually on a much bigger threat. He also seems to possess good leadership qualities, having rounded up numerous ghosts many times throughout the series.

Despite his looks and demeanors, his one weakness is that he is just a tiny ghost with a squeeky voice in a robotic suit. The suit itself is also easy to hack into by means of devices like PDA's, and when the suit is compromised, like in "One of a Kind" or "Micro Management", Skulker is left helpless. His looks and appearance seems to be based on the Ghost Rider, The Atomic Skull, and Kraven The Hunter.

[edit] Skulker's Powers

Skulker has ghost powers (invisibility, flight, intagibility, and overshadowing). As evidenced in Micro-Management, however, he doesn't really rely on them, preferring instead to use the various weaponry embedded in his suit.