"The Observants look at time like they are watching a parade: one thing after another, passing by in sequence right in front of them. I see the parade from above - all the twists and turns it might, or might not, take." |
Clockwork is the ghost who’s the master of time. He sees and knows all events that may or may not come to pass. He was voiced by the late David Carradine.
History[]
Clockwork resides in his lair, a giant Clock-filled citadel that takes on the shape of a giant clock tower. He and his section of the Ghost Zone are immune to alternate time paths or paradoxes, as he occasionally gets visitors from alternate timelines.[1]
Season 2[]
The Ultimate Enemy[]
He first appears in "The Ultimate Enemy." The Observants command him to destroy Danny Phantom to prevent the existence of Danny's evil future self, but Clockwork has other plans.
Clockwork sends Box Lunch and Skulktech 9.9, ghosts from the future, to battle with the present Danny Phantom, which leads to Danny, Sam, and Tucker finding Clockwork's lair. There they meet Clockwork and Clockwork reveals his mission, but Danny doesn't want to be destroyed and attempts to fight Clockwork. Clockwork, using his time powers, handily defeats Danny. Tucker uses Clockwork's time medallions to give them a slight advantage, but Clockwork still proves to be too strong, and they end up escaping through a portal into the future.
After the series of events culminating in Danny battling Dark Danny, Danny traps his evil future self in the Fenton Thermos, but he is too late to save his friends and family from the Nasty Burger explosion. Just then, Clockwork intervenes, freezing time, and saving Danny's friends and family, and revealing he knew these events would happen. He gives Danny a second chance at changing his life so that the horrible future the boy saw would never happen, returning Danny to just before everything went wrong and taking the thermos with Dark Danny in it with him to his timeless lair.
Masters of All Time[]
He makes his second appearance in "Masters of All Time." Danny turns to Clockwork for help when Vlad infects Sam and Tucker with ecto-acne. He at first advises Danny not to try and change the past, but eventually agrees to let Danny try, if only to teach him a lesson. When Danny realizes his mistake and returns to Clockwork to send him back in time again, Clockwork refuses, only agreeing to reset time to before Danny interfered. However, during the reset, he had conveniently showed Danny what he needed to do to cure the ecto-acne, which was what he wanted all along. After Danny leaves, Clockwork smiles, hinting that he planned this whole thing as well.
Season 3[]
Phantom Planet[]
Clockwork makes a few cameo appearances in the series finale, "Phantom Planet." If one has a keen eye, they can spot Clockwork as one of the ghosts in the net who were caught by Danny in the Ghost Zone, and later aiding Danny and Skulker in saving the Earth.
Danny Phantom: A Glitch in Time[]
Months after the Disasteroid, Vlad came to seek Clockwork's help but Clockwork refused due to Vlad having so many chances in the past and took them for granted. Vlad accidentally knocks down the thermos that contains Dark Danny and frees him. After Dark Danny destroys Clockwork's time staff, Vlad leaves Clockwork to face Dark Danny alone. Dark Danny fused with Clockwork creating "glitches" that Team Phantom has been feeling.
After restoring Danny's powers, Team Phantom realizes that Dark Danny's fusion with Clockwork is unstable and Clockwork is fighting from inside. Both Danny and Vlad manage to separate Clockwork and Dark Danny, where Vlad gives Dark Danny a chance to live. Clockwork fixes his staff using the time medallion Team Phantom got from his damaged lair but due to the damage Dark Danny did to the timestream, Clockwork can open two doors that will lead Danny and gang into stable realities using the time medallions they wear - but with a cost. Door One goes to where Danny won’t have his powers, and Door Two is where he is erased from the Disasteriod event. They choose the latter. In the new timeline, Danny’s fame is gone and his ghost half is a secret again, including Vlad’s. Vlad is at his mansion where Dark Danny is converted into one of his experimental clones and becomes his surrogate son. Clockwork tells Vlad not to waste this chance.
Appearance[]
He is a violet-cloaked ghost with a pale blue face and a scar across his left eye. A clock-like mechanism is embedded in his chest. He carries a time staff, which he uses often. Due to his time-based nature, his ghost body constantly switches between 3 different versions of himself: a child form, an adult form, and an elderly form. However, it has never been clear as to whether or not he can control it willingly, if it's just something he does, or whether it is tied to when he reviews the time (past, present or future).
Personality[]
As the master of time, Clockwork is a logical ghost who speaks calmly, even under dire situations. Unlike all the other malicious spirits Danny encounters, Clockwork takes a rather neutral role overall to the Danny Phantom world, though Danny sees him as more of an ally. His true motives and plans are a mystery due to his unpredictable nature; yet in the end, Clockwork merely means well in his goals and makes sure time flows along a direction that benefits all, even if the Observants disagree with him.
Powers and abilities[]
- Intangibility, Invisibility, and Flight: Standard ghost powers. Clockwork is often seen floating around with a ghost tail.
- Chronokinesis: Clockwork can manipulate events that were or what will be. He can make time speed up, slow down, stop, or reverse. He can apply this effect to all of time and space at once or to a localized area. He is also capable of resetting the timeline before someone meddled with it and appears to manipulate the rules of time travel, as Clockwork was able to send Danny back in time without the use of a time medallion.
- Omniscience: Clockwork knows everything that has ever happened and everything that could happen in any possible future. Clockwork can also see any point in time, from only a few seconds or minutes into the future and/or past, up to events all throughout time, whether that be along with their own timelines or along with the timelines of others. He can view parallel timelines where different instances have occurred, looking forward in time to see how every possibility will play out and to predict all possible futures. He may have the ability to communicate cross-Universe. As he states he sees the parade from above of all the twist and turns
- Clairvoyance: He is able to manipulate the screens in his realm and decide what they show, with thought.
- Age Shifting (passive): As the Ghost/Master of Time, Clockwork is immortal, but his appearance constantly alters form. He turns from a child to an adult to an elderly man before the cycle repeats itself, or sometimes he does it in reverse. However, he does seem to be able to control this power, as he never shifts from his adult form during his fight with Danny. Since this ability does not provide any benefits or consequences to Clockwork, it is considered passive in nature.
- Time Travel: Clockwork can teleport to anywhere in time and/or space at will. This manifests as a clock hand appearing and sweeping in a circular motion, creating a portal that envelops him and then disappears.
- Teleportation: Clockwork can teleport to anywhere in time and/or space at will. His teleportation follows an interesting pattern. It first manifests as a giant clock hand appearing and sweeping in a circular motion, creating a swirling blue portal that envelops him, as a axis in a circle. Once the hand returns to the top, it disappears, and he appears in a flash of blue light (and the opposite when he disappears). It appears to have no restrictions. He can also bring others with him or teleport them through time on their own.
- Ghost Portal Creation: He can create portals between the human world and the Ghost Zone through the use of his screens. These portals/screens can not only travel to the Ghost Zone and back, but they can also allow other people to travel through any place and time.
- Chronolock: Clockwork exists outside of time so he can't be affected by his own powers.
- Omniscience: Clockwork knows everything that has ever happened and everything that could happen in any possible future. Clockwork can also see any point in time, from only a few seconds or minutes into the future and/or past, up to events all throughout time, whether that be along with their own timelines or along with the timelines of others. He can view parallel timelines where different instances have occurred, looking forward in time to see how every possibility will play out and to predict all possible futures. He may have the ability to communicate cross-Universe. As he states he sees the parade from above of all the twist and turns
- Immortality: Though Clockwork is constantly switching between his child, adult, and elder form, he does not age in the traditional sense, mostly due to the fact that just like anything else in the Ghost Zone, he is a spirit, and spirits don't age. It is unknown if he can be injured or wounded too dead. He must have been overlooking time since the origin of the universe, meaning he will still do it until the end of time.
- Supernatural strength: He is strong enough to cut a giant cog in half with one swing of his scythe (granted the giant cog disappeared and went into the ground after he cut it in half).
- Telekinesis: Clockwork can move people and objects with his thoughts. He can summon other ghosts throughout time to do his bidding, giving them Time Medallions in order for them to remain in the time period that he summoned them in. He used this power to summon the likes of Skulktech 9.9 and Box Lunch to set his plans for Danny in motion. He also used this power to save Danny's family and friends from the Nasty Burger explosion. This power is visible as green or white energy waves surrounding the people he moves. In "A Glitch in Time", Clockwork used this power to restore his time staff using the time medallions.
- Duplication/Summoning: Clockwork also summons 5 soldiers (or duplicates) from past and future time periods to aid him. These minions appear similar to Clockwork himself but are dressed in the human clothing of the time periods they are from. It was not made clear whether these were alternate versions of Clockwork from past and future eras, duplicates of Clockwork from the present, or simply minions that Clockwork summoned. Clockwork's powers allows him to duplicate himself from a different timeline, including British Musketeer in 1600s, a caveman in prehistoric times, Viking Axeman from the mid-11th century resembling Attila the Hun, future technological advanced Super Soldier as well as Marine Soldier in the 21st century.
Equipment[]
- Time Staff: Clockwork uses his staff as a focus for his time powers. This staff has controls on it that allow Clockwork to control time. Which Clockwork can push a button on his staff that stops, slows or even sends someone back to their own time. The staff is gray rod with one end shaped like an orb and the other end shaped like prongs which support a blue stopwatch.
- Scythe: During his "fight" with Danny, Clockwork picked up a scythe from one of his statues. Clockwork used it to cut a giant cog in half with one swing (granted the giant cog disappeared and when into the ground after he cut it in half) and when he was about to ''kill'' Danny, Tucker grabbed it and left it in Clockwork's lair when they went to the future.
- Time medallions: Anyone who wears Clockwork's time medallions is unaffected by changes in time. Clockwork gives these to the ghosts he sends through time so that they stay in their destination time period rather than immediately being sent back to their own time period. The medallions also give people an immunity time, as well as Clockworks own time powers.
Weakness[]
- Time Medallions: If he has any weakness, it's that his power has no effect on someone wearing one of his medallions. However, considering he watches and manipulates time, anything and everything that has, is, and will occur is already known to him, so even getting possession of his medallions may already be anticipated. As he already stated, "I know everything." However, he also states he knows all possible timelines, but that Danny chose the present one of his own free wills, implying that while he has knowledge of every possible timeline, he can't say for certain which one will become true. Alternatively, he might mean that he knew Danny would willingly make the right choice.
- Existing "outside of time": Is not something stated, but depending on the source, Dark Danny may or may not be affected by Clockwork's powers due to existing "outside of time". Some viewers believe that Dark Danny simply exists outside of a particular time stream since the events that caused his existence have been circumvented, but that he would still be affected by Clockwork's powers in the off chance he escaped. Others believe that Clockwork wouldn't even be able to predict if Dark Phantom became strong enough to escape the thermos, and that causing a glitch in time would not affect Dark Phantom's actions. however, as Clockwork can see ALL outcomes, he probably knew whether or not Dark Phantom could be unaffected by his powers, and seeing as he handled the thermos as it was nothing more than a trinket it could be presumed that Clockwork can still control Dark Danny. This is entirely speculator, however, and may not be a true weakness. Regardless of Dark Phantom's ability to be affected by Clockwork's power, it is rather clear that Clockwork is one of. if not, the most powerful ghosts in the series. As shown in the initial fight between the Master of Time and Danny, Clockwork can turn any fight in his favor, or even end it before it begins, with a simple command of his staff. He just plays with him and lets him escape. Also, when seeing Dark Danny destroying the Amity Park, he speaks about it with mere annoyance and disinterest suggesting not even Dark Danny can defeat him. Clockwork does not use his power often, though, and lets time play out according to the choices of the other characters. However, he will intervene, albeit indirectly, if things go horribly wrong and time needs to be changed back to "the way it's supposed to be".
Clockwork's lair[]
- Main article: Clockwork's Lair
Sightings[]
Season 2
- 208. "The Ultimate Enemy"
- 216. "Masters of All Time"
Season 3
- 312. "Phantom Planet" (no lines)
Quotes[]
- "I am Clockwork, master of time. I have been charged with the task of eliminating your future, so that never happens."
- "The Observants look at time like they are watching a parade: one thing after another, passing by in sequence right in front of them. I see the parade from above - all the twists and turns it might, or might not, take."
- "Everything's the way it's supposed to be."
- "Everything is fine, everything is the way it's supposed to be. There is your boy returned back to his time safe, sound and clearly not evil. Now care to observe the door?"
- You've given everyone else in your life a second chance, why not you?
- "I know, but then...I know everything."
- "Now, care to observe the door."
- "I'm the ghost of time, not the ghost of miracle cures."
Trivia[]
- Clockwork's constantly changing appearance was an idea from artist Ben Balistreri.[2]
- Clockwork's name is the term for the inner workings of a mechanical clock. This is appropriate, as he is the ghost of time and his lair resembles a clock tower, not to mention he physically has a glass-covered clock-like mechanism built into his chest.
- His design, especially in his old form, resembles the Greek god Chronos commonly known in the western world as Father Time, a commonly used personification of time who appears as an old man with a long beard wearing a long hood and holding a staff or scythe.
- It is implied that he has met with Dark Danny at least once before the events of "The Ultimate Enemy," as he recognized Clockwork's medallion on sight and mentioned that he was "meddling again." According to Dark Danny in A Glitch in Time, Clockwork was the sole ghost strong enough to defeat him, and only just barely.
- In the official German dubbing, Clockwork is named Zeitgeist. In German, Zeit means "time" and Geist can mean "spirit," "ghost," or "soul," making his name something along the lines of "timespirit" if translated literally. The term Zeitgeist itself means the defining thinking and cultural feeling of a time period in both German[3] and English.[4]
Gallery[]
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References
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