The Phantom Virus is one of the main antagonists of the Scooby-Doo franchise’s 9th feature film Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase, and the sole main antagonist of the PlayStation video game version of the same name.
It was an anthropomorphic computer virus. It was created by Bill McLemore to try and sabotage fellow college student's project so he could win a large amount of money.
Physical appearance
The Phantom Virus was a glowing humanoid made of electrical energy with a seemingly artificial intelligence. It was mainly light blue in color and only clothed for disguise.
Personality
It had an obsession with baseball, mirrored by its creator, which was the gang's main clue as to who the culprit was. It had the ability to extract data from various electrical devices, as well as control machines and cables.
The Phantom Virus was, however, weak in close proximity to magnets, causing agonizing deformation or even the inability to move. It is unknown if Bill could control the Phantom Virus, or if the Phantom Virus recognized Bill as its creator.
Powers and abilities
The Phantom Virus was a powerful entity. As a being made from a computer, it had the ability to absorb any digital data. It was also able to manipulate anything made out of electrical energy, such as shooting bolts of lightning. During the final battle inside Eric's video game, the Phantom Virus's powers were increased at a greater magnitude. For example, it was able to conjure a tornado made out of electricity and flying objects (balls from the arcade shooting game) and bring the game machines to life. However, the Phantom Virus had a weakness - it was vulnerable whenever it got exposed to a strong magnet.
History
Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase
A laser for transferring material or physical items into the virtual world was also used to extract the Phantom Virus into the college campus in the real world. There it would wreak havoc and prevent Eric from winning the prize which Bill thought he deserved due to being a longer standing student. Once the gang were beamed into the game, they competed with the virus, who was the "boss" of various monsters in different locations within the game. To defeat the virus, the gang had to find the Scooby Snacks box in each level and progress to the end. The virus had minions in the games such as the two Moon Ghosts, three skeleton gladiators with a lion, a T-Rex, a camel, a dragon, a polar bear, and five of the monsters from the gang's past, who were the Creeper, Jaguaro, Gator Ghoul, Tar Monster and Old Iron Face.
In the final level, it used the classic monsters to hamper the gang and their cyber counterparts, but eventually they made it to the arcade where the final snack box was. When the gang made it there, the virus appeared and started making the games go haywire, wrapping up most of the real gang and forcing Scooby to hide. The monsters trapped all the gang's counterparts except for Cyber Scooby. At first, Cyber Scooby tried to free Fred, but Fred came up with a plan to get the box and Cyber Scooby let the still untrapped Scooby in on the plan. Cyber Scooby got the virus's attention and kept it busy with the Real Scooby sneaked behind him to get the box. The Virus eventually caught Cyber Scooby but was too late to stop the real Scooby, just after he caught him the monster turned around and looked in horror as Scooby secured the box. The minute Scooby picked it up, the virus started to become deformed, the arcade went back to normal, and the monsters disappeared. The rest of the gang's digital counterparts walked in just in time to see the virus disappear from existence forever.
There were several suspects for the creator the virus - including Professor Kaufman and Officer Wembley.
Appearances
Quotes
Phantom Virus: Let's play ball! |
Notes/trivia
- In the movie, the Phantom Virus is blue, but in the box art and book version, he is purple. In the DVD Disc he's pink.
- The fact the virus is scared of/hurt by magnets may be a reference to how magnets harm computers.
- Compared to the villains from the previous films before it, the Phantom Virus is the most comical real monster, due to ending up in a number of humiliating and humorous situations caused by the gang (mainly Scooby and Shaggy, much akin to the various criminals who dressed up as monsters in the original series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!).
