I also think it’s also worth noting that Masters of all Time, Kindred Spirits, and D-Stabilized all occur after episodes that have made an effort to establish Vlad as an at least kind of sympathetic character.
Reign Storm features a Vlad/Danny team up. while he’s definitely working under his own motive and is far from the hero this episode (see; pawning the Ring of Rage off on Valerie), he’s definitely not an antagonist this time. He’s almost looking out for Danny, tries to stop him from pulling Fright Knight’s sword out of the ground, and shows up to help lock Pariah Dark away. Then he carries Danny back to Fentonworks after he passes out. So not a good guy, but a better one than on episodes prior.
The Ultimate Enemy is the literal next pair of episodes, which gives us Vlad taking in Danny after everyone he loves is dead. Though he does ultimately aid in the creation of Dan in a misguided attempt to help, there’s nothing in the episode that seems to indicate that Vlad ever treated Danny poorly. If anything it seems that Vlad loved Danny deeply, and that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.
Next is Secret Weapons. Which is nothing more than a return to Vlad’s usual self, featuring him getting outsmarted by a pair of high schoolers. I’m mentioning it mostly because while it doesn’t make Vlad more sympathetic, it is consistent with his prior characterization.
Then… we get Masters of All Time and Kindred Spirits, which is a marked departure from everything up until this point. I don’t think either episode is particularly good, for various reasons, but least of all because Vlad is just a totally different character with no build up. Masters of All Time features child endangerment that Vlad has not participated into up until this point. Sure he’s fought Danny, but never really to the death and he hasn’t involved bystanders until now. I also think it sucks as an alternate universe exploration, but that’s a different can of worms lol.
Kindred Spirits is just full supervillain in the weirdest way, and I could go on a whole speech about it. But put simply, it’s not consistent with Vlad’s earlier episodes, and there’s no build up to make it work. MoaT does not count as build up :/
The shift in character is also made more jarring for me because right after those two episodes, we’re back to petty bastard Vlad like nothing happened! Granted Eye for an Eye is a bit mean spirited with the way the pranks play out, but Torrent of Terror and even Phantom Planet (an episode I actually enjoyed) to a lesser extent, would not have been out of place in season 1 or the early part of season 2. Then there’s D-Stabilized in there, which is evil Vlad for one episode before Phantom Planet happens. He’s just kind of all over the place and it’s a :/ from me folks.
To boil it down; I think the show basically gave us two versions of Vlad, and your favorite is just going to be a matter of taste.
I don’t like supervillain Vlad because I think it’s inconsistent with the premise of his character. That he’s a petty, mustache twirling bastard man who wants to mentor the only other person like him in the entire world. Could supervillain Vlad have worked? Sure! With consistent writing and build up to that point. But the show didn’t give us that, and honestly I don’t think I’d like him as much if they did. Because I also think having another Evil CEO(tm) character in the world is boring, especially when we could have Petty, Incredibly Rich, and Dramatic Uncle Vlad instead.
