There have been a number of heroic fighters in Dragon Ball canon to undergo some form of corruption–whether by force or choice–and the one who always stands out is Vegeta during the events leading into the official start of the Majin Buu Saga, but GT actually reveals the one Z-Fighter who has an evil form even darker than Vegeta’s.
While it is true that Vegeta began his Dragon Ball career as a hardened villain who traveled from planet to planet either conquering it or decimating it entirely, he wouldn’t reach ‘peak evil’ until after he was reformed. In Dragon Ball Z leading up to the Majin Buu Saga, Vegeta allowed his mind to be corrupted by the evil sorcerer Babidi and became Majin Vegeta. As Majin Vegeta, Vegeta was directly responsible for the mass murder of hundreds of civilians during that year’s World Martial Arts Tournament as well as the rise of Dragon Ball Z’s Majin Buu–and he was totally cool with all of it at the time. However, while Vegeta might be the most selfish corrupted Z-Fighter, he’s definitely not the darkest, as that honor goes to Pan.
Pan’s Corrupted Dragon Ball Form is More Monstrous than Vegeta’s (Literally)
In Dragon Ball GT episode 52 (written by Atsushi Maekawa, directed by Osamu Kasai, produced by Toei Animation), the Dragon Balls have released beings of untold evil and chaos after overflowing with negative energy–and these beings are known as the Shadow Dragons. Shadow Dragons are born with every wish made upon the Dragon Balls, as the magic used to grant each wish also creates a flux of negative energy that is stored within the Dragon Balls themselves, and that negative energy gives life to the Shadow Dragons. In this GT Saga, the Shadow Dragons have been released, and it is up to Goku and Pan to hunt them down before they destroy the world. Unfortunately, upon picking a fight with the Seven-Star Shadow Dragon, Pan isn’t able to defeat it, but instead gets absorbed by it. This results in a fusion between Pan and the Shadow Dragon, as it uses her body to root itself in the physical world (since this Shadow Dragon is the Dragon Ball itself and without form), and the body it manifests is the form of a giant, terrifying dragon that has aspects of Pan’s physical appearance.
By all counts, Pan and the Seven-Star Shadow Dragon complete a fusion the likes of which fans have never seen before. The Shadow Dragon couldn’t have become as powerful as it was without Pan’s body, and Pan wouldn’t have become a literal dragon capable of planetary annihilation if it wasn’t for the Shadow Dragon. While Pan never lost herself within the fusion (which is how she was able to defeat the Shadow Dragon in the end), the power she wielded as the Shadow Dragon made Majin Vegeta look pathetic. This Shadow Dragon-fusion could match the strength of Goku in his Super Saiyan 4 form, and even defeated him. The only way Goku was able to beat Pan’s Shadow Dragon form was after Pan decided to fight back from within the manifested Dragon body, not because of any attack Goku threw at it. Majin Vegeta, on the other hand, could barely keep up with Super Saiyan 2 Goku, let alone Super Saiyan 4, which means Pan’s Shadow Dragon form was way stronger than Vegeta’s corrupted persona.
While having more power doesn’t automatically mean Pan was darker, it does mean that she had a greater capacity for chaos and destruction, and the pure negative energy that was behind that power meant to use every ounce of its strength to cause death and calamity on a global scale–proving that Pan is the one Dragon Ball hero who has an evil form darker than Vegeta’s.
