For the main series' Nightmare Fuel page, go here.
- The opening scene is somewhat scary- dramatic string music blasts while Mandark summons the huge, black wild thorn briars in his lab in front of a bright white background. Right away, it's clear that this won't be like the usual adventures (or misadventures) that Dexter lands himself in.
- The scene where Exec. Mandark publicly flogs poor Twelve. With a laser whip. Why? He was almost late for work. Twelve’s agonized expressions and screams as he's lashed again and again are downright chilling. And what's even worse? Mandark's done this to him more than once, using the exact same excuse!Exec. Mandark: Now make a wish!
- The fact it actually scarily calls backnote to his original motive for wanting to ruin Dexter's life; he made fun of his real name once. That's it. Beforehand Mandark could only vent his spite with safely bumbling or low stakes schemes that always backfired, but now he has the power to torture and break Dexter for any meager excuse he can half-ass, and suddenly his psychotic pettiness becomes far less pitiful.
- Twelve’s terror and jumpy, PTSD-like symptoms- even screaming and adopting a Troubled Fetal Position at the mere sound of Mandark's voice due to the abuse he's suffered at his hands. Were the flogging and verbal abuse really all Mandark did to him, or did he do something even worse to cow the proud, willful boy genius that far into submission, and turn him into the anxiety-ridden, easily scared Twelve? And what's worse, his trauma's being Played for Laughs!
- There's some nasty implications about that future given how Mandark treats Twelve. Since this is a regular thing, then who's to say he doesn't do similar things to other employees? Not to mention the fact that this is being allowed. Twelve is seen living in a cramped room and his whole life appears to be controlled by Mandark's company. He's essentially treated like a machine, they even took away his name and just gave him a number. Add in Mandark's speech about how he's one of the rare "elite" members of society, and you've got the beginnings of a fascist dystopia.
- After the Dexters arrive in the post-apocalyptic future and meet Action Dexter, he explains Mandarks rise to power, and reveals that he murdered the original President of the Corporation to seize full control over the whole company. And this was before he stole the Protocore, meaning that Mandark slipped into real villainy long before his mind was twisted by the corrupted energy. It's not clear if he's already done it when Dexter meets 12, or if he's still just an executive by this point.
- Another bit about Number Twelve. A real life response to extreme trauma is for the brain to induce amnesia as a defense mechanism, causing the sufferer to repress the experience as the only way they can live with it. Number Twelve is somewhere in his twenties and the main Dexter is eight. Most twenty-year-olds are able to remember being eight, even if the memories are fuzzy and distant. Unless Number Twelve was lying to save either his current or past self, he claims he was always submissive to Mandark and seems to have genuine trouble remembering how he used to be for the majority of his life. If this amnesia is genuine, what fresh Hell did Mandark inflict on him to make him forgot who he was?
- When Dexter arrives in the first future, he finds himself accosted by a family that demands his identifying number. When he can't provide it, they promptly accuse him of being a "No-Number," and call the cops to haul him off to jail. A little kid, pursued by the police like some dangerous felon, just for being a "No-Number." It's a lucky thing Dexter was able to make his getaway.
- The dystopian world Overlord Mandark rules over is very creepy and depressing, in multiple senses.
- It started with the machine that Dexter built to fully harness the power of the Neurotomic Protocore. It's supposed to not only provide energy, but spread the intelligence and brainpower of its user to others. But when Mandark stole the Neurotomic Protocore, he switched its positive flow to negative. The resulting corrupted waves of Neurotomic energy gave anyone under their influence a case of Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity, dulling their minds to just above caveman intelligence. Eventually, the sphere of the corrupted Protocore's influence covered the entire Earth. (This may explain why Monkey and the Justice Friends — none of whom show up in this special — aren't even around; they either became stupid or fell against Mandark's robots in battle.)
- There were two exceptions to the above rule — Dexter, and Mandark. The latter, under the influence of the corrupted Neurotomic Protocore, grew even more twisted and insane. With no one to oppose him (as Dexter was forced to go underground), Mandark took over the world and hoarded not only all its precious resources, but also anything related to intelligence. Science, technology, the knowledge to use both...Mandark not only took it all for himself, he forbade everyone else from trying to re-learn what was lost. Even the simple act of making fire prompted Mandark's security robots to raze a settlement.
- The end result? The world's stuck in The Dung Ages, its denizens too mentally compromised to even attempt to rise up against their tormentor.
- And why did Mandark go to such twisted lengths? Just so he could be the smartest person on Earth. The fact that he rules over a broken, ignorant world with no hope of progress means nothing to him as long as he remains its greatest genius.
- The fact that Eddie Deezen retains his usual stilted, nasal delivery even as Mandark becomes more and more evil. It's a reminder that he isn't just any powerful person, but a petulant, sociopathic child who let his bitterness and resentment over being second-best turn him into a true monster.
- Future Mandark's fate. His Fat Bastard body violently mutates, causing all his fat to shoot up into his cranium. The instability makes his whole body explode, leaving only his brain and its stem twitching on the ground in a pool of fluid amidst the pieces. It's one of the worst cases of Nausea Fuel in the show's history.
- After getting his world saving moment stolen by Dee Dee, the Dexter's all decide to build combat robots and send them back in time to, in their words, destroy her! It's pretty messed up to think that all this adventure did was make Dexter so upset that he actually tried to kill his sister.
- While "Dextopia" is by all accounts a much nicer future, with Dexter harnessing the Neurotonic Proto-Core to share his knowledge and intellect with the world, many of them dress exactly like him... and, if the museum curator is any indication, worship Dexter like a god. It's an eerie reminder that Mandark isn't the only one with an inflated ego.
