Phantoon

Phantoon is an ethereal, super-natural, genderless ghost that is both intangible and/or invulnerable to any form of attack, except for its single eye. It is this eye that, when open, serves as its connection to the material world and can be damaged. From four meters tall, to ten times as large as Samus' ship, Phantoon resembles a giant space squid with a single eye inside a large toothy mouth.

It's said Phantoon feeds off of Mother Brain's brainwaves, and telling from his position in the Golden Statue, Phantoon has a high rank with the Space Pirates.

Super Metroid
Phantoon has taken control of the Wrecked Ship. It absorbs the power from everything throughout the ship, leaving everything dark and inoperable, to feed its strength and gluttony. On top of that, his dominant presence forces souls of those lost in the crash into Coverns, doomed to wander the ship and attack intruders.

Shortly after Samus enters his room, several blue flames will begin to ignite, floating in the center of the room. They'll form a circle, and start rotating around before closing in on each other and fading away as Phantoon begins to fades into existence.

Battle
Phantoon has only one attack, and two abilities; the creation of phantom eyes, intangibility, and invisibility.

While having only one attack may seem like a joke, he manipulates the behavior of his phantom eyes to: spawn where he pleases, bounce on the ground, and create waves of different patterns (circular burst, stalagtite style, crescent). However, phantom eyes can either be destroyed for ammunition, or simply jumped through using the Charge Attack, making even the faster phantom eyes easy to dodge. It's possible for them to drop energy or ammunition.

Phantoon's first ability, intangibility, will be the entire theme of his fight. With its eye closed, it detaches itself from the physical realm, and only when its eye is open can Phantoon be hurt. It will float around, and drop phantom eyes that bounce along the ground. When Phantoon finally opens its eye, it will create a circular wave of phantom eyes. It may return to this pattern, or suddenly vanish from sight.

Its invisiblity is used often as well. After opening its eye, it will disappear, damaged or not. It may either float around while invisible to spawn bouncing phantom eyes, or suddenly appear with its eye open and create a wave of stalagtite phantom eyes. Though it's not necessary to counter it, Phantoon can be spotted with the X-Ray Scope.

When damaged by Missiles or a charged shot from the Ice Beam, Phantoon will behave normally.

However, disabling the Ice Beam will not make Phantoon disappear, but instead return to floating around erratically as if its eye were closed, yet wide open and focused on Samus' location. On the opposite spectrum, Super Missiles will send Phantoon into a fury. It will vanish, and re-appear at the top of the screen and remain intangible for eight crescent waves of phantom eyes at very high speeds. While this would seem dangerous, it remains easily avoidable through the Charge Attack.

As Phantoon takes more nad more damage, its color will gradually shift from green to a hot red-orange. Upon its defeat, its eye will remain looking in the same direction as it begins to fade in and out rapidly, before a series of small explosions erupt across its body. Finally, Phantoon will begin waving around like its entrance, except wider and more violent until it stretches across the screen and dissipates.

Aftermath
With Phantoon's presence no longer dominating the energy crystals, power immediately returns to the ship. Lights turn on, treaded floors start moving again, Work Robots return to life (but remain in terribly shoddy condition), and severed wires start sparking dangerously.

Coverns have dispersed from the Wrecked Ship. Without the domination of Phantoon, these lost souls were able to move on.

Metroid: Other M
Phantoon returns as the final boss of Metroid: Other M. It has grown in size exponentially since its previous appearance, due to the gratuitous amount of energy emitting from the Bottle Ship, compared to the dying Wrecked Ship.

When Samus returns to the Bottle Ship, and reaches the ascent to the Control Bridge, enemies will begin to spawn from dark, swirling vortexes to hamper her progress. These vortexes are created by Phantoon, who has assumed control of the creatures of the Bottle Ship.

As she finally enters the Control Bridge, a massive tentacle suddenly smashes against the reinforced glass, and smashes into it again, making thousands of cracks throughout one spot. A gigantic bulbous head rises into view, pulsating visibly and audibly as if it were a heart. Its double jaw opens, and a piercing red eye glares at Samus.

Battle
Phantoon wastes no time in raising its bottom half and creating more dark portals, summoning its Rage Hands to its aid. It will continue to wail onto the cracked window panes with both tentacles, and summon more in between until it finally smashes through. Alarms start sounding off, oxygen is violenty drained from the room, and Samus remains unaffected, her Gravity Feature keeping her feet steady.

Phantoon now re-introduces Samus to its improved phantom eyes. Still like blue eyes in a spiritual flame, they spread minimally and now focus more on homing directly on Samus. While these and Rage Hands distract her, Phantoom moves left to right, tearing more window panes open with its massive jaws.

After the top three window panes are shattered, Phantoon's eye becomes obscured by one of his swirling vortexes, only to suddenly peak through it for a moment by extending its eye out on a pherensile eyestalk. It hides its eye again, and reaches right, smashing through the lower windows with its tentacle, and then repeats the same for the left side. The vortex hiding Phantoon's eye fades, and unveils the rest of its attacks.

With the windows completely gone, Phantoon sweeps one of its tentacles at a time across the floor in an attempt to hit Samus aside. It will also begin spawning swirling red vortexes on the ground that when stepped in, will burst into a pillar of agony. Finally, it will now shoot lasers from its pupil towards Samus in short bursts with little motion.

When Phantoon becomes weak enough, its eye will collapse into the room and become primed for a Lethal Strike, though it is possible that this doesn't happen at all. By performing a Lethal Strike, Samus will grab onto its eye and hold on as she's flung around on it, until she finally performs some severe laser eye surgery. She jumps off, and Phantoon floats away into space before bursting in a piercing white light and a loud bang.

However, if a Lethal Strike isn't performed, Phantoon will begin to lose control, smashing his own eye into the floor over and over, until holding it up and simply bursting into an orange goo. Phantoon will float away still, but without its eye.

Aftermath
A little grapple point floats into the room and allows Samus to exit.

Trivia

 * Even though Samus fights Phantoon in a vacuum in Metroid: Other M, sound effects are still played reguarly, although sound cannot travel through a vacuum.
 * Phantoon's upper body pulsates visibly and audibly like a heart. It may be where it "processes" the energy it absorbs.
 * Concept art from Metroid: Other M depicts Phantoon as the head atop a vaporous humanoid body, with two Phantoonghost.jpgr Rage Hands as its hands. It also depicts Phantoon in its Super Metroid appearance despite it having a different design.
 * The concept art also does not depict Phantoon as massive as he is in game.
 * Furthermore, in the top right, Samus is seen battling Phantoon as if he were Andross from Star Fox.


 * Phantoon cannot be fought on Metroid: Other M 's Hard Mode, as the game ends after the Queen Metroid is destroyed.
 * Metroid: Other M has made Phantoon one of the largest bosses Samus has encountered.
 * Seemingly, Phantoon enjoys inhabiting ships that have been put out of commission, as it is found on the Wrecked Ship in Super Metroid and the deactivated Bottle Ship in Metroid: Other M.
 * Phantoon's appearance in Other M is much more organic than its Super Metroid appearance.
 * Phantoon seems to share a lot of physical traits with the Powamps from Maridia.
 * Phantoon bears a resemblance to a boss of the Legend of Zelda game, Phantom Hourglass: Bellum. Most notably, both creatures have an eye surrounded by teeth.
 * Phantoon's eye in Other M greatly resembles the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings.