Mal (Total Drama)

"With a 'friend' like me. Who needs enemies?"

- Mal planning to betray his alliance with Alejandro.

"That kid ain't right."

- Chef Hatchet warning Chris McLean about Mal under the guise of Mike.

Mal is the main antagonist of Total Drama All-Stars. He is an evil personality of Mike who appeared as one of the former's alternate personalities sealed up in his mind, thus serving as Mike's eternal foe and archnemesis.

He was voiced by Cory Doran, who also voiced Mike in the Total Drama franchise.

Appearance
Mal bears a resemblance to Mike, except that his hair drapes over his left eye. There are also darker circles around his eyes. He also speaks in a deeper voice than he has in his normal Mike persona. Despite his slim figure, he is deceptively strong as he was able to injure Alejandro simply by crushing his wrists.

History
It seems that Duncan used to know Mal (the persona Mike went by) back when he was a lowly punk in juvenile detention and Mal used to run the place. For this, Duncan stayed far away from the latter to avoid the trouble.

Mal is first seen in the episode "Evil Dread" where he was accidentally released due to Scott hitting Mike (in his Manitoba Smith persona) over the head with a shovel. Mal's picture soon appeared where Mike's was. Near the end of the episode, Mal makes his first appearance, saying that all of the other contestants will go down. He disappears when Zoey nearly notices him.

In "Saving Private Leechball", he appeared in the beginning of the episode where he broke Sam's handheld game console. He also appeared when Mike is using the confessional while talking about Courtney. Mike mentions how scary Courtney and this is when Mal takes over and says he likes scary.

In "Food Fright", the Malevolent One is seen in a flashback breaking Sierra's phone which causes her to go insane and see everybody as Cody. He appears in the confessional and laughs evilly at this. He later appears when he sabotages the spinner, which almost kills Courtney. It is also revealed that Duncan may have met this alternate version of Mike sometime in the past, hinting that this personality used to be a prominent part of him.

He appears again in "Moon Madness" when the Blue Harvest Moon causes him to emerge. He impersonated Mike throughout the episode. He almost caused the deaths of Zoey and Cameron in this episode while showing no remorse or concern for them. At the end of the episode, he reveals that he will have his way in the end and that when he does, everyone loses. What that implies has yet to be determined.

In "No One Eggspects The Spanish Opposition", Mal sabotages Duncan's knife near the beginning of the episode. Mike attempts to awakens his other personalities by smashing a large rock over his head but this only traps Mike in his own mind and Mal officially takes over. At the end of the episode, after he was whistling, Duncan finally remembered that Mike went as "Mal" back in juvie and practically ran the place.

In "Suckers Punched", Chef went to Boney Island to retrieve Mal, until he was trampled by the animals and then Mal emerged and stepped on his hand. Later on, Mal appeared to Mike in his subconscious to show him of his return. Mike was shocked to learn that Mal was responsible for his shifts and thought he got rid of him after juvie, when Mike was released. However, Mal taunts him and reveals that he was just laying low, conserving his energy to seize his moment and gloated it worked since head control. Mal leaves while telling Mike he isn't finished causing trouble. Soon Duncan told Zoey that it turned out that Mal caused a lot of trouble and made himself go to juvie for no reason. Later, Mal faces Izzy who he is surprised senses him being evil and of his name. Deciding to handle her, Mal cuts Mike off from seeing what's going on and defeats his opponent too perfectly during his match; Chef Hatchet started to get suspicious too. It was also revealed that back in juvie, after Mike was released, Mal told him that he had to rest until the "upcoming day".

In "You Regatta Be Kidding Me", Mal continues to manipulate Zoey into thinking he is the real Mike. During the challenge, Mal sabotages some boats and makes off with the only boat that has a motor that was available at the time (since Alejandro already took one beforehand). Mal continues a steady lead until Zoey gets into trouble. As Zoey calls out for Mike, Mal suddenly loses control and Mike takes over. However, Mal quickly gains back control but was forced into rescuing Zoey due to things looking suspicious. At the end, the challenge was won by Alejandro. Mal decides to form an alliance with him. At the elimination ceremony, it turns out that Mal actually rigged the votes so that Cameron would go home (since Mal believes Cameron is getting suspicious), but Cameron was safe from elimination due to Duncan being arrested for destroying Chris' mansion (which he keeps calling it a cottage).

In "Zeek and Ya Shall Find", Mal chose to pair up with Cameron to save Chris. At one point, he told Cameron to kiss Courtney after falling, but had to make it look like she kissed him, which made Scott upset and caused the two to break up. When Cameron was about to fall down a big hole, Mal abandoned him and stated that he was no more of use to him. He tried to use a big rock to end him, but Cameron already fell down; he thought it was another problem off his back. Like everyone else, Mal was also captured by Ezekiel. After the rescue operation, Cameron was eliminated due to his injuries. Mal softly told Cameron the truth about himself, since it was too late for him.

Mal finds out that Alejandro knows who he is in "The Obsta-Kill Kourse" (in the previous episode, Mal accuses him of "leaving Cameron hanging there," but Alejandro didn't mention he was hanging). When Alejandro tries to blackmail Mal, Mal was unfazed and grabbed his wrist. Mal shows he has some knowledge of the Spanish language when he questions Alejandro's family saying. During the challenge, Mal would either try to sabotage Alejandro or convince others to vote him off. Mal has displayed the ability to partially summon a personality, as shown when he needed Svetlana's skills to shake Alejandro off of him during the "snapping bars." He was surprised when she escaped his influence, after Mike broke the chain Mal used to keep her restrained in his mind, and is determined to get rid of Mike once Alejandro is gone. He sacrificed himself so Zoey could win and so he could try to find out where Alejandro hid the DVD of him.

In "Sundae Muddy Sundae", Mal was trying to look for the DVD after hearing from Alejandro that "the truth is in the art". Zoey wonders why Mike is doing that and Mal replies that he was watering plants. Mal also begins to suspect that Zoey may start to catch onto him and still plans on getting rid of Mike for good. At one point, Mal revealed an elimination chart that Courtney made up that upset the other characters most namely Gwen and Scott. During the challenge, Mal gets an early lead and even messes with Gwen before getting slowed down by the Drama Machine. However, Mal manages to get the Drama Machine to go after Gwen and leaves the mess hall. Mal eventually gets to the flower that spits fire and it soon starts to blow fire at him. Mal manages to dodge the shots and plugs up the flower with a rock causing it to explode and dry up the fudge it was in (much to his pleasure). Mal is excited to hear that Zoey won the challenge but got angry after Chris said that Zoey couldn't take anyone with her into the Hotel meaning that Mal cannot search for the DVD.

Mal knows he has to win the challenge in "The Bold and the Booty-ful" because of everyone's suspicions. He realizes Zoey is losing trust in him after he accidentally said that he gave her a bracelet and not a necklace. Instead of trying to find his treasure he decides to sabotage the other contestants in their search. He first tries to smack Gwen in the head but then buries her under the rubble of the McClean cottage. He goes over to Scott but lets Fang attack him. Mal brings and injured Scott to Chris and said that an injured contestant is one of Chris's favorite things to which Chris agrees to. Afterwards, Mal is chosen by Zoey to head into the finale possibly knowing that Zoey is trying to find a way to bring back the real Mike.

Mal is confident he will finally win in "The Final Wreck-ening", despite being aware that Zoey knows who he is. He mockingly states that he is touch by this action and states Mike is still trapped within the subconscious. He still pretends to be Mike until Zoey tells him to drop the act. Mal taunts Zoey that Mike will never return to her. During the first part of the challenge he manages to get Alejandro and Heather as helpers, but does not care for either of them. During the second part of the challenge, Mal tried to throw Heather in the toxic waste moat so he could use her body to float across until Alejandro stopped him and offered a pole vault. Mal threw Cameron and Gwen down a level and used the pogo to attack Zoey in the water moat. While underwater, Mal was sent back to the subconscious where he finds out his tower has been destroyed Mike tells him that it's gone for good. Mal demanded to know how Mike did that and Mike tells him that with the help of his other personalities work, they worked together and showed him a flash back when it happen he was scared to push if it meant it would destroy all his other personalities within him. However, they still wanted what was best for him and they pushed it together and destroyed the tower. Mal was shocked to learned that the reset button was pushed and Mike was going to be the only personality. Furious, Mal tries to attack Mike, but was quickly defeated. As he began to disappear, he started to become scared and begged Mike not to do this to him and wanted Mike to feel pity for him. He began to state that he is a part of Mike just like the other personalities. However, Mike bluntly responded that he is the part that he doesn't need anymore and started to walk away, saying good bye to his evil self. Mal protests this, though Mike ignores him as the latter screamed it was his time before he was erased from existence with the rest of Mike's Alternate Personalities, fading into oblivion. With this, Mal never won the million dollars and could not regain full control of Mike again.

Enemies

 * Alejandro
 * Cameron
 * Chef Hatchet
 * Chris McLean
 * Courtney
 * Duncan
 * Ezekiel
 * Gwen
 * Heather
 * Izzy
 * Mike
 * Chester
 * Manitoba Smith
 * Svetlana
 * Vito
 * Scott
 * Zoey

Personality
Mal is cunning, manipulative, ruthless and sadistic. As Duncan said, he enjoys causing trouble for the fun of it. He is practically more evil than the members of the Villainous Vultures. He does this while hiding his true nature behind the voice of the harmless, friendly Mike. However, he has a habit of breaking character but at the same time can immediately tell when someone's not trusting him and come up with a lie on the spot. Even the most intelligent and imaginative manipulators on the show have called his manipulation skills impressive.

He also seems to be very violent. Examples of this include (but are not limited to) trying to push Zoey off a cliff, beating Izzy up brutally, crushing Alejandro's wrist for trying to blackmail him before sabotaging him for trying to warn everyone about the threat, breaking the confessional camera, and trying to hit Cameron off a cliff with a boulder out of sheer malice. Duncan even comments on this when he says that when they were in Juvie together that he was running the place. Another thing he seems to enjoy is whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King". As he can always be seen doing this when he is causing pandemonium and mayhem.

Trivia

 * Mal is the seventh main villain of the Total Drama series, after Heather, Justin, Courtney, Alejandro, and Scott.
 * His name means "bad" or "evil" in Latin, as well as in Spanish, Italian, and French.
 * Mal may also be short for his full name, "The Malevolent One." One of the roots of malevolent is the Latin mal, as stated above.
 * Mal might also be short for "Malice" since malice means intention to do evil or ill will, which fits with Mal's character.
 * Ironically, his real name being the Latin root of a few words might explain why he understands Latin fluently.
 * Mal is the third antagonist to cause a strain on a relationship, in which he forced Cameron to kiss Courtney and this led to the breakup between her and Scott (though this might be questionable, since Courtney had later admitted that the relationship wasn't real, anyway). The first is Heather when she kissed Trent, which leads to him and Gwen temporarily breaking up, and the second is Alejandro, where he forced Tyler to tell Courtney that Duncan and Gwen kissed, which lead to Courtney breaking up with Duncan.
 * Mal, along with Eva, are considered two of the most feared contestants to date, and the only ones who have succeeded in scaring Chris. However, Eva had regard for human life, while Mal doesn't.
 * Mal, alongside Scarlett, are deemed the most evil villains to date. Although Mal shows his villainous nature deliberately while Scarlett hides her evil personality.
 * Mal, along with Justin, are the only main antagonists not to be placed on the Villainous Vultures.
 * The tune he whistles is "In the Hall of the Mountain King", a famous piece written by Edvard Grieg as incidental music for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt.
 * Though most antagonists of the series have received punishments for their actions (Heather becoming bald, Justin breaking most of his bones and losing his good, modelesque looks, Courtney earning deserved comeuppances, Alejandro getting burned by a volcano in Hawaii, Scott getting mauled by Fang, Duncan not only getting arrested, but going to prison), Mal suffered the worst punishment of all: not only dying, but being wiped from existence forever.
 * Mal is the first and, so far, the only, villain to die in the series.
 * Mal is the first main villain with a known criminal record.
 * He, aside from Chris, was the main antagonist of All-Stars.