Clayface vs Venom

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Welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast,

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a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based Battle simulations. I'm Marvelous Joe and I'm his twin brother Johnny DC And this is our 91st episode and part of the official countdown to our 100th episode Which we have a special treat planned for you guys, but no hints just yet in this episode We'll be talking about who would win in a fight between Clayface

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Venom. Yeah, it's in preparation for our Venom review, which comes out this Friday. That came up like really quick Yeah, I kind of snuck up faster than I thought it would for some reason I was thinking like mid-october, but no it's this Friday that it's coming out So it's weird because we've been talking about this movie forever and yet it still snuck up on me, right? Right. So yeah, look forward to that Venom movie review next week, but in this episode again It's a dual episode and we'll get all up into that later on after we go over the comic book movie news over the past week

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So we'll be talking about the Dark Phoenix trailer and some of the other fox fuckery that's going on with release dates and stuff like that. There was some casting for the Birds of Prey film. We got Huntress and Black Canary cast. We got a new trailer for the Titans show that's on DC Universe in the US, but apparently it's also moving to Netflix internationally. And finally, there was a new trailer for the Runaway season two that's coming to Hulu. And we'll just talk briefly about that. Yeah, and just quick heads up, we are...

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off our Patreon hiatus. Yeah, we're back with the bonus content coming out every Thursday for our patrons. It's only two bucks a month to sign up at patreon.com slash dynamic duel. So if you're interested in getting more content from us, definitely do that. We've been talking for a while now about how the reason we went on hiatus for Patreon during the month of September was because we were working on kind of like a secret project as it were. And also because we wanted to reevaluate sort of what content we did.

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for Patreon and how we released that content. We're still trying to figure that out, but in the meantime, we do have bonus content for you guys. Yeah, basically our current patrons will get an exclusive first look at the bonus stuff that we're putting together right now. If you go to our Patreon page, you'll notice that we have a goal to reach 25 patrons, at which point we'll print out physical copies of the Dynamic Duel No Prize that we award to a listener every week. So again, visit patreon.com slash dynamic duel and help us reach that goal. And speaking of no prizes,

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It's No Prize time. So No Prize is an award that Marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Dual No Prize, is a digital award that we post on social media that I personally draw for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week's question was, what MCU character do you most want to see get their own limited series on Disney Play and what particular storyline do you hope to see with them? And this is coming up the news from last week that the Disney Play streaming app

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will feature original limited series starring the characters and actors from the MCU films, which was exciting news. So we got a lot of great answers on this one. It was so damn hard to pick a winner from the selection of answers, but, you know, gun to my head, I had to choose, so that's what we did. But first up, honorable mention to Karen Diekmann, who gave the answer of Rocket Raccoon. It's the perfect answer. I would love to see a limited series just based off Rocket Raccoon going off of his history as an experiment. You know?

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Andy Freeman gets honorable mention as well for answering Gambit. I'm not sure if the X-Men characters are going to be a part of the MCU by the time this rolls out. Well, I mean, I think it's a great way to introduce these characters prior to introducing them in the films. Like, establish their backstory right away in their own individual limited series, and then show them on the films as a team unit. And honestly, I know we're going to be talking about the Gambit movie later on in this episode, but at this point, the movie's been pushed back so far.

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already that you may as well just forget about the movie and throw it on the small screen. In an ideal world that would happen. Yeah. Also honorable mention to Mitchell Phipps, who gave the answer Quicksilver, which yeah, absolutely. We did not get enough Quicksilver in Avengers Age of Ultron. Right. It would be great to find out more about the character. I'm still hoping they resurrect him in the next Avengers film. Right. But if they don't, what's great about this is-

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you could still bring those characters back to do these shows. Yeah, it's possible that you may have that version of Quicksilver in the announced Scarlet Witch limited series that they're gonna do on Disney Play. Yeah, maybe. But yeah, I'd like to see Quicksilver also get his own show. That'd be cool. Also honorable mention to Jace Crump, who gave the answer Winter Soldier. Oh god, that would be so fantastic. To like follow him through the years, since the 1940s when he became the Winter Soldier. Yeah, it'd be like a spy show. Yeah, so fantastic. That would be a great, great, great time.

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Also honorable mention to Jacob Bell who gave the answer the Hulk and he specifically was looking for the planet Hulk storyline It's probably like his like lost days while he was on Sakaar. Right? Yeah prior to Thor arriving on that planet I think that would make for some pretty interesting viewing as well She's gonna see like Hulk's rise through the gladiator ranks Yeah, and you know becoming a favorite of the Grandmaster and stuff like that. Yeah, that would be so cool Also honorable mention to Dan Baker who gave the answer of M'Baku

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who's the leader of the White Gorilla Clan in the Black Panther movie. I can't see how you could not do a series with him and see the White Gorilla Clan evolve through the ages until M'Baku became the king and see just what, kind of like the day-to-day life is there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And our final honorable mention goes to Ariana Quadra, who actually gave my favorite answer in Adam Warlock, because who knows if we're gonna get Guardians of the Galaxy 3? And this may be a fantastic opportunity to see, like,

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that dangling thread that may never get picked up of Adam Warlock. I'm still convinced that we are going to get Guardians of the Galaxy 3 because it's the studio has stated that they're working off of James Gunn's script. They just need to find a director and I don't think there's a timetable for that. I have a feeling we're going to see Adam Warlock in the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie. So that's why I didn't pick it for my favorite answer. That being said, if there's never a Guardians of the Galaxy 3 movie ever made, then yeah, I would love to see an Adam Warlock movie and see exactly where.

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You know that storyline picks up after the after credits scene in Guardians 2. The winner of the no prize for this week though goes to Adrian Maines who gave the answer of Thanos. He wants to see a Thanos limited series involving the character taking place prior to the events of Infinity War and in his early history. Which I think would be fantastic. Like I'd love to see like Thanos's early days on Titan and the death of the planets and just sort of his rise to power. Yeah, life as a space pirate and things like that.

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That would just be utterly fantastic. He is definitely one of the more like intriguing villains to come out in a superhero film. And yeah, he's in he's intriguing in terms of, you know, his character and his philosophy and things like that. We got to know him pretty well in that Infinity War movie, but we didn't learn much more about his history. So let's see that. Yeah. Congrats to Adrian once again. And if you, the listener, are interested in winning a dynamic duel, no prize. Keep listening to the rest of the episode where we'll give this week's question of the week.

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With that out of the way, onto the news.

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Alright, so the first trailer for the Dark Phoenix film dropped this past week. And, you know, it wasn't quite the shit show that I thought it was going to be, but it's still not necessarily what I'm looking for from the X-Men franchise. It doesn't look poorly directed. Like, the cinematography looks good. Oh yeah, Simon Kimberg actually, he did better than I thought he was going to do with a lot of these shots. Yeah. The cinematography at times almost looks artful.

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throughout the course of this trailer, and that might be the most surprising thing. Yeah, there's not a lot of special effects in this trailer, but it still looks pretty cool. Yeah. That being said, I don't know if it looks good. That's true. The trailer starts off, we see young Jean Grey as she's meeting Professor X, and we see the accident that results in her ending up an orphan and going to stay at the mansion. Now that deviates slightly from the comics, as we know, if you listen to our Phoenix versus Raven episode and the comics, Jean Grey,

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was present as her best friend died and was hit by a car and telepathically experienced her friend's emotions as she died. In this case, they kind of made young Jean Grey to be a little bit more of a sinister character than what I'm used to seeing. Yeah, she's definitely dark. They definitely put the dark in Dark Phoenix in this film. Yeah, like, I guess the question I have regarding the character of Jean Grey in this film is, is she actually evil? Because that's not, that was never the case in the comics. In the comics, we know that she was trapped underwater and about to die.

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but a cosmic entity known as the Phoenix Force came down, saved her, like wrapped her in a cocoon of energy, and then took on her form and pretended to be her, and was easily corrupted and super powerful. And it wasn't really Jean Grey. It was just a manifestation of Jean Grey by the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix Force. Right, right, right. The initial idea that Claremont had when writing the Dark Phoenix storyline was that the Phoenix was actually Jean Grey reaching her utmost.

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potential of her mutant powers and it corrupted her. And then only later on when they wanted to bring her back in the comics was it retconned that it wasn't her at all. That it wasn't her at all. It was just this manifestation. And so that original concept that Claremont had for the Dark Phoenix was explored in the X-Men The Last Stand film. Yeah. Where Jean Grey reached her like her peak power and it corrupted her. Exactly. So we've seen that side explored. We've seen the story before. Yes.

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I was hoping that in this version of the Dark Phoenix story, it would take on the more true-to-the-comics approach. And that may be the case because we do get some shots in the trailer of them like in outer space. That's not going to be the case because we have already seen her become the Phoenix in the last Apocalypse movie. That's true. So it's going to be her. It's not going to be this cosmic force. She might be empowered through these cosmic rays or something like that in space. I'm not sure exactly what's going on in that last shot, which actually looks amazing. All this.

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fire or radiation or something. Oh yeah, that's the coolest shot in the film for sure. Like being absorbed into her? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what's going on there. I mean, it couldn't be the Phoenix Force going into her, right? Because we've already seen that. They would have a lot of explaining to do in the apocalypse. Right, because she manifested the firebird in that last movie. So it's bizarre. I don't even think they know what they're doing. Speaking of the last movie, where the fuck are those awesome costumes that they had at the end of that film in this movie?

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They're back to like their first class costumes. Yeah, it's kind of like a mixture of their first class costumes and the costumes that they had during Grant Morrison's run on the comics. I'm super bummed about that. I was really looking forward to seeing, you know, the early 90s era X-Men costumes like they had in the comics. Like the Jim Lee costumes. Yeah, those were so cool in the comics and it's just a wasted opportunity. It's like they wanted to save money or something like that. One thing I've noticed about this trailer is that like all of the voiceover, like dialogue is like really subdued.

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Yeah, like Jessica Chastain's character. Like I know they're like talking in a church, but like she's like barely getting her voice out of her mouth and the same thing with like Charles later on, oh my God, you're right. Now that I think about it, like 80% of this dialogue is just above a whisper. They're like, I can't believe what you did. She's changing into what? And it's like, the rage. Even when the action is going, it's pretty interesting. Yeah, exactly. Doesn't get me excited for it. Like, I mean.

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If they want to get me excited, like, should I have some? Well, you want them to yell or what? I don't know. I think it may just be the approach that they took in regards to the editing of this. I think they wanted it to be a slow burn kind of thing. It's too slow. I'm sure the whole movie won't be like that. We see Jean visit Magneto on the mutant island of Genosha. Oh, really? Yeah, I'm not sure why she goes to visit him because he does stay in the trailer. Like, you didn't come here asking for advice. You came here looking for permission.

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For what? To be a bad person? It raises a good question. Permission to do what? Like, what does she want to do? Does she want to be evil? If that case, I have huge problems with that because that's not the gene that I know. Right. I didn't know Genosha was in this film. That's pretty cool. It doesn't look like Genosha. That's how you didn't know it was Genosha. But you see the island and then, you know, she goes onto it and Magneto's living there with other mutants. It is Genosha. It's just nothing like in the comics because in the comics, Genosha is this big futuristic kind of mutant haven city. And it gets destroyed.

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Yeah, by Sentinels. And yeah, this place looks like a dump, honestly. It does. They saved some money on that for sure. We get our first look at Jessica Chastain as this alien person. Still not sure who it is. I guess Simon Kimberg was saying it's an amalgam of different characters within the Marvel universe. Dumb. I couldn't tell you which characters. Why don't you just use the characters that you're given? Why do you have to make shit up? Like, damn it. Exactly, it's kind of hard to tell what kind of role this character is going to have.

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she must be pretty important, especially with an actor like Jessica Chastain behind her. I'm guessing she's the movie's primary antagonist. Yeah. I'm guessing. It seems like she's trying to manipulate Dark Phoenix in some way, to what end I have no idea. But yeah, we see Jean Grey pull off some telekinetic feats, like tossing cop cars into the air and knocking a helicopter over and things like that. And just basically dealing with a lot of stress, it looks like. Yeah. And everybody's getting mad at Professor X for inhibiting her psychic abilities at an early age. Right. But, you know, I mean, he did it in the comics, so he didn't really.

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do that in the comics so much as he blocked her telepathy completely at an early age until he felt that she was mature enough basically to use those powers responsibly. That's why she had just telekinesis for a long time in the comics. So yeah, this whole mental manipulation thing has precedent, but they seem way more pissed at him here in these movies. Yeah, like Hank, I'm still so sick of seeing Hank McCoy not as Beast and Mystique not as Mystique. Right. Not Blue?

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It sucks, man. It's like, if they don't care enough about these characters, it really makes me not care. It's like a really big important part of the character. More so with Beast than Mystique. Well, Mystique is supposed to be mutant and proud. Right. And Beast, the whole tragedy of the character is that he can't cure himself and that he is uncomfortable with the creature that he is. So yeah, you're taking away this depth from these characters that is so vital to who they are. What are these rates going back to Marvel again? Exactly. Fuck.

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You know who does look pretty spot-on? Ty Sheridan as Cyclops. I think as he's kind of aged over the years since he was first cast as Cyclops in these movies, I think he's kind of grown into a young James Marsden basically, but almost buffer, you know? He has that confident demeanor about him, I think. I think he's great as the character. Toward the end of the trailer, Magneto says, you know, I've seen evil and I'm looking at it now and we see Jean Grey kind of giving off this

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evil look with these cracks in her face, really reminiscent of X-Men The Last Stand. Well, we've seen this look in early promotional photos where like she has fire around her and again the cracks in her skin. So I wasn't surprised to see that. I am again disappointed that they're going the same route it appears. I don't know, this whole thing, I feel like they should just not be doing it. They shouldn't. Right. And you know, the very last shot of the trailer says Dark Phoenix, February 14th. Now the

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fucking day after this trailer dropped, they changed the date to June 7th. Why, Fox? Why? What are they doing? I have no idea. The day after this trailer dropped. It's like, did they not know that they were planning this release date? And if so, why release the trailer when they did? Why not just wait a day and make sure that the date is changed? Exactly. It's like they released it without knowing what they were doing. I'm not sure if this was like a part of the New York Comic Con.

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release like it was released just for that or if this is attached to any kind of film and theaters right now, it might be attached to Venom. I wouldn't be surprised, but if it is, it's gonna confuse the shit out of everyone. Yeah, they're gonna need to change the trailer that they sent out to be attached to other films. Yeah. Yeah. And that wasn't the only release date that they changed. Fox was originally going to have Alita Battle Angel, which is a Japanese comic opening alongside Aquaman this December,

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I don't know what the fuck that's about either. I mean, it was probably a good idea to move Alita Battle Angel away from Aquaman and Bumblebee because those both come out that same day and they're definitely hitting the same target audience. Yeah. But to replace it with a PG-13 version, or what is allegedly a PG-13 version of Deadpool. Yeah, that's the rumor. Is bonkers in my mind. Who wants that? The appeal of the Deadpool movies is how crass the character is. If you take away the R rating, you take away a lot of the appeal of those films and that the characters bite.

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And apparently they're shooting some new footage where Deadpool is reading a bedtime story to Fred Savage, I think. Right. Yeah. Brian Reddell's released some kind of still of that, like on his Twitter. Yeah. It's in the same vein as The Princess Bride. Exactly. But is that additional footage enough to warrant going back to the theater to see this? Because I already have the Super Duper cut and the theatrical cut at home. It's like, yeah, is this like another film that we have to review? How different is it going to be? I don't know. I guess we'll have to go.

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fucking watch it in theaters. Again. Even though I have the movie at home. I'm fucking watching Aquaman. I don't know what you're doing. I'm gonna watch Aquaman. You go watch Aquaman, I'll go watch Deadpool because I'd rather see a Marvel movie anyway. What you've already seen, what you've already paid for several times. Oh God. I don't know what Fox is thinking. I think they're trying to make as many fuck ups as possible before handing the rights to these properties over to Disney.

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What's the cash grab? They don't give a fuck. It's a huge cash grab. They're trying to cement all of these projects and get as many projects out as they can, including Gambit. Yeah, including Gambit, which has gotten a new release date. Yet again, it's going to be released March 13th, 2020, which is so late. It's like I already want the X-Men to be with Marvel by that time. Right. Exactly. Well, the deal with Disney will go through at the end of this year, which puts this Gambit film like at the last possible moment prior to the Disney switch over.

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So I'm hoping that this film actually gets delayed yet again, and then just struck off the calendar completely. Especially the way that Simon Kimberg has been describing the film recently. Like, I think initially they were talking about it being like, some kind of like, a heist film. But now he's describing it as like a romantic, sexy comedy. What the hell? I think they may be trying to play into Channing Tatum's strengths as a comedic actor in that regard, but I mean...

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That's gonna come through in the character anyway, because the character of Gambit has a lot of charm. And if you've read any of the Gambit solo series, there's humor in them as well. You don't have to go all out into the comedy genre with this film for it to be appealing. I was much more interested in this project when it was described as a heist film, since Gambit, he's a thief. So that would have been great. I don't know what this is gonna be.

19:09
It sounds like it's gonna be like 21 Jump Street in the X-Men universe. I know, it's gonna get Jonah Hill as like the blob or something like that. Right? Actually, I might go see that. As like a fan project, that would be just absolutely fantastic. But as like an official, uh, like canon kind of thing. Yeah, that's not something I'm too interested in at all. You know what Fox made no mention of? Was New Mutants. That's true. That's still scheduled to come out next year and I guess that's still the case since they didn't mention it being moved or anything like that.

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In the end though, you would have to think that them moving the X-Men Dark Phoenix from February to June means that they have more confidence in the film as a summer blockbuster. Well, I heard that they're doing it to reach a good spot in the Chinese film calendar, at least scheduled, because there was like another film that it was going up against, a Chinese film, that was gonna give it too much competition. Okay, yeah, the Chinese market is huge now, so that makes sense to me.

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But yeah, that one pretty much does it for all that fox fuckery. I'm so done talking about it. Oh my gosh. Onto DC news. Mary Elizabeth Winstead has been cast as Huntress and Journey Smollett Bell has been cast as Black Canary in the Birds of Prey film, which I'm really excited about Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the Huntress. I think she's gonna make a fantastic Helena Bertinelli. And you can learn more about the Huntress in our Huntress versus Jessica Jones match.

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But I think she'll make a really good mafia princess. Oh yeah, Mary Elizabeth Winstead has been making the rounds of fan casting for years now. So it's cool to see that she finally got a role as a superhero. Yeah, what I also like about her is that she's a lead actress, right? If you look at films like Cloverfield Lane or Scott Pilgrim? She was the female lead for sure. The Thing. The Thing, there you go. Does she come across as Italian to you? Sure, why not? She can. Okay, I'm excited about this casting.

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The other casting, not so much. I have no idea who Journey Smollett Bell is. She doesn't really look the part, does she? Not necessarily. I mean, I knew that they were gonna go for a diversity casting with one of these roles. Uh-huh. And I mean, if you put a blonde wig on her, I'm sure she'll make a perfectly badass Black Canary. I'm not unhappy with this casting choice. By race-bending the character though, are you taking the word black and Black Canary and changing its meaning?

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Because are they gonna think now that she's called black canary because she's black are people gonna be saying well Why don't you just call her canary? Why do you why does she have to be black canary because her skin is black? They better not do that. I hope people understand that this character has existed For a really long time since the 50s. Yeah, probably around longer than a lot of them have been alive So there's precedence for her name as black canary, you know, someone's gonna bring it up if they haven't already but

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I don't know, I hope people just don't make a big deal about it. My biggest concern with her is not the color of her skin at all, it's that I'm afraid she's not lead actress material. Well, Black Canary is like the leader of the Birds of Prey in the comics. Sort of, I mean, it's either between her or Oracle, but we already know Oracle isn't in this film, so when it came to this casting, I thought they were going to go with someone who could really, really hold their own film. A-list actress. Exactly. And that really has me concerned.

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I know that this was always going to be Margot Robbie's show in a way, but I always kind of saw this film as like an introduction to the Birds of Prey characters, at which point Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn could kind of step away and we would still have this franchise of the Birds of Prey. But it's like, how does Margot Robbie exit this franchise after sort of like, you know, seeding it and we're left with these actresses? I was hoping for more. She might be a standout.

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Maybe that's why she was cast. There were auditions. She has to be. Yeah, I mean, there's fierce competition for all of these roles. Yeah, now I'm wondering if the reason why they did the race spending for the Black Canary character was because they didn't want two statuesque blondes on the team, and they wanted to diversify the look a little bit more, which I'm all for. But yeah, you're right regarding the actresses themselves, because Harley Quinn shouldn't probably stay a permanent member of the Birds of Prey team. So if they decide to carry this on forward as a franchise,

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You have to cast an additional character on the team to take the place of Harley Quinn. Yeah, who is another strong leading actress. Maybe like maybe it's Oracle. That's my assumption. Absolutely. Now I'm not so sure where this franchise is going. Harley Quinn may be a part of it for however many sequels they have for this, if it's a success, which kind of bothers me because I really wanted her to become a part of Gotham City Sirens. Right. And she's part of Suicide Squad 2. Exactly.

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She can't be in everything. Yeah, she can't be a part of the villain's team and also be part of this group of heroines. Ideally not. It's contradictory. They set her up as such a villain in Suicide Squad. Yeah, I mean, a compelling one who definitely could have a redemptive arc, but she can't stay there. Right, that's not the nature of the character. Not at all, not at all. But this all brings us to our question of the week.

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Who would you have cast as Huntress and Black Canary? Post your answers to our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or email us at dyna We'll pick our favorite answer and draw that person at dynamicduelnoprize that we'll post to social media. Yeah, we're looking for really interesting fan castings here, it's a lot of fun to think about. Let's move on to the second trailer we got for The Titans Show. Yeah, what's really interesting about it was that it was a Netflix trailer. And Netflix was saying, it was like, it's an original show only for Netflix.

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I was like, what are you talking about? No, it's not. I mean, I understand that this trailer was probably meant for international audiences, because in America, this won't be on Netflix. That we know of. I mean, we don't know that yet, do we? Yeah, we do know that. It's only been secured for international distribution. Oh. Right. I was assuming that after it ran its course on the DC Universe streaming app, that it was gonna make its way to Netflix for everybody else to see it. No, it's only gonna be international. Interesting. Because DC Universe is not, apparently not going to be,

25:19
an international product. Okay, gotcha. So they still want to release this series to international audiences and the way they're going to be able to do that is through Netflix. Gotcha, gotcha. But it's not a Netflix original, once again. Yeah, it was a story trailer. Like the first trailer that we got was much more of like a teaser, kind of giving the vibe of the overall show. But this one delved a lot deeper into the story that we're going to get. Yeah, absolutely. It starts at a police station when they're examining Robin like on these screens. I guess it's first appearance in Detroit.

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Which I'm surprised they chose the city of Detroit because as far as I know, the Titans have never been based in Detroit. The Titans tower was in Manhattan, like an island off Manhattan, I believe. Uh huh. So or at least Bloodhaven, you would think. Yeah, it was surprising. But, you know, we get better looks at like Dick Grayson's arc as to like why he left Batman and things like that. And also Ravens. Those two seem to be like the biggest parts of the show. Biggest characters. Definitely.

26:17
We also got better looks at Beast Boy's powers in action and Starfires. Yeah, apparently Beast Boy has to get naked to use his powers, which was revealed a little bit more in a clip that they released as part of a series of four clips earlier before they dropped this trailer. But, uh, that, that bothers me to some extent for sure. Um, how does he do it in the, in the comics? Like, don't, don't worry about it. He doesn't wear clothes when he becomes an animal. And when he comes out of animal form, he has clothes again. How does that work? Don't worry about it.

26:46
It just happens. All right. But no, we see some very like Rosemary's baby scenario that's played out around Raven and her mom and like this like cult that's coming after her. This whole thing essentially seems to be the rest of the Titans coming together to help Raven. Like even Starfire says, I've been looking for you. You know, I'm here to protect you in the trailer. Yeah. So our first time hearing Starfire speak, she definitely doesn't come across as this naive kind of alien. She's coming across as

27:15
Hardened protector kind of figure. Mm-hmm. I don't know. I'm not sure quite what to make of her yet in the role Mm-hmm, but everyone else seems to be pretty decent except for I forget the actress's name who plays Raven I'm still not sold on her. Yeah, she delivers a few of those lines pretty awkwardly I think it seems so much like younger than everyone else and I know the actress is so that's probably why yeah Maybe they like try to set up some kind of like romantic flirtation between her and Beast Boy in this trailer

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and I couldn't understand what they were saying. It was a little cringe-worthy. I was like, what are you guys doing? You like each other's hair? Okay, all right, cool. We did see that Beast Boy's skin only turns green when he's about to transform, which kind of sucks. That's a budget thing. It is absolutely a budget thing. And it seems like the only thing he could turn into is a tiger. That's the only thing we see him transform into in this trailer. Who is the cult of people that are going after Raven? I assume it's some kind of like Trigon worshipping cult.

28:14
Like Brother Blood's cult. It's probably exactly what it is, which is kind of cool that we get to see Brother Blood as an antagonist and definitely, you know, hearkens back to the comics. But I'm not 100% certain. All in all, that's pretty much it for the trailer. I think it got me a little bit more excited for the show. I mean, it debuts pretty soon here at New York Comic-Con. So we're definitely gonna get our first impressions of it. It was definitely a better trailer than the first one that we got. I agree. There was no fuck Batman in it. So already a plus. It should have been the first one that they released.

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in all honesty, but perhaps they didn't have the effects done in time or whatever. I agree. Yeah. Speaking of television shows going direct to streaming services starring a group of teenagers, we got the trailer for the second season of Runaways. Now if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that I was not a fan at all of Runaways season one. I think they botched the concept of the comic book series in itself and the fact that in the show they weren't even really Runaways until the very last episode.

29:11
It was more of just a high school teen drama with some elements from the comics. However, in the second season, judging from the looks of this trailer, it looks to be much better. There's a whole lot more action going on. They're actually using their powers. They're actually runaways this time. They're actually fighting their parents. It was kind of like a cool showcase overall to see, like, what each character could do. Right. And it looks like for the second season, they're releasing all the episodes at once. So while I'm not.

29:40
Still too terribly excited for the show because the first season left such a bad taste in my mouth. You know, I'll watch the second season and if it's good, we will be reviewing it on this podcast early in January sometime or maybe later in January since there's so much kind of bottlenecks toward the end of this year. Wait, when is this released? This is being released in December, December 21st actually. Okay, okay. The same day that Aquaman comes to theaters. Okay, of course. I should have known. Why did I even have to ask? Damn it.

30:09
So yeah, we'll be getting our Marvel superhero action two times that day with both the untitled Deadpool movie and the runaways so dumb So dumb I should have known I got excited when Daredevil was Magically not gonna be released on the same day as the DC film, but now this a fucking course. Yep But no, I have to say that the special effects for the second season look pretty fantastic Yeah, they look better than the titan show

30:36
That's for sure. It does. It looks like it has a movie special effects budget, especially with old lace He looks a lot better in this trailer than he did in season one I think yeah, and we see Chase use the fistagons and we see Carolina with her powers That looks that always looked amazing actually that looked pretty good in season one, too But everything just looks better I guess is what I'm trying to say if you haven't seen the Marvel Runaway season 2 trailer yet Go ahead and check it out on YouTube. I'm gonna say

31:02
If you were a fan of the Runaways comics and haven't seen Runaway season one yet, don't even bother. Like maybe check out the first episode and then we'll all watch season two together and see what that's like. Okay, I was gonna ask you, like if we are gonna review this on the show, am I gonna have to watch the entirety of season one? I would recommend that you don't do that because you'll be bored out of your fucking mind. Because if you were gonna say yes, I was gonna be like, uh, hell no.

31:27
I would recommend seeing the first episode actually because that's that was pretty much Runaway's issue number one right there Oh really and then from here just assume that they run away and are dealing with the stuff that they are now in season two Okay, I can do that. Yeah, so yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say about that trailer and with all the news out of the way Let's go ahead and get into our duel where we pick clay face versus venom and see who would actually win in a fight Let's do it

32:07
Alright, Clayface versus Venom. Why did we pit these two characters against each other? Well, because the Venom movie was coming out and you asked me who would be a good match against Venom. And I've always wanted to see Clayface. A lot of people pit Bane against Venom. To me, that's not even a match. And a lot of people pit Sandman against Clayface, which I think is almost too equal of a match. I mean, I feel like that would result in a 50-50 split. So I feel like this Venom versus Clayface fight has enough variables in it.

32:35
to actually be a toss-up, but in a good way. Like I have no idea who's actually gonna win this. Right, yeah, I have no idea either. And I also think that there's some similarities between Clayface and Venom that you'll hear in the profile for Clayface. They'll be like, oh yeah, this is a good match. They both have freaky faces, they both have like fluidic bodies. They can both shape shift, you know. There's a lot of similarities in the powers, but also enough differences to make this just interesting enough, I think. Yeah, yeah. Plus I think it's a great kickoff to the Halloween month.

33:04
They're both villains. This is sort of our villain episode of the year. Typically, we reserve that for our Halloween episode, but it's coming a little bit early. Yeah, because, well, we'll be reviewing Daredevil season two around that time just before Halloween. So, yeah. Yeah. So if you haven't listened to one of our dual episodes before, the way we determine the winner is we take each character stats and we run them through a thousand simulations using a probabilistic model known as the Monte Carlo method, which is used practically in a lot of different ways, such as through artificial intelligence and risk assessment and stuff like that.

33:33
Basically what it does is it randomizes their stats along a bell curve in a standard deviation. It compares the numbers and the one with the higher numbers over a thousand times basically is the winner. Right. Yeah, we get a percentage of wins. So it's math. There's no bias. There's no fan votes. We don't take into account uncharacteristic feats of strength. It's just base stats based off of the Marvel power rankings, which are official. And we extrapolate the DC stats from that same criteria. Right. And sometimes we also throw in additional stats.

34:02
depending on the match, if we think those attributes are vital to the fight or not. Right. But before we get into the simulations and the stats and everything like that, we like to go into the histories of each character and then after that speculate on how we think a battle scenario between the two characters would actually pan out. So let's go ahead and start with the history of Clayface because I'm interested in hearing about this because I don't know too much about the character and he's always been one of I think Batman's more formidable villains and because he actually has powers, you know? Yeah, yeah.

34:28
He's definitely an iconic villain. I remember seeing him for the first time in the comic and just really liking that villain. He's a really, really interesting villain. But Clayface is actually the name of Batman super villains used by about 10 different characters in DC Comics. What? Yeah. I thought it was the actor guy from the animated series. Yeah, except that they used the name of a different Clayface for that character, the actor character that is Clayface. I'm not sure why. Okay, interesting. Yeah.

34:57
So the original Clayface was a Golden Age character named Basil Carlo, created by Bob Kane in 1940. Carlo was an actor known for playing a disfigured villain named Clayface in a popular horror film called Dread Castle. It's kind of like Boris Karloff who played, you know, the mummy in Frankenstein. Yeah, it was partially inspired by him. Okay, but in the film he wore a grotesque mask for the role and when he found out that the film was being remade without him,

35:26
He was driven mad and donning the clay face mask went on a murder spree. Wow. He killed several actors of the new film's cast until he was stopped by Batman and Robin and imprisoned in Arkham Asylum. Decades later, a treasure hunter named Matt Hagen discovered an underground cavern that contained a glowing rainbow colored protoplasm. That was actually the name of the character in the animated series. Right. So having accidentally fallen into the pool of the protoplasm,

35:55
Hagen emerged with a malleable clay-like body and, with effort, became capable of shaping his body into any person or object he could visualize. The effect lasted for only about 48 hours, at which point he would regain his normal form until he once again submerged himself in the protoplasm. Hagen, the new clay face, went on several robberies before he was captured by Batman, who had discovered Hagen's underground cavern and destroyed it.

36:25
Hagen broke out of prison and using a small supply of the protoplasm he had stored before the cavern was destroyed, he was able to synthesize a lesser version of the protoplasm that gave him transformative abilities for five hours. This synthetic version, however, took a toll on his body and he eventually had trouble holding any shape, forcing him to retire. Oh wow. A start-up scientist named Preston Payne took an interest in Hagen as he was seeking a cure

36:54
for his own chronic hyper-pituitaryism, which results in physical deformities. After injecting himself with an enzyme from Hagen's blood, Payne gained the brief ability to transform his appearance, though it wasn't long before he began losing control over his form and found that his physical touch caused others to melt into a blob, a new ability for this new clay face. Payne developed an exoskeleton containment suit to hold his form.

37:23
but realized that he needed to touch and liquefy others in order to somehow transfer his own physical suffering of slowly melting. His guilt drove him insane, and he hid in a wax museum where he conversed and fell in love with wax figures before he was found by Batman and treated at Arkham Asylum. Hmm, wow. Now a woman named Sandra Fuller became the new Clayface after a terrorist cult led by the villain Cobra.

37:52
researched and recreated events that created some of Batman's most dangerous rogues. Fuller, who had hated her own face, agreed to undergo the Clayface procedure, and subsequently gained the ability to transform her shape without the danger of losing control over her form, nor the time limit that the now-deceased Matt Hagen suffered from. The original Clayface, the Golden Age actor Boris Carlo, was not dead, however,

38:18
and Fuller visited him out of curiosity as he languished in a prison hospital. Concocting a plan to get revenge on Batman, Carlo recommended to Fuller that she and Pain join forces to defeat Batman. Fuller broke Pain out of Arkham, and Carlo injected himself with the blood of both clayfaces to become the ultimate clayface, with all of their abilities and strengths. The three clayfaces, calling themselves the Mud Pack, took on Batman.

38:47
and his team of outsiders, only to fall when Karlo's powers were overloaded and he became merged with the ground beneath him. Payne and Fuller on the other hand fled the fight, fell in love while they were on the run, and had a child named Cassius Clay Payne, who would later grow into a fifth version of the Clayface character. Wait, Cassius Clay, why does that sound familiar? It's Muhammad Ali's real name. Right. Yeah, that's interesting. It was a play on words. Huh.

39:16
when a cataclysmic earthquake struck Gotham City, turning it into a no-man's land. He emerged now with strong, sharp quartz crystals growing out of him, and would have defeated Batman too if it hadn't been for Mr. Freeze claiming the right to killing the Dark Knight and interfering. Karlo eventually teamed up with Poison Ivy to help feed the remaining people of Gotham during No Man's Land, but he was sunk into the ground once again after he tried to double cross Ivy.

39:45
Karlo later emerged as a Wonder Woman foe, after he deduced that he could absorb some of her power since, at the time, her origin involved her being fashioned by the Amazons from clay. You can learn more about Wonder Woman in our Wonder Woman vs. Thor episode. Karlo's plan worked. Actually, he became much stronger, and Wonder Woman was de-aged to a teenager for a time. Karlo was returned to a standard clay-faced self when he was tricked into a train car with Wonder Woman.

40:15
and her sidekick Donna Troy used the Lasso of Truth to spin the car like a centrifuge, causing Wonder Woman's Clay to separate from his own. Weird. After unsuccessful stints as a member of the Injustice League and Secret Society of Supervillains, Karlo felt defeated and disillusioned with the villain lifestyle. Seeking to reform, Clayface became a valuable ally in Batman's Gotham Knights team during the post-New 52 slash Rebirth era.

40:44
of DC Comics, up until his eventual death at the hands of Batwoman to prevent him from going off on a rampage. So as mentioned earlier, Karlo is the ultimate Clayface. He can control his shape, size, and density and alter his form to mimic anyone else, right down to their DNA. He's super strong and durable and has a corrosive touch that can liquefy and absorb others if he chooses.

41:14
to create sentient sections of himself that can bond with other humans, turning them into clay things with shape-shifting abilities. Like zombies? I was thinking more like symbiotes. Oh, okay. Well, Venom doesn't really do that. No, well, my clay face in this match won't, because I'm going with the, probably the most popular clay face, which is Basilcarlo. Okay. Cool, all right. Well, his power set is actually not too similar to Venom's.

41:43
except for the fact that they could both shape shift. But yeah, that was a fairly interesting backstory. A lot of stuff in there that I had no idea and each Clayface character seemed pretty unique and interesting on their own. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, they're all kind of tied together. Right. So yeah, let's go ahead and get into Venom. So Venom's a cool badass character, first and foremost, I think because of his appearance. My exec and Todd McFarland did a great job with Venom's design. His monstrous shark-like grin with rows of sharp teeth are the stuff of nightmares.

42:10
and his null holds barred violent approach to attacking his enemies, be he a villain or an anti-hero, is a unique alternative to the more morally grounded superhero fare. Venom is not bound by any sort of societal principles. He will literally tear your head off and eat your brain, all in the name of protecting the innocent. And who else does that? I think he fulfills a particular sci-fi horror niche, the Xenomorph of the Marvel Universe. Oh yeah. And like the Xenomorphs of the Alien movie franchise,

42:38
Venom's backstory began on an alien world hatched from an egg discovered by scientists. These particular scientists were Kree aliens who studied the hatchlings called Klintar, the alien race that Venom is a part of. Klintar are symbiotic, fluidic beings that need to attach to other lifeforms for survival, and in exchange grant their host immense power. As a species, they were created in the universe's infancy by a primordial deity named Null,

43:06
as a biological weapon against celestials and their creations, a way to dominate all other life forms. Kind of like Galactus. I would say that Gnall and Galactus are allies in that regard. Through the millennia, the Klintar species rebelled from their creator's goal in an effort to lead a more peaceful existence, though individual symbiotes can easily become corrupted if their host is malevolent and full of hate. To that end, the symbiotes try and bond with hosts that are pure of heart. In instances in which members of the race are corrupted,

43:36
Those Klyntar are exiled and cut off from the Hivemind. And just a heads up for the purpose of this backstory, when I say Venom I'm referring to the symbiote itself and not just his merger with Eddie Brock because in the comics he wasn't referred to as Venom until that joining. So yeah, Venom is the symbiote in this story. The Kree used the symbiotes they found to empower their deep cover spies during the Kree-Skrull War. Venom was attached to and trained with a soldier named Telkar, but lost his first host,

44:05
when Telkar's ship crash-landed on an icy planet. Venom then bonded with an alien warrior who used the symbiote to commit genocide on his ice planet, exposing Venom to hate and rage, corrupting him. After leaving that host, he managed to unite with some of his Klyntar brethren, though they unfortunately were also corrupted. Venom, despite all his rage and suffering, was different from his corrupted siblings in that he desired to bond with and protect his hosts instead of dominating and eventually draining them.

44:34
Venom's siblings rebuked him for this and confined his formless body in a machine-like prison, a contraption that was later incorporated into Battleworld. Battleworld was an arena-like planet composed of hundreds of other planets by an all-powerful being called the Beyonder, who pit Marvel heroes in a secret war against villains to see who would win in a fight of good versus evil. While on Battleworld, Spider-Man came across Venom's prison, thinking the device would upgrade his damaged costume.

45:02
Venom was released and bonded with Spider-Man who was unaware of the symbiote's existence or nature, but did discover that his new black costume made him much more powerful. After the events of Secret Wars, Venom was brought to Earth attached to Spider-Man whom he found to be the perfect host as he was pure of heart. In fact, the symbiote relished in this new bonding and would often control Peter Parker's body to fight crime while Peter was sleeping. After time, however, Peter grew wary of his new costume's abilities and seeming aggressive autonomy.

45:31
and had it examined by Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, which revealed Venom's true nature as a sentient alien symbiote who wished to permanently bond with Spider-Man. Shocked by this revelation, Peter rejected the symbiote and had it imprisoned in one of Reed's containment modules. Venom escaped, dejected, and angry, and tried to reunite with Peter by disguising itself as one of his red and blue suits and forcing itself onto him. Geez. Peter swung to a nearby church whose large bells rang to sound the hour.

46:00
The Venom, being a corrupted symbiote, was defective against powerful sonic waves and fire, and the bell's reverberations weakened Venom into removing itself from Peter. The symbiote dragged itself to the church's lower levels where it bonded itself onto Eddie Brock, a ruined investigative journalist who had recently been discredited by Spider-Man. Eddie was also suffering from terminal cancer and had just been divorced from his wife after the loss of his job. The two's resentment of Spider-Man transformed them into the ultimate villain.

46:28
with Eddie's hatred at the time further corrupting Venom, who was intent on either killing or reclaiming Peter. They fought several times, resulting in Eddie being incarcerated and separated from Venom. The symbiote rescued Eddie from prison and inadvertently left behind an asexually produced offspring that bonded with an imprisoned psychotic named Cletus Cassidy, who was serving 11 life sentences for murder. The bonded pair became known as Carnage, who was extremely corrupted and went on a months long killing spree across New York.

46:58
Venom and Spider-Man had to join forces temporarily to defeat him using Madison Square Garden's PA system, as Carnage was also vulnerable to heavy sonic waves. Venom and Spider-Man formed an uneasy truce as Venom left for Eddie's hometown of San Francisco. There, Eddie tried to steer Venom's urges for violence toward fighting criminals and protecting a homeless society living underground. Through this vigilantism, Eddie also sought to feed the symbiotes' hunger for adrenaline and hormones, such as phenethylamine.

47:27
which is found in the human brain. Occasionally Venom would commit acts of cannibalism for nutrients, which horrified Eddie. Venom was later captured and separated from Eddie by the Life Foundation, an organization bent on ending life on Earth, except for those who could afford to save themselves through the Foundation's fallout shelter. They experimented on the symbiote and forced it to produce five offspring, Riot, Lasher, Phage, Agony, and Scream, all of which were bonded to the Life Foundation's mercenaries.

47:56
Eddie was able to re-bond with Venom and defeat the new symbiotes with help from Spider-Man. After a long time protecting the innocent and feeding the symbiote, Eddie grew too weak to continue as the host of Venom, and the alien sought out a new one. For a while, it attached itself to Mac Gargan, aka the Spider-Man villain known as Scorpion. Gargan was defeated, however, and the symbiote was removed and contained by the US military. They studied it in a new super-soldier program and granted it to Peter Parker's old classmate, Colonel Flash Thompson.

48:25
The bonded pair became known as Agent Venom, though the symbiote was chemically lobotomized most of the time in an effort for the government to control it. Flash and Venom went into space as a new member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. While out in the cosmos, the no longer lobotomized Venom journeyed back to his home planet of Klintar where he was able to rejoin the hive mind and cleanse himself of his corruption. The symbiote has since returned to Earth, was separated from Flash by the US military, and found its way back to Eddie Brock.

48:53
who again uses it as a vigilante hero. But it's not corrupted anymore. Correct. So would you say he's still a Spider-Man villain? No, more often than not, recently he's teamed up with Spider-Man than fought against him. Usually it's other symbiotes that they're fighting against now, nowadays. Like Carnage? Right, or Venom's clone, or something like that, you know? So as a Klyntar symbiote, Venom's powers largely depend on the host he possesses, though for this fight, he will be bonded to his longtime host, Eddie Brock.

49:22
Venom has a number of innate abilities as well as the abilities of any superpowered being he bonds with. Venom's fluidic biomass can extend tentacles and tendrils, or form into more hardened shapes such as spikes, blades, and hammers. He can also shapeshift to render different outer appearances and even blend into his surroundings like a chameleon. Since Venom preferred Spider-Man's power set when he was bonded to him, Venom has copied that genetic code and carried forward those powers onto his subsequent hosts like Eddie. This includes lifting strength.

49:51
of around 25 tons, which is actually superior to Spider-Man's. Wall crawling and web shooting, though he doesn't actually shoot web fluid, it's just thin strands of his own mass. Venom is incredibly durable, able to resist gunfire on his own, and resist even greater impacts when shifting his mass to thick and vulnerable areas. He's taken blows from Juggernaut before. Venom physically and telepathically bonds with Eddie to provide a 360 degree view for instant danger notifications, kind of like Spider-Sense.

50:18
And if Eddie does get lethally injured, Venom grants an accelerated healing factor, so powerful that it actually staved off Eddie's cancer for a long time. And that's him. Wait, so Venom can change color? Yes, he can, yeah. I didn't know that. Why didn't I, I feel like I should've known that. I guess he did in the cartoon. Yeah, he's able to change his outward appearance for like different clothing looks, and everything like that. He can almost turn invisible, practically. Well, Clayface can change color as well, and like, you know, turn his arms into weapons and all kinds of stuff. But can he turn invisible, like Venom?

50:47
Invisible ish. Yeah, you could just turn it into the ground and then and then what are you gonna do? Okay, damn it, but just to recap Venom's Weaknesses are fire and sonic waves, right? But he actually expunged those weaknesses when he was cleansed by the Clintar because the pure Symbiotes don't have those weaknesses Okay. Yeah, and Clayface's weakness really is being frozen. Really?

51:14
Yeah, okay. I don't think any of those things will come into play in this speculation. I don't think so. I mean, I don't know. We'll see how it goes. Okay. Yeah. I'm not saying Venom can freeze somebody, but I'm not entirely sure that Clayface can't produce fire through like Flint or produce a large, you know, sound reverberations or something like that. Oh, I didn't think about that. Hmm. I think the biggest disadvantage that Venom has going into this is that he actually has a host body. Right. Whereas Clayface.

51:41
If you put a stake through him, there's nothing there. Yeah, he can't be impaled, Clayface, because his entire body is clay. So he could go essentially intangible, whereas Venom can't. However, Venom has some tricks up his sleeve that I think Clayface does not. Okay. All right, so let's get into this. So the rules that we set up for this speculative scenario are that the characters start about 50 yards apart from each other. They don't know anything about each other other than that the other are threats and they need to be taken down. And the final rule that we set up

52:11
is that they fight in a non-environment location or a location in which the environment does not play any factor into the battle itself. Right, because we don't take stats for the environment. We don't take that into account because it's too variable and different characters can win in certain environments and not in others. Right, this fight were taking place in the Arctic Tundra or whatever Venom would easily win. Right, because it's too cold for Clayface. Exactly. So we just cancel that out as a factor completely and just say,

52:41
No environment for the fight. All right, so let's go ahead and get this started. They start off 50 yards apart, who goes first? Well, actually, I think I'm gonna start this one off. I think Vanim's gonna go first just because he has this kind of wild, bloodthirsty nature to him, although it's not quite as bloodthirsty anymore, but he's very aggressive. So he's gonna start charging Starling with his tongue whipping about toward a clay face in an effort to just pounce on him. Okay. Which he does.

53:08
Venom pounces on Clayface? Yes. Well that was a huge mistake. Okay, so Clayface just like envelops Venom and just like constructs his body into like a hard spherical kind of like shell that just contains him. He's gonna suffocate him. Well, okay, so Clayface's body, he's made of individual particles, right? Because the symbiote suit can actually filter oxygen to its host in unbreathable environments such as space and underwater. So- How, what?

53:35
So it basically pulls whatever oxygen is available between the grains of sand that clay face is made out of and filters it to Eddie Brock Okay, at least for a duration long enough for venom to be able to escape which he does so by just punching outward He's super strong. He's you know, he can lift 25 tons. I think he's stronger than clay face Oh, he starts breaking him apart basically. Clay face is pretty strong and he's also pretty durable, but he could only get as durable as you know, like brick which I know venom is strong enough to punch through

54:04
So yeah, it doesn't surprise me that he breaks out of this. Yeah, so yeah, he's punching out, he cracks this sphere that Clayface created and just basically leaps out. And at that point, Clayface starts deforming from this sphere into like this pile of goo and Venom coats the goo pile with his symbiotic webbing. Like tendrils? It's fibers, basically, fibers of the symbiote mass that ensnare it, like a really strong net. Okay, well, I mean, that doesn't really do anything because he can't like...

54:33
wrap up the bottom of Clayface, because that's already touching the floor. So Clayface could like expand his size. So basically he just like grows and just like tosses it to the side. Clayface can also squeeze through the holes and the netting. Yeah, he could absolutely do that as well. Yeah. And that's when Clayface creates like a huge like hammer fist and just swings his like really rubber-like arm just towards Venom and just knocks his hammer right into the side of him. Real hard. So right before the hammer hits Venom, Venom shifts his biomass.

55:03
over to the side and creates kind of like a shield to protect himself from the hammer. So it just primarily hits that thick biomass shield and doesn't really hurt Venom too much. It probably sends him flying because of the impact, but it doesn't hurt him because the impact is mostly absorbed. So at that point Venom creates a huge scythe with his arm and he slices Clayface's hammer arm in half. So Clayface doesn't have the hammer arm anymore. So yeah, that puddle of clay just falls to the ground.

55:30
quickly moves to the rest of his body. So he's whole again. And as the pile of clay that was the hammer is going back to the main body of Clayface, Venom creates his own hammer fist and takes it right towards Clayface's face and smashes it in. Okay, so Clayface's face gets smashed in, but like his face just like wraps around the hammer. And then Clayface just like rolls up Venom's arm like a sleeve thing, and then travels right up there. It gets right up close to him.

56:00
And then like creates like a sharp blade out of his hand and just drives it right into venom. Oh shit Okay, so venom screams out in agony and he breaks this spike that clay face created to impale him and leaps backward And he pulls the spike out of him and venom is able to actually heal Eddie Brock with his healing factor But Clay face knows that there's a human core to him now So he's gonna be going for that for that human core. So he's gonna be going with the bladed stuff now. Yeah

56:29
Well Venom could play that game too, he shoots out these little tiny barbed projectiles that like stick into Clayface and actually do jack shit. That's when Clayface just like absorbs them, then he fires them right back out at Venom. Actually Venom could do the same thing. Like there have been moments where like he's been shot at with bullets, and he like absorbs the bullets through his flesh, and then like spits them back out at the guy that shot at him. Clayface has done like that exact same thing as well. Really? Yeah. Well, so okay so...

56:59
Clayface shoots these symbiotic barbs back at Venom and Venom just stands there and the barbs reabsorb back into his body. Okay so Clayface's goal is to get to Eddie Brock and touch him with his corrosive touch. Okay. So basically that's what he's gonna try and do. He's gonna turn his hand to a sharp object again, just a point, and just drive it once again into Venom. But once he reaches Eddie Brock, he touches him and it corrodes him. Except as Clayface is reaching for Venom, Venom uses his super agility to...

57:28
evade being touched by the spike and what he does is he creates these two huge axe blades with his hands and He closes the distance to clay face and he swipes across Cutting clay face into three separate parts that fall to the ground Okay, and as clay face his body is reforming That's when venom takes the opportunity to detach itself from Eddie Brock and assimilate clay face as a venom clay face What yes, I don't think you could do that. Yeah, he can do that

57:58
How is Clayface a sentient life form? Yeah. Well then he can be assimilated by the symbiote. Holy shit. So Venom assimilates Clayface and he's able to telepathically connect to Clayface's brain and tries to shut him down. Okay. I think Clayface, he's powerful enough and maneuverable enough. I mean he himself is a liquid form. It's like trying to mix like oil and water. So I think he could escape the symbiote.

58:26
Like, what is it gonna fuse to? His spine? What does it fuse to? There's nothing to fuse to. Like, Clayface doesn't have a brain? Is that what you're saying? It's- He has a brain, but it's- it's malleable. Gotcha. Well, I don't know! Okay, here's what happens. Okay. As Venom was trying to assimilate Clayface, Clayface realized what this thing is, that it's like a parasite, and learns all of its weaknesses. But then he escapes! Because Venom can't assimilate Clayface's form. Okay. So now he knows that he's weak to sound.

58:56
But I already told you that he's not that weak. If anything, he's more weak to fire than he is sound over the years. Okay, so as the Venom symbiote was making its way back to the helpless Eddie, Clayface turns his fists into flint rocks and he bangs them together and starts creating sparks. And then creates an eventual- The sparks aren't gonna set anything on fire if there's no Tinder. You're just creating sparks, right? He sets Eddie's hair on fire.

59:24
I don't know. So Eddie Brock is running around screaming because his hair's on fire. He stops to drop some rolls, puts the fire out, and then he's Venom again. This is almost a more impossible fight than I could have imagined just because I completely forgot that Clayface is intangible and that he doesn't have a human body within all the clay. And he's like completely intangible, like you can't just move through a wall. Right. But like, he is like, things can move through him. Exactly, exactly. Gotcha.

59:53
Well, do you want to take this to the stats? Yes, I'm very curious. Alright, let's see who officially wins this fight between Clayface and Menom.

01:00:04
And we're back. Not too many surprises here, we found as we were combing through the stats and extrapolating Clayface's stats. Yeah, I guess the largest surprise for me personally was just how durable and evasive Clayface is. You know, he's nearly indestructible. Right. Nearly. He does have like the weakness of cold, you know, but we said there wouldn't play a huge factor within this fight. No, and in terms of evasiveness, he is basically intangible, but he's also not difficult to hit because he knows he's intangible.

01:00:31
Because he knows that most physical attacks aren't gonna even hurt him. Right. Everything just kind of goes through him. Right. So he's elastic, but he's intangible, but he's also extremely dense. So he has a lot going for him. When he wants to be, yeah. Yeah, he has a lot going for him defensively. Exactly. And offensively, too. He has a lot of damage potential. Attacks from him are basically like getting a boulder dropped on you. Right. What he's lacking in, compared to Venom, at least, is fighting skill and strength. And strength. Yeah, Venom's stronger than Clayface.

01:01:00
Not much stronger. Yeah, there's not a huge gap there, but there were only just a few disparities between these two characters. For the most part, I think it was a pretty good match because, yeah, a lot of this was similar. Yeah. Because they're both defensive powerhouses with strong offensive capabilities. Yeah, for sure. And they're just so malleable that it's just impossible to come up with a scenario. So we're gonna let the stats determine the winner for us. So the winner between Clayface and Venom is...

01:01:29
Venom. Ugh. Out of a thousand matches, Venom won 594% of them. So you know, it was fairly close. That's close. I thought it would be closer. Oh, you did? I thought it would actually be further apart. Really? Yeah. It's essentially like 60%. Yeah, pretty close to that. Clayface only won 40.6 of the matches. So 406 out of a thousand. Ugh. So good match, good match. You know, yeah. I'm happy with the results of this one. It's been a while, I feel like, since.

01:01:59
I've won one, so. So put this on the scorecard for Marvel. Congrats to Venom, I guess. I mean, he has his new film coming out. Wonder when they're gonna make the Clayface film. They're never gonna make a Clayface film. You know why? Because they're not greedy. That's why. You know why? Because Clayface sucks. Nope. Just like the rest of DC. What? The only Batman villain that could get their own movie is Joker. What makes me think Spider-Man's gonna get any more villain movies? Oh, I don't know, actually. This might probably be the only villain movie that's made of my hands. Oh wait, I guess they are making a Kraven movie, never mind.

01:02:29
Well, no, there's a Morpheus movie in the works too. So there you go. Although I guess there is a Gotham City Sirens movie in the works or is that canceled? I don't know. Who knows? Who knows anymore? So that does it for this episode. Congrats to Venom for kicking the utter shit out of Clayface. And jokes on you, Clayface doesn't shit. Let us know what you guys thought about this match by writing into us on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or email. You can find links to contact us via all those means by visiting dynamic duel dot com.

01:02:57
a site in which you can also find a link to our merch store. Yeah, at our merch store, we have a bunch of different T-shirts and and mugs and pillows and stuff like that, which are decorated with artwork that we've drawn up for our no prizes in the past. And also, don't forget, you can get bonus content for this podcast by visiting Patreon.com dynamic duel. Again, this Thursday, we will be releasing the first sneak peek at the secret project that Jonathan and I have been working on for the past month.

01:03:26
And please don't forget to rate, review, share and subscribe our podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening to us on, especially if you're listening to us on iTunes, because we have a goal right now to reach 200 ratings. Right. And last week, we didn't get any new ratings. So please step up, guys. If you're listening to us on your Apple podcast app, please rate us. And not only you, please ask to borrow any other person's iPhone that you know and ask to open their podcast app and give us the rating as well.

01:03:56
Yeah, if we could get to 200, we get to be official Brown Tomatoes critics, and our reviews and film ratings get to count for the aggregate score, and that would be awesome. Yeah, that would be super awesome. So in our next episode, we will be reviewing the Venom film. Super looking forward to it. It's a huge question mark in my mind. I have no idea if it's gonna be good or bad. I haven't read any of the reviews. It could go either way. I'm excited to see which way it falls, good or bad.

01:04:22
I guess I'm excited. I don't know. I haven't really seen too much marketing for it, honestly. Yeah, not too much in the past few weeks, but looking forward to it. Looking forward to talking to you guys again next week. And until then, up, up and away, true believers.