Justice League Dark vs Midnight Suns

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Hey Joseph, we all know you like Marvel, right? I mean, if you haven't figured it out by now, yeah. But like, what else is there to you? Like, what else do you like? Well, I mean, I'm also into Star Trek stuff and Harry Potter. I was big into Game of Thrones. I try to stay on top of the NFL and fantasy football. I like long walks on the beach. Also, I'm a fan of, you know, dressing stylishly. Well, you're in luck, because we've partnered with cufflinks.com to get our listeners 20% off.

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Hi, welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters and stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother Marvelous Joe. And welcome to episode 254! We're doing a team duel this episode. We're going to pit the Justice League Dark against Marvel's Midnight Suns. We wanted to do this on episode 250.

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But of course, we've had to do quite a few reviews lately, and that pushed our big team duel episode back by a month. Yeah, we were trying to get to this before Halloween, but it just didn't work out that way. But this team duel episode ties into Halloween in that these teams that were pitting against each other are Marvel and DC's respective supernatural teams. These are the guys that fight the things that go bump in the night, the monsters, the demons, the ghosts, the things like that. Yeah, I love doing these team duels. Can't wait for the main event later on in the episode.

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Before that, we're going to break down the comic book and movie news items from the past week, of which it's all Marvel news once again, thanks to Disney Plus Day, in which they gave us our first looks at She-Hulk, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, and a lot more. As always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Just a reminder guys that only the four most recent episodes of this podcast are available to the listening public. If you guys want access to over-

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250 episodes now of archived content including our Justice League Dark review, Dr. Fate vs. Dr. Strange, our Blade review, Zatanna vs. Scarlet Witch, our Swamp Thing review, or Constantine vs. Brother Voodoo. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast on Spotify or Patreon, both of which will provide you with an RSS feed to use in your own podcast app. And on Patreon you also get bonus

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blooper reels, watch along parties and more. It's only $2 a month to subscribe on Spotify or Patreon and you could do so by visiting dynamicduel.com slash subscribe, which is linked in our show notes. I want to quickly reach out to one of our executive producers who happens to be sick with COVID at this time. Guys, stay safe out there. We're definitely not out of this COVID thing yet. Get vaccinated if you can and well wishes to anyone who is currently sick out there. Yeah, man, if you're listening, get well soon. We're rooting for you.

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We also want to give a shout out to patron Lizzie Dyer, whose birthday was a few days ago. Happy birthday. If I had to give you a gift from Marvel, I would give you Hawkeye's quiver of trick arrows, including, you know, his birthday candle lighting arrows, which you know he totally has. Like a lighter arrow? Yeah, yeah. He just, you know, shoots across the wicks and it lights everything. Interesting. Lizzie, if I could get you a gift from DC, it would be Big Barter's Mega Rod. Way cooler than a bag of arrows.

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Well, I mean, if she doesn't like the gift, there's no receipt. So, whatever. But with that out of the way, quick, to the No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans. Our version, the dynamic dual No Prize, is a digital award we post on social media that Jonathan draws for those who we feel gave the best answer to our Question of the Week.

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Last week's question coming off the news that Marvel is going to do a Halloween special in 2022 based on the werewolf by night character, we asked, what's a cool Marvel or DC holiday special that you would like to see? We got some awesome answers for this one. Let's go ahead and run down our honorable mentions as well as the no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Michael Haggerty, who said, hello boys, Michael Haggerty here. I want to see a Justice League Dark Christmas Carol with Constantine or Constantine based on your regional preference.

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As Ebenezer Scrooge, there's already ghosts in Just League Dark and there's ghosts in Christmas Carol. So it kind of matches up perfectly. The only question left is who would be little Timmy? Who would be God bless us everyone? What character would play that character? I think that's the bigger question, but that's my answer. All right, boys, gotta go, bye. A Christmas Carol featuring John Constantine is probably one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever heard come out of a question of the week. John Constantine is totally like a selfish Scrooge.

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So for him to be visited by the ghosts from his past totally makes sense. And as for the Timmy character, that's obvious. Astralogue, the little girl he tried and failed to save at Newcastle from the demon Nurgall. Oh my gosh dude, Michael Haggerty, you blew my mind. I think a better Tiny Tim would be Damien Wayne, Robin. That is a terrible idea. Why? Because Constantine trying to save Astralogue in the same way that Scrooge tries to save Tiny Tim just writes itself. What about like Snapper Car?

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Get the fuck out of here. That's rude, you're like a screwed yourself. This story needs to happen, I swear. Our next honorable mention goes to Miggy Mathenkean, who said. Hey, what's up guys, it's Miggy, and I would love to see a Cinco de Mayo DC holiday special. I think it would just be really dope to see Jaime Reyes, Jessica Cruz, and Cisco Ramon just like all, you know, get together, just celebrate the holiday, and then maybe have to team up against like Bain. Now to my knowledge, they don't actually celebrate Cinco de Mayo in Mexico.

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Yeah, it's much more celebrated in America. But, you know, Cisco, Jaime, and Jessica are all, you know, Latin American. So I think it works. Are they all Mexican American? Well, Blue Beetle is Mexican American. Cisco, I think, is Puerto Rican. And I guess Jessica is half Mexican, half Honduran. And of course, Bain is from a Latin Caribbean country, right? Like a riff on Cuba. Yeah, Santa Prisca. But you know what? They still come together to celebrate. Yeah, it's kind of just like a drinking holiday, right? It's like...

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It's like St. Patrick's Day, just an excuse to drink. It'd be cool if they all got drunk and then tried to fight Bane, who was also drunk. And then they all come together to recognize the official meaning of the holiday, which was the Mexican defeat over the French on the 5th of May. Yep, there you go. Our final honorable mention goes to Michael Harald, who said, Hey guys, it's Michael Harald. So I think the holiday special I'd like to see would be Lego Batman in live action with a Will Arnett and all them doing Mother's Day and Father's Day to see them hamming it up over not having his parents.

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or really just any holiday. I think that could be pretty funny. Yeah, maybe live action can work. I still love Lego Batman in his animated form. I really wish they would make a sequel to the first movie because I really liked it. Well, Lego Batman is pretty funny. I'll admit that I've always wanted to see Will Arnett, who does the voice for Lego Batman, dressed up in the bat suit and do his shtick in live action. I think that would be pretty cool to see. And considering that Batman has no parents, it would be interesting to see.

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him do a holiday special on Mother's Day or Father's Day. Or in the case of Lego Batman, who prefers to be called Padre, Padre's Day. I think it would definitely build upon the movie where we see Batman take Robin on as a father. So you know, you can learn about the true meaning of fatherhood. Before we announce the winner of this week's No Prize, we want to give a quick shout out to Corey Wooten, who took the time to visit our site and record an answer. Yeah, his answer of Santa Claus was really good also. But the winner of this week's No Prize...

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goes to someone who only identified themselves as the man who said, Hello Marvelous Joe and Johnny DC. Stan Lee here. How about we get a holiday special featuring yours truly? Just an idea. Thank you, true believers for keeping the spirit of Marvel strong. Excelsior. That impression, if it was an impression that wasn't actually just Stan Lee speaking to us from beyond the grave, that was so good.

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That was incredible. I don't even understand how an impression is possibly that good. It sounded just like him. Not only did it sound like him with like the cadence and everything, it sounded like what Stan Lee would actually say. I'm just blown away by this impression, and that's why he gets this week's no prize. But also, it would be really cool to see a Stan Lee holiday special where he celebrates just any holiday visiting his favorite creations from Marvel. I've got chills. It's so spot on.

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There's got to be like only a few people in the world that can do an impression that good. If this guy is not getting paid to do Stanley impressions, he should be. Because my first impression to hearing that was actually fright. You know, I was like, oh my God, that was actually him. And I really want to believe that it is. Well, you know, maybe that reaction is appropriate for this Halloween themed duel we have coming up. You know, what's interesting, though, is that Stanley actually died three years almost to the day.

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so this episode is being done on the anniversary of his passing. But congrats again to The Man for winning this week's No Prize. If you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize, stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another Question of the Week. And now that that's done, on to the news!

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All right, this past Friday was Disney Plus Day. I didn't even really know that was gonna be a thing until like a few weeks beforehand. But basically, it kind of served as a news event for what the past year held on Disney Plus as well as what's to come. Yeah, it was kind of like a lame version of the DC fandom, right? If by lame you mean better with more news, then yeah, lame. I didn't mean that. We got quite a few.

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Surprise announcements in addition to first looks at some of the upcoming shows that were announced a while ago Including Moon Knight she Hulk and Ms. Marvel We'll go over those first looks first starting with Moon Knight Which is kind of turning out to be way different than I thought it was gonna be it looks definitely more mature than any other Disney plus show that has come out so far almost like a Netflix series looking show It looks dark which is great because it's a Moon Knight so it should seeing him just like

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clobber some guy on the ground in this white cape and hood was kind of frightening. Yeah, the costume looks really good in the comics. When you draw an all white costume, you can still really hide it through shadow. But in live action, he looks very immaculate, almost priestly in his garb, which is, yeah, kind of like haunting, you know, seeing him leap across that night sky with the crescent moon in the background was everything I wanted it to be. It was so freaking cool.

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It's everything I've ever wanted to see in a Batman movie. Well, Batman can't leap across a whole city street. What? He can leap across an alley, sure, but he's not superhuman. He can grapple across a city street. I mean, he could glide though. That's true, that's true. But if you're aware of the Moon Knight character, you know that he has strength that waxes and wanes with the phases of the moon, so it's apt here. I think the thing that shocked me the most though was Oscar Isaac's voices that he does for his different personalities.

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Like his Mark Spector or maybe Jake Lockley has a British accent, which was interesting compared to his Moon Knight voice, which is very dark and almost Batman-esque. It was really cool. Kind of creepy, which again is pretty good and pretty apt. We don't get a lot of footage here, but the fact that Oscar Isaac seems to be as confused with what we're seeing as you know, we are is a good sign. I think. Yeah. He's switching in and out of his multiple personalities. The way the show seems to be handling that looks fascinating.

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Just like Fight Club, like how we describe the character in our duel episode with him against Batman. Oh, like Tyler Durden? Yeah, exactly. I'm definitely looking forward to this one. We don't have a release date, do we? No, we don't have release dates for any of these. They all say that they're just streaming soon. So next year sometime. The next first look that we got was of Ms. Marvel. We didn't get a look at her costume or of her using her powers, really. We do see this like purple energy emanate from her. But it was the first live-action footage we're getting from the show.

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We see her kind of struggle with her identity as a hero, her family praying as Muslims, and claiming that heroes don't usually look like brown girls from Jersey. The only costume that we really see her in is when she's wearing her Captain Marvel Halloween costume, which I think is what maybe a lot of us would do as kids if we first discover superpowers and we don't have any sort of like tailor, you know? We'll just put on the superhero costume of the hero that we admire the most.

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I like that angle here as kind of a nod to her origin in the comic books and the origin of her superhero name. We do get to see her like running across the sky, which I thought was interesting. I'm really curious to see how they're going to depict her power. Yeah, it's not going to be stretching really like how it is in the comics. Essentially, it looks like her bangle that she wears on her wrist, which she wears in the comics as an heirloom, that's going to be the source of her superpowers. It emanates like this personal energy field around her.

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that she can manipulate in a way that is akin to stretching, like enlarging her fists or stretching her legs out or something like that. It's gotta be like Kree technology or something, right? Perhaps. It's an interesting take. I think they're doing it, one, for special effects reasons, two, to make it so that Mr. Fantastic is the first elastic hero within the MCU, and three, to make all of the Marvel's characters in the upcoming The Marvel's film all energy-based, including Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Photon.

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Makes sense. The next first look we got was of She-Hulk, and this was our first glimpse of the logo, which I thought was pretty weird. It almost looks something like the practice or Ally McBeal or something like that. Like Nip Tuck. Yeah, Nip Tuck, yeah, that was interesting. It looks very like 90s legal drama. And I wonder if that's the vibe that the show is going for, because toward the end of this teaser, which starts off with Jennifer Walters introducing herself, and then we see a glimpse of her in her She-Hulk form, at the end.

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She's like breaking the fourth wall like the character does in the comics, speaking to the audience and saying, don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry. And that setting in which she does it looks very 90s. I was gonna say 70s. Yeah, could be 70s. Anywhere between like the 70s and 90s, I would say. Okay. I wonder if it's gonna be like a lawyer commercial or something like that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's happening there. It's really strange that like Bruce Banner was just kind of...

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standing still in the background. I wonder if like everybody freezes in the show as she speaks to the audience in the same way like saved by the bell or something like that. I never knew that She-Hulk broke the fourth wall in the comics. That seems so weird to me. Yeah, she used to do all the time way before Deadpool was doing it. It does look like they're gonna go the CG route with She-Hulk just like the Hulk and not just like paint her skin green. I hope the special effects on Tatiana Maslany are as good as they are on Mark Ruffalo.

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I'll be really interested to see like the facial expressions on this character design. Timeline-wise, it appears like this may take place in between the events of Avengers Endgame and Shang-Chi because we see the Hulk here in his Professor Hulk form. But I can't be certain on that. Maybe Mark Ruffalo can still change back and forth while still retaining his personality. I was gonna say that this takes place before because the Hulk's arm isn't like scarred and broken and damaged. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point.

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We'll see when the show comes out next year. So that was really it for the first looks. We did get a brief glimpse of Samuel L. Jackson's character as he's going to appear in Secret Invasion, in which he has a longer beard and isn't wearing the eye patch, which is interesting. Makes me suspect he's a Skrull. Right off the bat. We also got announcements that they're coming out with a season two of What If, which we already knew. But we did get new announcements of shows that were not announced previously by Disney Plus, including Echo, which will be a spinoff of the Hawkeye series.

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Marvel Zombies, which might be an animated spin-off of What If? Agatha House of Harkness, which is definitely a spin-off of WandaVision. And most surprisingly, a show called Spider-Man Freshman Year, which will be animated, perhaps voiced by Tom Holland or maybe the actor who did Spider-Man's voice in What If? But basically it looks like it's going to recount Spider-Man's origin story within the MCU. Which is really cool, because we never got to see that. Yeah, I'm excited for this, for sure. They also announced that they will be doing more

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X-Men cartoons, like the 90s version of the X-Men. I was surprised that they put the Marvel Studios banner above that one, considering it's not part of the MCU though. No, it's like an alternate universe X-Men, kind of. It's great that they're bringing that back though. Hopefully with better animation and fingers crossed it's the same voice cast. This will be Marvel Studios first X-Men project, which is also exciting. Oh yeah, so much to look forward to. Way better than that fan dome crap, who needs that when you have Disney Plus Day? Oh gosh. Yay logos!

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Yay for logos. Marvel fans always excited by them logos. I mean, we didn't even get a logo for Blue Beetle or Batgirl. So how about that? No, we got to see concept art of them in costume. Oh, concept art. Yay. Whatever, dude. All I'm saying is I got way more pumped from this news than I did at the fandom. I'm sorry. What's your name again? Marvelous Joe? OK, that makes sense. I can't wait till we get dates on all of these. It looks like next year is going to be just as big of a year as 2021 was. Lots to look forward to. Lots to review.

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Too much Marvel stuff to watch. Ugh. But regarding all the news to come out at Disney Plus Day, that brings us to our question of the week.

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What was your favorite news to come out of Disney Plus Day and why? Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message can be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and draw that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to social media. Be sure to answer before November 20th. But that does it for the news for this episode.

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Thanks to HBO Max for sponsoring this episode. Now let's go ahead and get into our main event where we find out who would win in a fight between the supernatural teams of DC's Justice League Dark and Marvel's Midnight Suns.

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Okay, Justice League Dark versus the Midnight Suns. These are both DC and Marvel's most prominent, supernatural super teams. Though I gotta be honest, I only learned about the Midnight Suns like earlier this year. Well, yeah, I told you about them when we were trying to come up with our next team duel episode. I thought it would be really cool since Episode 250 was gonna land around the same time as Halloween to do a kind of Halloween themed team duel. Right.

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It's a little disappointing that we're two weeks past Halloween now, but that's just how the episodes fell. Basically, we didn't want to skip a review because then we'd be pushing back all of the review episodes that we were going to do. But to me, it was never the end of the Halloween season until we got to this episode. I'm going to get right back into it. Just jack-o-lanterns and black cats and autumn leaves falling in the dead of night. That's where my mind is at right now. Yeah, the duel is supposed to not take place in any kind of environment.

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But that's the environment I'm going to be imagining for this matchup. Now the only prime exposure I have to Justice League Dark is the movie that we reviewed a couple years ago, the animated film Justice League Dark, and its sequel, Justice League Dark Apocalypse War. Yeah, that wasn't quite a sequel specifically to Justice League Dark. I'm not sure why they called that film Justice League Dark Apocalypse War. It probably should have just been like Apocalypse War. But yeah, both of those films featured characters from Justice League Dark. Back when we started this podcast too,

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We were talking about how Guillermo del Toro was supposed to make a Justice League Dark movie. I think he was calling it Dark Universe at the time, and that seemed like it was really cool. Still waiting for that to materialize. But I guess that JJ Abrams is working on bringing some of those characters to the screen for HBO Max, like as we speak. So that's exciting. Yeah, and sometime in 2022, we're supposed to get a Midnight Suns video game, which I think will be the primary exposure of that team to the world at large.

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It is spelled S-U-N-S, which the developer did to make the team seem more inclusive. And in that video game, the team is actually named after a rare astronomical event, during which time the demon character Lilith attempts to resurrect C'thun, the Elder God of Chaos. So I actually think that's pretty cool. I think the name reads cooler with S-U-N-S, and I do think that Marvel will follow suit with the next incarnation of the team. So the title of this podcast will use that newer spelling.

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S-U-N-S? Yeah. Well, I can't wait to learn more about them. If you've never listened to one of our duel episodes before, the way we determine a winner for these two teams is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations using their statistics. And actually it's more than 1000 when we do team duels, we're actually comparing matrices of data. Yeah, between each character, so it's 49,000 Monte Carlo simulations technically. Friggin' crazy. It takes a long time. Now if you're wondering what a Monte Carlo simulation is,

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It's a probabilistic model used to determine outcomes through random sampling. And in our case, it randomizes statistics along a normal distribution, which is a bell curve as a way to simulate the many variables that can occur during battle. The stat parameters we use are based on the official Marvel Power Grid, and we use that criteria to extrapolate the DC character stats. We've included some additional stat categories of our own, such as range, damage potential, versatility, and perception.

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in order to create a more complete and robust simulation. Running these 1000 simulations gives us a percentage of wins for each team, and we declare the team with the higher percentage to be the ultimate victor considering that they're more likely to win any given battle. No characters ever win 100% of the time. Comics have shown that there's always a way for Batman to defeat Superman, so we feel our method falls in line with the precedents that have been established in the comic book stories.

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And we used this method because it was the least subjective, most unbiased way to determine who would win. Of course, we are both heavily biased toward our respective allegiances, and instead of debating these matches forever, we just let the math decide for us. So there's no fan votes here, and no relying on just feats. Before we run the simulations though, we like to break down each team's histories and rosters, before improvising a scenario on how we imagine one of these simulations would play out beat for beat.

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It's been a while since we've done a duel episode. Yeah, I think not since Manbat vs Morbius, like almost a month. It's crazy. It's crazy. So many reviews. But I think it's my turn to go first with the DC backstory, so let me tell you all about Justice League Dark. Now, though the most recent iteration of the team is known as Justice League Dark, the Magic-based group is much less renowned than the popular superteam, the Justice League, which you can learn more about in our 100th episode, Justice League vs Avengers.

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Justice League Dark actually has its roots in a team known as the Sentinels of Magic, which emerged in the Day of Judgment storyline where the demon Etrigan tricked the hostless spirit of vengeance known as the Spectre to bond with the fallen angel Asmodel in Hell. With his new, nearly limitless power, Asmodel caused Hell to freeze over and unleashed hordes of demons on Earth as well as powerful, evil spirits such as the Enchantress.

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With the Justice League and Justice Society overwhelmed, magicians, sorcerers, and occultists from around the world joined together, namely Zatanna, the Phantom Stranger, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, Raven, Ragman, Faust, Doctor Occult, and the Green Lantern, Ellen Scott, in order to stop Asmodel and find a new host for the Spectre. After slaying the Enchantress to reignite the fires of Hell, the Sentinels helped the

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who you can learn more about in our Green Lantern vs Nova episode. Eventually, Hull Jordan was separated from the Spectre's spirit, which was manipulated by the spirit of wrath known as Eclipso, into destroying all magic. You can learn more about this in our Spectre vs Galactus episode. Now, after the Spectre destroyed the Rock of Eternity, an incapacitated sorcerer is powerful enough to stop him, such as Dr. Fate and Madam Xanadu, several other magic users banded together

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to take a stand against the Spectre, including a resurrected Enchantress, Blue Devil, Ragman, Nightmaster, Nightshade, and Detective Chimp, forming a team known as Shadow Pact. Though Zatanna wasn't an official member of the team, she and other magical heroes did help them reform the Rock of Eternity. Shadow Pact was unsuccessful in stopping the hostless Spectre, whose threat to magic was

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by Heaven after the Spectre killed the powerful ancient wizards Shazam and Naboo. Shadow Pact remained together, operating out of the Oblivion Bar, which existed in a pocket dimension accessible to magic users, and taking on new members such as the angel Zareel, who you can learn more about in our Zareel vs Archangel episode. Together, they defeated magical threats to Earth from groups such as the Pentechol and the Congregation, and they stopped villains like Dr. Gotham.

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In post-Flashpoint continuity, DC's premier Magic team became known as Justice League Dark, a team initially consisting of John Constantine, Zatanna, Deadman, Shade, Mindwarp, and Madame Xanadu, the latter of whom brought the team together to stop the succubus Enchantress after she became unbound to her host, June Moon, and defeated the Justice League. Constantine was able to re-bind Enchantress to June Moon,

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and the team disbanded for a short time before coming together again, sans mind warp, to fend off Kane and his legion of vampires. Joined by the vampire Andrew Bennett from the series I, Vampire, the team defeated Kane, drawing the attention of the government agency Argus, who actually gave the team the name Justice League Dark. Argus commissioned the League to stop the sorcerer Faust, who planned on taking control of all magic using the Books of Magic. That's a clever name.

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That was the name of the Timothy Hunter book written by Neil Gaiman for Vertigo. Now after accidentally unleashing the Demons III, a trio of powerful demons under Faust's control, the team discovered Faust was actually working for Nick Necro, the mentor to both Constantine and Zatanna. With the help of Black Orchid, Frankenstein, Amethyst, and the boy sorcerer Timothy Hunter, Nick Necro was defeated. During the Trinity War storyline,

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Wonder Woman approached the League in order to help determine how a mystic artifact known as Pandora's Box was able to manipulate Superman into killing. The Box, Constantine discovered, was actually a gateway to Earth-3, home to the Crime Syndicate and the likes of evil Justice League doppelgangers like Ultraman, Superwoman, and Owlman, who broke through Pandora's Box and trapped all the members of the Justice League, Justice League of America, and Justice League Dark.

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Constantine, however, was rescued by the Justice League Dark's base of operations, the sentient and interdimensional House of Mystery. With the help of Nightmare Nurse, Swamp Thing, the Phantom Stranger, Pandora, Zareal, and Deadman, the latter of whom also escaped capture, Constantine located Zatanna, and together, they stopped Nick Necro and Faust again, who had partnered with the Crime Syndicate, but this time, they stopped him in Nandaparbat.

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which you can learn more about in our Dead Man vs. Magic episode. Their battle there eventually awakened an evil old god of Nandaparbat, Pantheon, whom the Justice League Dark managed to defeat. When their House of Mystery merged with Nick Necro's House of Secrets to form the House of Wonder, the League was forced to destroy it since it had become powerful enough to conquer the planet. After the events of Dark Knight's Metal resulted in a break in the Source Wall, Magic was thrown into flux.

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and Wonder Woman formed a new Justice League Dark Team in response. This team initially consisted of Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Detective Chimp, Manbat, and Swamp Thing, though it wasn't long before Constantine got involved in a battle against the hostless spirit of Naboo, as Dr. Fate, who was trying to destroy the chaos of magic by summoning the Upside-Down Man and the other kind to devour it. Wonder Woman was able to fend off the Upside-Down Man, however,

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thanks to a burgeoning magical ability that she later learned was derived from the Greek goddess of magic, Hecate. After Hecate corrupted and took control of Wonder Woman and several other magic heroines, including Black Orchid, Manitou Dawn, and Witchfire, Wonder Woman used the Upside-Down Men to devour Hecate and free the women from her curse. After Detective Chip inherited the Sword of Nightmaster, he was able to transfer many heroes to the Mystic Realm of Myrrah.

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including Swamp Thing, Etrigan, and Deadman, where they would be safe from being devoured by the upside down man and his other kind. Naboo and the other Lords of Order, however, were able to invade the realm and began stripping the citizens there of magic. Zatanna and Wonder Woman, meanwhile, were transformed into Lords of Chaos for a time by the Chaos Lord Mordru, and the League defeated the Lords of Order with Wonder Woman bringing magic back to the world.

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With Wonder Woman's arch-nemesis Cersei now in control of Hecate's magic, Cersei formed an Injustice League Dark villain team, in which she allowed herself to be possessed by Eclipso and teamed up with Floronic Man, Clarion the Witch Boy, Papa Midnight, and Solomon Grundy. Thanks to help from the Upside-Down Men and the other kind, the League was able to stop the Injustice League Dark. Recently, the Injustice League Dark team became more closely partnered with the Justice League,

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became a new official member of the team as the most powerful and dangerous sorcerer, Merlin, was resurrected. And that's the team's history so far. Now there are a ton of magic-based superheroes in DC, many of whom have been members of the Justice League Dark and its previous incarnations. One character that has been in almost every iteration of the team, however, is Zatanna. So she was a no-brainer, as was Constantine, who's not the biggest team player,

33:19
but a powerful and popular figure in DC's world of magic. Like Zatanna and Constantine, Deadman was an original member of the first Justice League Dark team, so he's in, as is Swamp Thing, who was also there early on thanks to his ties to Constantine. A lot of these characters so far have had their own Vertigo titles, so in keeping with that, I wanted to include Black Orchid on the team since she was a more prominent member of the initial team than characters like F-

33:47
Frankenstein Amethyst or the Vampire Andrew Bennett. Since what Roman took over the team, both Detective Chimp and Manbat have become mainstays, though of the two, I opted for Manbat due to his versatility. And finally, I chose my seventh team member to be Etrigan. He's only been a member of the Justice League Dark for a short time, but Jason Blood is often depicted as being on the team in other media and alternate timelines, including the

34:16
and even Guillermo del Toro's Justice League Dark script. So that's my team. Yeah, that makes sense. What do you think of the name Justice League Dark? Because you mentioned their previous incarnations as like the Sentinels of Magic and stuff. I think that's way better and less derivative. Yeah, it's named Justice League Dark so that it sells, but I would much prefer a team name of like Shadow Pact or something like that for sure. Or even like Constantine's like old band name, Yookus Membrane. I'm sure he would have voted for that over Justice League Dark.

34:45
Yeah, I think when it comes to the names of these teams, Midnight Suns is just way better. And actually, they're just a better team in general when you think about it. And I think our listeners agree when they compare the Justice League Dark backstory to the Midnight Suns backstory. Okay, let's hear it. So the story of the Midnight Suns goes back hundreds of years, beginning as an ancient secret order of protectors with the mission of stopping supernatural threats to humanity.

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Their ranks included members that were reputed to have a taste of damnation, those with some measure of exposure to the darkness of paranormal, mystical, and hellish evils on Earth. Their greatest feat among battling the likes of Dracula was the defeat of Lilith, the mother of all demons and former wife of the devil himself. The Midnight Suns cast her and her children, the Lilin, to a dark dimensional prison called the Shadow Side.

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though it was prophesied among the Order that she would one day return and that nine of their own would stand against her. That day came hundreds of years later when Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, detected a rift in the Shadow Side and that Lilith would soon escape and come back to Earth. He knew that he couldn't face her himself because the magical energies that would stem from the battle would weaken the dimensional barriers between the two realms, and so he would have to gather the nine together that were foretold in the prophecy.

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Doctor Strange reached out to his occasional ally, Johnny Blaze, who was host to Ghost Rider, the vengeful demon, and his brother, Ketch, who was host to the Spirit of Vengeance, both of whom had also seen a vision of Lilith's return. On their motorcycles, the brothers traveled to gather Doctor Strange's recruits, including the reluctant pseudo-vampire Morbius, and the group known as the Nightstalkers, who were Hannibal King, the self-loathing vampire detective, Frank Drake, a descendant of Dracula, and the daywalker, Blade.

36:36
the Vampire Hunter. The last of their recruits were three experts on the occult and the Darkhold, a book of black magic. They were Victoria Montessi, Sam Buchanan, and Louise Hastings, together known as the Darkhold Redeemers. Dude, the Books of Magic is a way better name than the Darkhold. I noticed you can't help but hide that smile as you say that. That's right. The prophesied nine collectively battled and killed four of the Lilin, and

37:06
who managed to escape, though she was severely weakened. Though the nine heroes fulfilled the prophecy and sealed the rift in the Shadowside, they knew that Lilith would soon sire more children and try to conquer Earth's realm again. They maintained a loose connection, though one day Blade, in his desire to obliterate all vampires from existence, tried to use a spell from the Darkhold to do so. This backfired, transforming him into the possessed Switchblade, who went on a supernatural killing spree.

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He murdered many of the prophesied Nine, though the Darkhold Redeemers were able to use the book to counter the spell and undo the damage that Blade had caused. Reunited, the group of Nine learned that Lilith had partnered with the demon Xerathos, who had opened a portal to the Shadow Side within Salem Field Cemetery. Xerathos is the Ghost Raider? Yeah, this demon was not connected to Johnny Blaze at the time. Okay. The prophesied Nine traveled to the cemetery to try to stop Lilith and her Lilin again,

38:04
though they were overwhelmed and had to flee with the help of the Caretaker. They regrouped at Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, where it was discovered that Morbius was a traitor to the Nine due to an infection with Lilin blood. They were overrun again, leading Dr. Strange to cast a spell that magically detonated his Sanctum, killing the Lilin inside. They helped Morbius fight off his infection, and traveled back to the cemetery and used a magic medallion provided by the Caretaker to send Lilith back to the Shadow Side.

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They also defeated Xerathos and his followers using a mystic sword, though throughout the whole ordeal, several members of the Nine fell in battle. With Lilith finally gone for good, the surviving members, including Ghost Rider, Strange, Blade, and Morbius, underwent a ceremony in which they were branded with the mark of the Midnight Suns, a flaming dagger that resembles a small cross, officially making them members of the ancient order.

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Years later, a zombie virus infiltrated Earth's realm through the nexus of all realities, located in the swamp where the creature known as Manthing lived. Morbius saw the need for a supernatural fighting force to return and formed a new Midnight Suns group consisting of himself, Jennifer Kael, who is Ghost Rider's cousin, Hellstorm, the son of Satan, Jack Russell, the werewolf by night, and Manthing. Though Morbius' zombie cure failed,

39:26
the team was able to mystically transfer the virus into one person named Simon Garth, aka Zombie, a man who was already undead due to a voodoo curse. Later, the city of Las Vegas was burned down and sent to hell during a takeover by the criminal organization Hydra. The city was resurrected using magic, but while it was in hell, Mephisto had created a casino called Hotel Inferno. It was brought to earth with the rest of Vegas, where gamblers could bet-

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their very souls. Holy crap! Doctor Strange made a deal with Mephisto where if Strange won, the casino's souls would be set free and Mephisto and the Hotel Inferno would return to hell. If Strange lost, Mephisto could claim his soul. Notified of the wager, Strange's assistant, Wong, summoned the Midnight Suns again, including Blade, Ghost Rider, and Man-Thing, with new recruits Brother Voodoo, Moon Knight, Iron Fist, Scarlet Spider, and Elsa Bloodstone.

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Together, they traveled to Vegas and fought Mephisto's Demon Army. Ghost Rider fought Mephisto head on, who killed Johnny Blaze and sent him to Hell. There, Blaze and the Spirit of Vengeance freed the Casino's captured souls from their vault and usurped the Crown and Throne of Hell, cutting Mephisto off from his power. The rest of the team then defeated the Demon Lord and saved Doctor Strange's soul. That's the comics team history.

40:50
I did want to note that the upcoming video game that renames the team to Midnight Suns with a U does recruit other Mystic heroes such as Niko Minoru, a former Runaways character, and the new mutant member known as Magic. Which makes sense. Yeah. For this team duel, I chose seven members to represent the Midnight Suns. Doctor Strange, who is Marvel's foremost Magic hero and who was the initial recruiter for this present-day incarnation of the Order. Ghost Rider.

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first gathered the team and is also a supernatural heavy hitter. Blade and Morbius, both original members with vampiric abilities. Man-Thing who is recruited into Morbius's team and whom I've always thought was pretty creepy and cool. And lastly Brother Voodoo and Bloodstone, both newer recruits but also characters I think are badass and really grew to love during their individual duel episodes that we've done. Yeah if you want to learn more about the individual characters on each of our teams we've done duel episodes with all of them so...

41:46
Definitely go back and check out the catalog. It's only $2 on Spotify. I would have included characters like Moon Knight and Iron Fist, but of course they were in our last team duel where we pit the defenders against the Suicide Squad. So you have like two sorcerers in Doctor Strange and Brother Voodoo. You have two vampires in Morbius and Blade. You have a swamp monster in Man-Thing, a monster hunter in Bloodstone, and I guess a fiery demon in Ghost Rider. Bring them on, I'll take them. I'll take them all on.

42:15
Haha so cocky, we'll see how this plays out. Because now that we've gotten their histories and abilities out of the way, we're going to speculate on how one of the simulated matches will go. The winner is determined by simulations, not the speculation, but it is fun to imagine how this fight could play out. We don't set any rules for this match, other than the characters don't know anything about each other going in, except that the other team is a threat that needs to be put down. And we say that each team starts off about 50 meters apart.

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in an environment that has no bearing on the match itself because we don't take stats for the environment. Yeah, plus certain characters have advantages in some environments over others, and we want these teams to win on their own merit. So let's get into it. Justice League Dark and the Midnight Suns meet on the battlefield. Who goes first? I could guarantee you right away that Constantine, he's just gonna look at this whole situation and be like, oh bloody hell, and then just like make himself disappear from the situation. Where does he go? He just...

43:14
Turns himself invisible. All right, so Dr. Strange, he's gonna use his Eye of Agamotto. You know, he's gonna fly into the air and the eye is gonna glow and shine an eye symbol onto the foreheads of each of his teammates on the Midnight Suns, which is gonna grant them the Eye of Agamotto's sight. Right, so that means that throughout the course of this match, they can see through any illusion or hidden being, including Deadman and the now hidden Constantine. What? I feel like that's cheating.

43:42
Swamp Thing, he's gonna start things off just by shoving his hands like into the ground and he's gonna cover the floor beneath the Midnight Suns with foliage and branches before they even get a chance to move, right? And he's just gonna grab their ankles and hold them in place. While Etch again, he's gonna breathe out a blast of hellfire that just sets that foliage ablaze and he just burns the shit out of the Midnight Suns where they stand with hellfire. You know that like half this team is like immune to fire, right? What do you mean? I guess it's just-

44:11
Ghost Rider and Brother Voodoo. But actually, you know what? Brother Voodoo, not only can he control fire, he can also control plant life. So what Brother Voodoo is gonna do is he's just gonna handle this. He's gonna release the team from the branches that they're stuck in by commanding them to let go, and then he's just gonna manipulate the Hellfire so that it extinguishes before it burns anyone. So like, Dr. Voodoo was the ultimate defense against this attack. And with the team free, the Midnight Suns are just gonna rush forward and charge Justice League Dark.

44:40
The fastest one on the team out of anybody here, I think, is Ghost Rider. So on his motorcycle, he's going to be the first one across the battlefield. He's just going to ride right over to Swamp Thing, who's like the biggest guy on the Justice League Dark, and he's going to wrap Swamp Thing up in his Hellfire chains and just burn this plant man to a crisp. Is it like Swamp Thing? He goes up against fire guys all the time. I feel like he's just going to slough off the burnt parts, right? So he's probably just like a pair of legs right now, but he'll regrow. It's fine. So like the rest of the Midnight Sun's approach, the Justice League Dark.

45:10
Zatanna, she's just gonna summon forth magic armor for her entire team. She's just gonna be like Kegum Ram-ra-poo. What is that? That's magic armor up. What kind of armor is this? I don't know, it's like medieval kind of chest plate and shoulder armor and a helmet that's like made of light. Okay, even for Deadman? Who's not physical? Everyone except for a Deadman, alright? But Deadman, he's gonna fly into the body of Man-Thing, alright? And possess his body becoming Deadman-Thing.

45:40
And in this body, he's going to be attacking Blade, just taking him by surprise, grabs his arm, and just burns it with a sulfuric acid touch. Well, Blade wears a jacket, you know, it's like a thick, durable, heavy leather jacket. So, you know, that's going to protect him a little bit from this Man-Thing touch. But Blade is going to be surprised, yeah, and he's going to like slice off Man-Thing's arm as it's grabbing him. And he's going to like spin around, yanking off his jacket before the acid burns his flesh.

46:10
I could totally see that into Wesley Snipes' like, twirl. Yeah, and he's gonna finish off the twirl by slicing Man-Thing right in half at the waist. Which, you know, won't kill Man-Thing, but you know. Yeah, Man-Thing, he just regenerates, right? Exactly. So, Blade is probably gonna mouth like, What the fuck? Hahahaha! Just with like, what was the blood god's name? Like, yeah, from the movie. Yeah. So meanwhile, nearby Man-Bat, he's gonna unleash this debilitating scream at Elsa Bloodstone specifically.

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just dropping her to her knees. And as she's disoriented, he's gonna grab her with his talons, just swoop high above the battle, and just let her go, just drop her straight down. Okay, um, all right. As Elsa Bloodstone is falling, she's gonna throw up a dagger that sticks right into Manbat's leg, because she's just not pleased with what he just did to her. And right before she hits the ground, Doctor Strange is gonna save her by slowing her descent using the winds of Watomb. So she's fine.

47:08
and man bats like bleeding out from his leg. Oh, awesome, okay. Meanwhile, Morbius, he'll have snuck behind Zatanna at this point, and he's gonna attack her, biting her in between her helmet and shoulder armor, sinking his teeth into her neck. And this is gonna turn her into a vampire. So her skin turns white, her eyes glow red, nose flattens, fangs grow, and she'll now be known as Batanna, the pseudo-vampiris.

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Who is basically on the side of the Midnight Suns against her own team since she's like a familiar of Morbius I was gonna say, oh thanks for just leveling her up with like vampire powers But you're saying she's now under Morbius's command? Not under his command, but on his side So what she's gonna do is she's gonna yank Constantine out of his cowardly hiding spell and from her hat She's gonna pull this like army of vampire rabbits that just freaking pounce on Constantine and feast on him

48:05
They're like biniculas. Yeah, exactly, like binicula. She pulls out an army of biniculas from her hand now that she's a vampire. That's kind of cool. But like Constantine, he has demonic blood, which actually makes him immune to vampire bites. So these rabbits, they're just going to like explode upon biting him, all right? And he's going to pull out this like vial from his pocket, which is like an anathema for vampirism. And you're just going to throw it at Zatanna's feet and it's going to emit this smoke, like a smoke bomb.

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that transforms her back into her normal self. I mean, would he really have an anathema for pseudo vampirism? This works on, like, vampirism of any form. He's prepared for shit like this. Okay. Meanwhile, Black Orchid, she's going to be going up against Brother Voodoo, and she's going to emit these pheromones that control him into shooting a magic blast at Ghost Rider, just knocking him straight off of his hell cycle. Right on his ass. Okay, so it's a lot of teammate turning on teammate here, huh? Yeah. Well, Brother Voodoo is, you know,

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easily manipulated by external forces because within him resides the spirit of his brother. So Daniel, his brother, he flies out of his brother and like shakes him out of this daze that he's in. And brother Voodoo is able to prevent further pheromone control on him by using this like special Voodoo herb mixture that counteracts the pheromones. And then Daniel the spirit is going to go off and freaking tackle Deadman thing which pushes Deadman out of the body. And those two are just going to start fighting as ghosts.

49:34
Okay, okay. And as payback for manipulating Kim, Brother Voodoo is gonna in return manipulate Black Orchid. Since she is part plant and he can command plants, he's gonna like freeze her in place where she stands as he just strikes her in the head with his staff of legba. Oh, you mean he strikes her in her magic helmet? Oh yeah, that's stupid magic armor. It's still around, I gotta get rid of that. Edrigan meanwhile, he's trying to attack Dr. Strange, just slashing through.

50:02
His magic shields laughing and rhyming about how he's gonna feast on his entrails, you know? Jesus. And finally, he's gonna break through Dr. Strange's defenses and shields, alright? And Etrigan, he's just gonna bloody Dr. Strange with his teeth, claws, and superior strength. Because Etrigan's like Hulk strength, remember? With magic. Okay, yeah, I think that would mess Dr. Strange up if he started getting like pummeled by Etrigan. So he's probably gonna be near death, but he's gonna raise up his hand, and he's gonna call upon the Spear of the Seraphim.

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to just fall from the sky and impale Edrigan where he stands, like right through his armor and everything. And since it's from the Seraphim, you know, Seraphim are angels. So it's just gonna freaking cause Edrigan to explode in this bright, holy light that exercises the demon and sends him back to hell, leaving just the human, Jason Blood, in his place. And this holy light explosion is gonna be so powerful that it's also going to demolish the magic armor that everybody's wearing. What? Conveniently. Like what, shatter?

51:02
Yeah, it's like a angelic light spear, you know, it carries a big punch. I feel like that's a really random way to get rid of the armor, but okay. It's magic. No question it. Okay. Uh, but by this time Swamp Thing, he's regrown his body and he's going to see the vampire Morbius and he's going to turn his hand into like this wooden stake and he's just going to quickly stretch out his arm, running the wooden stick right through Morbius' heart as he was gliding through the air. That doesn't work on Morbius. He's not a real vampire. It's.

51:31
Stakes through the heart don't actually do anything, nor do holy water or garlic or things like that. I'm pretty sure getting impaled would do something to Morbius. I mean it would, like he'll be out of commission for a bit as he regenerates his heart using his healing factor. But you know, he's not out of the match. And suddenly, like swamp thing, his head freakin' explodes into shredded lettuce. Because Bloodstone is gonna unleash two Goliath rounds from her shotguns at him point blank. Goliath rounds? Yeah, it's like getting hit with a bus.

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I guess it's a good thing that Swamp Thing doesn't really care about that. He'll be fine. Meanwhile, Manbat, he's gonna dive bomb right into Manthing at full speed, just splattering him into canned spinach. Like all over the battlefield. Oh, really? Yeah. You do know that Manthing is full of like, sulfuric acid. So he's like splattered all over Manbat, meaning Manbat essentially is just burning himself alive. I take it back! That was a really dumb move.

52:30
And then- and then Man-Thing, he's gonna reform from the splatter, and Manbat's like, he's done for. He's burned all over his body, like his flesh is burning off all over his body, and he's just gonna finish Manbat off by ripping off Manbat's Manbat-Thing. What? He's done, he's out. Manbat dies. He can't survive that. What a way to go. That was literally like the worst death we've ever had in any of these team duels. That was so dumb. Manbat is dead now, but-

53:00
Meanwhile, Deadman, using his superior agility, he's gonna evade this Daniel brother voodoo ghost, and he's gonna leap into Bloodstone's body, and he's gonna use her red gem to blast Daniel, like, out of existence. Okay, yeah, I mean, it's a magic blast. I think he could do that, yeah. And then, he's gonna take one of her knives and use it to slice her own throat, like cutting off the Bloodstone, which causes Morbius to become, like, overwhelmed with blood

53:30
drink her dry, removing bloodstone from the match. That's messed up. Well, I mean, like Morbius was regrowing a heart at this time. But I guess the sight of seeing bloodstone bleed from her neck would compel him to gather his strength to go feast on that because he can't help himself. But the bloodstone makes her blood toxic to vampires. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Dead men cut that off when he slit her throat, too. So OK, so Morbius takes out bloodstone, which is fucked up and like Blade is going to be like really pissed off.

53:59
You know, he's not having any of that shit. That's everything that he stands against. So Blade would at this point probably kill Morbius for killing Bloodstone. This is an interesting turn of, I'm gonna allow this. I'm gonna allow this. I mean, it's what would happen. I think, so he's gonna chop off Morbius' head, pick it up and like shove it in front of Dead Man's face since he can see him, you know, due to the Eye of Agamotto spell. So Morbius' vampiric eyes, they're gonna mesmerize Dead Man

54:29
giving Doctor Strange enough time to freaking cast Deadman into like the dark dimension. Deadman's gone. Wait, so Blade decapitated Morbius, but used his vampiric gaze from his head to stun Deadman? Yeah, yes, yes, yes. Like, uh, Perseus did with Medusa. I just recently watched Clash of the Titans. That may be where I'm getting this from. Okay, Deadman's gone, but meanwhile, Constantine and Jason Blood, they're gonna be working together on exercising Xerathos.

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from Ghost Rider, who I imagine is back on his bike and you know is pretty hard to capture, alright? Yeah. Now Dr. Strange killed Etrigen, but that just sends Etrigen back to hell, where Jason Blood can resummon him. So as Constantine is distracting Ghost Rider, that's what Jason Blood does. He's like gone, gone, oh form of man. No, no, no, no. Before he can even finish this. First of all, the spirit of the Seraphim didn't just banish Etrigen back to hell, it fucking destroyed his ass. What? But second of all, it doesn't matter regardless because...

55:27
Before Jason Blood can even finish performing this transformation incantation, he just gets run over at full speed by Ghost Rider's motorcycle. He's like, one, two, cheese!

55:39
It's cold! So freaking Jason Blood is dead. Wow. And as Ghost Rider rides past Constantine, he's gonna yank him by his collar while he's riding. You know, he's gonna like stand up and surf on his bike as he's holding onto Constantine, and he's just gonna peer into his eyes and do the pen and stare on Constantine, forcing him to relive all the pain that he's ever caused on others. For Constantine, that's a lot. So the Hellblazer is just gonna go out in a blaze of glory, going to hell for all the shit that he's done, finally.

56:07
Yeah, that pen and star would absolutely destroy Constantine. But it's a good thing that's not Constantine, I guess. Because instead of exploding, Constantine's skin just like sloughs off like dead leaves. It was actually Black Orchid pretending to be Constantine. The real Constantine is actually nearby, having finished like an exorcism spell that causes Ghost Rider in his entirety to get sucked into this tiny vial in Jon's hands with the Seal of Solomon on it. Boom. Ghost Rider is out of the match.

56:36
You just got conned! Why would the Pennanesther work on Black Orchid? She's a hero. She's not a criminal. Well, no, she's done some shit in her past. She's very mysterious, right? But like even in the comics, like when she was taken over by Hecate, like she destroyed the Parliament of Tres. She's done some shit. You can't say she hasn't. But I mean, that's not really her sins. Like, I don't think the Pennanesther would actually kill Black Orchid. No, no, no, she's not dead. But but she is likely overcome with the fear and the pain that she's inflicted.

57:05
And so Man-Thing is gonna capitalize on it. Since she feels fear, Man-Thing is just gonna burn her and tear her to shreds. So Black Orchid's now out of this match. That's right, because he's attracted to fear. Well, he's not attracted to it. It makes him uncomfortable, so he tries to get rid of it. Okay, so RIP Black Orchid. Meanwhile, Zatanna and Swamp-Thing, who by this point has regrown his head, are going toe-to-toe with Dr. Strange. Now Swamp-Thing, he creates these duplicates of himself, and together,

57:33
They manage to bind Dr. Strange's hands, which allows Zatanna to hit him with this massive energy blast. Well, Dr. Strange has, like, magical blast resistance, as it were, you know? So, this magic blast, I'm gonna say it's not gonna kill him or anything. If it's really that strong, it'll probably knock him unconscious. But before he loses consciousness, he's going to eject his astral form. And he can still do magic in his astral form. And in his spirit mode, he's going to recognize that swamp thing...

58:03
is essentially also an astral form just inhabiting this massive plants. So he's gonna pull out Swamp Thing's spirit. What's Swamp Thing's real name? Alakolland. But Swamp Thing isn't actually Alakolland. It was an entity that thought it was Alakolland for a time. Well he's gonna pull out that entity and he's gonna take him up onto the astral plane where Dr. Strange turns into like this giant fiery beast that just burns Swamp Thing and all of his incarnations and the green itself. It's just all gonna burn. Dude!

58:32
Dr. Strange just fucking killed everybody. If the green is gone, there's no more plant life. Yeah, just in the DC universe. That's fine by me. Well, so in the battlefield, no one knows really what's going on, but the swamp things just disintegrate. And Dr. Strange's astral form goes back into his unconscious body. I think Constantine would have seen what happened, you know, on the astral plane, because he's psychic, right? So before Dr. Strange's astral form could return to his body, Constantine's just gonna perform this spell that banishes Dr. Strange's astral form.

59:02
to hell, like preventing him from returning to his comatose body and eliminating him from the match. First of all, Dr. Strange would go to heaven. So he's trapped in heaven. No, he went to hell. That's where Constantine sends people. So essentially, Dr. Strange is in the afterlife now. He's out of this match. Right. But it would take time for Constantine to invoke this spell, right? So right after he finishes, he finds that a glaive has just decapitated him. Thrown by Blade. What? Yeah. So Constantine's head falls off.

59:31
and the glaive returns to blade like a boomerang and he just catches it like a badass and like removes his sunglasses and is like some motherfuckers always trying to ice skate uphill

59:42
Okay, I did not see Constantine being taken out with a sword or a glaive, but his trench coat is demonically possessed All right So upon Constantine's death it's gonna fly off of his body and just wraps around blades face and neck Just smothering and strangling him. Well blade could just cut that jacket off. No big deal No, because as blade is trying to cut it off Zatanna causes all of blades weapons to transform into like liquid which allows blade to get strangled and he's out of the match What's the spell for turning blades into liquid?

01:00:12
Oh gosh. Take your time. Nort-ot, do you kill? Something like that. Okay, so Blade is gone. He's been smothered to death. But Man-Thing appears behind Zatanna and just slashes her across her back, leaving these painful burning slash marks. Okay, but Zatanna, she's gonna turn around and just compress Man-Thing's matter into like this crystal ball. And then she's gonna like lock this crystal ball in a magic chest that just appears. And then wrap that chest in like magic chains.

01:00:41
And then just cause the whole chest to disappear. Presto, chain Joe. That was like a pretty elaborate elimination. She had to get rid of him. And I think I only have one guy left. Yeah, actually it's just Zatanna and Brother Voodoo now, I believe. I wasn't even keeping track. So if it's Brother Voodoo versus Zatanna, of all the magics that Zatanna is well versed in, I bet you one of them is not necromancy like Brother Voodoo is.

01:01:08
He's gonna raise all of his fallen comrades, including Blade, Morbius, Bloodstone, Dr. Strange. They're all gonna come back in zombie form under Brother Voodoo's command. What? So really, it's Brother Voodoo and the Marvel zombies against Zatanna. And they're all just gonna freakin' dogpile on her and feast on her flesh. I mean, she could just set them on fire before like, any of them even get close though. That's not how you kill a zombie, fool.

01:01:33
All you did was just turn him into fire-covered zombies. They're still lurching forward, they're still tackling, they're still feasting. Well, little did you know though, that Zatanna was actually possessed by Deadman at the time of her death. Because he could teleport between planes of existence. So when Doctor Strange banished him, he just came right back in the nick of time. And since these zombies have been given new life, Deadman, he's gonna duplicate himself and take control of each one. Brother Voodoo no longer has any control of these guys. So they turn on him.

01:02:03
Well then at this point brother Voodoo would just blast all the zombies heads off and be the last survivor No, no, no, cause Deadman is an acrobat He's gonna use his superior agility to dodge like any magic blast that brother Voodoo may send at the zombies to defend himself Acrobatic zombies? What is cooler? So the dead man zombies are just gonna tear brother Voodoo apart and give Justice League Dark the win I disagree I think brother Voodoo kills the zombies and then destroys dead man using Voodoo giving Midnight Sons the win Well, let's take it to the stats and see what happens

01:02:32
Alright yeah, either Dead Man Zombies feast on Brother Voodoo, or Brother Voodoo vanquishes Dead Man. We'll run the simulations and be right back with the results.

01:02:44
Alright, that was a spooky good time. I always enjoy these team duel matches. This one got pretty interesting because I felt like there were a lot of possessions and like forcing other people to do things through magic and stuff. Yeah, yeah, it got pretty crazy. I think that's why I kind of lost track of who was still alive and who was dead. So we ran the simulations. Basically, when it comes to team duels, we don't run sets of data against each other. We run matrices. So it's all seven of the Justice League Dark characters against all seven of the Midnight Suns characters.

01:03:12
Yeah, I was pretty surprised to see how these stat totals added up. The teams were pretty even, even though I would say that these teams specifically, probably more so than any of our other previous team duels, had a pretty wide range between like really powerful characters and really weak characters. Well, that was also the case for our JSA vs. Fantastic Four duel, but yeah, same here. Now, for purposes of balance, when we determine who's going to fight in these team duels, we kind of pair characters up against each other.

01:03:40
So the pairings for Justice League Dark vs Midnight Suns were Zatanna vs Doctor Strange, Constantine vs Brother Voodoo, Swamp Thing vs Man Thing, Echigan vs Ghost Rider, Black Orchid vs Bloodstone, Man Bat vs Amorbius, and Dead Man vs Blade. But that's just for balance. Every character is fighting every other character. Looking at the results, Doctor Strange was definitely the most powerful character out of both teams. He won a whopping 84%.

01:04:07
of all of his fights. Yeah, he was definitely the most powerful character out of both teams. But Swamp Thing wasn't too far behind him as my most powerful character, winning over 75% of his matches. I only had a total of three characters on the Midnight Suns who had a win rate above 50%. Besides Doctor Strange, that was Brother Voodoo and Ghost Rider. Justice League Dark had a few more people with an over 50% win rate, including Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Constantine, and Ettrichin. But you had the lowest win rates as well.

01:04:36
Yeah, Deadman had the lowest win rate, honestly, because his stats... He's a ghost, his stats aren't that great. So he only had a win rate of like less than 15%. And considering he's going up against a bunch of like magicians and sorcerers and stuff like that, it kind of makes sense. And Black Orchid and Manbat didn't fare too much better either, with their win rates both in the 30s. Your weakest character was Bloodstone. It was either Bloodstone or Manthing, they were also both in the 30s. They were almost tied, basically. Manthing, even though he's seemingly a powerhouse, he's just not...

01:05:06
very impressive statistically given that he doesn't really have a mind, you know? But I have the final results between these two teams Justice League Dark and Midnight Suns. Who do you think came out on top? I'm gonna say I'm gonna say Midnight Suns because both teams have a large disparity in terms of power levels, but Dr. Strange is the most powerful statistically. And plus the Midnight Suns didn't have anyone as low as Deadman. So since I have the most powerful and you have the least powerful, I think I got this. Even though freaking Instagram doesn't agree

01:05:35
On our Instagram poll, two thirds of the voters, 67%, said that they think Justice League Dark is gonna win. But I think that's because the Midnight Suns aren't very popular. Right, they haven't had a movie like Justice League Dark has. And their game hasn't come out yet. Well, let's see how close our Instagram followers were. The winner of the matchup between Justice League Dark and the Midnight Suns is Justice League Dark. No. Yes, psych. They won.

01:06:03
52.3% of the team matches. Wait, how much? 52.3. 523 of the 1000 matches between both teams. So, Midnight Suns won 477. Yes, yeah. I mean, that's pretty close. I mean, it's like the least close team duel we've ever done so far, actually. The rest of them have been closer than this. Your mom has been closer than this. That's stupid. That doesn't sound right to me. Dr. Strange, he's got a...

01:06:31
find more powerful Marvel characters to add to his team next time. Because although Dr. Strange was the most powerful, you know, the combined might of Zatanna, Constantine, Swamp Thing, and Etchigan was just too much for your team to handle. Yeah, I guess Man-Thing, Bloodstone, Blade, and Morbius were a little bit lower on the spectrum. But I thought Dr. Strange could compensate for that. Yeah, I guess he's the Sorcerer sub-prime. Well, the Justice League Dark are the Justice League dorks. I fucking suck. That was bad. That wasn't bad. I'm pissed off.

01:07:00
I got nothing. I'm actually heartbroken right now because I love Marvel's supernatural characters. But whatever, I'll get you on the next team duel. Yeah, that'll be in April and we're gonna be doing our very first villain team duels. We're gonna be pitting Batman's Arkham villains against the Sinister Six. Right, yeah, and this is gonna piggyback off of the Spider-Man No Way Home movie, which we suspect will feature the Sinister Six. So that'll be a fun one. We're talking like Joker vs. Green Goblin, Scarecrow vs. Mysterio, Penguin vs. Vulture, Mr. Freeze vs. Electro.

01:07:30
Clayface vs Sandman, and Bane vs Kraven the Hunter. Yeah that's gonna be an awesome matchup. I can't wait for that one. But that does it for this duel. Let us know what you guys thought about Justice League Dark vs Midnight Suns by writing to us at dyna or by visiting us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You can find links to all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website dynamicduel.com. And on our website you can also find a link to our Patreon page where we offer bonus content including bonus episodes and duels.

01:08:00
monthly live movie watch alongs, collectible pinsets, and access to our Discord server. Check it out right after this episode, our lowest tier is only $2 a month, which is also the cost to subscribe to the show on Spotify. Subscribe now to access over 200 archived episodes of this podcast. And don't forget guys to also use code dual 20 at cufflinks.com to get 20% off any order and to listen to Batman the Audio Adventures on HBO Max.

01:08:27
Our next episode, next week's episode is going to be another review. This past week we got the last episode of Doom Patrol Season 3, so we're going to be reviewing that. Yeah, it's another review, but luckily Doom Patrol is a good show. Definitely check it out on HBO Max if you haven't already. But that does it for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, John Spees, Ken Johnson, Jace Crump, John Storosky, Zachary Hepburn, John Beccinina, Mitchell Phipps, Dustin Belcombe.

01:08:56
Salvador Hernandez Contreras Jr. and Levi Yeaton for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers.