Monkey Prince vs Mantis

00:22
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 in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Marvelous Joe. And I'm his twin brother, Johnny DC. And in this episode, we're going to find out who to win in a fight between the Monkey Prince, who's a relatively new DC character, but pretty cool, and Mantis from the Guardians of the Galaxy. Both of these characters are extremely versatile.

00:51
They're both highly adept at martial arts. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah, it should be. Monkey Prince is definitely the youngest DC character I've ever done a duel episode with. He's only two years old. He came out in 2021. When the executive producers are adamant about seeing a duel, we listen to them. So hopefully for a lot of you, you guys get to learn about this cool new character in Monkey Prince. And the rest of you get to learn more about one of your favorite characters from the MCU.

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who actually is kind of a DC character as well, but mostly Marvel. We'll talk about that later. Before that, we're gonna break down the comic book movie news to come out this past week, which we just got a few news items, even though it was San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, there wasn't too much movie news that came out, but we did get the Marvel's official trailer. We got the season four trailer for the Harley Quinn TV series, and we learned that both Watchmen and Crisis on Infinite Earths will be getting their own animated films in 2024.

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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. Don't forget guys that our duel simulator for the show is so advanced that it recently gained sentience and has named itself the Artificial Lifeform for Running Extensive Duels, just a rather very intelligent Simulator 9000, or Alfred Jarvis 9000. Here's a quick message for our listeners, so listen up!

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Why hello there. Do you love listening and chatting about Marvel and DC? Then become a part of the dynamic duel community on Patreon, where you can choose from three tiers. The dynamic 2-0 tier lets you listen to this podcast without ads and gives you access to its Discord chat group, where you can chat with Johnny DC and Marvelous Joe. The fantastic four tier gives you that and more with two bonus episodes each month, including bloopers and top 10 shows, where Johnny and Joe count down your favorite Marvel and DC subjects.

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The X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of Dynamic Duel, where every month you help the host choose what to review and who to fight against each other. And finally, the Dynamite Podcast Network tier allows aspiring podcasters to create their own battle-focused show using this Monte Carlo simulator. Johnny and Joe will help you develop your show, provide graphic support and consultation, and get you simulation results to announce on your show. Pitch the twins your show via email at dynamicduelpodcast.gmail.com

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them on social media. Check it out at patreon.com slash dynamic duel. Pip pip cheerio. Thanks AJ 9k and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. Be sure guys to tune into the Max Destruction podcast on July 26th, that's tomorrow, to see who would win between Jack Black's Nacho Libre versus Jean-Claude Van Damme's Frank Dukes from Bloodsport. It is such a ridiculously intriguing duel. I cannot wait to find out who would win in a fight.

03:42
I'm especially looking forward to that speculation. Yeah, absolutely. But also the Dynamike Network has a new show coming out the first week of August called Senjoworld. Senjow is the Japanese word for battlefield. And in the show, host Zachary Hepburn is going to tell you who would win between your favorite anime characters. So if you're a fan of anime, be ready to check out Senjoworld again, launching the first week of August, 2023.

04:07
Yeah, you guys can click on the link in our show notes or visit dynamicpodcasts.com to see all the shows in our network. But with that out of the way, quick to the No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic duel No Prize, is a digital award that we post on Instagram and in our email newsletter for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Yeah, last week we asked...

04:35
Who would you cast as Lex Luthor in Superman Legacy and why? And this is coming off of the news that Hawk Girl, Guy Garner, Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, and Metamorpho were cast in that upcoming movie. We got a few answers, but let's break down the honorable mentions before revealing this week's no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Colby Hentges, who said, Hey boys, it's Colby Hentges. Who should play Lex Luthor in Superman Legacy? I would say Michael Rooker.

05:05
Because it's a James Gunn film, you know he's gonna be in it. We just had Jesse Eisenberg as the young tech Mark Zuckerberg Lex Luthor. So give me crotchety old Lex Luthor. Now we know that Michael Rooker has a long history of working with James Gunn in his films and James Gunn definitely makes the most use of Michael Rooker that anyone really has outside of like The Walking Dead. He's a great character in his films. That said, I kind of see Lex Luthor as

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probably like the pinnacle of what a man can be, sort of like Bruce Wayne is. And I wouldn't describe Michael Rooker that way. Why not? He played Savant, who was pretty much the pinnacle of human perfection in the Suicide Squad movie. Yeah, I would say he was also miscast there. It was an ironic sort of casting, but I loved it. Yeah, cause in the comics, Savant is like a pretty boy, who works with like the birds of prey and they'll have like crushes on him. To be fair, Michael Rooker is a pretty boy. Sure.

06:03
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, if you do, you do you.

06:12
Great answer, Colby Hentges. Our next honorable mention goes to Jacob Bell who said, Hey, what's up guys? Jacob Bell here. I am pretty excited about this one. So let's do Austin Butler as Lex Luthor. I think that he was fantastic in the Elvis movie. I think he's definitely on the up and up. I think he's playing a villainous type role in the New Dune movie.

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I just think he's got all the qualities for it. I think he's a great actor. I think it would be perfect for this universe. Yeah, that's a fantastic choice. If I'm not mistaken, Austin Butler is playing the same character that Sting played in the original Dune movie. The guy's a great actor. He was fantastic in Elvis. He's fantastic in everything he does. And you know, he definitely pulls off a bald look. So I think he would make a fantastic Lux Luthor in all honesty. Yeah, he's definitely the right age, definitely has the right look.

07:10
Honestly, I could totally see this actually happening considering that Austin Butler, you know, works really well with the studio Apparently since he's gonna be in Dune. Yeah, this is a fantastic answer. Almost got the no prize win. Almost Yeah I guess the one problem I have with Austin Butler And this is a personal thing is that every time I see him every time I look at him He just reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite like if Napoleon Dynamite got his shit together, you know, that would be Austin Butler Am I the only one that sees that? Uh now I can't unsee it

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Our final honorable mention goes to Christopher Menotti who said, Hey guys, Christopher Menotti. I would most like to see Nicholas Holt as Lex Luthor. Nicholas Holt is a very good actor. He has a very wide range and he has played intelligent characters in the past. Most notably, he has played Beast in the X-Men movies. Beast is obviously a very intelligent character.

08:07
And while he is different from Lex Luthor, I still think that Nicholas Holt could pull it off and do a good job. Yeah, another fantastic answer. I think Nicholas Holt could definitely pull off Lex Luthor. He's been in the running for a number of comic book roles before, but they're usually good guys. I definitely think Nicholas Holt could pull off a bad guy, as he did in films like The Menu or Mad Max Fury Road. He's a good actor. He was kind of just weirdos in both of those movies more so than villainous, but he can absolutely play cunning really well.

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we know that he tested for Batman and Superman, I think it's time to give the guy his due with a classic DC character. Yeah, great answer. Alex Huang also called in with the same answer. So thanks to everyone who took the time to do that. But the winner of this week's No Prize is... Miggy Mattingian, who said, Hey what's up guys, this is Miggy, and I would fancast Leslie Odom Jr as Lex Luthor. I never actually made up this casting myself, I got it from a YouTuber, Nando V Movies, so all credit goes to him.

09:06
His reasoning was because Odum Jr. played Aaron Burr in Hamilton. I've never seen that musical, but it sounds like the perfect characterization for Luthor. I have seen him in Glass Onion, though, and I think he could pull off his intelligence well. Yeah, I love this answer. I don't know what it is about the actor, but when I first saw him in Hamilton, I immediately thought that he should be cast for Lex Luthor. I don't know if it was just because he was in a villainous role and he was bald, but yeah.

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is so good in Hamilton. Leslie Odom Jr. won a Tony Award for that role. You could totally see why when you're watching the play. Yeah, he has this intensity about him that I think would be perfect for Lex Luthor as well. And I think acting wise, Leslie Odom Jr. would also be a formidable foil for David Cornsweat. Yeah. So great answer, Miggy. You win this week's No Prize. If you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize, stay tuned to later on in this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done.

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On to the news.

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This past weekend, we got a new official trailer for the Marvel's movie. I was not expecting this, but I think it came out because Disney wanted to put it in front of the Barbie film, which came out this past weekend. Right. Or Oppenheimer. Maybe both. Who knows? I think the demographic works for both of those films. It wasn't in front of Oppenheimer. I saw that movie this weekend. It was awesome. Yeah, sure it was. But this new trailer for the Marvel's has a lot of the same vibes as the previous teaser trailer that we got.

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It uses BC boys intergalactic song as its primary theme in the worst way. Yeah, it wasn't as effective in this trailer. Like I didn't mind the trailer, but the way they used that song was just so distracting and grating to me. I don't know why. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So different from the first preview. I guess my large impression of this new trailer was that it really didn't show us anything new. It was almost like a repeat of the first teaser. And I think that's because.

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The movie doesn't come out until November, you know, so there's still a lot of time marketing wise for them to show us stuff. And my feeling is that the first teaser was released too soon. They should have waited until now to release it, and then we get a new trailer that shows us new and different and exciting things in a few months in the fall movie season. We did get some new explanations of their powers as described by Monica Rambeau, Photon. Essentially she said that Captain Marvel can absorb light, Photon can see light, and Ms. Marvel can...

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solidify it. Somehow those powers got entangled and so they swap spaces every time they use their abilities. Yeah, we learned about the entanglement thing in the first teaser. We didn't get too much more information about it here, but it was interesting to hear a description of their powers. And I'm really curious as to why Monica Rambeau specifically is caught up in this. I understand why, you know, Captain Marvel is because it seems like the villain has a vendetta against her. And I understand why Kamala Khan is because it looks like the villain is using the other bangle that

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Kamala Khan wears. Monica's involvement is still a mystery though. Yeah, I mean she touched some energy out in space and so you know that's how she gets wrapped up in this. It's kind of weird. We'll see how the movie actually plays out but it's really not clear within these two trailers. We did theorize in the Miss Marvel season one review that we did that the bangle that Miss Marvel Kamala Khan is wearing is actually one of the Quantum Bands or maybe one of the Nega Bands which was a Kree weapon. We see

12:39
Actually, I gotta say, we didn't see much of Darben in the last trailer, but in this one, she looks stupid as hell. Oh my gosh. I don't know what it is. I don't know if you feel the same way, but every line delivery, every facial expression just looks really poorly executed. The Anaya Lekta. Then like crazy eyes later on. I'm like, no. Yeah, she has like this weird grill going on. It's like a big gap tooth that's like filled with silver.

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but she also has like two silver teeth on the bottom. It's kind of a weird situation. Doesn't look great, honestly. I don't think she's gonna be a strong villain in this movie. No, just too much crazy eye. I think my favorite part of this trailer was when the three ladies recited the higher, further, faster line. I thought that was pretty well executed. I'm looking forward to that moment when they all fight together in the final battle of the film. My favorite part of this trailer was

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Monica Rambeau, just everything with her was great. I really liked the actress, especially at the end when Kamala Khan is reacting to the flurkin' again and Monica's just like, I can't, can you? It was great. Yeah, Teyano Paris was so good in WandaVision and for this trailer and the previous trailer, her performance just seemed so spot on. Really looking forward to seeing Photon in this movie. One thing that also bothered me about this trailer was towards the end when Nick Fury is petting Goose.

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the one responsible for taking Kazai, they should not be friends. No, well, you don't know. I mean, Nick Fury took care of Goose for a long time. Remember, he like kept him in his shield office. Oh yeah. And then eventually Goose like coughed up the Tesseract like a hairball. So, you know. That's true. He probably knows that the Flurkin didn't mean to or something. I don't know. Just when I saw that, I was like, this ain't Nick Fury, that's a scroll. Have you started watching Secret Invasion yet? No, I haven't. It's pretty good. I like it.

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We'll see how it ends tomorrow. And we'll see how the Marvel shapes up on November 10th of this year when it drops in theaters. Although that date may be changing. They're talking about pushing this and other film dates back to next year, including like Dune. They better not fucking do that. They might because of the strikes. Hollywood, get your shit together. Get your shit together. For real. Moving on to DC news, this past week at Comic Con, we got the official trailer for Harley Quinn season four.

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which is a Max original. The trailer overall was funny, I would say, not like laugh out loud funny, but I definitely got a couple of chuckles out of it. Definitely sets the stage for the new status quo this season where Harley Quinn is pursuing a heroic career alongside the Bat family, like Nightwing Robin and Batgirl, and Poison Ivy is taking charge of the Legion of Doom as its CEO in place of Lex Luthor, who I guess is going to the moon in a penis-shaped shuttle.

15:30
That was hilarious. It was funny. You know, the trailers are never as funny as the show itself, because a lot of the jokes in the show I think rely on the contexts in which the jokes are made, and it's really hard to do that within these clips. So the show just really comes across as kind of stupid, but the show is not stupid. I mean, it's kind of stupid, but it's actually smarter than it appears from these previews. I'm really looking forward to season four.

15:57
Yeah, I mean, for the past few seasons, whenever they released trailers and marketing material, I do kind of get this cringe kind of reaction from it. You know, when Harley Quinn is like off showing her tits and stuff like that, just like, really? And honestly, that cringe reaction is what I see in a lot of the comments reacting to the marketing videos that they put out. But again, like you said, the show is really good. And when you see the clips in context, they absolutely work. I mean, there's a reason why we're four seasons into this.

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For sure. It is good. And I say that as a Marvel fan. I was really reluctant to watch this. But, you know, I also kind of like dick and fart jokes. So the show's kind of right up my alley. Who doesn't? Even if you say you don't, you know you do. It looks like Harley Quinn gets a new costume this season, like a red and blue bat girl kind of costume. It's interesting. I've never seen her in anything like that before. Although she's kind of going that route in the comics as well. She actually just got her first superhero name in the comics. It's Riot.

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I hate that. It's not bad. I'm not sure if they'll go that route in the show, but we'll see. It definitely seems like Harley and Ivy's romantic relationship will hit a little bit of a snafu considering the different paths that they've decided to take in their lives, but it still looks like they're very much going to still be in love with each other. Yeah, they're definitely working for rival companies as it were. The thing I'm looking forward to the most is Harley's interactions with the Bat family.

17:25
Like the whole no killing policy, like how they like state to her like no killing. It's like even the Wi-Fi password. We don't kill people. Things like that. She's like, well, that's on you for not telling me that before. All of that just looks like comedic gold. Yeah, absolutely. I'm also looking forward to the Joker stuff. I always love the Joker voiced by Alan Tudyk and the Commissioner Gordon stuff as well. I'm really looking forward to season four, and I guess it's dropping this week. It's dropping on July 27th. So just a couple more days. That's awesome.

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Yeah, talk about waiting until the last minute to drop the trailer. Well, it was Comic Con. Still the last minute, like they had all this footage ready. They could have been marketing it earlier. That's fair. Also, to come out of Comic Con, we learned that Watchmen and Crisis on Infinite Earths are going to be DC's new animated films for 2024. And I'm super excited for both of these. Watchmen.

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is highly regarded as one of the greatest graphic novels of all time, if not the greatest. Okay. What? It's okay. Where's the lie? So I'm super excited to see it in animated form. It's going to be interesting considering we got such a faithful adaptation already in Zack Snyder's film, but that was over 10 years ago. So it'll be interesting to see what they do with this. Yeah. I mean, like the live action film by Zack Snyder was...

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a huge story condensed into a two hour runtime, and these DC animated movies usually have a runtime of around 90 minutes, so I'm guessing that the story is going to be even further condensed. It'll be weird, I think. Hopefully they can pull it off. Yeah, we don't know much about it other than it's going to be rated R, which is good because you can't do a PG-13 Watchman in my opinion. Right. During Comic Con, they also released a teaser for Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earths.

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really it was just a logo reveal. The most interesting thing about this to me is that it's being described as a DC Universe movie. DC Universe being how James Gunn describes his universe. Yeah, James Gunn also said that his live-action movie universe would be supplemented by the animated films, video games, and other forms of media. My guess is that Justice League Crisis on

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We'll also be setting up the larger DC multiverse, kind of like the Flash movie did, but this will be a little bit more explicit in how James Gunn's DCU really starts, basically. That's just a theory. Yes, but it's one that I subscribe to and one that makes me unbelievably hyped for this movie. I guess we'll get clued into the validity of that theory.

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once we hear about the voice cast for this and if we see if any of the live action cast members end up doing the voices for the characters in this movie. Because James Gunn said that the live action actors would also be doing voice work in the animated films. This movie might also be a follow up to the Warworld movie that just came out and take place in the Tomorrowverse. Yeah, for all I know, maybe it takes the Tomorrowverse and turns it into the DC Universe. Who knows?

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DC animated films have a track record for being incredible and we've reviewed quite a number of them on this podcast. Not a lot of people watch them. Actually our review episodes of the animated DC films are some of our lowest listened to ever, but this is definitely a film that I think fans should not sleep on if our theory proves correct. And even if it's not, Crisis on Infinite Earths is just a great storyline that people should watch anyway.

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best story arcs from across their entire publication history and adapting them to animated form. And these latest two announcements are no exception. Really looking forward to these in 2024. And that brings us to our question of the week.

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What DC Comics storyline that hasn't been adapted to an animated film would you like to see adapted, and why? I feel like it's going to be a hard question because so many of the best DC stories have already been adapted, but you know, try your best. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast.

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We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a dynamic duel no prize that we'll post to Instagram and our email newsletter. Be sure to answer before July 29th.

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But I think that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get into our main event where we find out who would win between the martial arts characters of Monkey Prince and Mantis from the Guardians of the Galaxy.

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Alright, Monkey Prince versus Mantis. Now we're doing this episode in lead up to our next team duel, which I don't think we've announced yet, but it is going to be Doom Patrol versus the Guardians of the Galaxy. That is gonna be for episode 350. That's eight weeks away, two months. A lot of the characters that are gonna be in that team duel have already had their own duel episodes, but we got to get a few more stragglers in there including Mantis from the Guardians of the Galaxy, who's a fairly versatile character and we actually had a

23:02
Hard time coming up with a match for her. For a while we were considering Omin from the Titans, but ultimately we decided upon Monkey Prince for a number of reasons, but mainly because one of our executive producers, Miggy, kept hounding us until we did. Yeah, he just wouldn't stop. It was pretty excessive. But that just goes to show you, if you keep being persistent, eventually you will wear us down. But you know what, that's okay because the Monkey Prince seems like a cool character.

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Yeah, not only are both the Monkey Prince and Mantis martial arts characters, they also have ties to different elements like wind and plants specifically, but they also have ties to emotion as well because Mantis is an empath and Monkey Prince's powers are tied to his emotions. Yeah, so it should be pretty interesting. Really looking forward to learning about Monkey Prince considering he's such a new character, and to go over Mantis's backstory, which is vastly different from the movie version of the character.

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But to explain the methodology behind our duels, let's go to our sentient duel simulator, Alfred Jarvis 9000. AJ9K, tell our listeners how you go about determining a winner in our duel matchups. Yes, of course sir. The way I determine a winner between the contestants is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations using the characters statistics. A Monte Carlo simulation is a probabilistic model used to determine outcomes through random sampling. In this case, I randomize the statistics along a normal distribution.

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as a way to simulate the many variables that can occur during battle. The stat parameters are based on the official Marvel power grid from which the DC characters' statistics are extrapolated. Additional stat categories are included such as range, damage potential, versatility and perception in order to create a more detailed and accurate simulation. The results of the 1000 simulations provide a percentage of wins for each character. The contestant with the higher percentage is declared the victor.

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as they have a higher probability to win any given battle. In an equitable pairing, neither character should win 100% of the matches. The comic book stories have shown that there's even a way for Batman to defeat Superman, so the confidence rate of my method falls in line with the precedents that have been established in the source material. My mathematical simulations are without subjectivity or bias. Feats are not the sole consideration, nor are fan votes tabulated for determination of the winner. Thanks AJ9K.

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Before we run the simulations though, we like to break down each character's histories and abilities before improvising a scenario on how we imagine one of the 1000 simulations would play out, beat for beat. And it's my turn to go first with the Marvel character, so let me go ahead and tell you guys all about... Mantis. Now much of Mantis's early history is lost, including her original birth name. However, it is known that she was born in Hue, Vietnam to Lua Nguyen...

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and German mercenary Gustav Brandt. Her parents married in secret, as Lua was the sister of Vietnamese crime lord Krúul who did not approve of the relationship. When Krúul found out about the marriage and his niece's birth, he had his sister Lua killed. Gustav fled with his daughter to the Vietnamese jungle, where he discovered a hidden alien temple. The temple belonged to a sect of pacifist Cree aliens known as the Priests of Pama.

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They took in young Mantis but turned away her father Gustav, believing his violent mercenary nature would be a negative influence on her. This is because the Kree priests believed that the child was one of prophecy, destined to become what they called the Celestial Madonna. The priests of Pama were the caretakers of a telepathic race of sentient plants called the Kotadi, and it was the Celestial Madonna's destiny to conceive a child with the Kotadi and give birth to the child.

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to a genetically perfect being called the Celestial Messiah. To achieve this union, the priests trained the child spiritually, mentally, and physically. They taught her to hone her mind and perceive psychic vibrations, giving her empathic abilities to communicate with plants. Mantis learned through meditation to fully control her body's processes, including her heart and respiratory rate, and even healing speed. The priests also instructed her in martial arts.

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in which she excelled so well that they named her Mantis, after the adept female fighters of that insect species. On Mantis's 18th birthday, the priest psychically wiped her memories and sent her out to experience life among normal humans, which was part of her training. Mantis began working in a Vietnamese bar, where she met the former Avenger known as the Swordsman. She sensed his noble spirit and romanced him, rehabilitating him after he had briefly returned to a life of crime.

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She convinced Swordsman to rejoin the Avengers in New York, and she came with him. Mantis impressed the heroic team with her martial arts skills, which were good enough to temporarily subdue even Captain America by psychically detecting and striking his nerve endings and pressure points. Alongside the Avengers, Mantis fought the likes of Loki, the Asgardian god of mischief, Dormammu, the ruler of the Dark Dimension, and the Collector, one of the Elders of the

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It was her empathic abilities that deduced how the Kree hero Captain Mar-Vell could use Thanos' own hubris against him when the Mad Titan threatened the universe with the Cosmic Cube. Mantis fell in love with the android Vision while on the Avengers team, but Vision loved and began a relationship with the Scarlet Witch. Swordsman, who also loved Mantis, was left heartbroken and sacrificed himself for her in a battle against King the Conqueror.

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A future version of King the Conqueror showed Mantis her true history with the priests of Pama. This restored her memories of her destiny as the celestial Madonna. Mantis buried swordsman in the grove near the Kree Priest's temple where he was resurrected as a member of the Kotati plant race. Mantis and the Kotati swordsman married, fulfilling the Kree Priest's prophecy. Mantis merged with the Kotati, evolving her form to take on a greenish hue, sprout antennae,

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and gain greater psychic abilities. Mantis gave birth to a son named Sequoia, who would be raised by the Kotadi to grow to become the Celestial Messiah, according to the Kree priests. With her role as the Celestial Madonna complete, Mantis projected her astral form into space to explore the stars, and strangely enough, other universes. In the DC universe, she was known as Willow, and in image comics, she went by Lorelei.

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After returning to her home universe, she briefly partnered with the Silver Server and joined him on his adventures. After a time, she learned that Thanos, the Mad Titan, saw her growing son as a threat, and she asked for help from the Avengers in protecting the Celestial Messiah. With her son protected, she returned to space. Mantis, with her upgraded powers, experienced precognitive visions of the upcoming formation of the Guardians of the Galaxy team. She allowed the Kree to imprison her.

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so that she could join the group in their first battle against the evil android Ultron who had taken over the techno-organic parasitic race of aliens called the Phalanx. Mantis served as the team's informal counselor, though it was later revealed that Star-Lord had her psychically manipulate the rest of the ragtag guardians, which included Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Adam Warlock, and Phylavel, into initially banding together.

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The Guardians still united to battle the likes of the Magus, Thanos, and Star-Lord's father Jason, the leader of Spartax. Mantis recently learned that her son Sequoia's upbringing with the Kotari had corrupted him into hating all animal life, including humans. Believing that his role as the Celestial Messiah was to wage war and purge Earth and other planets of their fauna, he invaded planet Earth despite his mother's pleas for him to stop.

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Mantis, allied with the Avengers and the new Kree-Skrull alliance led by Hulkling, stopped Sequoia's invasion. The Kotati race was then located to uncharted space where they could live in peace, and hopefully Mantis' son could learn his true purpose. That's her backstory. Hours wise, Mantis has psychic abilities gained through training that were further enhanced when she merged with the telepathic race of sentient plants, the Kotati. These abilities include telepathy,

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allowing her to read and communicate with the minds of others, psychic cloaking, which she can use to hide her and other's thoughts from lesser minds, empathy, allowing her to perceive and influence the emotion of others, botanopathy, which lets her control plant life in her vicinity, and precognition, which gives her visions of the future. She can also emit telepathic energies offensively in the form of psychic pain, and she can project her consciousness from her physical body in an astral form.

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Physically, Mantis has full control over her body via meditational discipline, including control over her vascular, respiratory, and nervous systems. She can will her own natural healing process to speed up, and her body has increased durability due to its non-human kotadi qualities. She is a master martial artist, capable of instinctively detecting and striking nerve endings and pressure points, and she is highly agile.

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body is made up of plants life? Correct, yeah. She can project her astral psychic form into a simulacrum of a plant being that she creates. So her body is basically plants and that's how she can also control plant life with her botanopathy. Interesting, very interesting. Okay, very different from the MCU version, right? Yes, yeah, very. I like the MCU version, but this comics version is very interesting as well.

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The whole simulacrum body aspect of her is interesting because there's a tie to Monkey Prince and that as well. Let me get to his backstory. Now Marcus Shugal Shen was the adopted son of two scientists and freelance hench people, Winston Shen and Lauren Shugal. When Marcus was a young boy, he and his parents lived in Gotham City while working for one of Batman's rogues. One stormy night, Batman broke into their apartment and attacked Marcus's parents

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to gain information from them. Marcus witnessed the ordeal, and from that point developed phobias of bats, thunderstorms, and water, which caused him to suffer frequent anxiety attacks. Can I just say that this backstory is already so different than what I thought it was going to be? I'll keep listening. After the ordeal, Marcus' parents left Gotham and moved frequently due to the nature of their work. At age 15, they returned to Gotham City.

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and Marcus was bullied at his new high school due to his easily triggered anxiety attacks. The school janitor, Mr. Zhu, tried to convince Marcus to face his fears by jumping into the school pool, and though Marcus rejected the test initially, after getting beat up and losing his sneakers to the bullies that harassed him, Marcus dove into the pool and was magically transported to Flower Fruit Mountain, the domain of the Monkey King in Chinese mythology.

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Marcus met Mr. Zhu in his true form, Pigsy, one of the Monkey King's companions during his adventure in Journey to the West. Pigsy explained that Marcus was the son of the Monkey King, and that with his father gone, Marcus would need to help stop a coming evil. After placing a circlet around Marcus' head, Marcus' magical powers were unlocked and he transformed into his monkey form, allowing him to defeat the bullies that had attacked him earlier.

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and dragged the attention of Batman's sidekick, Robin, who you can learn more about in our Robin vs. Patriot episode. Due to his fears, however, Marcus was reluctant to become a superpowered champion, as he would lose his powers and revert to human form whenever he felt afraid or weak. To help him, Pigsy gave him a mask that connected with a circlet that would protect his secret identity even if he were to revert back to human form. After helping save his school bully from Robin,

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Marcus learned that his parents were being held hostage by the Penguin, who had been possessed by a Chinese demon spirit known as the Golden Horn King. With Robin's help, Marcus was able to find and rescue his parents, as well as Batman, whose chi energy had been nearly drained by the demon. During the fight, Marcus learned from Batman that his parents were hench people that had been working for the Penguin, and the conflicted Marcus helped them escape before Batman could apprehend them.

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After the ordeal, Marcus and his parents immediately packed up and moved to Amnesty Bay, though Pigsy was able to follow them and continue to train Marcus in secret. His parents began working for Black Manta, whom they helped harness and weaponize a different Chinese demon, Silver Horn King, into the form of a giant crab to attack Atlantis. When Marcus saw the giant crab from his skull, he transformed into the Monkey Prince and was able to successfully exorcise the demon with Pigsy's help.

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while also realizing what his parents were up to in Amnesty Bay. After being captured by the Atlantean guard after the ordeal and brought before Aquaman, Marcus and Pigsy, who could both breathe underwater due to their divine nature, overheard that a massive iron pillar appeared in Atlantis' Dragon Town neighborhood. Learning from Pigsy that this must be a shard from the Monkey King's magical growing staff known as Ryu Jingu Bang, Marcus escaped custody.

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and attempted to bond with the staff, but it refused to recognize him as its master. Can you phrase it as something different than a monkey's magical growing staff? Nope, that's what it is. It's super hard too. Aquaman chased Marcus to Dragon Town, where they also encountered Black Manta and his parents, who were pursuing the Trench King that had been possessed by the Silverhorn King. You can learn more about the Trench in our Aquaman vs Submariner duel episode. To protect his parents,

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Marcus used his cloud control power to send Black Manta and his parents back to the surface, and after attempting to stop the Silver Horned King from draining Aquaman's chi, the Ryujingu Bong sliver recognized his bravery and shrank down, allowing Marcus to literally knock the demon from the Trench King and save Aquaman. After returning to the surface, Marcus recommended to his parents that they move to Metropolis due to his crush on Supergirl.

37:55
Marcus' mom, Laura, was attacked and injured by the Chinese deity King Fire Bull, the master of the Horn King demons. To save his wife, Marcus' dad, Winston, brought Laura to her father, who Marcus learned was the villain known as Ultra Humanite, often seen in a white gorilla form. When Marcus saw Supergirl flying over the Ultra Humanite's secret laboratory, he thought she might be looking for his family, so he went out to meet her as the Monkey Prince.

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The Ultra-Humanite, unaware of Marcus' alter ego, saw the two together and thought they were partnered against him. After saving Supergirl from his grandfather's kryptonite weaponry, a strange green storm formed over Metropolis and other cities around the world. With the Justice League disbanded at this time, Marcus, Supergirl, and other heroes arrived at the Hall of Justice to deal with the storm situation, which they learned from Robin,

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were Lazarus storms that formed when a volcano at Lazarus Island erupted due to King Firebull. Ordered to stay behind, Marcus was visited by a miniature magical clone of Pigsy, who had been kidnapped by Ne Zha, another Chinese deity and the adopted father of King Firebull, who was revealed to be the former Chinese hero known as Red Boy, whose parents were killed by Darkseid during an attempted invasion of the Chinese heavenly realm.

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After successfully defending the Hall of Justice with help from Robin and Black Alice, Marcus then helped Robin exercise a Nezha-possessed Batman. When Marcus returned to the Hall of Justice, he found his father Winston and the Ultrahumanite, who had broken into the hall amidst the chaos in order to steal parts from the Phantom Zone projector there, as the Ultrahumanite had an ancient scroll that the Monkey King was trapped there and he wanted to take control of his powerful body.

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While trying to stop his family members, Marcus ended up in the Phantom Zone with the Monkey King, who denied Marcus was his son and explained that he could not leave the Phantom Zone as it was his escape after being hit by Darkseid's Omega Beams during the invasion of the Heavenly Realm. After training with the Monkey King and perfecting his duplication power, Marcus returned to Earth, where he was injected with nanobots by Ultrahumanite so that he could control him at a later time.

40:17
With the Lazarus Storm now under control, Marcus and Pigsy helped Supergirl clean up Metropolis, only to then be attacked by the King Fire Bull's Demon Army. Marcus duplicated himself to even the odds, resulting in the demons revealing to Marcus that he wasn't the Monkey King's son at all, but a single-hair duplicate of his who rejected returning to his master, hidden in a rock within the Phantom Zone, and turned into an infant after forgetting who he was.

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that Rock was hurled to Metropolis by the Monkey King during a prior attempt by the Ultra-Humanite to destroy the city, at which point the Rock broke open and he was found by his adoptive parents Winston and Laura, who were working for the Ultra-Humanite at the time. Suffering anxiety upon realizing he didn't know which of his duplicates was the real him, Marcus was unable to prevent Supergirl from getting kidnapped. With the help of Pigsy,

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Marcus was able to accept the reality of his nature as Monkey Prince, after which he rescued Supergirl and defeated King Fireball. And that's most of his history so far. Powers-wise, Monkey King is a semi-divine immortal being, possessing enhanced strength, speed, and far-enhanced agility, thanks in part to clouds he's able to generate and control to carry him for high-speed travel. His body is also exceptionally durable.

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as he's able to detach and reattach any part of his body, including his head or limbs, while maintaining full telekinetic control over them. He could also shapeshift himself or any of his hairs into any other object, often using his hairs to create duplicates of himself. Monkey Prince is a skilled martial artist and wields a magical iron staff capable of expanding in length. His powers, however, are tied to his emotional state. Fear will

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and rage will cause his powers to become too powerful for him to control. And that's the Monkey Prince. So let me get this straight. Okay, Monkey Prince is a duplicate of the Monkey King. He was found and adopted by the daughter of the Ultra Humanite who is a gorilla. Yes, often in gorilla form, I should say. Is that just a coincidence? No, I think that was intentional in the writing. They're just going with the simian theme? Well, I mean, the Ultra Humanite, his whole power as a supervillain.

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that he like possesses other people's bodies. That's why he's in a gorilla form, because it's more powerful than a human form. So it makes sense that he would want to attain like a more powerful monkey form in the Monkey King. What's the difference between the Ultra Humanite and Gorilla Grodd? They are very similar actually, but I would say the Ultra Humanite is a little bit more possession focused and he's less about the superiority of gorillas and more about just attaining the ultimate form.

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Ultrahumanite, we haven't done a duel with him, but he's actually DC's very first super villain. He was the very first super villain that Superman fought with, like, superpowers. Cool.

43:22
Well this should be a pretty good matchup, I like that power set going up against Mantis' power set. And now that we got their histories and abilities out of the way, let's speculate on how one of the 1000 simulated matches will go. The winner is determined by simulations, not the speculation, but it's fun to imagine how the fight could play out. Alfred Jarvis 9000, what are the rules of our speculation? Well I should say there are no rules, other than the characters have no prior knowledge of the other going into the fight. All they are aware of starting out

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is that the other character is a threat that needs to be eliminated. For the speculation, the contestants will begin approximately 50 meters apart in a nondescript environment that will have no bearing on the match itself, as no environmental statistics are considered in my simulations. The contestants must earn victory on their own merit. Alright then, let's get into it. Monkey, Prince, and Mantis meet on the battlefield. Who goes first? So, Monkey, Prince is faster, I'm pretty sure.

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But he's also like mentally younger and a little more brash. So I'm saying he's definitely going first and he's going to start by springing himself into the air with his expanding staff and just like somersault flip through the air down onto Mantis, striking her with his staff. Well, that's going to be easy to dodge from that distance. You know, Mantis is just going to get out of the way with a no hands cartwheel and then she's going to lunge toward Monkey Prince with a nerve strike.

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like right in his side, which is gonna like paralyze his arms. Actually, those arms, they're just gonna fall right off. And while they're paralyzed, so that like he can't flex the muscles in them, he could still telekinetically like flail them around. So they're just gonna fling toward Mantis and just start slapping and bludgeoning her. That's so weird. Mantis is, she's gonna like back handspring to get some distance and she's gonna be like, what the fuck is this guy?

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She's gonna be like, this one is confused, because she always refers to herself as this one in the comics. Huh. But with that small distance, she's gonna read Monkey Prince's mind to get a readout and see what else, like, other weird shit he can do. Well, I'll show you. Monkey Prince, he's gonna regain feeling back in his arms, and he's gonna summon them back to him. But while he does that, he's also gonna blow out a cloud from his breath that's gonna swoop around Mantis and push her toward Monkey Prince.

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and he's just going to hurricane kick her right in the head. Well, I mean, she's a good enough martial artist to like block these kicks. OK, so she does. She blocks every single one of those hurricane kicks, and then she's going to shove her palm forward to strike Monkey Prince in the chest. And the attack is going to be both physical and telepathic. So it's going to deal both physical and psychic pain to Monkey Prince. OK, so the winds probably knocked out of him and he's hurting.

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but to give himself time to recover, he's gonna flick like a pinch full of hairs, like a dozen from his wrist. And they turn into new monkey princes who are gonna surround Mantis and just start attacking her with their staffs, just beating the shit out of her. You mean they try to beat the shit out of her because Mantis is gonna use her botanopathy to summon vines from the ground that ensnare each one of these monkey prince duplicates. Okay. And then she's gonna like leap.

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from duplicate to duplicate, striking and shutting down their brains, basically. And she does this to the main monkey prince too. Like he's also wrapped up in vines, and she shuts his mind down. I mean, the main monkey prince may be wrapped in vines, but before his mind can be shut down, he's gonna use, like, two hairs to create a sword in each hand that chop up the vines. And then he's gonna knock Mantis away with his extendable staff that he wields with his tail.

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And he's just going to whip that staff into her so hard, she's going to break one of her legs. Okay, oh, dang, okay, all right. With her leg hurt, she's going to psychically cloak herself from Monkey Prince so he can't mentally perceive her. And while he can't find her, she's going to meditate on her leg and speed up the healing process. Okay, okay. So Monkey Prince can't sense her. He's going to be like in a near panic. So he's going to separate all of his limbs, like even his torso and his head.

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and just zip them around the battlefield trying to find Mantis. And we'll say that it's his tail that finds her, and it's just going to wrap around her neck choking her, at which point the rest of his body parts fly in and just start attacking her from all angles. It's such a weird power. It's like the detachable kid, but better. Yeah, a lot better. All right, I'll say that as Mantis is being choked with Monkey Prince's tail, she's going to project her astral form out from her body.

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And as the monkey prince body parts think that they're pummeling her, she forms a new body using the vines that she summoned earlier in the match. Okay? So while monkey prince is like being distracted beating up Mantis' old body, with her new form, she's gonna walk over, grab his head, and she's gonna use her empathic abilities to make him feel fear. Which is gonna cause him to lose his powers. So like, he's back to being human, but his body parts are all detached and he's dead. Dang. That was a good move.

48:35
Um, I'm gonna say though that once she grabs his head, he's just gonna turn his hair into spikes because he could shapeshift and they're gonna be like porcupine quills and they're gonna pierce her hands. So the shock of that is going to allow Monkey Prince's body to reform just in time to impale her through the heart with a staff. So she's dead. No no no, because she saw that coming.

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Like at the beginning of the match, she had a precognitive vision. Oh, my God. That this was going to happen. So she just she easily dodges the staff from impaling her. And then she still makes the monkey prince feel fear, still causing him to turn human. And then she like pressure point strikes the side of his head, causing him to die. You know, she didn't see it coming. What? The fact that he actually reverted to a hair instead of a human, because this wasn't the real monkey prince.

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The real one is actually behind a cloud in the sky. And like now he's super pissed. And that's just gonna cause him to go like super Saiyan and his hair glows and everything. And he's just gonna crash into her from the sky on his cloud like a comet. So now she's dead. Is it super Saiyan or super Simian? Super Saiyan Simian. Well, guess what? She saw that happening in her pre-cog vision too. So.

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And you know what? Like she'd also be able to psychically detect him. So that's kind of bullshit, right? She's just going to leap out of the way of his strike from the air. And then she's going to make that monkey prince feel fear, too, and then kill him. She could do this all day. Precognition for the win. So dumb. I don't know where to go from there. Well, we can go ahead and leave it there. Either monkey prince goes super sane, simian and obliterates mantis from the sky, or she sees that coming with her precognition and then makes him feel fear.

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removing his powers, and then she kills him. We'll go ahead and leave the match there and input the stats. The scenario that actually happens will be determined by our simulations as we find out this match's winner. AJ9K, run the simulations. Inputting data, running calculations, processing results, simulations complete. These are really cool characters. Like I like both of them. I'm a big fan of the Monkey King from Chinese myth in general.

50:53
So it's really cool that DC has a version of that in Monkey Prince. He is a cool character. I could see Monkey Prince becoming pretty popular within the DC Comics Pantheon. It'll be cool if he joins the Teen Titans or something like that. You can totally see that. Mantis, we know, is already popular. Again, very different from the MCU and the comics versions, but I think equally as interesting as the Monkey Prince. Their versatility was definitely reflected in the stats.

51:21
Though we said that Monkey Prince is slightly more versatile just because of all the different things he could turn himself and his hairs into. We also said that Monkey Prince was slightly faster due to his cloud traveling. We said that he was stronger and he had a greater range due to his infinitely extendable bow staff. Mantis came out ahead on intelligence and perception given that she's not only a telepath, she's also precognitive.

51:47
Monkey Prince can sense magical beings, but that's really the only enhanced perception that he has. Yeah, otherwise, we said the characters have about the same evasiveness, durability, damage potential, fighting skill. They were pretty comparable. Damage potential was a difficult one to figure out because psychic damage is hard to quantify. Yeah. So considering that, Jonathan, do you have a guess as to who the winner is going to be? That perception stat scares me, but I still think Monkey Prince is going to come out on top.

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Instagram disagrees with me. 57% of the poll takers were in favor of Mantis winning this. And I'm just going to chalk that up to Monkey Prince only being two years old in the comics. Yeah, no one knows who he is. Everyone knows who Mantis is. She's awesome. But let's get the results. AJ9K, the envelope, please. Hey, Yuasa. All right. The winner between Monkey Prince and Mantis is...

52:46
Mantis! Damn it! Suck on that Monkey Prince! Apparently the Mantis is the superior animal What? As she won 51.4% of her matches or 514 out of 1000 simulations Whereas Monkey Prince only won 48.6 or 486 matches out of 1000 Oh this is another coin toss That's surprising to me Yeah they kinda balanced each other out and all the disparity

53:13
That sucks. Miggy is not gonna enjoy this episode. This is gonna be like his least favorite episode. But you know what? Miggy's team DC and at the end of the day, Mantis is a DC character as well. So I think we could still put this as a win in the DC column. You can't do that. Why? It's a win for DC and Marvel. We both win. Because this is Mantis, not Willow. What is Mantis? And it's a Marvel versus DC podcast. So no, it's not DC versus DC. You can't just claim victory.

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I mean this episode it kind of is. We'll also put in a win in the image column for the first time. There you go. Miggi, I'm sorry that I'm not sorry. Because that does it for this duel, let us know what you guys thought about the results by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast.gmail.com or by visiting us on Instagram or Twitter. You can find links to all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website at dynamicduel.com. And on our site you can also find a link to our Patreon page where you can join our dynamic

54:13
and chat with us and fellow listeners, our fantastic four tier, which gets you bonus content each month, our X-Force tier that makes you an executive producer of this podcast, or our newest tier that lets you join our Dynamike Podcast Network. If you can't join Patreon, you can still support the show by signing up for our e-newsletter also at dynamicduel.com. Or you can also rate our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Twitter.

54:40
or on our website. Our next episode is going to be a review episode. We either could have gone with Justice League Warworld or Secret Invasion, but we're going to review Secret Invasion first. That's going to be the priority because, you know, it's Marvel. Marvel's the priority. Or just because it started first. That is not the real reason. It's because Marvel's better. Jeez. So if you haven't been keeping up with Secret Invasion, make sure you do so before our episode next week.

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That does it for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers Ken Johnson, John Sturowski, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Belcombe, Miggy Mathangian, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Nick Abonto, Austin Wazilowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, and Adam Spies for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers.