Parallax vs Onslaught

This is a DynaMic Network Podcast. 

Hi and 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'd win in a fight between the powerful psychic and emotional entities of Parallax and Onslaught. 

Yeah, these are two major earth-shattering villains from the 90s in the comics, like some of the coolest villains of all time from Marvel and DC. Yeah, really looking forward to this one. We got to thank John Staroski for pitching this particular matchup. He's one of our executive producers and of course the host for console combat. Before we get into that matchup though, to find out who'd win mathematically, we're going to go over the latest comic book movie news to come out this past week, of which there was none, but we did get really exciting Marvel vs DC comic book news, so we're going to talk about that briefly. 

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. Our artificially intelligent dual simulator AJ9K has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up. 

Thanks AJ9K and thanks to everyone who supports the show. Guys, be sure to tune into the other shows and the Dynamite Podcast Network this week, including Max Destruction, which pits your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other. This Wednesday, hosts Scotty and Gilly are finding out who'd win in a fight between Mewtwo from Detective Pikachu and Shadow from Sonic the Hedgehog 3. On the Senjoh World podcast, hosts Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan-favorite anime and manga characters. Zach is on a brief season break right now, but anime fans should check out his episode archive, including his recent Akatsuki vs Espada matchup. His next episode is going to be Vasto Lord Ichigo from Bleach vs Six Tail Kyuubi Naruto. 

I was way off on that. On the console combat podcast, hosts John and Dean simulate battles between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode, they found out who'd win in a fight between Morgan from Dragon Age and Yennefer from The Witcher. 

Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all of the shows in the Dynamite Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick to the no prize! A no prize is an award Marlville used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Dual No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week we asked the guys if you could take either the Marvel or DC Cinematic universes and place them in a separate film franchise, what would it be? And this is coming off the news of the leaked concept art that we saw a few weeks ago for Avengers Secret Wars, which seemed to set the film in a high fantasy Lord of the Rings Game of Thrones-esque world recreated by Dr. Doom. We got quite a number of answers, but we're going to break down our three honorable mentions before revealing this week's no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Lee Tapscott, who said, Hi, this is Lee. 

I'd like to see the MCU in the Terminator future. The movie starts out as the surviving Avengers are fighting Terminators. Skynet knows it's about to lose because of Tony Stark. The main story of this movie, like the original film, Skynet sends a Terminator back to the kill a young Tony Stark. Who will be sent back in the past to protect an unprepared Tony as he watches his parents die from the Terminator? 

Yeah, this is a great answer. I would love to see the MCU set in the universe of the Terminator franchise. Of course, I think the Avengers vs. the Terminators would play out probably pretty similarly as Avengers Age of Ultron, but I would really like to see the movie where the Avengers send someone back in time, be it the Hulk or Captain America or Iron Man himself, goes back to protect young Tony Stark from like a T-1000 who gets sent back to kill him. Yeah, maybe it's like the Winter Soldier and Captain America sent back in time to protect young Tony from him. That would be cool. 

Yeah, like somehow the Terminators brainwashed Bucky or basically they just turned him into a full on cyborg or something like that, sending him back in time. That's a pretty good concept. I like it. Great answer, Lee. Our next honorable mention goes to Travis Herndon. Who said? 

What's up, Dine Medus? Travis here, shout out to my evil twin. So my answer had to be the MCU with the old Toho Godzilla franchise movies. Like, I'm managing the Avengers and Godzilla teaming up against Thanos and King Ghidorah and other aliens and stuff, or them fighting Ultron controlling like a whole army of mecha-gazillas. Just seeing like an old school type movie universe combined with this New Age superhero stuff would be sick. 

That would be sick. Yeah, this has been done in the comics, or actually it's going on right now in the comic books, where they're doing a Marvel vs. Godzilla crossover similarly to what they did with DC last year. But would I want to see that in a movie format? Hell yeah, I would. 

Hell yeah. Yeah, the stuff that Warner Brothers and Legendary have been doing with Godzilla lately has been pretty awesome. The monsterverse as a cinematic universe is incredible. Well, Travis was also referring to the old Toho films, you know, that would be cool too. 

That's true. Honestly, Godzilla minus one and Shin Godzilla are probably better than what Warner Brothers and Legendary are doing with the monsterverse. I just feel like because the monsterverse is Hollywood, you would have an easier time of getting that made. 

And there's a lot of established characters there already, because like you could have King Kong show up as well. Great answer, Travis. Our next honorable mention goes to Matt from Texas. Who said? 

Hey guys, it's Matt from Texas. I would like to see the MCU merged with the Jurassic Park franchise. Maybe they can think they're going to the Savage Land, but these dinosaurs are going to be way worse. The DCU, I would like to see merged with the Alien and Predator franchise. Get Batman vs. Predator, see if the Alien blood could harm Superman. That's going to be freaking awesome. 

Yeah, I think the Marvel Universe meets Jurassic Park movie would play out kind of similarly to Godzilla. Godzilla is kind of dinosaur like it would be really cool to see though. And of course, the Savage Land exists in the comic book. So we've seen these characters interact with dinosaurs and the source material. But we've also seen like Batman go up against Predator and the source material as well during those like Dark Horse DC comic crossovers. Oh yeah, Batman vs. Predator was pretty damn good. 

Not going to lie. And so with Superman vs. Aliens, that was cool. Get Alien, get Predator, get Superman and Batman all in one film. Make it like a sci-fi horror superhero fight for survival. I think that'd be really fun to watch. It'll be the first trillion dollar film. 

So great answer, Matt. We want to give a quick shout out to Colby Hentges who said he wants Marvel or DC to show up in 80s hijinks films like Johnny Hughes films. I feel like we kind of got that vibe in the recent Spider-Man Home trilogy because the vibe of those films was heavily influenced by 80s high school films. Daniel Alonso said DC should appear in their own DC cinematic universe because they're having trouble getting one started, which I thought was a really good burn. Dishonorable mention, John Serozky said he would like to see the Thunderbolts or the Suicide Squad crossover with the hateful eight. 

Quentin Tarantino movie, which was basically a bunch of outlaws in a powder keg environment where they're snowed in in this cabin altogether. I think that'd be pretty fun as well. And then the Kamacho twins from the Max Destruction podcast said DC and Marvel should cross over with each other's cinematic universes. That's the best answer. It's definitely the definitive answer, but probably not right now because I'm not sure what DC universe would cross over. Because the DC EU is dead and the new DC EU has yet to begin. So I just couldn't picture it as things stand right now. But the winner of this week's snow prize is Mason Thompson. Who said? 

Hey, it's Mason. I would have to have the boys or invincible because I'd kind of like to see how the picture perfect superheroes interact with the corrupted. More in like the boys, but kind of how like everything goes perfect in those universes and then like invincible and the boys, everything's kind of like a little bit corrupted. I don't know. I just like to see like the dynamics between the heroes. 

I know one thing for certain. No matter who shows up in the boys universe, homelanders get in the Zaskik. Yeah, I agree 100%. And I haven't even seen the show and I agree. I haven't seen it either. Actually, every time an acquaintance or someone finds out that I do superhero podcasts, they ask me, have you seen the boys? And I don't know why because it's neither Marvel nor DC and I think people just get confused. But no, I haven't seen the boys largely because I watch so much superhero television from Marvel and DC that I just don't have time to watch the Amazon Prime show. 

But I'm interested in it. You know, I like Garth Ennis's writing him and Mark Millar and like Warren Ellis. They do a great job of taking these tropes from Marvel and DC and really deconstructing the superhero genre. I'm not the biggest fan of that type of work, but I really liked Invincible. Invincible was a great show. Yeah, I mean, I see Invincible and the boys as sort of a parody of sorts of the Justice League. Like even wanted was a parody of the Legion of Doom because the DC heroes and villains are so iconic. It's kind of easier to lampoon and spoof those characters. So that kind of turns me off and that's probably one of the reasons why I haven't checked out these shows too thoroughly. I did watch a majority of Invincible season one. 

I just haven't finished it yet. I thought that was good. But again, I'm Johnny DC for a reason. The DC characters to me are more interesting. Robert Kirkman had Invincible show up in a Marvel team up issue. I remember I actually really liked it. It was funny because he was like making fun of all the Marvel characters names. He was like, OK, so you're Spider-Man. If that's how you guys are naming people around here, I'm guessing your flag, man. 

It was hilarious. Nice. Great answer, Mason Thompson. You win this week's No Prize. 

If you the listener want to shout out winning your own No Prize, stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. But now that that's done, on to the news. OK, a couple of weeks ago at Comics Pro, which is a comic book retail summit in Glendale, California, the two heads of Marvel and DC publishing, namely C.B. Sibulski for Marvel and Marie Jevins for DC, were on stage talking about the comic book industry and they began joking about how they should do another comic's crossover. 

And the audience just roared. It looks like they're going to do it. They're saying they're going to release it this year. We don't know anything about this crossover, except that it's going to be two one-shot comics tentatively titled Marvel slash DC and DC slash Marvel. Yeah, we've had previous major crossovers between Marvel and DC in the comic books. You know, back in the mid 90s and 96, they came out with DC versus Marvel. And that was a big event. And then in the early 2000s, we had JLA slash Avengers. And I was a big fan of both events. I really liked the JLA Avengers crossover. 

Yeah, that was done by George Perez and Kurt Busick, an iconic phenomenal team who knocked it out of the park with that mini series. But of course, there have been other one-shot comics to feature Marvel and DC crossovers like the very first one, Superman and Spider-Man. There's been a Punisher in Batman, Batman and Captain America. There was Superman, Silver Surfer. And of course, all of these were collected last year into graphic novel omnibuses when focusing on the 90s crossover and one focusing on the one-shots. For some reason, they didn't include the Avengers JLA crossover. Not sure why. But essentially, these omnibuses were the catalyst for this upcoming crossover that they were talking about at Comics Pro. 

They don't know what characters are going to be featured and who's going to be writing and drawing the one-shots. But I am so excited that they're even joining forces because it's been a long time since they've done that. Yeah, almost 20 years now. I think Marvel and DC should cross over at least once a decade. 

At least. And to me, I feel like if a lot of people jump on board this, there's a stronger likelihood for the cinematic universes to cross over as well. Particularly with James Gunn at the helm of DC Studios considering he's worked for Marvel in the past. That would be awesome. 

Maybe we'll even get a Marvel vs DC video game. Which is, you know, like the end all be all, I feel like. The dream. 

The dream! We'll see what happens. We'll keep you guys updated on this particular crossover event in the comic books so that we can all just jump on it when it gets released. But speaking of DC and Marvel Comics Crossovers, that brings us to our question of the week. What is your favorite Marvel and DC Comics crossover and why? Yeah, we've mentioned quite a few of them during this segment. 

If you guys haven't read any of them, definitely check them out. And then call us with your answer. Record your answer at dynamicdool.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. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a dynamic duel no prize that we'll post to Instagram. 

Be sure to answer before March 15th. But that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and move on to our main event where we find out who would win in a fight between the all-powerful entities of Parallax and Onslaught. Alright, Parallax vs. Onslaught. Both of these characters were really big in the 90s, so they've made subsequent appearances in the comic book since then. But basically they were known for their corrupting influence over major, beloved comic book heroes. In the case of Parallax, he heavily corrupted the character of Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern, and then on the Marvel side, Onslaught corrupted Professor X. Yeah, of course Parallax was the primary villain in the Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds, but we're not going to hold that against him because the character really wasn't done justice in the way he has been done in the comics. Yeah, as far as I know, the comic book version of Parallax looks kind of like a big yellow lobster kind of. 

I would say cockroach. Okay, but in the movie he was definitely like a big watery shit with a face. Yeah, like a turd sandwich. 

Yeah. Whereas Onslaught, you know, he doesn't really have a form. He has an energy form when you remove his armor, but he's basically just this psychic entity and he's never been in the movies. They kind of did allude to him, I think, at the end of X-Men 97 season one, but we'll see if he manifests in season two. 

I have no idea how this matchup is going to go down because I don't know much about the entity of Parallax, but I gotta say if he's a giant cockroach, he's nowhere near as badass as Onslaught and he's probably going to lose. Oh, you think, huh? Yeah, cockroaches were meant to be squished. Well, I mean, the cockroach form is just an energy form. Parallax and the other emotional entities typically possess beings. So I was thinking for this matchup, he was going to have a host body. 

Could be Hell Jordan, could be Kyleraynor, could be any Green Lantern, really. Okay. Oh, has he possessed Kyleraynor in the past, too? Yes, yeah. 

Well, I'm sure we'll learn all about that as we get into the character's breakdowns. But first to explain the methodology behind our duels, let's go to our sentient dual simulator, Alfred Jarvis 9000. AJ9K tell our listeners how you go about determining a winner in our dual matchups. 

Yes, of course, sir. The way I determine a winner between the contestants is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations using the character's 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 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 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! Before we run the simulations though, we'd 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 I believe it's my turn to go first with the Marvel character for this episode, so let me go ahead and tell you guys all about... Onslaught. The psionic entity known as Onslaught was created during a climactic battle between the X-Men and Magneto's Acolytes. During the fight, Magneto used his powers to rip the adamantium from Wolverine's skeleton, an act so brutal that it left Wolverine severely injured, exhausting his healing factor. Enraged by the attack, Professor Charles Xavier retaliated by using his telepathic powers to shut down Magneto's mind, rendering him catatonic, an act with unforeseen consequences. During this psionic contact, Magneto's anger, grief, and thirst for vengeance penetrated Xavier's subconscious, mingling with Xavier's own long suppressed negative emotions. This fusion of consciousness gave rise to a new sentience, Onslaught, an entity that initially laid dormant deep within Xavier's psyche. 

You can learn more about Professor X and Magneto in their respective dual episodes against the Chief and Sinestro. As Onslaught remained hidden, he subtly influenced Xavier's thoughts and emotions, catalyzed by Xavier's growing frustration with humanity's fear and hostility toward mutants. The deaths of mutants from the Legacy Virus, his inability to reform dangerous individuals like Sabertooth, and the overall rising anti-mutant hysteria all contributed to Xavier's increasing doubts about his dream of peaceful coexistence. 

The final breaking point came when a young mutant was killed near the grounds of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. At that moment, Onslaught awakened, beginning to exert control over Xavier's mind and actions. One of Onslaught's earliest manipulations was targeting Jane Gray. He lured her to the astral plane, revealing long-buried secrets about Xavier's past, including the suppression of her telepathic powers when she first became his student. Onslaught hoped that this revelation would shatter her faith in Xavier's ideology. Jane resisted Onslaught's influence, though, rejecting his offer to join his cause. In response, Onslaught branded his name into her mind before returning her to the real world. 

You can learn more about Jane Gray in our Raven vs. Phoenix episode. Onslaught also attempted to recruit Xavier's stepbrother, Juggernaut. Seeking to use Juggernaut's immense power for his own ends, Onslaught approached him in Vancouver, Canada, offering him a place in his crusade. When Juggernaut refused, Onslaught lashed out, blocking his memory of their encounter and magnetically flinging him across the continent to New Jersey. Juggernaut, dazed and unable to recall what happened, managed to utter only one word upon being discovered by the X-Men, Onslaught. 

You can learn more about Juggernaut and his duel against Atrocitus. As Onslaught's influence grew, he infiltrated a government-sanctioned sentinel base, where he downloaded schematics and reprogrammed the mutant hunting machines to serve him. Onslaught's plans escalated further when he encountered Nate Gray, the telepathic and telekinetic mutant known as X-Men. During the astral encounter, Nate inadvertently pulled Onslaught's consciousness into the physical world, allowing him to manifest as an independent entity for the first time. Onslaught revealed himself to the X-Men, declaring his aim to reshape the world by creating a new order, one where mutants ruled supreme. However, unlike Magneto, Onslaught did not merely wish for mutant superiority, he intended to force all of humanity into a collective intelligence. 

To achieve this, he set his sights on Franklin Richards, the son of Mr. Fantastic, an invisible woman whose vast reality-warping powers could make Onslaught's vision a reality. Onslaught created a childlike psionic projection of a young boy named Charlie to befriend Franklin and lure him into his grasp. In addition to capturing Franklin, Onslaught abducted Nate Gray, further augmenting his own immense psionic power. With these two young mutants under his control, Onslaught turned his attention to New York City. 

He set his reprogrammed sentinels to seize control of Manhattan, forming a barrier around the island, isolating it from the rest of the world. Establishing a citadel in Central Park, Onslaught prepared for the final phase of his plan. The X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers all converged to stop Onslaught. During their initial confrontation, the heroes managed to sever the link between Onslaught and Xavier, hoping that this would weaken the entity. However, instead of diminishing Onslaught's power, the act allowed him to evolve further, becoming a being of pure psionic energy. 

Now fully independent, Onslaught unleashed an electromagnetic pulse that crippled electronic systems across the city, plunging Manhattan into chaos. You can learn more about the X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four, and their respective duels against the Titans, Justice League, and Justice Society. Determined to end humanity, Onslaught used Franklin Richards' abilities to create a second sun in Earth's atmosphere, threatening to incinerate the planet. To stop him, Jean Gray suppressed Bruce Banner's rational mind, allowing the Hulk's full rage to take over. In a mindless fury, the Hulk launched a brutal assault on Onslaught, tearing through his armor. However, this inadvertently made Onslaught even more dangerous, as his psionic energy form was now uncontained and immune to physical attacks. In a desperate final gambit, Thor flew into Onslaught's energy mass, attempting to disrupt him from within. Realizing that Onslaught needed a physical anchor to be destroyed, the non-mute members of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four sacrificed themselves by merging into his energy form. 

With Onslaught now bound to something tangible, the remaining heroes struck their final blow, seemingly destroying him. Although it was believed that these heroes had perished, Franklin Richards subconsciously created a pocket universe Transporting them to an alternate reality known as Counter-Earth. They remained there for some time before eventually returning to the primary Marvel universe. Though Onslaught was thought to be eradicated, remnants of his consciousness persisted. Years later, in the aftermath of the Scarlet Witch's depowering of most of Earth's mutants, Onslaught resurfaced. 

Reforming from the residual energies of Xavier and Magneto's powers, he set his sights on Franklin Richards once more. Onslaught manipulated the human torch and Mr. Fantastic into attacking Franklin, but the boy managed to escape into the recreated Counter-Earth. Onslaught followed him where he battled the heroes of that world. Ultimately, Ricky Barnes, the Bucky of Counter-Earth, sacrificed herself to banish Onslaught into an alternate dimension known as the Negative Zone, which you can learn more about in our Mongol vs. Annihilus episode. 

Despite being trapped, Onslaught eventually found a way to escape. He possessed Ricky Barnes' form using her as a vessel to return to Earth. However, Ricky resisted his influence and in a final act of defiance, had herself killed to ensure that Onslaught could not return. Later, a new version of Onslaught known as Red Onslaught emerged when the Red Skull grafted a portion of Xavier's brain onto his own, granting him powerful telepathic abilities. This new incarnation of Onslaught spread hate and chaos across the world, manipulating heroes and villains alike. 

He was eventually defeated when Scarlet Witch and Dr. Doom performed a magic spell that temporarily inverted the morality of everyone affected. Most recently, when the Earth's mutants created an independent island nation for themselves on Krakowa, Onslaught returned once again as part of a plot by the anti-mute organization Orchis. They implanted a fragment of Onslaught's essence into the mind of a mutant named Lost, allowing him to infiltrate Krakoa undetected. 

Under the guise of a psychic entity called Patchwork Man, Onslaught preyed on the negative emotions of Krakowa mutants, subtly influencing them toward destruction. He was eventually discovered by Xavier, who believed this Patchwork entity to be a manifestation of one of his son, Legion's personalities. However, Legion revealed it was actually Onslaught who had returned. 

You can learn more about Legion in his duel against Crazy Jane. Onslaught eventually possessed most of the mutants on the Krakowa island, planning to have everyone kill each other without the benefit of the mutant resurrection process, which you can learn more about in our Danny the Street vs Krakowa duel episode. Nightcrawler managed to free everyone by teleporting them into a pocket universe inside of Legion's mind, and together, the mutant collective united in communion to embrace Onslaught instead of fighting him. 

Their combined will weakened Onslaught to the point where Nightcrawler crushed him, seemingly ending his reign of terror for good. Powers-wise, Onslaught as a psychic entity possesses the combined powers of his creators, Professor X and Magneto. This means that he has vast telepathic abilities which grant him mind reading, mind control, mind erasure, mind transference, thought casting, illusion casting, psychic cloaking, psychic shielding, psychic pain induction, and psychic astral projection, all on a global scale. Onslaught can also control the fundamental horses of electromagnetism, which grants him complete molecular control of metals at any scale, from manipulating iron and hemoglobin to moving mountains. He can also fly, create impenetrable electromagnetic energy shields, and emit electromagnetic blasts and pulses at the level of a nuclear bomb. In a combination of these powers, Onslaught also possesses telekinesis, allowing him to move or destroy matter with his mind, from small objects to entire city blocks. His telekinesis can teleport and can be used with such acuity as to create holographic illusions by manipulating dust particles and water vapor to refract light waves. Physically, Onslaught has vast strength and durability able to lift in excess of 100 tons on his own. He can psychically absorb mutants in order to gain their abilities as he did with Franklin Richards and Nate Gray, but he won't be wielding those additional powers in this match. Finally, with the combined expertise, training, and strategic thinking of Professor X and Magneto, Onslaught is supremely intelligent with some combat experience. Interesting. 

This almost feels like it's going to be a beefed up version of Sinestro vs. Magneto and Atrocitus vs. Juggernaut. Oh, for sure. Yeah, but that makes me think that Parallax's abilities are to create constructs like a Green Lantern or a Red Lantern. He can do that and a whole lot more. 

Let me get into his backstory. No, Parallax was a primordial entity that came into existence with the dawn of sentient life in the universe. In the spectrum of emotional energy that emerged, Parallax was the embodiment of fear, yellow, and color, a parasitic force that thrived by instilling terror in its victims and feeding on the emotions of those it infected. 

As it traveled from world to world, it consumed entire civilizations, driving them into madness and self-destruction through paranoia and terror. Billions of years ago, the Guardians of the Universe from the planet Owa recognized the danger posed by Parallax and sought to contain it. They imprisoned the entity within the Green Lantern Central Power Battery on Owa, sealing it away with the green energy of will. To prevent others from learning of Parallax's existence, the Owens concealed the truth, allowing the legend of the yellow impurity within the battery to persist. 

This impurity limited the Green Lantern's ability to affect anything yellow and ensured only that those who could overcome great fear could wield a Green Lantern Ring effectively. For centuries, Parallax remained contained within the Green Lantern Central Power Battery, but its influence subtly seeped into the minds of the Green Lantern Core. When the renegade Green Lantern Sinestro was imprisoned within the battery, his cordian yellow power ring unknowingly drew upon Parallax's energy, awakening the entity from dormancy. 

You can learn more about Sinestro in his duel against Magneto. Over time, Parallax's influence began affecting Hal Jordan, recognizing him as one of the greatest Green Lanterns of all time. Without Hal's knowledge, the entity slowly planted seeds of fear and doubt within him, causing minor but noticeable changes in his psyche. You can learn more about Hal Jordan, of course, in our Green Lantern vs. Nova duel episode. Parallax's influence on Hal became more pronounced after the destruction of Coast City at the hands of Mongol and the Cyborg Superman. 

Overcome with grief and desperation, Jordan sought to use his ring to restore the city, but when the Owens refused his request, his emotional state deteriorated further. Secumbing to Parallax's control, Jordan turned against the Green Lantern Core, attacking Oa and slaughtering the Lanterns who stood in his way. Upon entering the central power battery and absorbing all of its energy, Hal fully merged with Parallax in the process. Now wielding unimaginable power, Hal cast aside his identity as a Green Lantern and took on the name of Parallax, seeking to reshape reality itself. With the full power of Parallax, Jordan attempted to reshape time and recreate the universe to his own liking in order to undo the chaos and destruction that plagued existence. 

After teaming up with the villain Extant, who shared similar goals, their plan to rewrite history nearly succeeded, but Parallax was ultimately defeated by Earth's heroes and the timeline was restored. In the wake of his defeat, Jordan began to fight back against Parallax's control. When Earth's sun was extinguished, Jordan, in an act of sheer willpower and redemption, used his power to reignite it, sacrificing himself in the process. His soul, however, was not allowed to rest, instead becoming bonded to the Spectre, the spirit of divine vengeance that you could learn more about in our Spectre vs Galactus episode. But even in death, Parallax's influence lingered with Jordan, corrupting his time as the Spectre's host and preventing him from fully embracing the entity's mission. Parallax remained dormant until Kyle Reiner uncovered the truth behind the yellow impurity in the central power battery. He discovered that Parallax was not merely a weakness in the rings but a sentient entity imprisoned within the battery for billions of years. With this knowledge, Ganthit and the remaining Owens worked to separate Parallax from Hel Jordan's soul. 

You can learn more about Kyle Reiner in our White Lantern vs Null dual episode. As Parallax was exercised, Jordan was resurrected, regaining his physical body and status as a Green Lantern. Parallax, meanwhile, was re-imprisoned within the central power battery. Sinestro, having formed his own army of fear-wielding lanterns known as the Sinestro Core, sought to use Parallax as a weapon against the Green Lanterns. He freed Parallax from its prison and bonded it to Kyle Reiner, forcing Reiner to become its host. Under Parallax's control, Reiner led an assault on Oa, spreading fear across the universe. Hel Jordan and the other lanterns managed to free Reiner and Parallax was recaptured. 

This time, to prevent its escape, the Owens split the entity into four parts and imprisoned each portion within the personal power batteries of Hel Jordan, Kyle Reiner, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner. During the rise of the Black Lantern Core, Parallax was once again unleashed when Hel Jordan voluntarily allowed it to possess him in order to battle the Undead Spectre, who had been corrupted by a Black Lantern Ring. With Parallax's power, Jordan was able to free the Spectre and push back the Black Lantern forces before expelling the entity once more. Parallax was later captured by Krona, the rogue guardian of the universe who sought to use Parallax and the other emotional entities to exert control over the Green Lantern Core. Krona placed Parallax back into the central power battery, reinstating the yellow impurity and corrupting nearly every Green Lantern in the universe. 

Jordan and his allies, however, resisted its influence using the rings of other Lantern Cores to combat Krona's forces. In the final battle, Parallax was removed from the central power battery and Krona was defeated. Eventually, Sinestro, seeking ultimate power, allowed Parallax to possess him, though he was able to maintain control over its influence. With Parallax's power, Sinestro became one of the most formidable beings in the universe, enabling him to kill the Guardians of Oa. When the other entities of the emotional spectrum were drawn back to the Source, the primordial origin of all energy, to restore the emotional spectrum when it was thrown into disarray, Parallax was the only one who remained behind, still bound to Sinestro. Parallax was eventually separated from Sinestro and was greatly weakened. Struggling to regain its strength, Parallax began abducting children, feeding on their fears to sustain itself. 

In a desperate bid for power, it possessed the Reverse Flash, who you can learn more about in his dual episode against King the Conqueror. Parallax was ultimately expelled, however, and left once again without a host. Now, powers-wise, Parallax is an entity of pure fear energy, capable of infecting minds and its victims and exerting near total control over them. 

It possesses individuals who experience even the slightest fear, corrupting their thoughts and twisting their emotions. Those under Parallax's influence exhibit immense power, often surpassing the capabilities of a standard lantern. Parallax creates energy constructs similar to a green or yellow lantern, but on a far greater scale, often forming monstrous avatars of fear to intimidate and attack its enemies. It can instill terror on a planetary level and can drive entire civilizations to self-destruction. In its true form, Parallax has no physical body, existing as a shapeless entity that takes on forms designed to terrify those who behold it. Though it is vulnerable to willpower, it is nearly impossible to destroy. That's Parallax. 

Interesting, yet the entity of Parallax is a little bit more abstract than the entity of Onslaught, so I'm really curious how this speculation is going to go down. But if we can make a sentient street go up against a sentient island, we could probably do anything. So let's give it a shot. 

Now that we've 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 this fight could play out. AG9K, 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 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. 

All right, then let's get into it. Parallax and Onslaught meet on the battlefield. Who goes first? I'm going to say Parallax goes first by, you know, of course, probing the fears of Onslaught. That's stupid because Onslaught is a manifestation of negative psychic energy, like he has no fears. I don't even think he's literally capable of fear. 

I think any sentient mind has at least a fear of dying. So, you know, Parallax, he's going to create a yellow energy construct of this giant moonsized skull that's going to crash onto Onslaught like an asteroid and just demolish him. Onslaught's going to be terrified of that. 

No, he's not. All Onslaught is going to do is going to look up at this moonsized skull and he's going to stretch out his hand and be like, behold, my mighty hand. And it's going to send out this electromagnetic shockwave that's so powerful that it rips into this asteroid and just like crumble it into boulders, like thousands of boulders that are going to rain down all around Onslaught. But he's going to be okay because he has his energy shield up. But like the planet they're fighting on is probably completely devastated and they're probably just fighting now on like this demolished asteroid belt in the middle of space. But that is when Onslaught is going to probe the mind of Parallax's host and learn exactly what this entity is. 

Okay, yeah, sure. You know, Onslaught, he's going to get a glimpse of Parallax's true like dragon insectoid form, which is scary as fuck. And while Onslaught is the slightest bit momentarily distracted and jarred by this reveal, Parallax is going to spew from his mouth like dozens of tentacles with razor sharp claws in place of suction cups. And they're going to wrap around Onslaught and just rip his armor off. Okay, we'll say that these tentacles remove a portion of Onslaught's armor. 

But all that's going to do is make Onslaught stronger because as he becomes less contained, he grows more powerful, you know, he's going to grow in size so large that he breaks free of these tentacles. And he's going to snatch up Parallax's hosts and hold him in the palm of his hand and just crush him into dust. And when he opens his hand, that's going to reveal Parallax's true demon form. And he's going to telepathically pull this entity into the astral plane. So now, both Onslaught and Parallax are psychic entities battling it out in a realm where anything goes now basically. Well, wait, so Onslaught's willingly going to allow the universal embodiment of fear onto a plane where Parallax doesn't need a host. So he's like unbound to be his most pure night marriage self. I will allow this. 

I will allow this. So right away on the astral plane, like this putrid yellow sky is going to emerge and suddenly these two bright yellow terrifying eyes open in the sky looking down and piercing Onslaught with a gaze that would drive mortal minds insane. And it's going to shatter Onslaught's mind. 

Okay, you know what? I'm starting to think that maybe taking Parallax to the astral plane was not my best play. I'm going to admit that. Except Onslaught's no mere mortal mind. 

Okay. In fact, he brought Parallax to the astral plane for a reason. And that is because he absorbs mental energy. So like these yellow eyes feed into Onslaught, which is going to make Onslaught grow larger than the sky. You know, his form abstractly like surpasses all horizons and all dimensions on the astral plane until he like actually embodies the astral plane because he's so powerful now and he consumes Parallax into himself taking on his power. And now Onslaught becomes more frightening and powerful than both Parallax and Onslaught combined. Onslaught. I was thinking more like Paronslanks. I don't know. Slanks. Okay. 

I mean, none of this actually happens. You know why? Because bringing Parallax onto the astral plane gives Parallax access to Onslaught's powerful mind. And that's going to allow him to extend his fear influence beyond the planetary level to the universal. And Parallax is going to draw upon the emotional turmoil to infect Onslaught's mind like a parasite, making him think he's one. But really Parallax is in control. 

No, Onslaught's in control. Sure. Yeah. That's exactly what I want you to think. If someone like Sinestro can still be in control while possessed by Parallax, then Onslaught sure as hell can. Oh, you think so, huh? 

Yeah, that's fine. Meanwhile, Parallax uses Onslaught's body to take over the universe and win this match. No, you mean Onslaught uses Parallax's power to take over the universe and win this match? Oh, sure. Yeah. Definitely not the other way around. Wink. 

The listeners don't know, but I'm winking. Let's go ahead and see which of these results happens by inputting the stats and running the simulations. It sounds like either way, Onslaught is absorbing Parallax into himself. It's just a question of whether Parallax is then in control or Onslaught is then in control. Let's find out who's in control with our simulator. 8G9K, hit it. 

Inputting data, running calculations, processing results, simulations complete. 

All right, guys, that was pretty fun. Didn't quite go down like how I thought it would be, but really, if you think about it, I don't think he could finish any other way. Oh, yeah, totally. It was very different from what I thought it was going to be, but essentially, these are two abstract energy entities. So yeah, it's not like they're going to throw hands against each other. I mean, Onslaught has thrown hands before, you know, against the Avengers and the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, but we said that both of these guys have about the same level of strength, also the same level of durability and also equal in range. Although we gave Parallax the edge when it came to movement speed, because he could traverse the universe much easier than Onslaught can. Yeah, for as powerful as Onslaught is outside of, you know, being able to handle a majority of Earth's heroes, he doesn't have any really planetary or cosmic level of feats on the same level as Parallax, but he's a mind reader with a combined intellect of Professor Exo Magneto, whereas Parallax is more of like a primordial entity who's maybe not as evolved and usually gets captured, you know. So we said that Onslaught has greater intellect. Yeah, Parallax kind of seems to drive more on instinct. He's kind of at the whim of the host regarding his intelligence. 

He's less of a mind reader and more of a fear sensor. So Onslaught got the advantage and perception as well. Parallax in his Green Lantern host is much more versatile than Onslaught as well. And we also gave him the edge when it came to damage level. Yeah, I mean, for as strong as Onslaught is, he hasn't destroyed a planet like Parallax has. 

Right, which makes me really surprised at our Instagram poll results, considering that 53% of our poll takers chose Onslaught for the win. Like, do you guys know how powerful Parallax is? The guy literally almost rewrote all of reality in the universe. Our Instagram poll takers are pretty keen, though. 

It's not like Onslaught hasn't worked reality before, you know, using the powers of Franklin Richards, of course, but, you know, he's still done it. Let's find out who won. AJ9K, the results, please. Hey, you are, sir. All right, the winner in the duel matchup between Parallax and Onslaught is Parallax. Hell yeah! 

Hell yeah! How did this like little worm guy beat one of the biggest badasses that Marble has to offer? Parallax is a universal embodiment of fear, and Onslaught is just like the embodiment of shared tantrum. How much did Parallax win by? Out of the 1000 matches, Parallax won 524 of them compared to Onslaught's 476 wins. So Parallax wins 52.4% of the time. 

I'm not gonna lie, I actually thought the percentage was gonna be much higher for Parallax than that. Well, what kind of saved Onslaught was his intellect and perception. Basically, his ability to telepathically read and control minds made sure he didn't lose too bad here. Parallax may win a majority of the matches in a fight against Onslaught, but there's one thing that he can never take away from Onslaught, and that is the cool factor. 

Marble just says that cool factor that DC cannot hope to touch, and so I feel like Marble fans can still take away that consolation. Plus, who thought Parallax was a good name? Like, that's a stupid name. I will cede that Onslaught has the much cooler name. I think DC was just trying to go for something that sounded like parasite, but didn't want to use parasite because that was already taken. That makes sense, actually, I can see that. But that does it for this duel, guys. A.J. and I.K. help close us out. 

Our next episode is going to be another team duel episode, where in honor of Women's History Month, we're going to pit the female teams against each other of Birds of Prey and A-Force. Yes, it's a surprise team duel episode. Actually, we're planning on surprising you guys with a new team duel episode every month this year. 

So look forward to that. Well, didn't you just ruin the surprise by saying that? Surprise! 

But that does it for this episode. We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, John Staroski, Zachary Hepburn, Miggy Mathen-Gian, Brandon Esregard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Austin Wizalowski, A.J. Dunkerley, Nick Ibonto, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Spees, Dean Maleski, Devin Davis, Joseph Kirsting, Josh Leiner, Mike Williams, and Oscar Galvez for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up, up and away, true believers! 

The best amalgam of parallax and onslaught would be Papa's Exlax, obviously.