Psycho-Pirate vs Mastermind

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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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 are going to find out who'd win in a fight between the grand illusionist characters Psycho pirate and mastermind. Yes, psycho pirate is a JSA villain whereas mastermind

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is a villain of the X-Men. Yeah, it should be a pretty trippy duel speculation later on this episode. Yeah, if you guys take mushrooms, take them now. If you microdose, just forget the micro part. Cause it's gonna be crazy, man. No, we're gonna talk about who'd win in a fight. We're gonna plug in the character stats, run a thousand simulations, and come up with the definitive answer.

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Later on this episode, before that we're gonna break down the latest comic book movie news to come out this past week, of which there was just one news item, fairly low key and mostly boring. We learned that Jonathan and Martha can't have been cast in the Superman film. Bias! On me I'm like, who cares? I'm like, who cares? Bias. But 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 past the boring stuff. What the fuck? Our artificially intelligent duel simulator, AJ9K, has 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 two-o 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.

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The Fantastic Four tier gives you that and more with two bonus episodes each month, including bloopers and top ten shows where Johnny and Joe count down your favourite Marvel and DC subjects. The X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of Dynamic Duel, where every month you help the hosts 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.

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Thanks AJ9K and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast, including executive producer Brandon Estregard who had his birthday this past week. Happy birthday, Brandon!

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If I could get you one gift from Marvel, I think it would be to have the power of the puppet master, the Fantastic Four villain. That way you can animate all the cool Funko pops that you have. And I would give you the power of Toy Man, who actually I don't think has any powers, but he has a lot of cool toys, just like you. Happy birthday, man. Be sure to tune into the shows in the DynaMic podcast network this week, including Max Destruction.

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which pits your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other. This week though, hosts Ken and Scotty will be doing a review of the wrestling film, Ready to Rumble. On the Senjou World podcast, host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. This Thursday, he's going to find out who would win in a fight between Mahito from Jujutsu Kaisen and Elder Toguro from Yu Yu Hakusho. On the Console Combat podcast,

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hosts John and Dean find out who would win in fights between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode, they reviewed season 1 of the Fallout television series. Not listening to it because I haven't watched it yet, but I'm dying to. Well, I never played the game, so I don't know if I would get much out of it. That doesn't bother me. It's fine. I'll learn about the game through the show. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all of the shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network.

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the Rankers podcast where you can listen to Jonathan and I get into a full on debate over who is better between Marvel and DC. Now I know what you're thinking, don't you guys do that every week on the show? Well in the Rankers podcast that we guested on we took a more holistic approach to the Marvel versus DC debate. Joseph and I each got five minutes to explain why we think DC or Marvel is better and then yeah we just argued with the guys and it was a whole lot of fun.

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and yeah, be sure to check it out this Friday, April 26th. 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 we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week we asked, what film are you looking forward to more this year? Deadpool and Wolverine?

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or Joker Folly-a-doo. And this is coming off of the teaser trailer that we got for Joker Folly-a-doo. And Jonathan just felt like he wanted to be a glutton for punishment by asking this question. We got three honorable mentions, as well as a no prize winner. So let's go ahead and break those down. Our first honorable mention goes to Harrison Fox, who said, As much as I enjoy Joker, and I'm looking forward to the continuation of that story, nothing can compare to the hype of Deadpool and Wolverine.

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It's going to be the first real bridge between the Fox universe and the MCU, something we've been waiting almost 20 years for. It's going to have Hugh Jackman in the classic yellow costume. It's going to have the TVA and it's going to have Deadpool. There is nothing more exciting than all of that. No matter how much Lady Gaga you have in your movie. Yeah. It would take at least three times as much Lady Gaga and Joker Folly I do to even come close to the level of anticipation people are feeling for Deadpool and Wolverine this summer.

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That is a scientific fact. That is that is a lot of Lady Gaga. I mean, I do kind of see where he's coming from, where there's all this hype that the X-Men are finally going to appear in the MCU. But, man, I'm like, we already got our first mutant with Miss Marvel, you know? Well, we've also seen Professor X in the Multiverse of Madness movie, and then there was Beast in the Marvel's film. But this is going to be like a whole lot more of that awesomeness.

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And those really weren't even that awesome. They were that awesome, actually. They were incredible. I cannot wait for Deadpool and Wolverine. Great answer, Harrison Fox. I think you put it very well. Our next honorable mention goes to Travis Herndon, who said, Hey, danger dudes, Travis here. Shout out to my other twins. So my answer would have to be Deadpool and Wolverine. One is because Deadpool was finally in the MCU. Two, Hugh Jackman is back playing Wolverine. I feel like this movie is going to be kicking ass.

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We're gonna be seeing some cool action scenes with those two. And honestly, depending on how this movie ends, it's gonna be either really good or really fucking amazing. So yeah, that's my pick. Those really are the two options of how Deadpool and Wolverine can come out. It's gonna be either really good or really fucking amazing, just like Travis Herndon said. There are no other options. As much as I hate the idea of-

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Hugh Jackman coming back to the role of Wolverine after he ended it on a perfect note with Logan. I do have to admit that the pairing of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman is comedic perfection. I mean, well, we did see it happen already in X-Men Origins Wolverine, but also we tried to forget about that movie. I already did. Thanks for reminding me. I'm sure they'll be making a reference to that film in the Deadpool and Wolverine movie that comes out. Great answer, Travis. Our final honorable mention goes to...

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Koyen Liao who said, Hi there, Koyen Liao speaking here, listening from Singapore. I'd say my answer would be Deadpool and Wolverine because you don't get this kind of collaboration every year and Joker followed you is kind of stupid. I mean the musical is kind of stupid. But yeah, my answer would be Deadpool and Wolverine. So yeah, that's it I think.

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That's it. That's all that needs to be said. Joker Folly I do is stupid. How about that, Jonathan? Well, I think specifically said that musicals are stupid, which I could disagree every single freaking podcast episode leading up to the Joker movie where everyone is proven wrong. But I understand that that sentiment exists out there. If you guys think musicals are stupid, I recommend checking out like Flight of the Concords or Sweeney Todd. They're not all bad. Sweeney Todd wasn't that good, man. I watched that movie.

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I didn't like it that much because you're stupid. If you want to talk about a good musical, I thought Team America was a pretty good musical. Oh, that's a great one. Hamilton actually was fantastic. It's probably the best one. We really don't get better than Hamilton. Yeah, you can't get better than Hamilton. Yeah. Great answer, Koyan. We want to give a quick shout out to both JP and Josh Hayward. First time colors who also gave the answer of Deadpool and Wolverine. Everybody basically gave the answer of Deadpool and Wolverine.

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How could you not, right? How could you not? Except for the winner of this week's No Prize, who is Miggy Mathingian? He said. Hey, what's up guys, this is Miggy, and I'm looking forward to Folly a Do more than Deadpool because it's gonna be like more intelligent, just a better objectively better made film, probably gonna win more awards. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just like as a DC fan, like just more intelligent than like the brainwashed MCU zombies.

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You know what I'm saying? So, yeah. That's right MCU fans, you guys are brainwashed. You guys need to get with the program and start watching more intelligent films like Joker Follyadoo. The only reason Miggie's answer won the question of the week was because there was no way to choose between all the other answers of Deadpool and Wolverine, of which they staggeringly outnumbered Miggie's answer of the Joker sequel. More people are in fact looking forward to Deadpool and Wolverine.

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And yeah, you may like, I don't know, try to rile us up by saying we're less intelligent for that. But that just makes you look petty because obviously everyone knows Deadpool and Wolverine is going to be the better superhero film. But I mean, do they? Like, I don't know that. I don't know that. And I'm more intelligent because I'm a DC fan. Wait. So you're saying that you don't know something and that you're more intelligent. I think that's kind of contradictory. Fuck. Yeah. No, honestly, I'm really curious to see who's going to come out on top in the box office.

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because the Deadpool films have made over a billion dollars. They're rated R. The first Joker film is rated R, and it's actually the highest grossing rated R film of all time, making over a billion dollars. So these are both billion dollar rated R franchises. They're both sequels. Who's gonna win the box office? That's what I really wanna know. You wanna place a bet on it now? I think you've lost every single bet that we've made. I don't remember that. I remember winning all of the bets. No. All right, let's do a bet. 50 bucks says that Joker comes out on top.

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50 bucks overbending money, not pride. Cause last time you lost these bets, you had to say live on air that Batman is a piece of shit. But we'll do money. Money's fine. I could use some money. Oh, I don't know. Okay. No, if you lose, you have to say Marvel sucks ass. Okay. And if you lose, you have to give me 50 bucks. Deal. Damn it.

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But congrats to Miggi for winning this week's No Prize. If you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize, stay tuned till later on this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done, on to the news.

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Okay, so this past week, the wrap, I believe, was the first trade to get the exclusive castings for Jonathan and Martha Kent, the farmer adoptive parents of Superman in the upcoming Superman film. Jonathan Kent is going to be played by Pruitt Taylor Vintze, who I most know from Constantine. He was Constantine's priest friend. But he's also had a recurring role on Netflix's Stranger Things. He was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

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He was in Heroes Reborn, True Blood, The Walking Dead, The Mentalist, Murder One, which he actually won an Emmy for. The guy has a pretty robust filmography. Who was he in Agents of Shield? I don't remember him. I don't know. I didn't watch that show. Well, why don't you look it up on IMDb and then tell me? Hey, hey, same to you, pal. Same to you. You're the one asking the question. OK, according to IMDb, he played a character named Grill in four episodes in season five of Agents of Shield.

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And I don't remember that character at all. I may have to revisit that. Well, I think is fairly recognizable as an actor. He may not be a household name, but I think he's a good actor. And I think he could definitely pull off the Kansas farmer for sure. As can Neva Howell, who will be playing Martha Kent. I don't know if I've actually seen her in anything. She was in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Long Call, Logan Lucky and My Fellow Americans.

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She looks a little familiar, but yeah, not really familiar with her at all. So is this the most boring casting news ever? I think so. I'm pretty bored. Are you excited? Hell yeah, I'm excited. I think this just continues James Gunn's streak of casting this movie perfectly. I mean, they kind of look more the part, I would say, than Kevin Costner and Diane Lane. Like those actors are very like...

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Model-esque I would say whereas these guys definitely, you know resemble more of what I imagine a Kansas farming couple would look like A little bit more down-to-earth, I guess. Exactly. Sure. And since there's nothing really left to say about this topic, that brings us to our question of the week.

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What casting announcement for a Marvel or DC film were you most hyped about when you first heard about it and why? Yeah, this goes back through the history of Marvel and DC films. What was the announcement that when you heard it you were just like so freaking pumped to see the movie? Because of this announcement. Think about it, let us know. 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.

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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 dole no prize that will post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before April 27th.

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But I think that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and move into our main event, where we find out who'd win in a fight between the JSA villain of Psycho Pirate and the X-Men villain, Mastermind.

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Alright, Psycho Pirate versus Mastermind. These are both illusionist characters. They can make people see things psychically that don't actually exist, but they're highly manipulative in that fashion. No, well for Psycho Pirate, these things actually do exist. They're like, they're lifelike duplicates. What the fuck? How is he an illusionist then? That's like reality warping, not illusions. Yeah, yeah, he's a reality warper, you could say. Well, this is a stupid match. Whose idea was this? Miggy's?

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No, actually, it was your idea. We were trying to think of a match up for Psycho Pirate because he's going to be featured, it looks like pretty heavily in the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths animated film. And you were the one who suggested Mastermind. I think I suggested it because Psycho Pirate has empathy powers, empathic abilities. Yes. And Mastermind can also elicit emotions through the use of his illusions. And plus, to the person experiencing the illusions, they are real according to all of their senses.

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So for all intents and purposes, to his victims, it almost is like mastermind is warping reality. So, Psycho Pirates going down, and I'm not scared. You will be. Okay Yoda, can't wait to get into this duel matchup, but to explain the methodology behind our duels, let's go to our sentient duel simulator, Alfred Jarvis 9000. AJ and Ayn K, tell our listeners how you go about determining a winner in our duel matchups. Yes, of course sir.

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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 randomise 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,

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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.

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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 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.

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And I believe it's my turn to go first with the DC character, so let me tell you all about Psycho Pirate. Now on Earth 2, an alternate reality from DC's primary universe, a greedy, middle-aged pressman for the Daily Courier newspaper named Charles Halsted hated his publisher for not paying him enough. This hatred drove Charles into orchestrating a series of crimes based on emotion as the costumed villain Psycho Pirate.

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As Charles became successful in his crimes, he became bolder, though after he challenged the Justice Society of America to stop him, the team managed to do just that, and Charles was put in prison. You can learn more about the JSA in our Justice Society vs. Fantastic Four episode. Charles became obsessed with manipulating people's emotions and dabbled in psychology and mysticism, enabling him to escape prison several times, only to be returned to his cell.

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by the JSA over the decades. By the mid-60s, Charles grew ill in prison, and, wanting to pass on his secrets before death, taught his young cellmate Roger Hayden everything he knew about manipulating emotions and also revealed the existence of the Medusa Masks, mystic and ancient golden masks discovered by the archaeologist Kent Nelson, aka Dr. Fate of the JSA. The Medusa Masks

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portrayed emotional expressions that were projected onto anyone who saw them. You can learn more about Dr. Fate in his duel episode with Dr. Strange. Charles died soon after, and Roger, who had been sentenced to a year in prison for attacking his father, an emotionally abusive psychiatrist, was set free. Roger was eventually able to acquire the Medusa Masks, which he used successfully to commit crimes as the new Psycho Pirates.

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It wasn't long before Roger decided to melt and merge the masks into a single, all-powerful Medusa mask, allowing him to manipulate others across the broad spectrum of emotions without having to change masks. Confronted by the JSA, Psycho Pirate soon realized that merging the masks had corrupted their magic, resulting in him being able to, and needing to, feed on others' emotions, otherwise he would succumb to mental anguish. Thanks to Dr. Fate,

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The GSA was able to imprison Psycho Pirate, who was later broken out of jail by the Ultrahumanite, so that he could join a secret society of supervillains. Over time, Psycho Pirate was driven insane by the pain of needing to feed on emotions, though he was eventually cured by the multiversal overseer known as the Monitor, who had recruited Psycho Pirate and other heroes and villains to save the multiverse from his brother, the Anti-Monitor, who was destroying it.

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The Anti-Monitor kidnapped Psycho-Pirate, however, and after being promised an entire world of beings whose emotions he could toy with and drain, Psycho-Pirate manipulated the Monitor's champions and at one point was able to manipulate entire universes. This proved to be too taxing over time, however, and resulted in Psycho-Pirate losing his powers. After the Anti-Monitor's defeat, the multiverse was merged into a single universe in which Roger,

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was confined to Arkham Asylum, driven insane after being connected to the minds of so many beings as well as being one of the few in existence to remember the multiversal crisis and the existence of past universes. PsychoPirate eventually escaped Arkham with help from a fifth dimensional genie known as a Thunderbolt, and was able to purge his memories of the past multiverse through the Thunderbolt's electroshock treatments.

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the teams of Infinity Inc and the Outsiders, Psycho Pirate was imprisoned once again. The Thunderbolts therapy eventually wore off, however, and Roger's pre-crisis memories returned. The strain of remembering so many lives that had been lost caused Psycho Pirate's Medusa mask to manifest the fallen characters, returning them to life. The characters eventually discovered, though, that not only were they illusions created by

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With help from Animal Man, the characters and Psycho Pirate were put at ease and faded from existence. The Medusa mask, however, did not disappear and bounced from Arkham Asylum to the Outsiders and the Suicide Squad. When the Archdemon Neron unleashed the underworld on Earth, it was revealed that Psycho Pirate had been residing in Limbo, and he agreed to sell his soul to Neron in exchange for life and power. While Neron was on Earth,

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The Psycho Pirate was able to transform the Medusa Mask into an eye patch and remained sane. Upon Neiron's defeat, however, the Medusa Mask returned to its earlier state as did Psycho Pirate's mind over time, remembering pre-crisis events and characters. It was the return of Psycho Pirate's memories that caused him to realize that he and Power Girl, originally Earth-2's Supergirl, were the only two survivors of Earth-2 in the new

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You can learn more about Power Girl in our Power Girl vs Valkyrie episode. After failing to get Power Girl to join his cause in helping Alexander Luther of Earth 3 to restore the multiverse, the emotionless Black Adam straight up killed Psycho Pirate by shoving his fingers through his face, and the Teen Titan Raven later destroyed the Medusa Mask. That is until the Blackest Night, when zombified heroes and villains returned from the dead to kill all life in the universe.

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With the Medusa mask constructed from his black ring, Psycho Pirate pit Superman and Superboy against each other, though once Superboy managed to steal the black Medusa mask and use it against the black lanterns, Psycho Pirate and the others returned to inanimate corpses. When the Flash reset DC's continuity in a Flashpoint event, Roger Hayden was one of twenty humans that were captured and experimented on by the villain Brainiac, giving them psychic abilities.

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While hunted by the Hive Queen, another member of the Twenty, Roger sought and fought the Medusa Mask, which was now simply an artifact capable of blocking out psychic attacks and manipulations from others. After Psycho-Pirate attacked Metropolis, Superman destroyed the Medusa Mask, causing Roger to flee. This was later retconned when DC's pre- and post-Flashpoint timelines merged, resulting in a rebirth of DC's continuity. The villain Bane...

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who you can learn more about in our Bane vs Iron Fist episode, captured Psycho Pirate and forced him to use his powers to help Bane overcome his childhood trauma and addiction to the Venom steroid. Batman managed to abduct Psycho Pirate and kept his Medusa mask in the Batcave, where it later brought back to life old characters that had not yet been reintroduced to continuity, such as Jay Garrick the Flash.

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as well as characters from alternate universes such as the Flashpoint Thomas Wayne version of Batman. Now powers-wise, Psycho Pirate is typically shown as having no natural superhuman abilities other than a master understanding of human emotion and manipulation. When donning the Medusa Mask, Psycho Pirate is able to project emotions onto others, often by magically manifesting objects or beings that cause a person to feel a specific emotion. For example,

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If you wanted to instill fear in you, Joseph, he'd create a spider on the wall right behind you! Okay, didn't work! Or if you wanted to instill joy in me, he'd create a spider on the wall right behind you! Damn it! Maybe don't have a big smile on your face when you're saying this, because then it's not believable. Fuck! Now the Medusa Mask can also create characters from universes or timelines that have been destroyed.

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It can create illusions that can disguise Psycho Pirate or create false duplicates of himself. He does have several weaknesses, however. One being that he's insane, and the other that he begins to feel psychic pain if he's not around others with emotions. That's Psycho Pirate. So the purpose of his illusions are more to elicit a certain fear, as opposed to like a broad illusion casting ability that has nothing to do with empathy.

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Oh, it's not specific to fear. He's not a mind reader and he can't quite control the things that are created. It's more about the other person manifesting things that would make them feel an emotion that he wants them to feel. Wait, so it's the victim that's manifesting the illusion. So the mask has some kind of psychic ability that can read the victim's mind. Exactly. Kind of like Mirage. Yeah. Yeah, actually just like that.

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Yeah, Mirage doesn't necessarily know what illusion she's going to create. She just has the ability to manifest an illusion of the victim's greatest fear. You can learn more about Mirage in our Arrowette versus Mirage Duel episode. But it sounds like those two characters are kind of similar. Yeah, yeah, you could say that. And to be fair, Mastermind is also very similar. So that's good. Let me go ahead and get into his backstory and tell you all about him.

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Little is known about the early life of Jason Wingard, as it's believed that that name is as false as the man himself. Prior to being discovered by Magneto working as a carnival mentalist, all that was known of the man named Jason was that he lived a life of deception through his mutant ability to cast telepathic illusions that causes victims to see whatever he wished them to see. Spurred by malice and hatred, plus his desire to be with the Scarlet Witch,

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Jason joined Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants team and their goal of mutant superiority through the subjugation of humanity. He proved instrumental in the Brotherhood's first mission when they captured the entire South American nation of Santo Marco, with help from Jason's illusion that they had thousands of soldiers on their side. It was there that the Brotherhood first clashed with the X-Men, a team of mutant heroes who opposed Magneto's agenda. You can learn more about the X-Men in our Titans vs X-Men Team Duel episode.

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and more about the Brotherhood in their duel against the Rogues. The Brotherhood and X-Men would repeatedly clash over the years, and Mastermind would employ such illusions against them as flames, duplicates of himself, or he would just use his trusty handgun that he always carried with him. The Brotherhood was often defeated, however, and the frustrated Jason joined a new group of mutants bent on world domination called Factor III, alongside other X-Men enemies as the Blob, Vanisher, Eunice the Untouchable, and Changeling.

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They planned to instigate a nuclear war between the United States and Russia, however when it was revealed that the team leader Mutant Master was an extraterrestrial, Factor 3 and the X-Men united to defeat him. At one point, Mastermind teamed up with the Sentry villain known as the General to implant the illusion in the hero's mind that he should no longer use his powers. You can learn more about the Sentry in our duel episode where we pit him against Zod.

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Later, a secret group of influential mutants called the Hellfire Club invited Jason to join their inner circle, seeing his power set as a valuable asset for their agenda to amass greater wealth and power. You can learn more about the Hellfire Club and their tradition of codenaming their highest ranking members as chess pieces in our Poison Ivy vs White Queen Emma Frost duel episode. To prove his worth to the Hellfire Club, Jason set out to manipulate the X-Men member Jane

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and turn her into the Inner Circle's Black Queen. He wasn't aware, however, that at that time, Jean Grey was actually a manifestation of the cosmic entity called the Phoenix Force, who had taken on the appearance of Jean in order to experience new sensations. Jason exploited her mind into joining the Hellfire Club, though the X-Men leader Cyclops tried to intervene. When Jason cast an illusion to the Phoenix Force that he killed Cyclops, whom she loved,

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he inadvertently unleashed her fury and transformed her into the Dark Phoenix, which you can learn more about in our Raven versus Phoenix episode. In retaliation for Jason's manipulation, the Phoenix Force opened his mind for a moment to the vastness of the universe, driving him insane. He was rejected from the Hellfire Club and taken to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric recovery. Upon being released several years later, he set about getting revenge on the Inner Circle and the X-Men.

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He attacked Emma Frost, putting her into a coma. He created a rift between Rogue and her adoptive mother Mystique. And he got Wolverine's fiancee, Mariko Yashida, to call off their wedding. Finally, he convinced the X-Men that Cyclops' new fiance, Madeline Pryor, was the Dark Phoenix, hoping to get them to kill her. However, Cyclops discovered Jason's deception, and the X-Men defeated him.

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Eventually, Jason discovered he had contracted the Legacy Virus, a disease lethal to mutants that was unleashed by Cable's clone from the future named Strife. Jason's legacy was carried on, however, by several of his estranged daughters, two of whom inherited his illusion casting abilities and took his codename of Mastermind. His first daughter, Martinique Wingard, was hired by the villain Arcade to frame Wolverine for the murder of several women in London. She turned on Arcade, however,

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whom you can learn more about in our Riddler vs Arcade duel, and later joined Mystique's Brotherhood of Mutants team. Martinique was eventually incarcerated and forced to join a new team called X-Core, led by the former X-Men member Banshee, who felt the best approach to achieve Professor X's dream of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants was to have a mutant police force to regulate the activities of other mutants.

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However, it was revealed that Banshee was using Martinique's illusion casting powers to placate the more villainous quote unquote reformed members of the team. After the revelation of this news, the X-Core was disbanded. Jason's other daughter and Martinique's half-sister was named Regenwingard. She was hired by Sebastian Shaw, the Black King of the Hellfire Club, to manipulate the mutant Sage into betraying the X-Win and compelling Rogue to attack her teammates by making her see them as someone else.

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Eventually her illusions were turned back on Regan, leaving her in a vegetative state. She was taken in and cared for by the X-Men, and when she recovered, she ended up joining the team for a time. However, it turned out to all be a ruse in coordination with the villains Mr. Sinister and Mystique, and Regan revealed a team of mutant villains that she had been concealing this whole time called the Marauders, who went on to attack and capture some of the X-Men heroes. The X-Men later fought back against Mr. Sinister, and Wolverine stabbed Regan.

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taking her out of commission for a time. You can learn more about Mr. Sinister in his duel against the Ultra-Humanite. Eventually, both sisters, Martinique and Regan, joined the Sisterhood of Mutants, led by Jean Grey's clone and Cyclops' former fiancee, Madeleine Pryor, who was after Jean Grey's DNA in order to form herself a new body. Though the team was unsuccessful, the sisters soon learned that Jason had another daughter named Pixie, who had wings and could emit hallucinogenic dust.

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The three sisters worked together to defeat a horde of demons and then parted ways, with Pixie remaining with the X-Men. Afterward, Regan ended up contracting MPOX, which was another disease that mutants were susceptible to after the release of the Terrigan Mists in the Earth's atmosphere by the Inhuman King Black Bolt, whom you can learn more about in our Shazam vs. Black Bolt duel episode.

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The mutant known as Mirage, another illusionist, convinced Regan to seek treatment at the X-Men healing facility set up by Storm called X-Haven. When Professor X and Magneto founded a home for mutants on the sentient island nation of Krakoa, they established a process for resurrecting mutants using a combination of mutant powers, including mass generation, reality warping, time manipulation, and genetic and psychic archiving. Using a DNA sample from Jason, they were able to bring Mastermind

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back to life after he had succumbed to the legacy virus years ago. He ended up partnering with the villain Mr. Sinister, helping him keep secret a clone farm that he had set up behind the Krakoan Council's back. You can learn more about Krakoa in his duel against Danny the Street. Powers-wise, Mastermind has the mutant ability to cast psychic illusions. His illusions affect all the senses of his victims.

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making them able to see, hear, smell, touch, and even taste what is projected into their minds. This not only lets Mastermind alter his opponent's perception of their environment, but also their perception of him. These illusions are so strong that even if a person is consciously aware that they're inside of an illusion, their mind will still react to it as if it were reality. He can extend his illusions to affect up to an entire city, and the more intelligent the victim, the greater the effect.

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His one weakness is that he has to keep his concentration in order to maintain his illusions, leaving him vulnerable to people who aren't under his influence. Finally, Mastermind carries a regular handgun, and he will shoot your ass. How's that for a superpower? Pfft, I'm not scared! You're bringing a gun to a mask fight, bro! Hahaha! Now Mastermind was in the movie X-Men 2, right? Like there was a character, there was a combination between Mastermind and Legion.

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Yeah, he was William Stryker's son. He was in a wheelchair and he basically manipulated Professor X to use Cerebro in Stryker's plan to kill all mutants on Earth. This version of Mastermind in the movie was very different from the comics version. The comics version isn't in a wheelchair. He doesn't have two different color eyes and he's not the son of William Stryker. Gotcha. Okay.

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But he was pretty twisted in that movie. I remember Striker saying that his wife ended up killing himself with a drill to the temple in order to bore the images out that Mastermind was casting in there. So he's a pretty kind of scary villain, actually. Not a scary psycho pirate.

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fantasies collide and heroes clash, one podcast network rises above the rest. Prepare yourself for the ultimate showdowns in comic books, video games, movies, and anime. The Dynomic Podcast Network presents Console Combat, where video game legends brawl every Monday.

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Comic Book Titans smash every Tuesday. Max Destruction, where TV and action heroes battle every Wednesday. And Sendro World, where anime champions clash every Thursday. Join us as we speculate on the matches and armed with the power of mathematical simulations, discover who will emerge victorious. Visit dynamicpodcast.com where we settle the debate and settle the score.

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But 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 this speculation, but it's fun to imagine how this fight could play out. AJ9K, 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...

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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. Psycho pirate and mastermind to meet on the battlefield who goes first? This is gonna be hard I feel like but I'm gonna say that psycho pirate goes first cuz he's just crazy

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So he'll probably want to scare Mastermind right away, you know, in order to feed off of his fear. So Psycho Pirate starts by making Mastermind see a series of mirrors surround him, showing him grotesque exaggerated reflections of his own creepy ass face. That makes sense because Mastermind is notoriously ugly in the comics and he often cloaks his appearance with an illusion to make others see him as more handsome. So he's kind of insecure about that. I feel like that's a good start.

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So he's gonna see his hideous form and he's gonna be like, eeeeh, and he's gonna cast an illusion of darkness around the whole environment so that he can't see himself and other people can't see him either. Wait, wait, so Psycho Pirate can't see? Exactly. Okay, uh, fuck. In the comics, when Psycho Pirate wants to cast an emotion upon someone, like you see that emotion form on his Medusa mask, which is normally blank. I'm not sure if people need to see that in order to feel the emotion.

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or if like the magic of the mask projects that emotion on them regardless. Well, it's called the Medusa mask, right? That's that's true. You probably have to see the mask in order to be affected by it. So that would actually make this darkness illusion probably much more effective than you realized it would be. I don't really think Psycho Pirate can do anything about it either. So I guess it's still your move. OK. All right. All right. So the darkness is there. And then suddenly the lights come back on.

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and Psycho Pirate finds himself in a medieval torture chamber illusion and he's strapped to like this torture rack where this executioner guy is slowly stretching Psycho Pirate and Psycho Pirate's in a tremendous amount of pain actually believing that he's being stretched. Oh okay uh wow uh can Mastermind see what's happening to Psycho Pirate? Yeah yeah actually he's in disguise as the executioner I'm gonna say. Sweet okay.

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Now, even though Psycho Pirate is in like an extreme amount of pain, his Medusa Mask has a smile on its face, which causes a bunch of feathers to dance around Mastermind, tickling him and making him laugh and be happy, which breaks his concentration and causes him to drop the illusion. Tickling? What's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of? Hey, don't tell me that! Tell Mastermind! So, Psycho Pirate is back on his feet and Mastermind is just giggling like an idiot.

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Wait, so Mastermind is being tickled because the Medusa mask conjured up a way for him to be happy, and that's what happened? Yeah, that's how he feels he would be happy, by being tickled. Okay. Hahaha. Stupid. So Mastermind is probably wondering what the fuck's going on as he's being tickled. Uh, yeah, the illusion drops. He's probably gonna assume that the feathers that are tickling him have manifested-

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due to his opponent. So he's gonna try as he can to fight through the silliness and he's gonna cast a bunch of duplicates of himself, like 20 duplicates around the battlefield who aren't being tickled and they surround Psycho Pirate in like this circle. And this is gonna cause the feathers to disappear since Psycho Pirate believes that there's suddenly a lot more opponents to contend with. Interesting, okay. So Psycho Pirate, you know, he's probably gonna try and defend himself from the horde of masterminds.

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by making them feel wrath and just start attacking each other. But of course, this obviously isn't going to work because they're not real. Right. And he's going to realize that he's going to realize that they must be fake because, you know, his mask can affect even beings as powerful as the specter. Now, this wrath is going to affect the real mastermind, and he's just going to run into the circle of illusion duplicates that he created and try to start physically attacking Psycho Pirate. But before he can.

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Psycho pirate switches from inciting wrath to inciting trust. Not before mastermind shoot psycho pirate with his handgun in all of his wrath. An illusion bullet or a real one? Straight up real ass bullet. Psycho pirate gets shot. Too bad mastermind aimed for psycho pirate's head because that bullet just bounced right off of the Medusa mask. So psycho pirate is shocked, but he's not dead.

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unconscious if he was shot in the mask. Yeah, it's like made of magic metal. He's been shot in the mask before. Really? Yeah. So now that Psycho Pirate knows Mastermind has a gun, uh, that's when he's going to project severe depression and just cause Mastermind to, you know, unalive himself with his own gun. Jeez. That's dark. That's real dark. You must be from the DC universe. Um.

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Except by this point, I'm gonna say Mastermind is pretty much onto Psycho Pirate's powers of emotional manipulation. So, before Psycho Pirate makes Mastermind depressed, Mastermind is gonna cast an illusion of like a thick cloud of gas to hide himself. And Psycho Pirate's gonna see it as poison gas. He's gonna think it's poison gas, so Psycho Pirate's gonna choke on it and die. In reality, just choking on, you know, the air or his own spit or something.

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How would Psycho Pirate know if a gas he's breathing in is poisonous? Because it looks poisonous, you know, it's gonna be like a green gas that smells like sulfur or something like that. Okay. But, I mean, it's not real poisonous gas. So, you know, Psycho Pirate's just gonna wake up while he's on the ground and realize he wasn't really choking. So now he's pissed and he's gonna project the Earth-2 versions of the entire Justice Society.

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You know, like Dr. Fate, Hawkman, Green Lantern, all the badasses. And they're just going to straight up beat Mastermind to death. What does the justice society have to do with emotions? They don't, but he can also manifest beings who died in like past dead universes. OK, and these projections are real or they're illusions? They are illusions, but they are solid. They're solid constructs. OK, OK, so.

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Mastermind sees the Justice Society and before he gets beaten up, he casts an illusion of the X-Men. And the X-Men are gonna beat the shit out of Psycho-Pirate, or you know, that's what Psycho-Pirate experiences anyway. And he's just gonna die from the pain of being beat up by the X-Men. Illusion X-Men. And I think that's the perfect place to end the match. Either Mastermind gets beat up by the projections of the Justice Society, or Psycho-Pirate's mind succumbs to the pain of being beat up by illusions of the X-Men.

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Alright yeah, that's a great place to leave off. Let's go ahead and find out which of these scenarios happens by inputting the character's stats, running the simulations, and coming back with a winner. AJ9K, hit it! Inputting data. Running calculations. Processing results. Simulations complete. Now should we have run stats on the JSA vs the X-Men for this particular speculation? Oh jeez, no.

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No, we just ran the stats between Mastermind and PsychoPirate and let me tell you, these guys are not impressive statistically. No, they are super weak, which surprised me honestly because PsychoPirate is kind of a big deal in DC somewhat. Like he always seems to be involved in some crisis or another. But yeah, statistically, not impressive. I mean, they're average when it comes to things like speed, durability, strength, fighting skill, intelligence.

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You know, these guys were pretty basic. Where they both kind of shine though, is more along the lines of evasiveness, range and versatility. They're really more about like manipulating things than actually doing damage to them. Right, exactly. But when it came to things like range and evasiveness, we did give Mastermind the slight edge. Considering the fact that yeah, we figured people probably do need to be looking at the Medusa mask for it to affect them.

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And outside of major feats like the crisis on infinite earths with affecting entire multiverses or the new 52 where Psycho Pirate was an actual psychic and that was retconned, Psycho Pirate really didn't have the same sort of common feats that Mastermind had when it came to affecting large groups of people. Psycho Pirate got the edge in perception though because he can actually sense people's emotions and then feed off of it.

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Right, and he also got a slight edge in intelligence despite being insane. He's still one of the foremost authorities on emotions and manipulation in DC. So taking all of this into account, Joseph, who do you think came out on top? I don't know. It's so hard to say. I mean, I think these characters were really hard to pin down statistically due to the nature of their powers. The speculation was actually really hard.

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As you guys know, we edit these episodes and if we didn't, you'd just hear long pauses as we were trying to figure out what the heck to do. Which is strange considering that conceptually these guys can do so many different things, but it's hard to conceptualize a battle between two illusion casters and how that would affect each other kind of, you know? Yeah. So feeling so in the dark on all of this, I think I'm just going to go with my gut and choose Mastermind as my guess for who's going to win. Instagram does not agree with me. 69% of our poll takers there.

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believe that Psycho Pirate is actually going to take this one. And that actually surprised me because I don't think Psycho Pirate is that much more popular than Mastermind, you know, considering Mastermind was sort of in an X-Men movie. I kind of chalked this up to not only Psycho Pirate's involvement with major crises that kind of, you know, make him feel bigger than he actually is, but also because he kind of looks like Iron Man in like a medieval jester costume.

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Mastermind probably has the worst supervillain costume in all of Marvel comics. It's really bad. He basically just wears like a brown sack, so he's not impressive looking visually. Well, let's see if he's impressive in his win rate. AJ 9K, the results, please. Hey, Yuasa. The winner of the matchup between Psycho Pirate and Mastermind is. Psycho Pirate.

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Okay, barely. By how much? PsychoPirate won 517 of the 1000 matches compared to Mastermind who won 483. So it's 51.7% compared to 48.3% of the total matches. That's pretty close. Yeah, it was really close. It's pretty much a coin toss, tit for tat. Less no fun. You know, you would think for characters that have vaguely similar power sets, but are entirely different.

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There'd be a greater discrepancy in the win rate, but I guess this was maybe just a better match than we thought. Apparently, and you were really scared when we got into the main event. Yeah, I guess I shouldn't have been though. I should have trusted my own judgment. Or Miggies, whoever thought of this matchup. Yeah, it was pretty interesting. It was pretty fun to try and come up with the speculation. I thought it was going to be so much more interesting. I'm actually a little bit disappointed in myself, but it was really hard to combat how PsychoPirate kept making Mastermind feel certain emotions, you know?

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It was fun. Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle. Stupid. I tell you what, though, you tickle me. I'm not experiencing joy. I'm experiencing pure rage. That's how you listen to your rage out of me. But that does it for this duel, guys. Let us know what you thought about the results by writing to us at dyna or by visiting us on Instagram, which you can find a link to on our show notes or by going to our website at dynamicduel.com. And on our site, you could also find a link to our Patreon page.

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where you could join our Dynamic 2.0 tier 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 DynaMic Podcast Network. And guys, please don't forget to rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or on our website. In our next episode, we will be reviewing part two of the Justice League Crisis on Infinite Earth's animated film.

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I have not seen it yet because it actually comes out the day we released this episode, but Psycho Pirate is a character in there and I'm looking forward to watching it. I really liked what they did with the first one. Yeah it was interesting. But 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, Mickey Mountain-Geehan, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Austin Wiselowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho.

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Adam Spies, Andrew Shunk, Dean Molesky, and Devin Davis for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers.