Sandman (Morpheus) vs Mephisto

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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 and stat-based battle simulations. I'm Marvelous Joe. And I'm his twin brother, Johnny DC. And in this episode, it's a duel episode. Really excited to get to this one. We haven't done a duel in a while, but we're going to find out who'd win in a fight between Sandman, aka Dream of the Endless, versus Mephisto.

00:50
aka the devil himself of the Marvel Universe. Right, Neil Gaiman's Sandman is one of my favorite literary works, not just comic books of all time. So I've been dying to do a dual episode with him forever. But now that the Netflix show is out, we finally have that opportunity. Yeah, so this duel will tie into the review of Netflix's The Sandman television series that we're going to review next week. Now, I know last episode, we said that the duel was going to be between Sandman and Nightmare.

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of the nightmare realm who is a doctor strange villain but we both kind of balked at that idea because it felt like it was too much of an apple versus an apple as it were and who wins in a fight between an apple versus an apple an apple exactly on this show we more like to find out who would win between similar power level but different power set characters but with similar themes or stories occasionally yeah more along the lines of an apple versus an orange that's much more interesting to me because who wins that I have no fucking

01:49
The apple has cyanide in its core. What's gonna happen? I feel like the apple is more durable. Uh-huh. So I think the apple, I don't know. We'll have to run the stats on this one day, not today or any time soon. But yeah, that's this episode. Before we get into the character histories and abilities and run their stats in 1000 Monte Carlo Simulations, we're gonna go over the comic book movie news to come out in the past week, including the news regarding the main candidates for the head of DC Studios. We also learned what Warner Brothers may do with the upcoming Flash film.

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and we got a trailer for the upcoming Pennyworth television series season 3. As always we list our segment times in our episode description so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Don't forget guys to join us on Patreon where we offer ad free episodes of this show, bonus content including top 10 episodes and bloopers, you don't want to miss those. We also do monthly live movie watch alongs and we give you access to our Discord chat server where you can chat with Jonathan and I and fellow fans of the show.

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Yeah, check us out right after this episode at patreon.com slash dynamic duel, which is linked in our show notes. Our lowest tier is only $2 a month and for 10 bucks a month, you can become an executive producer of this show and help us determine our episode content and to get credited as such. But with that out of the way, quick to the no prize. A no prize is an award that Marvel used to give out up until the nineties to fans.

03:11
Our version, the Dynamic Dual No Prize, is a digital award that we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week's question was a really tough one. We asked, if you were rebooting the DCEU as the new head of DC Studios, what would be your 10-year plan in 30 seconds? It wasn't an easy ask. Some of you guys sent in multiple answers just to make sure everything was correct within the 30-second span. And it wasn't easy to choose a winner.

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But we have three honorable mentions and a winner, so let's go through those now. Our first honorable mention goes to Miggy Mathengian, who said. Hey guys, this is Miggy in phase one, Superman American Alien, Batman Dark Victory, Wonder Woman Gods and Mortals, Flash movie like Groundhog Day, Green Lantern movie with Jessica Cruz, and a Justice League origin film. Phase two would be a Superman sequel with Supergirl, Wonder Woman sequel with Donna, Flash sequel with Wally and Grodd, Green Lantern Far Sector, a Zatanna movie, and Justice League Doom.

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Phase three would be Superman Brainiac, Wonder Woman Hikateya, Flash movie where he fights Abracadabra, Green Lantern, third movie, Titans movie, Mr. American movie, and Apocalypse War. Wow, he really made a great use of those 30 seconds. He had it all fleshed out. That's a great plan. Like in the first phase, you really set up the Justice League. The second phase, you set up like the legacy characters, like the sidekicks and stuff. The third phase, like you even introduced the Titans team and everything. I love that answer.

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Yeah, and he managed to squeeze three phases into 10 years, which is really cool. The only gripe I have with it is that there really wasn't a lot of Batman. And considering he's one of the main pillars of D.C., I feel like he should have had a few more film projects in that plan. Well, we've already had The Batman. I'm assuming that Miggie's incorporating The Batman movie into his phases. I'm sure he is. Yeah.

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Good job, Miggy. Thank you for putting so much thought into that. Yeah, great work. If DC Studios put your plan into action and announced that that's what they were gonna do, Jonathan would probably shit his pants. Oh, I would. I mean, I almost did when I heard his response. Ha ha ha ha ha. Our next honorable mention goes to Adam Trumbull, who said. This is Adam Trumbull here. I'll continue with the Robert Pattinson Batman Gotham. I'll release a film about Dick Grayson's perspective on Gotham, the Batman, and the Riddler, and instead of him coming.

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Robin would become Nightwing right away and the different angles he would take by catching the Riddler. So that sounds like just a couple of films. Yeah, I mean this is the opposite problem that Miggie had in that it's overly Batman focused, right? I think if you took Adam Trimble's and Miggie's plan, you mix them together, you have a really, really solid 10 year lineup. I'm surprised Miggie didn't say he was going to do a Nightwing movie, considering that's one of his favorite characters. Yeah, well he mentioned...

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Titans, but again, there's only one Batman film in those 10 years. Gotta do Nightwing, gotta do Gotham Knights I think that would be awesome. That would be awesome. Our final honorable mention goes to Eric Maisel who said My 10 year reboot looks like this solo movies for a Constantine Deadman swamp thing which is gonna lead into a Justice League dark movie Then Nightwing's got to get his own solo film which will lead into a Titans movie You got to do far sector in there somewhere and then

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All of it can wrap up with death metal so that all the previous versions don't need to be rebooted. And then for animation, deceased and DC versus vampires. I really liked his answer because not only did he expand upon the Justice League Dark characters, but he also mentioned DC death metal, which I think is another big event that DC could eventually get to, sort of like, you know, Marvel's Endgame or something like that. If you do Miggy's Justice League Dark Apocalypse War and then maybe like death metal after that,

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You're going someplace, right? It's a plan and a good one too. Yeah, I didn't know much about death metal until our recent Cosmic Ghost Rider versus the Batman Who Laughs dual episode. And yeah, it sounds really interesting. It's definitely something that you would want to save for one of the later phases though, for sure. Oh yeah, I agree. Yeah, totally. Because it really goes into the nature of the DC universe itself, that story. Right, right, right. We want to give a quick shout out to Landon Parker, Laksh Tangi, Scotty Macho, Lu.

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Noah Terry for taking the time to visit our website and record good answers to our question of the week Yeah, I loved hearing all of your ideas, but the winner of this week's no prize is Jacob Bell who said hey guys, this is Jacob. Here we go Superman solo movie then do a Wonder Woman movie that introduces the Atlanteans then do a Superman Batman team up movie Then do a Green Lantern core movie that introduces all the Green Lanterns then do a Gotham Knights movie where we have the bat family

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then do a Flash solo movie, then you do Superman 2 as the sequel where Lex Luthor is the villain and at the end he introduces Brainiac and Brainiac is the villain for the next movie which is the Justice League. Great! I like that. That's nice and simple. I like how he managed to incorporate all the members of the main Justice League but he also had interesting ideas like a Gotham Knights movie and introducing the Atlanteans in Wonder Woman.

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Right, right. It really takes advantage of world building, I think. Yeah, he does a really good job of building upon his shared universe as it develops. I don't know if it's quite enough films for 10 years, but I think those are pretty much all of the movies I would love to see. Yeah, it's a great start to the plan. Jacob did send a clarifying message saying that this would actually exist separate from Robert Pattinson's Batman universe. Which I don't know if I love that. I definitely think that Robert Pattinson's universe should be the start of DC's new plan.

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Now is that just because you don't want to have multiple Batman again? Because I don't know if their approach that Matt Reeves took with the Batman, which is overly grounded, would work in a team environment. I think it depends on the writer. I think a solid writer could make it work. Maybe we'll see. But thanks to Jacob Bell for the answer. Congrats again for winning this week's No Prize. Guys, be sure to check out Jacob's own podcast called The Rankers, where he and his buddy rank the top 10 of a bunch of different topics. And if you, the listener, want a shot at winning your own No Prize...

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Stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another Question of the Week. And now that that's done, on to the news!

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Okay, as we talked about last week, Warner Brothers Discovery has canceled the Batgirl film and this has led to just chaos, pure chaos, in the movie industry. Yeah, apparently everybody at DC hates David Zaslav. What, where did you hear that? Places, sources. You don't know anyone from DC. I read things on the internet. I guess that wouldn't surprise me. I don't think it's fair because you know, you have a guy really looking out for the DC brand for the first time.

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and maybe forever when it comes to films at least. And of course, this is a guy who wants a solid plan for DC going forward, a 10-year plan to sort of capture the same magic that Marvel has created. Now to spearhead this 10-year plan, there are currently rumored to be three candidates to head up the new DC studios. The first one being Greg Berlanti, who was basically in control of the CW's DC Comics television series, including Arrow, Flash,

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Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, all of them. Yeah, he oversaw the Arrowverse, as it were. Exactly, yes. So a lot of people at Warner Brothers in DC apparently are rooting for him to take that role, even though he hasn't officially even talked with David Zaslav about it. Well, he definitely seems the most qualified candidate. To an extent, he definitely is capable of producing a plan, as we've seen with multiple crossover events on the CW, like Crisis on Infinite Earths.

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like Elseworlds, things like that. But was that the level of quality that we see from like the MCU? I'm not convinced. Well, I mean, it was made for TV on the CW with the TV budget. And that's fair, and that's fair. But he was also responsible for the Green Lantern movie. He was one of the writers on that. Oh, that's right. Now he has a shot at redemption for that because he's producing the Green Lantern television series for HBO Max, which apparently is still on track. So we'll see. Maybe if that's successful.

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he could step up into the reins of the head of DC Studios. The other contender for the top spot would be Walter Hamada, the current head of DC Films, who apparently is being championed by existing Warner Brothers Discovery executives. I don't know if I like Hamada in the role though. I mean, like out of all the films that he's produced for DC, 75% of them have been rated R. Quite a few of them have been outside of any sort of existing continuity like the Joker and the Batman. He doesn't really seem to have a good idea.

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for a sense of continuity. He just likes to tell good stories, assuming this like, multiversal approach where filmmakers can do whatever they want. Right, right. Hamada is a good producer, and he's had a lot of success during his time at DC Films, but you're right. His current method is not gonna be something that David Zaslov is happy with, because again, he's chasing after Marvel money. I do have to give him credit for DC's television series on HBO Max though. You know, you had...

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Watchmen come out during his time as head of DC films Peacemaker was phenomenal and he's really spearheading a lot of the upcoming the Batman television tie-ins, which is pretty cool I'm really torn as to whether or not I think I want him to come up with a 10-year plan for DC It seems like he doesn't have a good plan for Superman. No, absolutely not. Yeah, that's a huge downgrade in my book Now the third contender for this role is a producer by the name of Dan Lin

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who produced the Lego movie and the Sherlock Holmes films. He was also the producer of the ill-fated Justice League Mortal film that was going to be directed by George Miller back in 2008. Now, a lot of concept art and story details have come out for that film, and it seems like it could have been a pretty cool movie. Dan Lin is a DC Comics fan, and that's something you absolutely want.

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for the head of DC Studios. I would consider that the primary criteria, given that Kevin Feige was a huge Marvel Comics fan as he came aboard Marvel Studios. Dan Lin is definitely the dark horse in this race, considering he also has his own production company and may not wanna give that up for this role. But if he's chosen, I think you could find success with him. Out of these three candidates, I would say that my preference would be Dan Lin. Yeah, I think he's done some great films. Like, you know, the Lego movie had Batman in it.

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Not that he would go with that same Batman, but again, he's a fan of the DC Comics characters. And he has some history with them. Little bit. Now, of course, we have no idea when the new head of DC Studios is going to be hired and come on board and start shaping things. Hopefully it's soon, and hopefully they come up with some plan for the Flash movie. Because right now, we've learned Warner Brothers has three different options that they're considering. Now, the first scenario sounds a little optimistic.

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Basically, Warner Brothers wants Ezra Miller to seek professional help. Now, recently, when he's been coming on sets, doing reshoots and stuff like that for The Flash, his mother has been accompanying him. And that's been a big help in sort of reigning in his behavior, apparently. But they want him to get therapy and they want him to do an interview at some point that explains Ezra's erratic behavior over the past few years. Apparently, Ezra has communicated that he is willing to do that. But if he keeps getting

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charged with burglary for stealing liquor from someone's home, that's going to make that a lot harder. Yeah, honestly, who steals liquor? Just go buy your own, especially if you can afford it, right? Really weird. Really weird. Bizarre. Dangerous behavior. Absolutely. Now the second scenario is that if Miller doesn't seek professional help, Warner Brothers can still release the film, but they just wouldn't have Miller play a prominent role in the marketing and publicity of the movie. It's not an ideal scenario.

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this one because Ezra Miller is so prominent throughout the movie. It's going to be weird if he doesn't promote it. And if things continue to get worse with Ezra Miller and his behavior, Warner Brothers has a third option, which is to scrap the movie outright, just like what they did with Batgirl. At a certain point, the public would really no longer want to see any movie with them. It would just be kind of tainted and not enjoyable. And while previously, while that probably would have been detrimental to the future of DC films,

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Since we already know Zezlav wants to reboot the whole thing, canceling the film is not the worst thing that could happen. I don't think so, honestly. And I'm still kinda hoping they reboot sooner rather than later. I know a lot of people don't feel that way. But so again, basically Warner Bros. Discovery's options are release and promote the film with Ezra Miller provided they get professional help. Or still release the film without having Ezra Miller promote it. Or scrap the film. Yeah, and it kinda seems like their hands are tied.

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by Ezra Miller's choices, which is not a good spot for a studio to be in, I feel like. But even if the best-case scenario happens, would people still be interested in seeing the Flash movie? That brings us to our question of the week.

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If Ezra Miller gets professional help and explains their erratic behavior, would you still be open to watching The Flash movie? If you weren't already. And let us know why. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message 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 at Dynamic Duel no prize that we'll post to Instagram.

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Be sure to answer before August 20th. In our last bit of news, HBO Max has released the trailer for season three of Pennyworth, which now has a new subtitle, Pennyworth, the origin of Batman's butler, which has to be the worst fucking subtitle of any show ever. It's so bad. It's embarrassing. It's so literal. I know, it's so on the nose. I don't know who came up with that. They just need to undo that, release a new trailer. It could be salvaged.

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Have you watched any seasons of Pennyworth? No, I don't have the Epics network. Prior to this being an HBO Max original, this show was an exclusive on Epics, of course. They released two seasons, haven't seen either of them, was never really interested, honestly, in seeing them, even though it's a DC show. It's not terrible from what I've heard. Well, I mean, it's on season three, so it obviously has some sort of fan base. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. This trailer, I have to say, doesn't quite sell me on anything, though.

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It's a little bit more style over substance. It seems a little, I don't know, Austin Powers, I guess, if I could describe it as anything. A non-comedic version of Austin Powers, which some might say is James Bond. Austin Powers is a James Bond parody. Yeah, and I definitely get spy intrigue vibes from this show. Just very dated vibes, I would say. Like 70s dated.

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Hey, some of the best James Bond movies came out in the 1970s, man. The worst fucking James Bond movies came out in the 1970s. Yeah, also the worst ones. Yeah. Roger Moore was a little inconsistent in the trailer. Alfred Pennyworth explains that he charges for his services, but that his honor isn't for sale in a very decent Michael Caine impression. Yeah, it really seems like this is the Alfred Pennyworth of the Nolan Batman films. I get that impression. Absolutely.

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But the rest of the trailer doesn't tell me anything about the story for the season. It's just a bunch of quick action shots before the new title of the series is revealed. Do you think the show delves into any of Batman's rogues galleries past? Like, do we see any of the Falcone crime family or something in the show? I would be surprised considering the show takes place in Britain. But I have no idea because I haven't seen any of the seasons. Well, which one of Batman's villains is from Britain? Mad Hatter? Yep. Possibly him. Who else? I don't know. Not many.

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I feel like it's really him just going up against like KGB agents or something like that. That's the impression that I get. We are considering reviewing this season. It doesn't start until October. We don't have an official release date yet. We just know the month and we do know that it's going to have 10 episodes. If we do review it, I can't say I'm going to commit to watching seasons one and two in lead up to it. So you have to you have to you're the DC fan. I don't want to. You have to because I'm not gonna. Somebody has to.

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It might be good, you never know. If someone out there who's listening has watched the Pennyworth television series and is a fan of it, reach out to us and let us know why you like it. Yeah, maybe I can be convinced to watch the earlier seasons, which are on HBO Max now, as the trailer also teases, it's like, catch up now before the third season. We'll see, we'll see HBO Max. But I think that does it for the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get into our main event where we find out who'd win in a fight between Sandman of the Endless,

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and Mephisto, the devil himself.

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Alright, Sandman versus Mephisto. Now again, this duel is in lead up to the review of season one of The Sandman, which is on Netflix right now. Check it out, it's awesome. Yeah, Jonathan won't let me watch past episode three because he has an idea for this duel speculation that we're about to do that he doesn't want me to spoil for myself. Right, right. Because I guess in the series, at some point, Sandman gets into a battle with Lucifer. Yeah, it's Lucifer in the TV series and a demon in the comic book.

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but it still works out because it's a demon game. And perfect for this matchup. Yeah, and if you guys don't know who Mephisto is, he has been long rumored to appear in the MCU for ages now. It's become kind of a meme, but he's basically the devil in the Marvel universe. He's a villain for almost all of Marvel's heroes, but especially like Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, Thor, and Spider-Man sometimes.

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I think we primarily chose these two characters because they're both insanely powerful and they both have their own realms that they're like in charge of. Right, exactly. They could basically do almost anything within their own realm, but they're no slouch either outside of their home. And they both have like rock star haircuts. So yeah, totally. Yeah. If you've never listened to one of our dual episodes before, the way we determine a winner between these two characters is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations using their statistics.

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

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Running these 1000 simulations gives us a percentage of wins for each character, and we declare the one with the higher percentage to be the ultimate victor, considering that they're more likely to win any given battle. No character ever wins 100% of the time. Comics have shown that there's usually a way for Batman to defeat Superman, and we feel our method falls in line with the precedents that have been established in the comic book stories. And we used this method because it was the least subjective, most unbiased way to determine who would win.

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Of course, we are both heavily biased toward our respective allegiances, so instead of debating these matches forever, we just let the math decide for us. There's no fan votes here, and no relying on just feats. 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 we run would play out beat for beat.

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Yeah, and I think it's my turn to go first with my character's backstory, though I do, before I begin, want to preface this backstory with a spoiler warning. I know some of our patrons, specifically, are working their way through the Sandman comic series, and anyone who wants to get through the Sandman television series completely fresh should know that unlike the stories of many comic characters we break down on this podcast, the story of Sandman has a definitive ending.

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which I will be revealing, so skip this part if you don't want to get spoiled. Definitely recommend the series and or watching the show. Alright, so Sandman is one of many titles bestowed upon a being known as Dream, who is the ruler and personification of dreams, stories, imagination, and essentially thought. He's one of seven personified beings of unimaginable power known as the Endless, who manifested naturally

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as the universe formed and are older than the gods. When life first emerged, so did destiny, then death. When beings became sentient, dream came into existence, followed by destruction, desire, despair, and finally, delight, who later became delirium. Each of the Endless have their own realms which they are responsible for, dreams being the dreaming, where beings go when their consciousness escapes reality.

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When the first murder victim in the universe died, Dream took pity on him, and death allowed Dream to bring him into the Dreaming instead of the afterlife. Dream named him Abel, and he became a storyteller who lived in the House of Secrets. Eventually, Abel became lonely, however, so Dream also brought his brother Cain into the Dreaming when he died, gifting him the House of Mystery. Over the course of billions of years within the Dreaming, Dream crafted more and more

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Dreamlands and Nightmares, while also collecting more and more titles such as Morpheus, Oniros, and The Sandman. To help him maintain the Dream Inc, Dreamcrafted several tools, including a pouch of magic sand, a ruby red dreamstone to harness Dreams and Focus's power, and a helm made from the bones of an ancient god as a symbol of his station and power. Ten thousand years ago, while traveling on Earth,

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Dream and an African queen named Nada saw each other and fell in love, though Dream disappeared afterward and Nada was unaware that he was one of the Endless. After finding him again in the Dreaming, Nada fled when she realized who he was, knowing they could never be together. Dream sought after her, however, and eventually the two copulated their love, only to awaken the next morning with Nada's city destroyed. Blaming herself, she committed suicide.

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though Dream was able to save her soul and promised to make her Queen of the Dreaming. When she refused, he banished her to hell for eternity. That's cold blooded. Oh yeah, Dream was petty as hell back in the old days. Just over 2,000 years ago, Dream and the Greek muse of epic poetry, Calliope, had a son, the mythic loot player Orpheus. Orpheus led a tragic life, however, losing his fiance, Eurydice, to the underworld and later dying by having his body ripped apart.

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As a progeny of the Endless, however, his head survived and continued to live on as an oracle. Meanwhile, Dream and Calliope became estranged from one another. In 14th century London, Dream accompanied his sister Death amongst the people at her request. While in a tavern, they overheard a man named Hob Gadling tell his friends that he refused to die, and as a favor to Dream, Death agreed never to take him.

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every 100 years, and in their second meeting in the 16th century, Dream also met a man named Will Shaxbird, an aspiring playwright who made a deal with Dream to write stories that would spur new dreams in the minds of men in exchange for unlimited inspiration. Dream commissioned two plays from Shaxbird, who would find success under the name Shakespeare, one of which, A Midsummer's Night Dream, was made specifically so that the people of

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that used to inhabit the world. During Dream's 18th century meeting with Hob in the Tavern, the two were ambushed by Lady Johanna Constantine, who had heard of their meetings and intended to kidnap them in order to learn their secrets. Dream put her to sleep and later requested her help in retrieving his son Orpheus's head, which had been stolen by the French government. In the early 20th century, a British occultist named Roderick Burgess accidentally trapped and imprisoned Dream.

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during an occult ritual in an attempt to capture and control death. While Dream was imprisoned, several people around the world suffered from severe sleeping disorders, including a young British woman named Unity Kincaid, who would not wake up. Remaining silent and offering nothing in exchange for his release, Dream remained trapped for over 70 years, during which time his sand pouch, helmet, and dreamstone were stolen by

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When Dream finally managed to break free, Roderick had already died, so he got his revenge on his son Alex Burgess by cursing him with a never-ending nightmare. Dream returned to the dreaming weekend, and found his realm in near collapse, abandoned by his creations due to his absence. Needing the tools that were stolen from him to regain his power, Dream summoned the Three Fates, who directed him to John Constantine for his sand pouch, Hel for his helm, and

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and the Justice League for his Dreamstone. You can of course learn more about John Constantine and the Justice League in their respective dual episodes of this podcast. After regaining his sand pouch from Constantine's ex-girlfriend and his helm from a demon after defeating him in a game, Dream learned that his Dreamstone had been used by the reality-warping super-villain Dr. Destiny, aka John D., the son of Ethel Cripps, who had corrupted the Dreamstone.

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When Dream tried to recover the Dreamstone from Justice League's storage, its corrupted form sat his remaining energy, just before John D broke out of Arkham Asylum and retook the Dreamstone. Causing the world to go insane, Dream challenged John D to a battle in the Dreaming, where John D attempted to kill Dream by destroying the Dreamstone. Instead, Dream's full power was returned to him, and Dream returned John D back to Arkham Asylum.

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After restoring the Dreaming to its former glory, its former citizens all returned, save for a domain known as Fiddler's Green and three nightmares named Brut, Glob, and the Corinthian. Thanks to a young woman named Rose Walker, the granddaughter of Unity Kincaid, Dream was able to return Fiddler's Green to the Dreaming, unmake the Corinthian, and banish Brut and Glob to the darkness for creating their own pocket Dreaming inside the mind of Rose's younger brother Jed.

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where they also kept the ghost of Hector Hall, the son of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and his pregnant wife, Lyta. Dream pushed Hector's ghost into the afterlife and told Lyta that since her baby gestated in the dreaming, it belonged to him. Rose turned out to be a being known as a Vortex, capable of breaking down the barriers between people's dreams, and Dream was nearly forced to kill her to protect the world until Unity Kincaid intervened and revealed that she would have been the Vortex

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had Dream not been trapped by Roderick Burgess. Unity took Rose's vortex aspect and died in the process. Dream later learned that Desire impregnated Unity in her sleep, making Rose his niece. Had Dream killed Rose, per ancient rules that bind the Endless, Dream would have been forced to sacrifice his life to the Fates for spilling family blood, which was Desire's goal all along as he slash she had hated Dream.

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for billions of years, constantly interfering in his affairs in secret, and was even responsible for the death of Eurydice. Dream later learned Calliope had been imprisoned by a rider with Rider's Block and he freed her, as well as Nata from Hell, finally forgiving her for rejecting him and helping her reincarnate. While in Hell, Lucifer, out of revenge for Dream's previous visit, abandoned Hell and gave it to Dream.

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resulting in many pantheons visiting the Dreaming to ask for the realm. This included the fairy, who gifted Dream a fairy servant named Noella to gain his favor. In the end, two angels from heaven visited Dream to claim hell in the name of God. Dream was later asked by Delirium to help her find their long-lost brother Destruction, who had abandoned his responsibilities and gone missing thousands of years earlier. With the help of his oracle son Orpheus,

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Still a living decapitated head, Dream and Delirium found their brother Destruction, who rejected their suggestion that he return to his role as one of the Endless. Fulfilling a promise to his son, Dream returned to Orpheus and peacefully ended his pitiful life. Having returned to the Dreaming, Dream set Noella the Fairy free, giving her a magic pendant that allowed her to summon him as a reward for her faithful service. Dream also recreated the Corinthian.

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who he sent along with his raven Matthew to rescue Daniel, Lyda's son, who had been kidnapped by the Norse god Loki and Robin Goodfellow. Believing that Dream had killed Daniel, Lyda, merged with the Fates, stormed the Dreaming to destroy Dream for supposedly killing his adopted son, per the ancient rules. Though it was revealed that this wasn't the case, the Fates, in their vengeful state known as the Kindly Ones, maintained their claim on Dream's life,

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since he had killed his son Orpheus. Soon, the Kindly Ones began harming Dream's loyal servants and freeing his prisoners, and to protect him, Nuala used her pendant to summon Dream to the Fairy Realm, unaware that the Kindly Ones could not harm Dream outside of the Dreaming. Before facing the Kindly Ones, Dream gifted Daniel, who had been saved by the Corinthian, an emerald dreamstone. As he was chosen to take on the role of the ruler and caretaker of the Dreaming,

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after Dream's death. To save the Dreaming from the Kindly Ones, Dream summoned his sister, Death, to escort him to her realm known as the Sunless Lands. A massive wake was held in the Dreaming in Dream's honor with all of his siblings in attendance, and his body was sent to drift on a barge within the Dreaming. And that's Dream's complete story from Neil Gaiman's initial Sandman run. I haven't gotten into any of the apocryphal works at all. Powers-wise,

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Dream of the Endless wields the power of stories and imagination, capable of creating or uncreating anything, anyone, or any place that could be dreamed up. He can will other beings to sleep, cast or dispel illusions, affect the thoughts and perceptions of others, and he could teleport himself or others to any location in the dreaming, and he could travel through or track anyone who dreams. He can alter his appearance at will, heal injuries,

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and he can transfer his powers to objects or people. Within his own realm of the Dreaming, he is nigh omnipotent, having complete control over its reality, and he cannot be harmed. That's the Sandman. That was a lot of names to keep track of. There's a ton of characters in the series, absolutely. I think there was like, Kaliope and Lida, and they were people within the story.

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I don't remember what they did. I'm sorry, did you have a hard time following that? Yeah, because it was so many names. So many names. Just re-listen, just re-listen, the names will catch on. All right, okay. Well, usually within your backstories, the name dropping that you do are of characters that I know of and I have that context going. But with this one, it was a lot of name dropping of characters that I didn't know and therefore had a hard time keeping up. That's probably fair. The Sandman series took place in DC's Vertigo imprint.

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for mature readers. So a majority of it exists sort of outside of DC continuity, even though it still is a part of that. So yeah, it's no surprise that you weren't familiar with a lot of the characters. And because of that, I feel like you didn't really ruin the Netflix show for me. I literally just ruined all of it. Well, I mean, then it doesn't seem like it's gonna be that interesting then. Oh my gosh. I left out a ton of stuff. There's way more to the Sandman series than what I said. I just gave you specifically.

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Sandman story, which is why I stopped with his death. OK, I mean, the entire like final volume of the series takes place after dreams death. So there's a lot more to the story. OK. Well, I think the big takeaway I took from it, though, is that dream has died and can die and he's going to die again. All right. Is what's going to happen if you chose to. OK, OK. You know who hasn't chosen to die? Mephisto, because he's a winner. And he's going to win this match. Let's hear about him. All right. Mephisto.

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sometimes called Mephistopheles, Satan, Beelzebub, the Prince of Lies, the Lord of Evil, and the Master of Hell. He is the devil himself in the Marvel Universe whose sole aim is to corrupt those who are good and claim as many souls for his netherworld. The true nature of Mephisto's inception is a mystery, though it's said he is nearly as old as the universe itself, created by a force that had no concept of morality. As a manifestation of pure evil,

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Mephisto drifted along the burgeoning cosmos and settled in the molten mass that would one day form the planet Earth to form his hellish domain. Mephisto evolved there into something like that of a fly, who billions of years ago witnessed a celestial fall to the newly formed planet, infected by a cosmic disease that helped spread perversion and grotesqueries across the Earth's barely evolved life. This helped the demon Mephisto grow in power, influencing Earth's inhabitants toward damnation.

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the millennia, where he would manifest to mankind's most hateful, most naive, and most needy to grant them their desires and manipulate them into selling their souls, for they were what Mephisto fed off of and gave him power. As humanity developed their mythologies and religions, many of their dark deities were based on Mephisto and he fed off that, in turn perpetuating their belief in a supreme evil, shaping his appearance to fit their greatest fear of the devil.

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Other great demons would rise to challenge him, and Mephisto was constantly at war with potential usurpers of his Hell Throne, such as Thog, Satanish, and the demon Zerathos, whom Mephisto defeated and would one day bond to Johnny Blaze the Ghost Rider, whom you can learn more about in our Etrigan vs Ghost Rider episode. Mephisto tempted and prodded the villains of Earth's past, including the powerful mutant Apocalypse and the treacherous sorceress Morgan Le Fay.

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Mephisto grew fascinated with Earth's developing superpowered heroes and their capacity to protect and inspire despite his unceasing campaign to corrupt and destroy. During World War II, he convinced Nazi scientists to open a portal to his realm, assuring them it led to a race of perfect beings when it in fact was his demonic horde. Mephisto confined the soul of Dr. Doom's mother in Hell and would battle and defeat Doom every Halloween when the barrier between Earth and Hell's realms were weakened.

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Eventually, Doctor Doom freed his mother by betraying his temporary ally, Doctor Strange, offering Mephisto the Sorcerer's Supreme Soul in exchange for his mother's. Mephisto had become a long-standing enemy of Doctor Strange and coveted his righteous soul, but the hero was able to escape Mephisto's hellish grasp. You can learn more about Doctor Doom and Doctor Strange in their respective dual episodes. Mephisto made many enemies over the years, but desired most of all the pure spirit of the hero Silver Surfer.

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whom he tempted time and again with riches and with his former love, Shalabal, but the surfer would never give in. Mephisto fought the Fantastic Four and dragged Franklin, the son of Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman, into Hell. The child's vast psychic and reality warping powers temporarily destroyed Mephisto, however, and his essence was scattered into fragments. The mystical energies of two of these fragments were unknowingly used to create Billy and Tommy, the sons of Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

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When Mephisto eventually reformed, he drew back all of his remaining fragments, erasing Billy and Tommy from existence to the Scarlet Witch's despair. Mephisto would eventually create a son of his own, named Blackheart, who delighted in creating misery for heroes such as Ghost Rider and Daredevil. Mephisto tried to teach his son how to rule hell, but Blackheart rebelled and tried to overthrow his father and claim his throne, forcing Mephisto to put him in his place.

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Mephisto developed a strong rivalry for souls with other underworld rulers, including Pluto, the Greek ruler of Hades, and Hela, the Asgardian ruler of Hel, spelled H-E-L, one L. Right, not the double hockey stick. Right. When Hela attempted to expand her realm to engulf the living, Mephisto temporarily stole Thor's soul and tormented it, forcing him to witness the horrors of the underworld. After the God of Thunder was freed, Thor vowed to forever stand against Hela and stopped her advances into Earth's realm.

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much to Mephisto's delight. He was actually successful in getting Black Panther to sell his soul to him for some assistance. However, Mephisto had no idea that the hero was forever tied to Bast, the Panther God, and therefore was outsmarted by the Wakandan King. One of Mephisto's greatest successes though, was the eradication of the love between Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson. The couple sacrificed their marriage to him in order to save the life of Peter Parker's Aunt May. Which is weird, she was gonna die anyway, she's old.

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To achieve this, Mephisto erased the knowledge of Peter Parker's identity to the entire world. When the villainous organization Hydra destroyed the city of Las Vegas, Dr. Strange restored it, and Mephisto used the opportunity to manifest a piece of hell on Earth, called Hotel Inferno, where gamblers could bet their very souls. This forced Dr. Strange to summon the Midnight Suns, a group of supernatural heroes whom you can learn more about in our Justice League Dark versus Midnight Suns dual episode.

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While Mephisto battled the team on Earth, Ghost Rider took over the Realm of Hell, cutting Mephisto off from his power and he was imprisoned. But ruling hell corrupted Johnny Blaze, and his brother Danny Ketch and Doctor Strange were compelled to exercise and rescue him from the underworld. As the heroes escaped hell, so did a horde of demons into Earth. They were taken over, however, at the time by alien clintar symbiotes like Venom that were created by the deity Null who was taken over Earth.

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Mephisto was then released from his prison to help fight the symbiote-possessed demon horde, and then he returned to hell as its rightful ruler. And that's his backstory. Powers-wise, Mephisto possesses nearly limitless supernatural power, nearly unrivaled in the Marvel universe, energized by the evil of mankind and the souls he imprisons in hell. With this power, he can manipulate his own form to take on any appearance or level of strength. He can sense the morality of others from any distance and transport himself instantaneously

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and across the galaxy. Mephisto can also cast illusions and manipulate reality around him to fulfill almost any desire of one he's bargaining with. This can range from psychic feats to power enhancement, time manipulation, and so on. He wields Hellfire, which burns not only anything physical, but anything metaphysical as well. Mephisto is immortal and virtually indestructible, though if he is somehow destroyed, he reforms in his domain after a while where he is most powerful.

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He can peer through time to see the past and potential futures of his victims, and he can trap people or their astral selves, their souls, in hell. Finally, Mephisto does have a couple of limitations despite his immense power. He cannot force his will upon someone without their permission, and the longer he spends away from his realm, the weaker he becomes. And those are his powers. Yeah, I'm not impressed. I'm not impressed. What? For a Sandman, like, all that stuff is beneath him. He's way above, like, morality of, like, good and evil. It's just trifling matters.

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You're talking about a guy who was trapped by an amateur magician in a snow globe. It was ancient magic. And apparently he doesn't have any of his powers without his items, so I mean, good luck with that. Well, he undid that. Okay. Yeah, he learned from that mistake. Alright, not too smart, but whatever. Now that we got these characters' 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.

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We don't set any rules for this match other than the characters don't know anything about each other going in, except that the other character is a threat that needs to be put down. And we say that they start off about 50 meters apart in an environment that has no bearing on the match itself, because we don't take stats for the environment. Plus certain characters have advantages in some environments over others, and we want these characters to win on their own merit. So let's get into it. Sandman and Mephisto meet on the battlefield. Who goes first?

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Alright, as I mentioned earlier, I want to do something special for this one, so I'm going to say Dream goes first, okay? Okay. Dream sees Mephisto and recognizes him as a powerful lord of hell. Uninterested in coming to blows, Dream's going to make a proposition. Since both beings are immensely powerful and a battle between them could truly upset the fabric of the universe, Dream will suggest that they instead play an ancient demons game. It's the same one that Dream played in hell to regain his helmet.

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Basically, they take turns saying and describing that they are different things, each time saying that they are something that can destroy or overcome what the opponent said, and so on and so forth until one of them draws a blank. Whoever loses must see defeat and withdraw back to their realm defeated. Okay, so kind of like our Riddler vs Arcade dual episode where we tried something a little bit different. Instead of Mephisto and Sandman throwing down with blows,

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they're going to play a game of wits, as it were. Exactly. OK, I'm fine with that. Let's try it out. OK, so since Dream came up with the idea for the game, for this match, how they're going to do it, he's going to go first. All right. So he says, I am a dire wolf, prey stalking, lethal prowler. OK, so then Mephisto, he transforms into a fiery dragon and says, I am a fire breathing dragon who can consume the dire wolf with fire.

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Alright so then Dream transforms into a knight and he says, I am a shining knight, armor wearing, dragon slaying. And then Mephisto turns into an army tank. Uh huh. And says, I am a tank! Armor crushing, sword blocking, knight flattening. Alright, a tank, alright. Dream turns into rust, alright. The tank just starts decaying and he says, I am rust, metal decaying.

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And then Mephisto turns into a bottle of CLR. And he was like, I am a bottle of CLR, which fights the development of rust and protects your household fixtures. This game's a little weird. I'm just gonna say it. Okay, so Sandman, he's gonna say, I am a body of water, chemical diluting. Okay. And then Mephisto takes on the appearance of the sun itself and says, I am the sun, water evaporating. That's fine, because Dream could just be like,

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I am a supernova, sun destroying, matter exploding. And then Mephisto turns into this dark mass, becoming what's like a black hole. And he's like, I'm a black hole, sucking in that supernova and extinguishing all light. Okay, okay, so then Dream, he's gonna say, I am the universe, all things encompassing, all life embracing. And then Mephisto turns into the ultimate nullifier, which can destroy the universe with but a point and click.

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It's a weapon within the Marvel Comics universe. Okay, so then Sandman says, I am hope, unfailing, never ending. And then Mephisto says, I am despair. No, it's unfailing hope. Okay, so then Mephisto says, I am, but wait, how does hope defeat the ultimate nullifier? Anyway, it doesn't.

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I mean, it does. That's how Sandman beat the demon in the comic when he made the universe and from Anti-Life. That doesn't make any sense either because if the universe is over, there's nothing left to hope. Okay. Dream's probably like, fuck. So he's just gonna like throw a fistful of sand right in Mephisto's face. Just putting him to sleep.

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Okay, so Mephisto's asleep. I don't think Mephisto sleeps, but even if he did, let's say he couldn't overcome Dream's sleep sand. I'm just gonna say Mephisto sleeps with his eyes open because he's creepy like that. That's- that's fine. Like, Dream has seen everything, alright? So, while Mephisto is asleep, Dream's gonna transform the ground around Mephisto into like this magic quicksand, this portal that causes Mephisto to sink into it and fall into the realm of the dreaming, where Dream has complete control.

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So he's just gonna conjure some shackles on Mephisto. Well, as the movie Inception taught me, you know, any falling experience is guaranteed to wake you up. So if Mephisto's falling through the quicksand into the dreaming, he's gonna wake up mid fall. So even before these shackles can be placed, Mephisto from the air is gonna like shoot this blast of hellfire at Dream, and hellfire burns not only the physical, but also the metaphysical. So Dream's just like burning alive. Not in the dreaming, dude, okay?

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Dream can't be harmed in his own realm. He literally writes the rules. It's Hellfire. Literally he writes the rules. If he doesn't want Hellfire to hurt him, it's not gonna do it, all right? So, you know, Dream, all this Hellfire is around him. He's just gonna like calmly gather like all of the flames into like a lit candle. And then he'll blow out the candle and that's just gonna extinguish like all of the lights all around them. So when Fisto can't see shit. And then from the darkness, this horde of-

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nightmare creatures like with like teeth and tentacles they emerge and they just start tearing the Mephisto apart. That's creepy. Heck yeah it is. Heck yeah. But before that happens in the darkness this like fiery crack in the ground appears beneath these nightmare creatures because Mephisto is opening a portal to hell. So the rift widens and the creatures fall through it and also Mephisto and Dream also fall through this fiery fissure into the realm of hell.

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So now they're in Mephisto's domain. Okay. And Dream falls into this area of hell called the Arena of Tainted Souls, where souls do battle for Mephisto's pleasure. So Mephisto's watching from his throne above this pit area and Dream looks up and all of a sudden, guess what? There's this like giant Gladiator Kaiju demon troll monster that he has to now fight. He's fighting a demon in hell now? Yeah. So Dream, he's just gonna be like, all right, let's play a demon game.

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Demon's gonna be like, no! And then just like smash him. Like these demons don't know this fucking demon game that he keeps talking about. These are hardcore demons. Okay, but before Dream gets smashed, he's just gonna like let out a breath from his palm, all right? And that's gonna blow the demon away. And this wind gust is gonna turn into like a massive storm, a tempest with heavy rain that's still pouring in from that portal above them from the Dreaming. And it's just gonna flood the entirety of hell, like almost instantly, all right?

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And with another breath, Dream, he's gonna freeze hell, which is flooded, cutting off Mephisto from access to his souls since they're frozen and trapped. Sandman literally made hell freeze over. Oh, wow, that's pretty clever, I like that. But even if Mephisto is cut off from his power source, he's not powerless, his power is just diminishing. So with hell frozen over, Mephisto is just gonna like burn his way to the surface of the ice where Dream is, and he's gonna like burn this

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Pentagram sigil thing into the ice beneath dream just like the Magus guy did Roger Caburgis. Yeah. Yeah and Mephisto telekinetically yanks away dreams bag of sand dream is trapped in hell. How did I know you were gonna do that? Yep, I didn't you're gonna pull that move match over. All right Okay, so all this happens and Mephisto is feeling pretty good about himself and then he fucking wakes up. No Yeah, I know you're gonna do that is all a dream. He's actually still in the dreaming shackled and powerless

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forever imprisoned in Dream's dungeon. So he's the one who's trapped. We'll agree to disagree. We'll go ahead and end the match there and run the stats on these characters. Either Dream is forever trapped by a sigil in hell or Mephisto is forever trapped in the dreaming powerless and cut off from his souls. Exactly. So let's go ahead and run these simulations and we'll come back with a winner to find out what really happened.

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Okay, we're back and these are some pretty powerful guys. Oh yeah. Both Mephisto and Sandman are omnipotent essentially within their own realms, but they're no slouches when it comes to fighting outside of the realm such as on Earth. Except when it comes to the stat category of fighting in which both of them kind of suck because they don't really throw hands. Right, exactly. So they're pretty much maxed out in all categories except for fighting skill.

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We did say there was some disparity between Mephisto and Sandman's durability. While outside their realm, it seems like Sandman is a little bit more vulnerable than Mephisto. Yeah. But we did say that since Sandman knows the subconscious of every being in existence due to ruling the Dreaming, he has slightly higher perception of his opponents than Mephisto does, who often has to ask people.

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what they desire most or what they need or what they fear, whereas Sandman already knows this. Yeah, he knows everyone's story. It's literally a book in his library. So their stats came out not too dissimilar in terms of their overall ability. It's gonna be a really close match here. Well, let's find out. I have the results right here. Who do you think came out on top? I think, I don't know. I have no idea, honestly. I wanna say Mephisto, but I'm not entirely sure. I think it's too close to call, honestly. But our Instagram followers.

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said in our poll on the matter that Mephisto would win by 57% over Dream. Which actually really surprised me because like Sandman has his TV show out right now. I'm not sure why people are rooting for Mephisto at all. I guess he was a character in the Ghost Rider movie. Yeah, Mephisto was in Ghost Rider and Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance. Well, let's hear the results. The winner of the matchup between Sandman and Mephisto is...

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Yeah, you see what I did there? See what I did there? But barely, though, barely. Laphisto won 51.9% of the 1000 matches. Oh. So 519 wins compared to Sandman's 481 wins or 48.1% win rate. And what was the defining factor in this match? Honestly, there really wasn't one. Again, they were pretty evenly matched when it came to the stats. It's a coin toss and fucking as usual.

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Marvel comes out on top. Most of the time, yeah. I kind of like my luck for sure. But guess what Jonathan? Jonathan, guess what? What? Mephisto confirmed to be better than Sandman. How do you feel about that? Hashtag Mephisto confirmed. Everybody hashtag Mephisto confirmed with no context. Just, you know, spread the conjecture. This hurts. I am not going to lie.

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You know, Dream definitely has like a rivalry with Lucifer in the comics where he's basically said that Lucifer is like the second most powerful being in the universe next to the creator, the presence. Uh-huh. So I guess it kind of makes sense that Mephisto would win considering he's kind of Marvel's equivalent of Lucifer. But, uh, yeah, it's still stupid. At least Sandman is a way better story than any Mephisto story. I don't know about the- oh, honestly, I've never read any of Sandman's stories. But, uh, I'm trying to think like the-

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probably the best Mephisto story. I think would probably be Faust, nothing from Marvel. No, I'm talking about Marvel story. Nah, none of them are good. I think Triumph and Torment was pretty good with Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom. If you wanna read a good Mephisto story, that was pretty good. Yawn, I fell asleep. Just hearing about that. All right. But that does it for this duel guys. Let us know what you thought about the results by writing to us at dyna

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or by visiting us on Instagram or Twitter. You can find links to all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website, dynamicduel.com. And on our sites, you could also find a link to our Patreon page, where we offer ad-free episodes of the show, bonus content including top 10 episodes and bloopers, monthly live movie watch-alongs, and access to our Discord chat server. Again, check it out right now at patreon.com slash dynamicduel, which is linked in our show notes.

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Our lowest tier is only $2 a month. In our next episode, we are going to be reviewing season one of The Sandman, which is on Netflix. And it's good, it's good. I've watched the first three episodes, the first one I didn't love, but it definitely picks up by episode three. I'm looking forward to the rest of it. It gets better and better. I can't wait to talk about it. But that does it for this episode. We wanna give a big thanks to our executive producers, John Spees, Ken Johnson, John Storosky, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Balcom, Mickey Mathagian,

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Brandon Estregard, Nathaniel Wagner, Lee Vyeen, Austin Wisselowski, Nick Abonto, and AJ Dunkerley for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up, up, and away, true believers.