Solomon Grundy vs Werewolf by Night

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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 Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother Marvelous Joe. And happy Halloween, everyone! Yeah, happy Halloween, which was, of course, yesterday. But we're gonna keep it going for one more day with this Halloween-inspired duel episode, Solomon Grundy vs. Werewolf by Night. And it's been a while since we've done a duel episode, not since episode 300.

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where we play Young Avengers vs Young Justice. So this will be fun getting back to the duels. These characters are pretty spooky. So hopefully you don't get too scared listening to this. Before we get into the main events of this episode though, we will be breaking down the comic book movie news from the past week, including the news that James Gunn and Peter Safran have been chosen to lead DC Studios. Finally, I didn't think it was gonna happen. We're gonna talk all about it.

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We're also going to talk about the Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania official trailer, the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special official trailer, and the news that Disney Plus is getting a Vision Quest series. 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. Guys, don't forget to join us on Patreon where we offer ad-free episodes of the show,

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Bonus content including top 10 episodes and bloopers, Jonathan and I just got done counting down the top 10 spookiest on-screen moments for Marvel and DC. You also get access to our new Infinity Crisis Marvel vs. DC deck building card game we made. And you get an invite to our Discord chat server. Check all of that out at patreon.com slash dynamic duel which is linked in our show notes. Our lowest tier is only $2 a month. And for $10 a month you get all of that and you get to become an executive producer of the show.

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and help us determine the episode content. We wanna give a big shout out to Jay Chow, Devin Davis, and Scott Camacho for becoming new patrons of ours. Scott Camacho is also a new executive producer. Yeah, and I know Devin Davis purchased the Infinity Crisis deck building card game. If you haven't already, Devin, be sure to check out the Patreon post that lists the rules for the game. But with that out of the way, quick to the no prize.

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A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out up into the 90s to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel 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, in a question that immediately became obsolete the day that episode dropped, we asked, whose vision of the DC film universe are you most interested in? The Rocks, James Gunn's, Matt Reeves, or JJ Abrams?

03:05
When we asked our question, the trades were reporting that those four were competing for power and their vision when it came to the DC film universe. Of course, as we'll be talking about later on, James Gunn and Peter Safran have become the heads of DC Studios, but we saw some honorable mentions to announce as well as the no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Eric Maizel, who said,

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he's an outstanding director with fantastic vision. I feel like he can do no wrong. I didn't love what Abrams did with the Star Trek movies and his universe has been abandoned. I didn't watch any of his Star Wars stuff because it's Star Wars gross. I hadn't seen Black Adam or anything fast or furious and the Batman was just plain awful. So yeah, going with Gunn's vision for DC's future. Okay, there's a lot of things that I disagree with in this honorable mention.

04:00
I do however agree that I'm not a fan of JJ Abrams franchises that he's done with like Star Trek with Star Wars. Of all of the choices, he was my least favorite to kind of take the reins of DC. To Eric's credit, he did give this answer prior to the news breaking that James Gunn had become the new CEO of DC Studios. He did see a lot of controversial things there, but I do agree that the Batman sucked. So wrong, so wrong!

04:29
Our next honorable mention goes to Scott Camacho who said, For the vision, I'm going to have to say Dwayne Johnson. I mean, come on, Johnny, the guy brought a Superman back. But I believe by the time you guys get this recording, James Gunn and Peter Saffron have been named co-CEOs for DC films. So let's bring on the Gunn era. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I was really looking forward to what The Rock was going to have planned for.

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the DC universe considering the fact that I really, really liked Black Adam. I thought it was a lot of fun. Dwayne Johnson did bring back Henry Cavill, which was amazing. I can't wait to see him as Superman again in future films. And I liked the idea of the justice league and suicide squad and, you know, justice society and the Shazam family, everyone basically going up against Black Adam, a little self-serving maybe, but I think the rock would have made it really cool.

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Well, maybe Gunn will collaborate with The Rock a little bit, so we'll still get to see The Rock's vision. Yeah, that's my hope. I mean, you can't just drop The Rock after making one Black Adam film. Like, I would love to see a sequel to that. Isn't that how that song goes? You can't drop The Rock, can't drop The Rock. But no, yeah, we all need to tweet James Gunn that song. He'll know what it means. I think the actual lyrics are, you can't stop The Rock. Oh, it's fine. Our next honorable mention goes to Kevin O'dealon, who said...

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Hi guys, the vision that I would like to see more will be the rocks vision because as a Marvel fan I feel like DC movies, this is as good a chance as they'll get to be as good as Marvel movies. Sorry Johnny DC, but yeah, definitely a very enjoyable movie and I feel like continuity wise I'll be good for the franchise which is a huge problem that DC movies have been having and yeah, go Marvel.

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Go Marvel. I think that really says it all. DC had one shot to be as good as Marvel and they blew it by not picking the Rock, according to Kevin O'dealon. Well, I mean, the Suicide Squad was pretty damn good. I would say that Black Adam was just as entertaining as any Marvel movie more so. And yeah, I remember your first reaction to seeing the movie, Joseph, was that it was the most Marvel movie that DC has made. So if you're a fan of Marvel, I could see where the Rock's vision really appeals to you.

06:46
We want to give a big shout out to Landon Parker, Benjamin Ryan, Carson Miklis, and Oz for taking the time to visit our website and leave their answers to our question of the week. We really appreciate you guys doing that. But the winner of this week's snow prize is Dustin Belcom, who said, Hey Dynamic Duel, Dustin Belcom here. And you can call this sucking up to the host or whatever you want, but it's an honest answer. I want Johnny V's vision. I want...

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put in the discord chat of his plan that he was ahead. I want to join NGC all the way.

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Okay, now Dustin is definitely sucking up here and his answer is a little bit inside baseball because on our Discord chat server where all the patrons hang out, Jonathan posted his vision of what the DC Films franchise would look like over the next 10 years or so. And yeah, it was pretty solid. Yeah, David Zazlov had mentioned during the last investors meeting for Warner Brothers Discovery that he was looking for someone with a 10 year plan. Well, I have one and I think it's pretty awesome. If you wanna know what it is, James Gunn.

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Just feel free to at me. I'm totally available to spitball ideas. Yeah, James Gunn, you have to join our Patreon if you want to know what it is. If you're listening to this. Become an executive producer. But I do have to say Dustin has a little bit of brown on his nose. It is the best way to win a no prize. Like hands down. No, I am very honored that he chose me to be the head of DC Studios. Alas, I am not, but maybe someday. Until then, thank you for submitting your answer. If you the listener want to try at winning your own no prize.

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Stay tuned until later on in 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 I will admit that this past year has had a lot of highs and lows in terms of being a DC fan. Just the fact that Warner Brothers was bought by Discovery earlier this year, and it really didn't seem like we had clear leadership, or at least leadership that was willing to make a cohesive film cinematic universe, a la Kevin Feige over at Marvel. I just like suffered from so much anxiety this year.

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Being a DC fan, but with the recent news that DC Studios now has a leader chosen by David Zaslav or leaders I should say James Gunn and Peter Safran are going to be the new heads of DC Studios and their job actually starts today November 1st, it was huge news. I did not see this coming I actually kind of lost hope but then out of nowhere we got the news about Gunn and Safran and I felt really happy I felt like really really happy

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I didn't expect them to take charge, but looking at their past bodies of work, I think DC Studios is in a really good place. I was totally shocked by this news when I first heard it. I was a little bit embittered because I consider James Gunn more of a Marvel guy, considering that he still has the Holiday Special for Guardians of the Galaxy and Volume 3 coming out later on next spring. So he has all this insider Marvel knowledge.

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and he's just gonna bring all of that to DC, which essentially means that DC is ripping off Marvel once again. But of course, we also had the Suicide Squad from James Gunn, which was fantastic, and we had Peacemaker, which was amazing. Like, that show was way better than I thought it was going to be. But on the production side, we also have Peter Safran, who was the producer for Aquaman, which grossed over a billion dollars and is DC's most successful, highest-grossing film of all time. And we also have Shazam, which I loved. I loved that movie.

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He produced the Suicide Squad, and he's bringing us the Shazam and Aquaman sequels along with Blue Beetle. He's a really good producer. I guess initially Zezlov wanted Safran to take the role of the CEO of DC Studios entirely, but Safran was unwilling to do it unless he had creative support. And since James Gunn is a writer and a director, Safran pitched that the two of them would lead together.

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Yeah, it kind of surprises me that they both have the title of CEO. What they have does seem similar to the structure that they have at Pixar studios, which is owned by Disney, where Jim Morris is the CEO, but John Lasseter is the CCO, chief creative officer. And you would think that Gunn would have taken on the CCO role as opposed to CEO. Yeah, it is pretty interesting. I don't know what kind of, you know, administration background that James Gunn has, but yeah, both Gunn and Safran.

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are co-chairs and co-CEOs of DC Studios, which is a newly formed division at Warner Brothers, and that's going to replace DC Films. As co-chairs and co-CEOs, James Gunn and Peter Safran are in charge of not only films and television, but animation as well, except for Todd Phillips' Joker film, and the word is still out on the sequel for Matt Reeves, The Batman.

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What do you think James Gunn and Peter Safran's taking over of DC studios means for the future of DC movies? That's hard to answer. I gotta say at the very least they're all gonna have badass soundtracks. And I imagine they're gonna play out a lot like Aquaman and Shazam and The Suicide Squad, just really really fun films. And it kind of seems like they're gonna continue the continuity established by the DCEU. Like Henry Cavill is still Superman, Gal Gadot is still Wonder Woman.

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All of that doesn't seem like it's going to change. Peacemaker is in that universe as well, along with Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. All of those characters, I think, are gonna stay in their roles. And instead of rebooting anything, my guess is that James Gunn is just gonna keep building out this universe. Although I guess I should say it's no longer called the DCEU, it's now just the DCU. Which is a total ripoff of the MCU. I do think it's gonna get a little bit confusing when you're referring to the comic universe or like the...

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DC Universe Infinite app or the cinematic movie universe now. We're going to have to come up with some new acronyms pretty soon. But yeah, look, something new. Something's already changed. Gunn and Saffron are doing new things at DC and it's really exciting. But this brings us to our question of the week.

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What new DC project do you hope James Gunn and Peter Safran officially announce first? Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message can be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before November 6th.

13:27
In Marvel news we got the long-awaited official trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. It was an amazing trailer. It looks like a really fun movie. It was really cool. Like I think this is the coolest Ant-Man has ever looked. It's definitely taking the franchise places that it's never been. You know the first two Ant-Man movies were heist films that took place largely on Earth. We did briefly visit the Quantum Realm in the last movie but it looks like most of this movie is going to take place in the Quantum Realm.

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where we get to see all the weirdness that takes place in the universe down at the subatomic level. I don't know if Marvel is referencing the Microverse or the Cosmos dimension within this trailer, but it looks very like Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Wars-ish. Totally. And I think that can only be a good thing for the Ant-Man and the Wasp franchise.

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Of course the trailer starts out with a lot of jokes, basically Ant-Man talking about how cool it is to be an Avenger and how he gets cheered on by people in the street who are like, thank you, Spider-Man. I thought that was a really solid joke. And it paid off later on in the trailer as well. Yeah. You know, like everyone may not recognize him as Ant-Man, but guess who does? Fucking Kang. Kang the Conqueror, yeah. We see that Cassie, who is aged up now after the events of...

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Avengers Infinity War where she didn't get blipped and the rest of her family did. She's doing some science stuff just like her grandfather and her dad. She creates a beacon into the quantum realm to check on how things are going down there. Of course this freaks out Janet Van Dyne who has spent a large part of her life in the quantum realm and knows about the dangers there. They all get sucked into it and that's where this adventure takes place.

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Now this is a different actress from the one that appeared in Endgame, correct? Yeah, in Endgame she was played by Emma Furman, but in this upcoming movie it's gonna be Katherine Newton. And I have to say, I think Katherine does a pretty good job here. I like her delivery on these lines that she gives. Yeah, she's a pretty good actress. I haven't seen her in too much. I did see her in the movie Freaky, but she was great in that. The music that plays in the background of the Quantum Realm scenes is Goodbye Yellow

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Oh yeah, and it just kind of alludes to the fact that they're going somewhere just wild and fantastic, kind of like Oz. I loved how they took parts of the song and made like a synth sound out of it. It sounded really cool. It did. There was this one shot where it looks like they're almost in a Star Wars cantina. I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see who they meet down there. Of course, we do get a glimpse of Bill Murray. Yeah, a lot of the technology we see in this trailer, though, has caught a lot of people's attention because it looks very reminiscent of what we see.

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like on Shang-Chi's 10 rings and on the bangle that Miss Marvel wears. Which we theorized was a nega-band. Yeah, yeah, but I almost wonder now if it was like technology that Kang developed. Oh, that's possible. I think the costume that they gave Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror was spot on. It looks really cool. I like how they translated Kang's blue face as more of a blue light screen that goes over his face. Yeah, yeah. That was a nice touch. I really like that.

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Overall, he seems to be playing a much different character than he who remains at the end of the Loki television series. Jonathan Majors is just a chameleon of an actor. Yeah, and this version has scars on his face. Yeah. Which is interesting. Like the mask that he wears in the comics. They do a pretty good job of setting him up as a threat. Now, we know that Kang is going to appear again in Avengers the Kang Dynasty because that movie was announced at the last D23. It looks like this movie is more setting up Kang than actually fighting and defeating him.

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And to that end, I really like how this movie seems to be displaying him as this force to be reckoned with, just like by the look that Paul Rudd gives him. I think that was a pretty good performance on his end. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was great. I really love how they didn't end this trailer on a joke. It was a very serious moment. And that feeling just kind of stayed with you even when the trailer was done. They didn't ruin it with bathos.

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This movie overall is gonna be one of my more anticipated Marvel movies really continuing the story that was left off from Avengers Endgame, which a lot of phase four really hasn't done too much of. But since Quantumania kicks off phase five, I think it's really gonna take us in this new direction for the MCU. Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It kind of feels like we're going back to the Marvel that we know and love. Yeah. Not me though. You love it, you love it.

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You know what else you'll love? You'll love the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which we also got a trailer for this past week. Dude, I'm gonna love anything James Gunn, henceforth. It's gonna be the best stuff. Now the special for Werewolf by Night was only an hour long. I'm assuming that this holiday special is going to be of a comparable length. In its-

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We see that Peter Quill Star-Lord is down in the dumps due to Gamora leaving him. Of course, this is the Gamora that he doesn't have a history with because that one died by the hands of Thanos. This new Gamora was time displaced into the main MCU timeline and I guess she doesn't really want to have anything to do with him. So with the Earth holiday of Christmas approaching, the Guardians of the Galaxy decide to kind of do something special for Star-Lord.

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Part of their plan is to travel to Earth to kidnap the legendary Kevin Bacon and present him to Star-Lord as a Christmas present. Now I'm sure that's not what the whole plot of the special is, probably just a side plot with Mantis and Drax, but already this thing is shaping up to be hilarious. I really love Drax's delivery when he tells Kevin Bacon, he's like so excited, he's like you're coming with us as a Christmas present. Like that makes it okay, you know?

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And to see Kevin Bacon in this was so shocking. Like I was not expecting that. Yeah, I love how the credits were like, and introducing Kevin Bacon. Yeah. Of course, Kevin Bacon was referenced in the first Guardians movie as one of the major heroes of Earth. He was the guy who taught all the people with the sticks up their butts how to relax and dance. You know? So cool that he's in this.

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And it'll be so interesting to see like how the real world interacts with the zany world from James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Yeah, yeah, totally. I noticed Cosmo is also credited in this trailer. Yeah, I can't remember who does the voice for Cosmo, but of course Cosmo will have a Russian accent and maybe he'll find his way back to Earth. I don't know. I was also surprised at how different Groot looks like now that he's older.

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Yeah, that was pretty weird, right? He looks much more bulky, I would say. His head is still pretty small. Not as tall as it was from the first movie. It almost looks like it's live action now. Like they got a guy in a costume and they're CGing the face. It does kind of look like that, doesn't it? Yeah, maybe it's cheaper that way. Maybe they're saying that Groot is bulking up or something in his late teens. By this point, I'm hoping that he'll be adult Groot again because he's been growing for quite a while.

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I think one of the more surprising things that was announced for this trailer was that the special is coming out really soon in less than a month. It'll be debuting on the Disney Plus channel on November 25th, which is the day after Thanksgiving in the US. Yeah, I mean, just to touch on the James Gunn taking over for DC News real quick one more time. I'm really curious to see how they plan on promoting these upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy films, this holiday special and Guardians of the Galaxy volume three without James Gunn.

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because of course he's not going to be able to work for the competition. Exactly. They probably have some clause in his contract that says he has to finish his contract with Marvel in the promotion and post-production of the Guardians movies, and then from then on he has to work for DC exclusively and can no longer work for Marvel. I don't even know about that. I think they might just have someone else wrap up post-production on volume 3, and maybe he'll do no promotional work for the holiday special. I mean, they have actors for that. Yeah, that could happen as well. We'll have to see.

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But in the last bit of Marvel news, also dealing with the Disney Plus platform, we learned this past week that a new Marvel series focusing on Vision will be coming out. It'll be called Vision Quest, which is a name that I don't love, but it is really awesome to see that Vision is coming back after his last appearance in WandaVision. I actually like that name a lot, because it's like another pun, kind of like WandaVision. Why don't they just call this Vision then, or The Vision? Because he's going on a quest, bro. Okay.

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I was kind of hoping they would do something like Tom King's story where he gets his own family That would have felt like a much more direct sequel to WandaVision. I think this show might go that route I think it'll deal more with visions journey back to humanity as a worry, you know He was never human but now he's just the shell of what he once was when he was the wielder of the mind stone Hopefully he comes back to the vision that we know and love through the course of this show

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Deadline did suggest that there was a possibility for Wanda Maximoff to appear in this series, but since we figured that she allegedly died in the Multiverse of Madness movie, it's hard to know whether or not that's the case. Of course, they could always find a way to bring her back. I think they're going to bring her back even earlier than Vision Quest. I think we'll see her in Agatha, Covenant of Chaos. You think so? That's my guess. I think that's why they changed the name of it. I mean, it used to be called House of Harkness.

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But now they're talking about Chaos Magic. I think it's a huge telegraph. That's not a bad theory, for sure. There's not much more news regarding Vision Quest. We don't know when it's coming out. It likely won't be debuting on the platform for the next couple of years, but it is exciting that Paul Bettany is coming back. But I think that does it for the news for this episode. Let's move on to the main event, where we find out who would win in a duel between the zombie monster, Solomon Grundy, and the werewolf by night.

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Okay, Solomon Grundy versus werewolf by night. Again, we're doing this as a tie into Halloween, the holiday that was yesterday and the whole spooky season around it. Solomon Grundy, if you're not familiar with him, he is originally a Green Lantern villain who is this reanimated swamp zombie monster. Kind of like Swamp Thing, but not. Yeah, semi-related to Swamp Thing, you'll find out in the bio.

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Werewolf by Night, of course, recently had his own special debut on Disney Plus. It was Marvel's Halloween special. And once we saw how awesome that short film was, we knew that we had to get the character in a dual episode. Yeah, and it doesn't get more Halloween than a werewolf versus a zombie. And werewolf by night has fought zombies in the past, the Marvel zombies, with the Midnight Sons. So I just got to say, Solomon Grundy's going down. What do you think, huh? Mm-hmm.

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Well, let's find out! If you've never listened to one of our duel episodes before, the way we determine a winner between these two characters is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations using their statistics. A Monte Carlo simulation 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.

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The stat parameters we use are based on the official Marvel power grid, and we use that criteria to extrapolate the DC character stats. We've included some additional stat categories of our own, such as range, damage potential, versatility, and perception, in order to create a more complete and robust simulation. 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.

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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 use this method because it was the least subjective, most unbiased way to determine who would win. Of course, we are both heavily biased toward our respective allegiances, so instead of debating these matches forever, we just let the math decide for us. There are no fan votes here, and no relying on just feats.

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Before we run the simulations though, we like to break down each character's histories and abilities before improvising a scenario on how we imagine one of the 1000 simulations we run would play out beat for beat. And I believe it's your turn to go first with the Marvel characters backstory. Let me go ahead and tell you the spooky backstory of Werewolf by Night. Centuries ago, in the late 1700s, a Transylvanian man named Grigori Russov refused to bow before the ruler of the lands

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Vlad Tepes, who was also the immortal supernatural being Dracula. For his insolence, Dracula killed Grigori's wife. In revenge, Grigori attacked Dracula, seemingly killing him with a stake through the heart, but Grigori was then bitten by a werewolf that was in the vampire's service, forever inflicting Grigori and his family line with the curse of werewolfism. Generations later, in the Russov Castle estate in Transylvania, Grigori Russov's descendant

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Gregor, and the American woman named Laura, conceived two children, Jacob and Lyssa. Every full moon, in secret, Gregor would lock himself away in the castle's keep to protect others from harm. Yet one stormy evening, a bolt of lightning destroyed a section of the keep's walls, and Gregor, in his wild werewolf form, escaped and terrorized some of the local villagers. The townspeople, armed with silver bullets, shot and killed Gregor.

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and the Russo family was driven from their castle, with Laura taking her children to America and changing her last name to Russell. The children, Jacob and Lissa, eventually forgot the events of that night due to their young age. 15 years later, Jacob, AKA Jack Russell, celebrated his 18th birthday when he unknowingly inherited the curse of werewolfism and changed for the first time by the light of the full moon. The day after,

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His mother, Laura, who at the time had been fatally injured in a car crash, admitted to Jacob on her deathbed about his father's past and the Russoff curse. In an attempt to find a cure, Jack learned about the Darkhold, a magical book of dark spells. Despite going through many adventures acquiring the book and taking it to a priest to read, the book possessed the clergyman and Jack was forced to fight him in a battle that ended with the Darkhold vanished from sight.

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Jack became a lonely drifter traveling the world, ending up in his father's homeland of Transylvania. There he discovered a copy of the Darkhold and fought Dracula over it, though the book ended up lost in the Alps Mountains. Over the years, Jack teamed up with Frankenstein's monster to battle a satanic cult that had kidnapped his sister, he fought against Morbius, the living vampire anti-hero, and he teamed up with the hero Tigra against the villainous organization Hydra.

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Eventually, the group of aristocratic criminals known as the Committee tracked Jack down. The Committee was revealed to be behind the car accident that killed Jack's mother, Laura, and they hired the mercenary Moon Knight to attack Jack, with their ultimate goal being to capture and control the werewolf for use in their own nefarious schemes. You can learn more about Moon Knight in our Batman vs. Moon Knight duel episode. Moon Knight learned about the Committee's criminal intent, however, and he and Jack teamed up to take the Committee down.

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Jack also teamed up with his reluctant rival Morbius, the swamp creature Manthing, and the demon possessed hero Ghost Rider to form the Legion of Monsters team, though they tragically soon disbanded after accidentally killing a benevolent entity called the Starseed. You can learn more about Ghost Rider, Manthing, and Morbius in their respective duel episodes against Etrigen, Swampthing, and Manbat. Through all of this, Jack retained his human mind while in the werewolves form, but was never fully in control of his actions.

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During an adventure alongside Brother Voodoo, Jack managed to gain control of when he transformed, though it could only be under moonlight and he would still lose control during the full moon. Because of his greater control, he was able to team up with less supernatural heroes such as Iron Man and Spider Woman against the sorceress Morgan Le Fay. After managing to contact the spirit of his father Gregor and battling a cult of werewolves that had been turned by Jack in the past, Jack gained full control of his werewolf self and his transformation.

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Despite this, he still kept his distance as a lone wanderer and ventured up to Canada where he fought both the mutant Sabretooth and the Wendigo in the Canadian Northwoods. Later, Jack was captured by a villain called the Demon Druid and his blood was used to create a werewolf serum. This serum was used on Captain America, turning him into Cap Wolf, who was able to free Jack and other werewolves including Jade Jonah Jameson's son, John Jameson.

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also known as Man-Wolf who was an astronaut that was turned into a wolf by the other dimensional moonstone pendant. And there was also Wolf-Spain, a mutant and member of the New Mutants team. Damn, there's a lot of werewolves in Marvel! Together, they all teamed up and defeated Demon Druid. Jack was later slain by the vampire hunter Blade, who at the time was called Switchblade and driven mad by the Darkhold.

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Jack was soon resurrected though when the effects of the Darkhold spell on Blade were reversed by the supernatural heroes called the Midnight Suns, whom you can learn more about in our Justice League Dark vs. Midnight Suns dual episode. Upon Jack's return, he had lost the control of his werewolf form that he had gained earlier, and he resorted to locking himself in a cage during the full moon. He learns that in order to regain control, he needed to acquire the three pieces of the Wolf's Blade, an ancient mystical artifact.

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Jack was transported to a branch of Hell where he battled the original wolf demon, Varkolok, and he regained control. Jack's niece, who had become a vampire, was taken into the custody of SHIELD, the international law enforcement organization. When Jack tried to break her out of their custody, the two were recruited into the Hellling Commandos, SHIELD's own monster squad named after Nick Fury's original band of World War II heroes. Oh, it's like the Creature Commandos. Right.

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Later released, Jack was brought by Morbius into the Midnight Suns to fight against a zombie plague, and later joined a new iteration of the Legion of Monsters alongside the monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone, whom Jack briefly dated. Recently, Jack helped protect his former werewolf ally Wolfsbane after the birth of her newborn child, Slash Cub. A new werewolf finite character was introduced in 2020, this time a teenager of Hopi Native American descent named Jake Gomez,

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who also came from a cursed family. He stopped life pharmaceuticals from kidnapping and experimenting on natives from the Hopi reservation. However, outside of his own mini-series, he hasn't shown up again except once or twice. Powers-wise, Werewolf by Night is a lycanthrope, able to turn into a wolf retaining his normal human intelligence and resembling a wolf-man hybrid. Under the full moon though, he transforms against his will, turns wild, and resembles more of a wolf.

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He has similar powers gaining superhuman strength, able to lift around one ton, speed fast enough to be a blur in short bursts, durability, agility, and enhanced senses including smell, hearing, and night vision. His claws and fangs are sharp enough to rend stone and soft metals. Werewolf by night has a vast healing factor that is ten times faster than humans, and he is nearly impossible to kill, even surviving decapitation. The only thing that can kill him...

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are weapons made from his soul weakness, silver, due to its mystical purity. Jack's mind, often within the werewolf form, is well-versed in occult knowledge. And that's werewolf finite. But that's only when he's in control, right? Right. So is he like stronger and faster and stuff during the full moon? Yeah, it kind of waxes and wanes similar to how moon knights does. At the height of a full moon, he's been shown to lift things that are like two tons. So it's kind of fair to assume that-

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like his abilities double in their effectiveness when he's in full wolf mode. Only two tons, huh? Hmm. That doesn't matter, I mean, does Solomon Grundy weigh more than two tons? I doubt that. He's mostly made of shit. Hahahaha. Swamp shit, sure. I think though you'll come to have a newfound respect for Solomon Grundy. New respect and fear after I get through his backstory. No, I won't. Let me get into it. Several miles outside of Gotham City in the suburb of Somerset,

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exists Slaughter Swamp, where a wealthy yet despised gentleman named Cyrus Gold was murdered in the late 19th century. No one knew why Cyrus was murdered or who murdered him. It was rumored that Cyrus was the father of a prostitute's child and was killed by her pimp when he refused to give into their blackmail and extortion. Whatever the circumstances of his death, the Parliament of Trees, which you can learn more about in our Swamp Thing vs Man Thing episode,

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attempted to turn him into the next Swamp Thing, an avatar of the green, though the mystic process was unsuccessful since Cyrus had not died by fire. Whether due to the Parliament of Tree's interference or some other supernatural reason, the mostly decayed body of Cyrus Gold, now primarily composed of swamp and plant matter, was resurrected nearly 50 years later as a giant beastly man with no memory of who he was.

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After stumbling on two criminals hiding out in the swamp, Cyrus killed them in his confusion and stole their clothes, making his way eventually to a hobo camp on the outskirts of the swamp. When asked his name, Cyrus could respond only with the one thing he remembered about himself, that he was born on a Monday. When one of the men in the camp brought up the nursery rhyme Solomon Grundy, that became Cyrus' nickname. Strong yet mindless and easily manipulated,

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Grundy was ushered into a life of crime, and it wasn't long before he was confronted by the Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott, who you can learn more about in our Green Lantern vs Iceman duel episode. Alan Scott's Green Lantern ring was weak to the element of wood, and because of Grundy's body composition, he was immune to Green Lantern's energy constructs, making him a formidable foe for the hero. Still, Green Lantern managed to use his wits to kill Grundy, hurtling him in front of a train.

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Cursed with continual zombie resurrection, however, Grundy returned from the dead, oftentimes with new personalities, levels of intelligence, and sometimes powers. Eventually, Grundy became much more of a threat than Green Lantern could handle alone, and after taking on the entire Justice Society on several occasions, Grundy was often stranded on distant planets or in Earth's orbit. You can learn more about the Justice Society in our JSA vs. Fantastic Four team duel.

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Once, while trapped in a magic bubble created by Dr. Fate, Solomon Grundy was able to absorb some of that magic and was transported to a parallel Earth. He later battled the combined might of both the Justice Society and the Justice League in Slaughter Swamp, though it was defeated and sealed there for a time. After battles with Superman and Swamp Thing, Grundy took something of a heroic turn for a time after he was rescued from a glacier by Ellen Scott's daughter, the hero Jade.

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and he became an ally of her team, Infinity Inc. This was undone, however, after the villain named Harley Quinn, not to be confused with Harley Quinn, used her powers of illusion to fool Solomon Grundy into attacking Infinity Inc, and unwittingly led to the death of Skyman. After the crisis on Infinite Earths merged the multiverse, Grundy next appeared haunting the sewers of Gotham City and became an occasional villain of Batman.

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Grundy eventually moved to Opal City, the home of Starman, whom Grundy met in the sewers there. Grundy, innocent and childlike in this incarnation, became friends with Jack Knight, aka Starman, who named him Solly. Grundy also became friends with Mikhail Thomas, an alien, also known as Starman, and Grundy even sacrificed himself to save Mikhail from being crushed by a collapsing building. Mortally wounded, Grundy was helped.

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at the request of Jack Knight, his father Ted Knight, and Alan Scott, by Batman and the Floronic Man, the latter of whom was also a plant-based creature. Together, all five men consumed mystic seeds that allowed them to enter the consciousness of Grundy, and though they attempted to rescue the Solly personality, the other malicious and evil personalities with Grundy proved too strong, and when the men awoke from their journey, Grundy had died.

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Grundy joined the Injustice Society for a time and was later jokerized by Joker Venom, after which Grundy hid from the world within Green Arrow's abandoned Arrow Cave. You can learn more about Green Arrow in our Green Arrow vs Hawkeye episode. After stumbling across Grundy and his old cave, Green Arrow was violently attacked by Grundy, forcing Green Arrow to strangle him with a bowstring. Green Arrow later helped Dr. Chrissy Cavendish of Star Labs capture the resurrected Grundy,

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after Dr. Cavendish claimed to be a descendant of Cyrus Gold. When the cure intended for Grundy instead transformed Dr. Cavendish into a monster, Green Arrow managed to defeat her and then set Grundy free. After joining the Secret Society of Super-Villains at the Secret Six, Grundy was killed by Superboy Prime and was reborn with an advanced intellect, with which he orchestrated a complex plot to manipulate the Justice League of America

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to helping him transfer his new mind into the body of an indestructible amazo android. Before his plan could come to fruition, however, he was torn apart by the wind power of Red Tornado, who you can learn more about in our Red Tornado vs. Sandman episode. After dying on the planet known as Salvation, where he and countless other villains were imprisoned by Amanda Waller, Grundy was reborn in Slaughter Swamp, this time as Cyrus Gold.

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Possessing fragmented memories of his violent life as Cyrus and becoming self-aware of his past lives as Solomon Grundy, he became terrified of dying again and being reborn as a mindless zombie, Solomon Grundy. Frustrated and afraid, Cyrus ended up in a scuffle with police, and while on the run, he jumped onto a highway and was killed. Returning to life once again as a mindless zombie and fleeing to the Gotham sewers where he battled Killer Croc,

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and grave of Cyrus Gold, self-aware once more. It was there that he encountered the Phantom Stranger, who enlisted Ellen Scott, Green Lantern, to help Grundy discover who killed Cyrus Gold so that Grundy could forgive them and his soul could move on into the afterlife. Not long after, Grundy and Green Lantern shockingly learned that the one responsible for killing Cyrus Gold was Cyrus Gold himself. In a fit of madness,

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Cyrus Gold had committed suicide in Slaughter Swamp in the mid 1890s. Unable to forgive himself, in that moment, Grundy received a Black Lantern Ring, becoming a Black Lantern during the Blackest Night events. With the truth revealed, and because the Black Lanterns were dead and without souls, Cyrus Gold's soul was pulled into Hell, and Grundy was killed for the final time when Bizarro flew him into the sun, destroying Grundy's body and the Black Lantern Ring.

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In post-Flashpoint continuity, the Earth-2 version of Solomon Grundy was a simple laborer whose wife committed suicide after Grundy's boss molested her, resulting in Grundy killing his boss before he, too, committed suicide. Grundy was later reborn as a swamp-thing-like Avatar of Decay and Champion of the Gray. Alan Scott, newly made the Avatar of Life and Champion of the Green on Earth-2, imprisoned

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where there would be no life for him to drain. On Earth 1, Solomon Grundy continued his cycle of death and zombie resurrection. Powers-wise, Solomon Grundy possesses incredible strength and durability, often capable of lifting up to 100 tons, though his strength varies from incarnation to incarnation, along with his intelligence. In a majority of cases, though, he's mindless and can only recite the Solomon Grundy nursery rhyme.

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Grundy is able to regenerate rapidly if near swamp matter, and he can reattach limbs if they are removed. If limbs are detached, they can move independently of his body. Because he has no vital organs, he cannot be killed by conventional means, and even if he is destroyed, he will eventually return to life in the waters of Slaughter Swamp. And that's Solomon Grundy. With those powers, how the hell did he get choked out with a bow string by a green arrow? Bad writing?

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That's what I thought. Okay, let's do some bad writing of our own as we get into this duel episode. Because now that we got their histories and abilities out of the way, we're gonna speculate on how one of the 1,000 simulated matches will go. The winner is determined by simulations, not our speculation, but it's fun to imagine how this fight could play out. We don't set any rules for this match other than the characters don't know anything about each other going in, except that the other character is a threat that needs to be put down.

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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 them to win on their own merits. So let's get into it. Solomon Grundy and Werewolf by Night meet on the battlefield. Who goes first? Alright, I'm gonna say Werewolf by Night goes first because Solomon Grundy is just too damn dumb to go first. So with his blood curdling howl,

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werewolf is gonna dash on all fours toward Grundy and just slash him with supernatural speed and Grundy before the dude even realizes what the heck's going on he doesn't even know the match has started he's gonna look down and find that one of his arms is gone just slashed clean right off just gone yep okay so you know Grundy he's gonna look down at his arm on the ground he's just gonna pick it up and then just chuck that sucker like real hard right at werewolf

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And in mid flight, like this arm, the hand is going to form a fist. So werewolf gets clocked like from a far distance, right in the snout. And it just knocks him to the ground. Dude, you don't think canines know how to play fetch like this is what they do. So like werewolf doesn't get knocked to the ground like he leaps up and he just snatches Grundy's arm out of the air, like like a stick that's being thrown at him. And then with the arm in his mouth, he's just going to like shake it really hard, like a chew toy.

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ripping it to pieces. Okay, except that the arm, like while it's in werewolf's mouth, it's just gonna like bend at the elbow and its hand is gonna reach werewolf's throat and just choke him out, all right? And while werewolf is getting choked out, Grundy, he's been walking toward him and he's gonna grab werewolf by the scruff of his neck and then just slam him into the ground repeatedly like a rag doll. Dude, that is animal abuse. You sicko. He's a villain. He's not above it. Wait.

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Werewolf's gonna let out a yelp and uh, he's gonna slash off Grundy's other arm that's slamming him on the ground and then the hand that's grabbing Werewolf by the throat, he's gonna slash at that too and just turn that hand into tiny bits. So Grundy now has no arms and one of the arms has no hand. Jeez. How about that? Alright, so Grundy, you know, he's probably pretty angry by this, he's enraged. So he's gonna kick Werewolf away. And while he does that, the arm with the still good hand

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that's gonna crawl up his body and reattach itself to his shoulder. Okay? Oh wow. And then with that hand, he's gonna reattach the other arm, you know, which he may not have a stump for a hand, but it'll grow back and heal over time. While Grundy's like taking all this time while he's busy reattaching his limbs, Werewolf like stealthily stalked around the battlefield so that he's behind Grundy, who's now like his prey. And Werewolf is just gonna pounce onto Grundy's back.

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and like slash across his face just turning his nose and mouth and eyes to ribbons and turning him completely blind. Geez! I'm gonna say, the werewolf can't rip out both eyes, you know, Granny's gonna grab one of werewolf's hands before that can happen, and he's just gonna crush the bones in that hand to gravel, like in his fist. Whoa. And then he's just gonna slam werewolf to the ground beneath him and just start stomping on him with his feet, like, turning him into wolf jelly. Wolf jelly?

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Grundy doesn't know what he's stomping, you know, he can barely see shit. His face is all fucked up. So he thinks that he's stomping the wolf into jelly, but really werewolf, he's going to slip away before he gets stomped just in time and he's going to bite at Solomon Grundy's Achilles tendon. Just, he's going to rip that whole back of his ankle off with his teeth. So Grundy can't walk now and he just falls to the floor. He's a zombie. You think Grundy like wouldn't walk on a stomped foot?

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He's made of like decayed swamp matter. So I disagree. I don't think it makes him fall or really, really even slow him down. Like he's not about that. So while standing still with his superior reach, Grundy's just gonna grab werewolf like an action figure with his good hand and with his superior strength, he's just gonna squeeze and snap werewolf's spine like a toothpick with a loud crack and now werewolf is paralyzed. Damn! That's, well, I mean, okay.

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If the werewolf is paralyzed, it's only from the waist down, right? Otherwise he'd be dead. Um, so the werewolf is still in his grasp, but he's like fucking going into full wolf mode. You know, he's like super furious and with his good claw, the one that's not broken, he's going to slash at Grundy's throat, just slicing the whole head from Grundy's body clean off, sending it flying through the air and like landing with a sick thud. And, uh, it must be Saturday because Solomon Grundy is dead. Match over.

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And eventually werewolf was just going to heal from all his wounds. Except you didn't suspect this during this whole time. Grundy's other hand that was torn up has now grown back and his arm that's holding werewolf stretched out. So, you know, the werewolves just slashing get air and can't reach Grundy's head. You know, with Grundy's newly grown hand, he's going to reach into his decaying body and pull out a knife made of silver. What he's going to plunge into werewolves hearts.

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killing him instantly. What the fuck? You can't just have Grundy literally pull a silver weapon from his ass and try to win that way. Like what is that? Dude, you never know what kind of trash and treasure you're gonna find in the swamp. You can't claim that. Silver in the swamp? You think people are just dropping silver in the swamp? Maybe? I mean, I don't know. Oh my god. I guess it was kind of a clever way to try to introduce silver into this match.

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I mean in the video game Injustice, like he has knives and even like a whole tombstone that he pulls out of his body. It's pretty cool. Really? Yeah. Oh, I guess I've never played as Grundy in Injustice. I don't remember that, but he regularly just has random shit in his body. I mean, I've never seen it in the comics, but sure. There's some precedent. I mean, his body is made up of stuff from the swamp. Okay. Well, we'll go ahead and end the match there. Either Grundy gets his head chopped off by werewolves claws.

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or Grundy pulls a silver knife from his ass and stabs werewolf. It was from his torso. He's not pulling anything out of his ass. We'll go ahead and input the stats on these characters into our simulation runner and come out with a winner. We'll be right back.

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Okay, so going into this match, I knew that Grundy was going to be really high in several stat categories. Yeah, I could pretty much concede right away that I knew Solomon Grundy was going to be really high in durability, strength, and damage. And he was much higher than Werewolf by night, but also maybe not quite as much as people would think because his powers are variable. Yeah, pretty much everywhere I looked across the internet, they did bring up the fact that...

50:06
His strength levels varied from incarnation to incarnation whenever he was reborn. Sometimes Batman can hurt him. Sometimes Superman couldn't. So I had a really hard time giving him max stats in certain categories like strength, knowing that there are points in time when he was weaker than that. So I had to sort of average it. He's still on the higher end, just not at max second to max, basically. Yeah. But where Solomon Grundy was higher in durability, strength and damage,

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Werewolf by Night had him beat in speed, intellect, and perception due to his enhanced senses. Yeah, intellect was a big one. Solomon Grundy is known for not being bright. He is a mindless zombie a majority of the time. There's been a number of instances where he's been highly intelligent, but it's extremely rare. Surprisingly, we gave Solomon Grundy the higher range stat, if only because his limbs are still operable from a distance.

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Whereas werewolf by night has basically no range. He doesn't like shoot anything out or throw anything. I think what surprised me the most was how durable werewolf by night was. I thought Grundy was going to totally stomp werewolf by night in terms of durability, but I didn't know werewolf by night was fully regenerative. Yeah, one time Deadpool cut off his head and it grew back because Deadpool didn't use silver weapons. But with the stats put in and the simulations run, Jonathan, who do you think is going to come out on top?

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I think Grundy is going to come out on top. I just think he's so much stronger. He could do much more damage. And, you know, a lot of people agree with me, according to our Instagram poll, 74% of you think that Solomon Grundy is going to take this match. Well, are they right? Or I'm pretty sure they're right. Let's find out. The winner between Solomon Grundy and Werewolf by Night is. Werewolf by Night. What? This may be an upset.

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but we have the data to prove it. By how much? Werewolf by Night actually won 562 of the matches over Solomon Grundy. Now Grundy had the advantage in durability, strength, damage, and range, but Werewolf by Night was more evasive and agile. He had greater speed, had greater perception and intelligence. The match came really close, but in the end it was Werewolf by Night that scored higher in the simulations. I'm never quite sure how to...

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deduce who's going to win when one character is very well balanced and another character is not. It goes both ways and I guess this time it went towards werewolf by knight. I thought it was going to be a closer match than this if werewolf by knight did win. I'm actually surprised by these results because I mean, Solomon Gerdie, he's like the Hulk almost. Yeah, but not a smart Hulk. I mean, no one likes smart Hulk. He also didn't get high marks in fighting either, whereas werewolf by knight, you know, is like a seasoned experienced

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Solomon Grundy kind of has to start over from the beginning every time he's reborn. That's fair. Damn it. I guess it is a Saturday. On a Tuesday. Sorry to all the Solomon Grundy fans out there, but also not really. That does it for this duel. Let us know what you guys thought about the results by writing to us at dyna 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.

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And on our site, you could also find a link to our Patreon page where we offer ad free episodes of this show, bonus content, including top 10 episodes and bloopers, access to our Discord chat server, and the exclusive opportunity to get our Infinity Crisis Marvel vs. DC deck building card game. It's a lot of fun. Again, check out patreon.com slash dynamic duel right after this episode. It's linked in our show notes and our lowest tier is only $2 a month. In our next episode,

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We're going back to the reviews. The DC animated film Batman and Superman Battle of the Super Sons gets released this week. So we're going to go ahead and watch it and review it for you guys. Yeah, I kind of wish that Marvel and DC didn't dump all of their content at the end of the year. I feel like they did this last year as well. But I'm looking forward to the movie. So I'll let you know what we thought about it next week. But that does it for this episode. We wanna give a big thanks to our executive producers, Ken Johnson, Jon Storosky, Zachary Hepburn,

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Miggy Mathengian, Brendan Estergaard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Austin Wazilowski, AJ Dunkerley, and Scott Camacho for helping make this podcast possible. We'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers.