This is a Dynamike Network podcast. Hey everyone, Marvelous Joe here at the top of the episode.
With the approaching holiday season, we're officially kicking off this year's holiday charity drive
in lead up to our charity dual episode in December, which is gonna be Alfred Pennyworth versus
Edwin Jarvis. This year, all donations will be going once again to Pop Culture Classroom,
a nonprofit organization that delivers high quality, all inclusive educational resources
to school districts. teachers, and community organizations using comics, graphic novels,
and related pop culture media. Their mission is to inspire a love of learning, increase
literacy, celebrate diversity, and build community through the tools of pop culture and the power
of self-expression. To donate to this wonderful charity, visit our official store through dynamicduel.com
where you'll find two donation options. One if you're Team DC, and one if you're Team Marvel.
Or you can go directly to dynamicduel.com slash donate DC, one word, or dynamicduel.com slash
donatemarble, which are linked in our show notes. We're making the charity drive a competitive
duel this year, except that the only stat is which side can donate the most. Everyone who
donates will receive a digital poster featuring original art of Alfred and Jarvis that's inspired
by New Yorker cartoons. One lucky random donor will win a framed print of the Alfred vs Jarvis
art that we'll announce during that December duel episode. Which fanbase will be the most
charitable? We'll keep everyone posted as to which team is winning as donations come in
during these upcoming episodes. Thanks to everyone who donates, and on with the show!
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 in this episode, we are going to pit the
DC villain of Mongol against the Marvel villain, Annihilus. They're both intergalactic tyrants,
and we thought it would be a good matchup in lead up to our review of the Marvels. Right,
yeah, Captain Marvel is a cosmic level hero, so we're doing a duel with cosmic level bad
guys. Both of these characters are pretty interesting, so I can't wait to tell you all about them
later on in this episode. Before that, we're going to break down the comic book movie news
from the past week, of which there was one major news item, and that was the first Echo official
trailer for the upcoming Disney Plus 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. As our listeners may know, our duel simulator is so advanced that it's
gained sentience, and has named itself the Artificial Lifeform for Running Extensive Duels, just
a rather very intelligent simulator, 9000, or Alfred Jarvis 9000. He has a quick message
for our listeners, so listen up. Why hello there. Do you love listening and chatting about Marvel
and DC? Then become a part of the dynamic dual community on Patreon, where you can choose
from three tiers. The dynamic two-o tier lets you listen to this podcast without ads and
gives you access to its discord chat group, where you can chat with Johnny DC and marvelous
Joe. The Fantastic Four tier gives you that and more with two bonus episodes each month,
including bloopers and top ten shows where Johnny and Joe count down your favorite Marvel and
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you help the hosts choose what to review and who to fight against each other. And finally,
the Dynamite Podcast Network tier allows aspiring podcasters to create their own battle-focused
show using this Monte Carlo simulator.
Thanks AJ9K and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. Be sure guys to tune into the
Max Destruction podcast this week which is part of the Dynomic
We're going to pick Roger Murtaugh from the Lethal Weapon franchise against John McClane
from Die Hard. That'll be a good one. Also tune into the Send Your World podcast this Thursday
to find out who would win in an anime battle between Hashirama Senju from Naruto and William
Vangence from Black Clover. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click in the link in our show notes to listen
to all the shows in the Dynamike Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick! to the
No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic
Dual No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram and in our email newsletter for the
person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. For last week we
asked, what was your favorite Netflix Marvel television series and why? And this was coming
off the news that the Daredevil born again series has got a showrunner in Dario Scartapane who
was a writer on the Punisher Netflix series. Yeah, it was pretty exciting news. We got quite
a few answers. So we'll break down all of the honorable mentions before revealing this week's
no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Travis Herndon, who said, Hey guys,
Travis here. So my pick would have to be the defenders. I think that show was a pretty good
series. kind of Avengers like having all the street level heroes team up together to fight
a common foe. Oh, it makes me really hope that maybe we might get another season or maybe
bring the defenders into the main MCU. So my pick would definitely be defenders. Yeah. Great
answer, Travis. I actually really like the defenders. For some reason it gets a lot of shit from
a lot of people, I think because Iron Fist wasn't that smart in the series and there were some
plot elements like with the the dragons underneath New York City and stuff that were kind of stupid.
But I really love the interactions between all four of the defenders characters, including
Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. It was the best part of the show and
it kind of felt the most comic booky out of all of the Marvel Netflix series. So I can
totally see why this could be somebody's favorite. I mean, for me, the defenders was my second
least favorite Netflix Marvel series. mostly because I think I had a villain problem, but
I can't deny the fact that it was cool to see all the characters from these other shows that
we were watching come together, just like the Avengers movie, you know, it had that same
appeal. For sure, yeah. I hope the Disney Plus series carries forward the Defenders concept
in some way, shape or form for that platform. Yeah, it would be really cool if they brought
back the actors for Luke Cage and Jessica Jones specifically. And the Punisher. And Electra.
Just fucking everybody but Iron Fist. Our next honorable mention goes to Anson Millard, who
said, Hey, it's Anson Millard. My favorite Marvel Netflix show was Luke Cage. I feel like that
is the underdog pick for this. So Luke Cage, I feel like had the best action scenes from
the standpoint of just having one overpowered guy go against entire mobs of people. I also
love the music in there, bulletproof love. It was awesome. It's cool that Method Man showed
up and just great villains, great show. Oh, for sure. There was a lot to love about the
Luke Cage television series, especially season two, which I was a big fan of. But Luke Cage
brought so many unique things to the table, including the music. The action was really
awesome, although you kind of wonder why bad guys even bother to bring guns to their fights
anymore, you know. And for like the Iron Fist series, you wondered why nobody brought guns
to those fights. They were all martial artists. But yeah, it was a great series and my culture
was just phenomenal in the role. It is an absolute tragedy that story was not able to continue
into a season 3. Like I'm still dying to learn what happened afterward. Right, yeah that was
a great cliffhanger ending for season 2. It was so godfather! It was so good! Our next
honorable mention goes to Lizzie Dyer Arnie, who said... Hey, it's Lizzie. 100%, I have
to say, my favorite Marvel Netflix show was Daredevil. Seasons one and three were definitely
pure perfection. Season two wasn't as good with the Defenders crossover, didn't like that.
But I mean, you have Matt Murdock. He's a blind lawyer. He's got elevated super senses and
he's defending Hill's Kitchen. You got Marcy, Foggy, Karen. They're the best side characters
you can ask for. If they're not in the new Disney version, I'm really not interested. Yeah, this
is kind of the obvious answer, right? the common answer, at least two other people gave the
answer of Daredevil because it was phenomenal. And hopefully Disney Plus can carry forward
that greatness as much as they can with their upcoming Born Again series. It sounds like
Disney is trying to recapture some of that previous magic. Except of course when it comes to the
supporting cast, right? Because Karen and Foggy are not returning and that's really a shame
because a big part of you know any superhero is his supporting cast. for them to not be
in the upcoming Born Again series is really a shame, especially since the series seems
at least to have been going heavily down the road of a courtroom drama, and for Matt to
not have his firm partner there with him in Foggy Nelson, it's kind of a shame. Well, I
heard the whole reason they're not going with those actors specifically was because if they
did, they would need to pay the old Netflix Daredevil show writers like some sort of creative
residuals. and they don't want to do that. That's super lame. They're Disney. They have all the
money in the world. They should do it. I just think they really hate Netflix. But oh, great
answer Lizzie, Nate Mantineo and Abner O'Tary worthy to others who gave the answer of Daredevil
as well. So thanks to everyone who took the time to visit our website and record an answer.
But the winner of this week's no prize is Braden Johnston who said, hey, Braden J here. New
to the podcast, I've been loving every second of it, but I'd say my favorite Marvel Netflix
series would have to be The Punisher. I discovered it a few years ago, right after I had my daughter,
and so Frank's story really kinda hit home with me there. And especially getting into season
two, that's where everything got amplified for me. Just the story, the emotional beats, the
action, and everything just got way better after that. I do feel that since the Punisher Netflix
series came out later, than the other shows, like after The Defenders aired and everything
like that, the Punisher was often overlooked, I think, both seasons. But I think that's really
a shame because both seasons were really well done. I think Jon Bernthal was an incredible
Punisher and it's nice to see that there are people out there that appreciate the show as
much as I do. It brought so much nuance to the character of Frank Castle that I think a lot
of other adaptations, they kind of wrote him off as like this really one note character,
but. to really explore the depth of the Punisher is to make them so much more interesting. And
I think that was the true strength of the Punisher Netflix television series. Absolutely, yeah,
I loved this series both seasons. I don't know if we're gonna get another Punisher series
for Disney Plus, like we're doing for Daredevil, but the Punisher was supposed to appear in
the Daredevil Born Again series, and we'll see if the creative reboot changes that. I hope
it doesn't. Yeah, that would be a shame if we lost the chance to see Jon Bernthal in the
role again. But great answer, Brayden Johnston, you're the winner of this week's No Prize.
If you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize, 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!
This past week we got the first official trailer for the Echo television series that's going
to come out on Disney Plus. Later on next year, we thought maybe the show was going to come
out in November of this year but it's actually coming out January 10th on Disney Plus and
on Hulu. The overall tone of the trailer surprised me. I don't know what I was expecting. Honestly,
I was not expecting much from this Echo television series but the best thing that I could say
about it is... that it really seems to be carrying forward the vibe that was set in the Daredevil
Netflix series. I was really impressed with what we saw here. I'm really hoping that the
trailer doesn't end up better than the show itself, but at the very least, the trailer
got me hyped, which is what it's supposed to do. I was also shocked by this trailer. This
show went from the bottom of my list to what I'm interested in watching to the top for Marvel.
Yeah, I mean, because Echo wasn't all that compelling in the Hawkeye television series, right? Right.
but to really explore her past with the Kingpin, and you know, honestly, just to have the Kingpin
back, Vincent DiNardfeo's portrayal of the character is so freaking impactful. Literally, you see
him just like, pounding this dude into the dumpster, into the pavement in this trailer. It really
seems to be setting a new tone for what we get from Marvel Studios and the maturity level,
and of course again, the tone. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've been knocking the Kingpin. as
part of the MCU ever since we saw him in Hawkeye because I thought Disney really screwed the
character over. But this trailer makes up for all of that. I recant my blasphemy. He is amazing
as the character. Yo, on Hawkeye, he was a little bit cartoony, right? Right. But that was just
kind of the vibe of the show. But here, the vibe is much more keeping with the character
as we know him from previous seasons. And regarding the whole vibe, it seems like Marvel is introducing
a new brand. for these type of character-driven, grounded stories, that's gonna be called Marvel
Spotlight, which was the name of a comic book title that Marvel used to produce to introduce
new characters or put a spotlight on lesser-known characters within the comics. Yeah, this will
be Marvel Studios' first sub banner, which is interesting, that it would debut with something
like Echo. Right, we've seen Marvel have a sub banner before when it comes to film productions,
like with Punisher Warzone. and Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance, those were under the Marvel
Knights banner. But that was abandoned. Usually those productions were other studios. But now
that Marvel owns everything except for, you know, Spider-Man, they've created their own
sub-brand in Marvel Spotlight, which I think is pretty interesting. I don't know if it's
entirely necessary. Do you think it means that Echo is not in the MCU? No, I just think people
don't have to worry about whether it is going to be or not. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
Like it's not going to connect to any larger story. It's just an interesting standalone
story. At the very least, I think it'll keep this trend that we have among fans to try to
spot Easter eggs and connections to the larger saga that's going on currently, the multiversal
saga or other television shows and stuff like that. I think it just allows fans to just focus
on the story as kind of a standalone thing as opposed to dissecting it to death. And thank
goodness, Oh look, Mephisto confirmed shit. Yeah, break from that kind of over analysis
is something that I think would extremely benefit the MCU as a whole. But regarding the trailer,
you know, it starts off with young Echo, Maya Lopez, trying to order an ice cream from an
ice cream cart and the vendor is being a dick to her because she's not able to speak given
that she's deaf. For his slight against this little girl, Kingpin beats the shit out of
him. Maybe to death? We know that in the comics and in the MCU continuity, Kingpin basically
raises this little girl as if she were his own and he loves her. He sees a lot of himself
in Maya. I really love the effect they gave for all of the impacts throughout this entire
trailer of like echoes. Like when the Kingpin hits the guy selling the ice cream, the sound
of his punch repeats itself. Right, yeah, and it actually transforms during the course of
the trailer. into more of a Native American chant toward the end. I don't know if you caught
that, but that was pretty interesting. One of the things I learned about the show is that
Echo is not gonna have the traditional powers that she has from the comics in this show.
So if you listen to our question versus Echo episode that we've done on this podcast, you'll
learn all about the backstory of Echo and what her actual powers are, which are kind of like
Taskmaster. She's able to view a physical action and then recreate it through her experienced
physical training. Now, do you think that's because of Taskmaster and how we've already
seen her in the MCU in the Black Widow movie? Yeah, I think it's possible that since Echo
and Taskmaster have almost the same powers that the MCU would want to differentiate that. I
guess the abilities that Echo is going to have in this show derive from her Native American
heritage, specifically the Choctaw tribe. I think I'm pronouncing that right. And she basically
calls upon the spirits of her ancestors. which give her certain abilities. Which is interesting,
I don't know, I understand why they may be changing their powers. Honestly, I don't love that.
I'm kind of okay with Taskmaster and Echo having similar abilities. There is a tendency though,
I find, for ethnically diverse characters to draw their powers from their heritage, which
I don't think is always necessary. I think that's overdone. I think it's far more interesting
for them to just have powers and not go too overboard. Because honestly, okay. So I'm all
for inclusion. I'm the biggest proponent of diversity in comics and television shows and
film, but transforming Echo's powers to be more cultural like this is almost like changing
Daredevil's radar sense to be like the sight of God or something because he's Catholic,
right? You don't always have to tie in the powers into the character's identity. Sometimes it's
better just for the characters to have identity and then deal with their own powers. Like Blue
Beetle, look at Blue Beetle. His Khajiitah scarab. actually has nothing to do with his Mexican
heritage, but he's still a fascinating character. Look at a character like Wolverine or a lot
of the X-Men actually, like Storm, Banshee, all of these characters that are not so boxed
in with their abilities. Yeah, I mean, I agree with what you've said, but I also don't mind
the Native American heritage thing. As long as it's something I've never seen before, I
think I'm interested. If she did have the same powers as Taskmaster, I'd be like, oh, redundant
character. You know, and I don't want Echo to be a redundant character. That's a great point.
I mean, you are also coming from the perspective of someone who's not really an Echo fan or
read any of the Echo comics. Exactly. So you probably don't give a shit if they change her
too drastically like that. But all that being said, you're right. If they do it well enough,
it could be fascinating and it could be really cool to see and a great way to include Native
American cultural aspects. Right. Yeah. And I'm not sure about what all of her different
powers are going to be. but it does look like she has the power to kick ass, which is all
I need from the show, really. It was like way more hardcore than I thought it was going to
be. Oh, it looks super violent. Yeah, you see people getting straight up shot in the face
in this trailer, which I was not expecting. One thing I wanted to touch on though, is that
they did reveal what Echo's superhero costume looks like online. Oh, I did not see that.
Yeah, they revealed it at a Q&A session that they did at the Chalk.Nation's annual Powwow
event. where they screen the first two episodes of the show. It looks very much like, you know,
traditional Native American garb updated for a modern era, kind of like what they did with
traditional African garb in the Black Panther movie, how it was brought into the modern era.
Looks pretty cool. Oh, interesting. Honestly, I would have just settled for the white poem
on the face, but this works too. It's a little bit more colorful than I thought it would be,
especially given that the character of... Echo's costume in the comics is mostly black and white,
you know? Right. We got the ever so slightest, briefest of shots of Daredevil in this trailer.
It was kind of like a blink and you'll miss it type thing, but it looked incredible. He's
like diving across this room or something like that. And yeah, it looks fantastic. I can't
wait to see Daredevil in the show. But more importantly than that, I love that they didn't
make that Daredevil cameo the highlight of this trailer. They kept the focus. on the relationship
between Echo and Kingpin. And I think that's where it needs to stay. I did blink and miss
it because I had no idea Daredevil was in the trailer. Is he wearing his yellow suit or his
red suit? It's like black. It's really dark in the room. It's hard to tell. Huh? Well,
it looks like I'm going to have to frame by frame this shit now. Oh, yeah. Look at that.
Eh. What do you mean? Eh. Piece of shit. You know, it's fucking awesome. I'll need to see
more. I can't wait to see more. Yeah. and we'll see more on January 10th. It's only five episodes
that are all dropping at once, so we'll be reviewing the show the following Tuesday. But speaking
of the Echo series and the Marvel Spotlight banner, that brings us to our question of the
week.
Which not currently existing MCU character would you like to see get their own mini series under
the Marvel Spotlight banner and why? Yeah, and again, this has to be specifically a character
that we have not seen under a Marvel Studios film or television series. Yeah, and we'll
include the Netflix characters in that too, so none of the defenders or Punisher. Record
your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right
hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could
be up to 30 seconds long. And don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the
podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a dynamic dual no prize that
we'll post to Instagram and our email newsletter. Be sure to answer before November 11th.
But I think that does it for all the news for this episode. Now let's move on to the main
event where we find out who will win in a matchup between the villain characters of Mongol and
Annihilus.
Okay, Mongul versus Annihilus. As we mentioned earlier in the episode, both of these characters
are tyrannical, intergalactic villains. Mongul is primarily a Superman and Green Lantern villain,
although he's gone up against other superheroes before. Annihilus, if I'm not mistaken, is
primarily a Fantastic Four villain. Correct. Yes, although he's posed quite the thorn in
the side of all of Marvel's cosmic level heroes, including the Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver
Surfer, Nova, and whatnot. Right. I don't know much about him other than that he's pretty
powerful. So I'm actually looking forward to learning more about him. Really? Well, I'm
not looking forward to learning about Mongol because he's DC and I don't give a shit. Well,
that's your fucking mistake is Mongols dope. He's really cool. You'll see. I mean, he wasn't
that dope in the recent Warworld movie, the animated one. He was kind of that's lame. Yeah,
that's he was actually really lame. He was done much better in the Justice League cartoon.
And at least he has fucking been on the screen. We have yet to see anything about Annihilus,
pretty sure. Annihilus has been in a cartoon, I'm fairly certain. Well, it was shitty then,
because no one knows about it. To explain the methodology behind your duels, let's go to
our sentient dual simulator, Alfred Jarvis 9000. AJ9K, tell our listeners how you go about determining
a winner in our dual matchups. Yes, of course, sir. The way I determine a winner between the
contestants is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations using the characters statistics. A Monte Carlo
simulation is a probabilistic model used to determine outcomes through random sampling.
In this case, I randomise the statistics along a normal distribution as a way to simulate
the many variables that can occur during battle. The stat parameters are based on the official
Marvel power grid from which the DC characters statistics are extrapolated.
damage potential, versatility and perception in order to create a more detailed and accurate
simulation. The results of the 1000 simulations provide a percentage of wins for each character.
The contestant with the higher percentage is declared the victor as they have a higher probability
to win any given battle. In an equitable pairing, neither character should win 100% of the matches.
The comic book stories have shown that there's even a way for Batman to defeat Superman, so
the confidence rate of my method falls in line with the precedents that have been established
in the source material. My mathematical simulations are without subjectivity or bias. Feats are
not the sole consideration, nor are fan votes tabulated for determination of the winner.
Thanks AJ9K! Before we run the simulations though, we like to break down each character's histories
and abilities before improvising a scenario on how we imagine one of the 1000 simulations
would play out B for B. And I believe it's my turn to go first with the Marvel character,
so let me go ahead and tell you all about Annihilus. Many millennia ago, in the antimatter universe
known as the Negative Zone, a technologically advanced species known as the Tianans traveled
throughout the dimension seeding life spores across barren planets. A freak meteor collision
forced one of the Tianan spore ships to crash onto a planet Arthros, where the crew died.
One of those spores evolved prematurely into a small insectoid creature. Remarkably intelligent,
the creature struggled to survive, becoming convinced that everything wanted to kill it
and that it must kill to survive. Eventually the creature discovered the Tionan Starship
and learned how to use their advanced technology. Over time, the creature grew in size and strength,
intent on eradicating any threat to its existence. From the starship's warp drive, the insectoid
built the perfect weapon, the Cosmic Control Rod, and from the remaining life spores, developed
an army of other insectoid creatures called the Scavengers. He developed armor for himself,
becoming a paranoid death spot known as Annihilus, ravaging neighboring planets just to protect
himself from the potential danger they could pose to him. For Annihilus feared only one
thing, death. After developing a reputation as one of the Negative Zone's most fearsome
and powerful Warlords, Annihilus encountered the Fantastic Four for the first time. The
superhero team had traveled into the Negative Zone when Mr. Fantastic detected the Cosmic
Control Rod as a source of anti-particles, which they needed to treat invisible woman who was
having cosmic ray-related complications with her pregnancy at the time. The team stole Annihilus'
weapon and escaped his wrath. though they returned it after using it to go back home in the positive
matter universe. You can learn more about the Fantastic Four in their duel episode against
the Justice Society. After conquering much of the Negative Zone, Annihilus set his sights
on the Microverse and tried to invade Subatomica. Though he was successful, he and his army were
eventually repelled. Annihilus briefly teamed up with Mr. Fantastic when the hero was trapped
in the Negative
from taking over both positive and negative dimensions. After Annihilus formed a truce
with fellow Negative Zone warlord Blastar, he showed his new ally his newest and greatest
addition to his scavenger army, a robot created by AIM called the Super Adaptoid. Suspicious
of Annihilus' plans, Blastar's wife sent out a distress signal to the Avengers, who came
and defeated Annihilus, Blastar, and the Super Adaptoid. For her actions, Annihilus killed
Blastar's wife, and Blastar in turn stole the cosmic control rod. Without his weapon of choice,
Annihilus snuck onto Earth and took Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman's son, Franklin, hostage,
forcing the Fantastic Four to go into the Negative Zone and confront Blastar to get it back. Though
Annihilus planned for his army to invade Earth's dimension through a portal in the
The Fantastic Four, alongside the Avengers, were able to stop Annihilus. Later, he tried
to invade the realm of Asgard when it temporarily drifted into the Negative Zone at a time when
its Bifrost Rainbow Bridge was shattered. Annihilus was able to defeat every Asgardian warrior,
including Thor, but was ultimately defeated by Odin. Unable to accept his defeat, Annihilus
kidnapped Odin in his sleep, and then lost in a second battle with Thor. who then returned
Odin back to Asgard, which was now gone from the Negative Zone. Eventually, Annihilus discovered
his old creators, the once thought lost to time Tianans, though they were under the control
of another villain known as Brute. Teaming up with Mr. Fantastic, Annihilus defeated the
Brute and freed the Tianans, though Mr. Fantastic created a force field around their home planet
to protect the species from Annihilus trying to conquer them. When a corporation called
the Gideon Trust breached the Negative Zone to mine its resources, they also stole Annihilus'
Cosmic Control Rod. During his efforts to get his weapon back, the rod was shattered, and
Annihilus was finally killed. However, upon his death, his body released a pod containing
insectoid larva that was cloned from Annihilus as part of his failsafe plan for death. The
larva grew, possessing all of Annihilus' memories and intelligence. However, it was later discovered
that multiple cloned larvae had spawned from the pod, forcing one of the Annihilus clones
to kill the rest. This surviving Annihilus rebuilt the cosmic control rod and discovered a powerful
energy source known as the Opposing Force, which was the negative zone equivalent to the Power
Cosmic, which is wielded by Silver Surfer and Galactus, both of whom you can learn more about
in their respective dual episodes. After learning that the positive matter universe was expanding
into the antimatter negative zone, Annihilus felt that the positive matter universe was
now part of his domain. Using the opposing force, he led his massive insect scavenger armada
through the energy surge that separated the two universes and he led a full assault across
the cosmos that was called the Annihilation Wave. Annihilus's armies devastated whole galaxies
and an untold number of worlds. He killed a multitude of cosmic heroes, captured galactus
and all power cosmic wielding heroes, and laid waste to entire alien empires and species.
It took the combined alliance of nearly every living hero outside of earth to eventually
stop Annihilus and his wave. But when Nova finally ripped Annihilus' organs from out of his throat,
Annihilus was merely reborn on a Kree planet that was ceded to his invasion, and he grew
to his former self back in the negative zone. Annihilus later killed the Human Torch after
the heroes sacrificed himself to keep the Warlord from invading the positive matter universe
from a portal in the Baxter building. The Human Torch was kept alive though using healing worms
that stitched together his body so that Annihilus might get him to reopen the portal. But the
heroes stole the cosmic control rod and escaped the negative zone back to Earth. Despite no
longer wielding his weapon, Annihilus proved to be enough of a threat from his devastating
prior invasion to earn himself a seat on the Galactic Council as a representative of the
Negative Zone, eventually getting his rod back after a fight with the Fantastic Four. Later
Annihilus studied the Hulk and learned the secret of his Gamma Transformation from Bruce Banner.
He used this knowledge to grow into a massive giant, from there absorbing his entire dimension,
becoming an all-powerful entity in the Negative Zone. It took the combined efforts of the Guardians
of the Galaxy, Thanos and the Shi'ar Imperial Guard to stop him, where Adam Warlock devolved
Annihilus into a small bug and Thanos stomped on him. You can learn more about the Guardians
and Thanos in their respective dual episodes. Again, Annihilus was reborn in the Negative
Zone where he currently remains, having recently gained a foothold in the Positive Matter universe
by invading a planet called Praxis II and transforming it into Annihilation World, which was a new
bridge into the Negative Zone. That's his backstory. Powers-wise, Annihilus is an evolved insectivoreid
with enhanced physical abilities including increased strength able to lift 50 tons, increased speed
with flight, and an indestructible exoskeleton that can withstand even a nova flame. He's
virtually immortal as his cosmic control rod halts his aging, and he has a failsafe for
death involving resurrection via cloned larva. His cosmic control rod can also fire massive
amounts of incredibly destructive energy, up to 10 megatons. It can manipulate matter using
the opposing force and create portals within and to and from the negative zone to travel
through or summon his scavengers or other creatures. He's a gifted engineer and scientist, though
Annihilus's strategic thinking usually incorporates some form of overwhelming force. His one weakness
is his mouth, as it's a way to get past his exoskeleton. into his more vulnerable interior.
And that's Nihilus. I mean, I guess that's an interesting backstory. I don't think it's as
interesting as Mongul's, I have to say. But you know, it's good enough for Marvel. He's
basically as powerful as like a herald of Galactus, but instead of wielding the power of cosmic,
you know, he wields the opposing force. Right, yeah, it definitely seems like a powerful dude.
But I think Mongul's got him in this matchup. Let me tell you all about Mongul. Little is
known about the early life of Mongul. other than he's the disgraced ruler and former tyrant
of an unknown planet of billions, until an ancient priest named Archimandite led a revolt that
overthrew Mongol's reign. Stripped of his power, Mongol scoured the universe for a source of
power that granted him the strength to never lose power again. Eventually, Mongol learned
of an artifact known as the Crystal Key that could activate a planetary weapon known as
Warworld. The key was located in a vault on the fourth planet of the Cygnus star system,
which was stored there by Martian Manhunter at the behest of a deceased race of peaceful
aliens known as the Largus. After failing to defeat Martian Manhunter to get the key, Mungo
learned of Superman, and he kidnapped low slain Jimmy Olsen and Daily Planet reporter Steve
Lombardi in order to force Superman to fight Martian Manhunter and get the key for him.
Which Superman did. You can learn more about Superman in our Superman vs. Dr. Doom episode.
After Martian Manhunter rescued Superman's friends, he and Superman fought Mongul together, though
Mongul was able to teleport himself and a ship away as soon as he got his hands on the key.
After Mongul successfully activated Warworld, the psychic link he now had over the planet
overwhelmed him when he attempted to destroy Superman, and Mongul was forced to flee the
battle. Later, Mungoal was able to defeat Starman on the planet Throneworld, a world capable
of destroying other planets, and took control of its superweapon. Superman intervened by
rescuing Starman, however, and Mungoal was once again forced to retreat. Desperate for revenge
against Superman, Mungoal infected the hero with a parasitic psychic plant known as Black
Mercy on Superman's birthday that placed Superman in a paralyzed dream state. where he dreamt
that he had grown up on the planet Krypton, which had never exploded. Superman's mind rejected
the illusion, however, and he broke free of the Black Mercy, before Mongul himself became
infected and trapped in a never-ending dream of universal conquest. After the Crisis on
Infinite Earth storyline merged to DC's multiverse and created a new continuity, Mongul was once
again in control of Warworld, with which he conquered and enslaved entire star systems.
To distract and control the denizens of his empire, Mongol hosted gladiatorial games on
Warworld that were fought by the strongest among those he had enslaved. During a time when Superman
had exiled himself from Earth after killing Zod, he was captured by Warworld, and Mongol
forced Superman to compete in the arena. Superman rose amongst the gladiatorial ranks to Mongol's
disdain, and Mongol arranged a battle between the hero and Warworld's fiercest warrior, an
alien known as Draga. when Superman defeated Drago but refused to kill him, challenging
Mungo in rebellion instead. An enraged Mungo attacked and nearly killed Superman before
the hero was teleported away by an alien cleric with ties to Krypton that had been watching
the battle. Superman's act of defiance spurred a rebellion on Warworld, and Drago was able
to defeat Mungo and take control of the giant weapon after removing Mungo's crystal amulet
that he wore on his chest. Swearing revenge and stealing a city-sized space cruiser, Mongul
fled Warworld, which was later taken over by the villain Brainiac, who you can learn more
about in our Brainiac vs Ultron episode. Mongul ended up on a small planet known as Paraton
V, which he was able to conquer easily due to its technological inferiority. Mongul's starcraft,
however, became infected by the mind of Hank Henshaw, who would later become Cyborg Superman,
and who managed to overpower Mongul. as its ship was the most advanced technology accessible
on the planet. After Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday, Mongol traveled to Earth
under Cyborg Superman's orders and used his Starcraft to destroy Coast City, the home of
the Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, who you can learn more about in our Green Lantern vs. Nova episode.
In place of Coast City, Mongol quickly constructed a massive engine, which he named Engine City,
and gave it to Cyborg Superman, who had framed another Superman imposter known as the Eradicator
over Coast City's destruction. With plans to betray Cyborg Superman and destroy Metropolis
in an effort to create a second engine as part of an overall plot to turn Earth into a new
war world, Mongol's plans were foiled by the real Superman, who by this point had returned
from the dead. Though Mongol nearly succeeded in killing Superman as Engine City was powered
by kryptonite gas, a rage-fueled Green Lantern overpowered Mongol, who was imprisoned on Earth.
After escaping prison multiple times, Mungle was transferred to a satellite prison orbiting
the moon, where he was forced to undergo experimental mental reconditioning to pacify him. Mungle
fooled the scientists there into believing that their methods were working, and when opportunity
struck, Mungle slaughtered everyone on board and fled the solar system in a spacecraft.
Though he nearly died adrift in space after his ship was randomly attacked, he was rescued
by the peaceful citizens of the planet Debstam IV. which he quickly conquered. Unwilling to
be ruled over and succumbing to a fatal disease that Mongol had unknowingly brought to the
planet, the citizens of Depstem IV sabotaged all spacecrafts and committed suicide, trapping
Mongol on the planet with no one to rule over save for two children, a son and daughter that
he had fathered that were immune to the disease. Mongol was eventually teleported to Earth by
the demon Niron, who made an example of Mongol by killing him in front of Earth's other villains.
Mongul's son, known as Mongul II, grew rapidly and studied his father's legacy. After several
battles with the Justice League, Mongul and his sister Mongal were teleported to their
home planet, where Mongul killed his sister. During the Blackest Night event, Mongul II's
father returned as a Black Lantern and killed all of the slaves that his son had acquired.
Escaping his father, Mongul II acquired Yellow Lantern Rings by killing Yellow Lanterns, wearing
one ring on each finger of his right hand. Mongul assumed control over the Sinestro Corps, which
he renamed the Mongul Corps after taking control of Warworld and making it the Corps' new homeworld
base. Sinestro later confronted Mongul, however, and, using a failsafe that Sinestro built into
each of the Yellow Lantern Rings, defeated Mongul and retook control of the Corps. In post-Flashpoint
continuity, Mongul was now Mongul the 1791st, and was revealed to be the descendant of a
long line of rulers within a race of alien conquerors known as the War Zun, inhabitants of the ancient
and powerful Warworld Prime, which had been created by the Old Gods. After assuming control
of Warworld Prime once again, dwarfing the other Warworlds, Mongul
over his core of yellow lanterns. Though he nearly succeeded, Sinestro turned Mongols hired
mercenaries against him, and later Mongul was killed by his son, Mongul the 1792nd, who now
rules over Warworld. The powers-wise, Mongul possesses vast strength and durability natural
to the war-zoon race, who live upon the harsh environment of Warworld. The crystal amulet
embedded on his chest passed down from the very first Mongol ruler, only increases his power
and allows him to emit powerful energy blasts from his chest, eyes, or hands. Mongol also
possesses an array of technological trinkets that allow him to teleport, shrink others into
small energy cubes, and mentally control Warworld, a planet-sized weapon equipped with missiles,
energy cannons, and war machines that can conquer and destroy other planets. Mongol is also a
strategic and scientific genius, having created a genetically modified Black Mercy parasitic
plant to induce paralysis by physically bringing about the hosts worst nightmares. And that's
Mongol. Why does his story seem like a rip off of the movie Gladiator? Like why is DC so unoriginal?
Dude, I thought the same thing, but apparently gladiators rip off of the Mongol story. It's
crazy, right? Somebody better sue Universal Pictures is all I'm saying. That's also what
I'm thinking. Although who knows, next year Universal may own Mongol, so they'd just be
suing themselves.
But now that we've got their histories and abilities out of the way, let's speculate on how one
of the 1000 simulated matches will go. The winner is determined by simulations, not the speculation,
but it's fun to imagine how this fight could play out. Alfred Jarvis9000, what are the rules
of our speculation? Well, I should say there are no rules, other than the characters have
no prior knowledge of the other going into the fight. All they are aware of starting out is
that the other character is a threat that needs to be eliminated. For the speculation, the
contestants will begin approximately 50 meters apart in a non-descript environment that will
have no bearing on the match itself, as no environmental statistics are considered in my simulations.
The contestants must earn victory on their own merit. Alright then, let's get into it. Mongol
and Annihilus meet on the battlefield? Who goes first? I'm going to say that Annihilus goes
first because he seems more maniacal than the more like brooding Mongol. So Annihilus starts
off by blitzing Mongol, reaching him in less than a second, and just flying into him and
tackling him to the ground. Okay, except that Annihilus tackles nothing but air, cause Mongol
teleports out of the way, poof. And when Annihilus stops to look for Mongol, that's when Mongol
reappears behind him, and with like a single punch, just knocks Annihilus into the horizon,
to where Mongol teleports and is waiting for him. All right, well. Okay, so Annihilus, you
know, he skids across the floor a few times and then lands at the feet of Mongol again,
uh, looking up at him. But that's exactly where Annihilus wants him. Because from the ground,
he's gonna fire a blast of cosmic energy from his cosmic control rod right up at Mongol.
And the blast is so massive, it sends Mongol literally into space, into the orbit of whatever
planet they're fighting on. And Mongol can't fly, so he's like, Whoa! you know, spinning
around the world. But a Nihilus can fly and he flies up to Mongol and just like lands this
massive uppercut into Mongol's big ass target of a chin. Well, I wouldn't say that Mongol
can't fly. I think there's been some feats where it's shown that he can, but it's extremely
rare. Mostly he's seen as like more of a leaper, like the Hulk. But sure, yeah, he's in space
right now. And you know, he's definitely caught off guard. but as he's tumbling through space,
that's when he summons War World into the planet's orbit, which beams both him and Annihilus to
the planet's surface. So now this match is gonna take place in War World's battle arena. Nice.
But I'm gonna say that if like, Mongol can summon War World into this match, then Annihilus can
summon his Annihilation Wave. Okay? Okay. That's only fair, right? So he's gonna open up this
portal into the negative zone using his Cosmic Control Rod. and through it is gonna come this
entire fleet of insectivored ships and they just arrive like a plague of locusts just blotting
out the stars with how dense their numbers are. Okay that's fine you know Warworld is gonna
be busy blasting all these ships to smithereens and meanwhile Mongol he's gonna fire his own
energy blast from his chest crystal which just sends a Nihilus crashing into the edge of the
arena and Warworld citizens are like Maaagol. Yeah, and those chants quickly turn into shouts
of, Oh my god, we're fucking dying! When the Annihilation wave just starts nuking the shit
out of Warworld, just everything around the battle arena and the whole planet is just getting
blasted to bits, there's devastation everywhere, but you know, Annihilus doesn't care because
he's indestructible. And as the gladiatorial arena's floor opens up from being split from
the destruction, Annihilus is gonna rush up to Maagol. grab him and then slam him through
the planet's surface. Oh, you know who else doesn't care about what's happening around
them? Mongol. Cause those nukes that are coming from the annihilation wave ships aren't doing
shit besides revealing new layers of weaponry. Like each Mongol ruler essentially created
a new layer of weaponized surface to Warworld Prime. So we've got like almost 2000 more layers
to go here. So as Annihilus slams Mongol onto the next surface, Mongol just kicks Annihilus
like miles away, and Annihilus in turn gets slammed by a massive targeted missile that
just obliterates Annihilus along with like the next three layers of Warworld's surface, like
leaving this giant crater. Oh yeah? Forcefield! Damn it! So in the center of this crater that
Mongol just blasted in his own planet is Annihilus surrounded and protected by this personal cosmic
energy forcefield. It protected him from the blast. So he's fine and he's gonna fly up to
join the Annihilation Wave ships and he's gonna board the greatest of their ships which is
called the Harvester of Sorrows. And that was a ship that the Annihilation Wave used to destroy
planets and it literally uses the planet's energy as fuel. So the Harvester ship is just gonna
send out this planet-sized energy blast that consumes Warworld with Mongul on it. I mean
like maybe like a baby planet-sized energy blast like World Prime. No! is pretty fucking huge.
Dude, the Annihilation Wave has destroyed plenty of planets of all sizes, some that were multiple
times the size of Earth, so. Dude, big whoop, Warworld can destroy entire suns. So it meets
this ship's energy blast with its own, and when the beams collide, it's gonna generate this
massive explosion that destroys not only the Harvester of Sorrows, but the entire annihilation
wave. And Annihilus, obviously. Okay, this has to be like a massive explosion. If this explosion
is big enough to destroy the entire annihilation wave, that explosion is also gonna destroy
Warworld too. Like there's no way around that. So like in the midst of space, there's all
this debris from the planet and the ships and there's bodies everywhere and devastation,
but surviving it all in the center of it is Annihilus. The indestructible Annihilus just
floating in the middle of it all. Mongols vaporized. Marvel wins. I don't know what makes you think
that Warworld would get annihilated by this. Like, it's a fucking tank planet. Yeah, and
the Annihilation Wave is a big-ass armada. Okay, well I mean, you're probably right that Mongol
wouldn't survive a blast that could also destroy all of Warworld Prime, as ridiculous as that
is. So sure, Annihilus is floating out there, you know, feeling victorious. Except that the
whole thing was a dream. What? When Mongol first teleported behind Annihilus at the beginning
of this match, instead of punching Kim, he really just infected Annihilus with the Black Mercy
parasitic plant, which paralyzed Annihilus and gave him this delusion of this epic battle
in which he came out on top. But in reality, While Annihilus is just standing there grinning
like an idiot lost in thought, that's when Mongol is just going to reach down his giant ass mouth
and tear his spine out. Except that whole idea is stupid and I hate it. I honestly forgot
entirely about the Black Mercy plant. But we'll leave the scenario there. Either one of two
things happens depending on the results of this match. Either the most epic battle of all time
happens where a whole planet and armada of ships is with Annihilus standing victorious through
it all, or Mongol just made it all a dream with a parasitic plant and then rips out Annihilus'
spine through his throat. That's the boring way, mine is the cool way. Hopefully Annihilus
wins this and that epic battle really happened. But let's go ahead and enter the character
stats and run the simulations and find out which character is going to win. AJ9K, hit it! Inputting
data. Running calculations. Processing results. Simulations complete. So stats wise, the two
characters were pretty even on a number of categories. You know, they're both extremely durable, they
could both deal a ton of damage, and they both have about equal range and intelligence. There
were a number of differences though. We said that Annihilus was faster just through the
speed feats he has. Mongol is not quite as fast as Annihilus, seemingly according to their
actions in the comics. Annihilus is also more evasive. than Mongol considering that not only
can he fly, but he also can produce force fields using his cosmic control rod. And it's not
like Mongol doesn't move again, he's sort of like the Hulk in that regard, but he does sort
of enjoy also tanking a lot of shots. Yeah, in place he's got a big old head and that thing's
not dodging anything. We did say Mongol was stronger than the Nihilus, definitely for sure,
as well as a better fighter. Annihilus is kind of just like this crazed maniac brawler guy,
but Mongol actually has a significant amount of fight training and experience. Right. Exactly.
So considering all that, Jonathan, who is coming out on top in this match? It's got to be Mongol.
Like, he's way stronger and, you know, he's just as durable. It's got to be Mongol. This
guy could take on Superman. He could take on Wonder Roman. There's no way in hell he can't
take on fucking Annihilus. Just this little bug that can be squashed. Though it looks like
Instagram both agrees and disagrees with me because it was a 50-50 split on who they thought
would come out on top in this match. And that's pretty surprising because we got quite a number
of votes for this one, like around 30 or 40 or something like that. Yeah. So the fact that
it came out pretty even makes me think that this was seemingly a pretty even matchup. Yeah,
it definitely looks like both characters have their share of fans. Let's find out if this
was an even matchup by revealing the winner. 8g9k the results please. Here you are sir.
Alright the winner between the cosmic villains of mongol and anialis is Anialis But it was
really close These guys went tit for tat Not quite even But definitely measuring up to each
other Anialis only won 504 matches out of 1000 Holy shit! Barely squeaking over 50% at 50.4%
where Mongol won 496 matches at 49.6%. Holy shit that is really close. These results have
got to be the closest to what our Instagram followers thought it would be, that we've ever
done. Maybe, like it was interesting how the characters weren't very similar stats-wise,
like they had a lot of differences and yet it still came out as close as a coin toss. I'm
actually glad that it was close because both characters I think are really cool. I think
both deserved to win. We should note that we did not factor in Warworld itself or Annihilus's
army into these stat figures. Right, because the characters have to win on their own merits.
That being said, Warworld is the ultimate weapon and there's no reason to say why Mongol wouldn't
take advantage of using it. Same for Annihilus with his annihilation wave especially against
a villain as powerful as Mongol. These guys both have resources, they may as well use them,
you know? I think it makes for a better match that way. Very true. But that does it for this
duel. Let us know what you thought about the results by writing to us at dynamicduelpodcast
at gmail.com or by visiting us on Instagram or X. You can find links to all of our accounts
by checking out our show notes or visiting our website at dynamicduel.com. And on our site,
you can also find a link to our Patreon page where you can join our dynamic 2-0 tier and
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and let's show them that dynamic dual fans care. Next week is going to be a review episode.
We're going to review the upcoming Marvel Studios movie, The Marvels. Jonathan, do you have any
predictions for that one? Yeah, I think it's going to suck. All right. Well, Jonathan has
low expectations, which means that he's going to be pleasantly surprised with the quality
of the film. We'll see and probably love it. All right. But that does it for this episode.
We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, Ken Johnson, John Sturawski, Zachary
Hepburn, Dustin Belcombe, Miggy Mathenkean, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton,
Nick Ibbonto, Austin Wazilowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Adam Spies, and Andrew Schonk
for helping to make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and
away, true believers.