This is a DynaMic Network podcast.
Welcome to the dynamic duel podcast a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate
the superiority between Marvel and DC By comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations.
I'm Marvelous Joe and I'm his twin brother Johnny DC And in this episode we are going to find
out who'd win in a fight between the grand illusionist characters Psycho pirate and mastermind. Yes,
psycho pirate is a JSA villain whereas mastermind is a villain of the X-Men. Yeah, it should
be a pretty trippy duel speculation later on this episode. Yeah, if you guys take mushrooms,
take them now. If you microdose, just forget the micro part. Cause it's gonna be crazy,
man. No, we're gonna talk about who'd win in a fight. We're gonna plug in the character
stats, run a thousand simulations, and come up with the definitive answer. Later on this
episode, before that we're gonna break down the latest comic book movie news to come out
this past week, of which there was just one news item, fairly low key and mostly boring.
We learned that Jonathan and Martha can't have been cast in the Superman film. Bias! On me
I'm like, who cares? I'm like, who cares? Bias. But as always, we list our segment times in
our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead
past the boring stuff. What the fuck? Our artificially intelligent duel simulator, AJ9K, has a quick
message for our listeners, so listen up. Why hello there. Do you love listening and chatting
about Marvel and DC? Then become a part of the dynamic duel community on Patreon, where you
can choose from three tiers. The dynamic two-o tier lets you listen to this podcast without
ads and gives you access to its discord chat group, where you can chat with Johnny DC and
marvelous Joe. The Fantastic Four tier gives you that and more with two bonus episodes each
month, including bloopers and top ten shows where Johnny and Joe count down your favourite
Marvel and DC subjects. The X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of Dynamic Duel,
where every month you help the hosts choose what to review and who to fight against each
other. And finally, the Dynamite Podcast Network tier allows aspiring podcasters to create their
own battle-focused show using this Monte Carlo simulator.
Thanks AJ9K and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast, including executive producer Brandon
Estregard who had his birthday this past week. Happy birthday, Brandon! If I could get you
one gift from Marvel, I think it would be to have the power of the puppet master, the Fantastic
Four villain. That way you can animate all the cool Funko pops that you have. And I would
give you the power of Toy Man, who actually I don't think has any powers, but he has a
lot of cool toys, just like you. Happy birthday, man. Be sure to tune into the shows in the
DynaMic podcast network this week, including Max Destruction. which pits your favorite action
heroes from film and television against each other. This week though, hosts Ken and Scotty
will be doing a review of the wrestling film, Ready to Rumble. On the Senjou World podcast,
host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. This
Thursday, he's going to find out who would win in a fight between Mahito from Jujutsu Kaisen
and Elder Toguro from Yu Hakusho. On the Console Combat podcast, hosts John and Dean find out
who would win in fights between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode, they
reviewed season 1 of the Fallout television series. Not listening to it because I haven't
watched it yet, but I'm dying to. Well, I never played the game, so I don't know if I would
get much out of it. That doesn't bother me. It's fine. I'll learn about the game through
the show. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all
of the shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network.
the Rankers podcast where you can listen to Jonathan and I get into a full on debate over
who is better between Marvel and DC. Now I know what you're thinking, don't you guys do that
every week on the show? Well in the Rankers podcast that we guested on we took a more holistic
approach to the Marvel versus DC debate. Joseph and I each got five minutes to explain why
we think DC or Marvel is better and then yeah we just argued with the guys and it was a whole
lot of fun. and yeah, be sure to check it out this Friday, April 26th. But with that out
of the way, quick to the No Prize. A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans.
Our version, the Dynamic duel No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram for the
person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week we asked,
what film are you looking forward to more this year? Deadpool and Wolverine? or Joker Folly-a-doo.
And this is coming off of the teaser trailer that we got for Joker Folly-a-doo. And Jonathan
just felt like he wanted to be a glutton for punishment by asking this question. We got
three honorable mentions, as well as a no prize winner. So let's go ahead and break those down.
Our first honorable mention goes to Harrison Fox, who said, As much as I enjoy Joker, and
I'm looking forward to the continuation of that story, nothing can compare to the hype of Deadpool
and Wolverine. It's going to be the first real bridge between the Fox universe and the MCU,
something we've been waiting almost 20 years for. It's going to have Hugh Jackman in the
classic yellow costume. It's going to have the TVA and it's going to have Deadpool. There
is nothing more exciting than all of that. No matter how much Lady Gaga you have in your
movie. Yeah. It would take at least three times as much Lady Gaga and Joker Folly I do to even
come close to the level of anticipation people are feeling for Deadpool and Wolverine this
summer. That is a scientific fact. That is that is a lot of Lady Gaga. I mean, I do kind of
see where he's coming from, where there's all this hype that the X-Men are finally going
to appear in the MCU. But, man, I'm like, we already got our first mutant with Miss Marvel,
you know? Well, we've also seen Professor X in the Multiverse of Madness movie, and then
there was Beast in the Marvel's film. But this is going to be like a whole lot more of that
awesomeness. And those really weren't even that awesome. They were that awesome, actually.
They were incredible. I cannot wait for Deadpool and Wolverine. Great answer, Harrison Fox.
I think you put it very well. Our next honorable mention goes to Travis Herndon, who said, Hey,
danger dudes, Travis here. Shout out to my other twins. So my answer would have to be Deadpool
and Wolverine. One is because Deadpool was finally in the MCU. Two, Hugh Jackman is back playing
Wolverine. I feel like this movie is going to be kicking ass. We're gonna be seeing some
cool action scenes with those two. And honestly, depending on how this movie ends, it's gonna
be either really good or really fucking amazing. So yeah, that's my pick. Those really are the
two options of how Deadpool and Wolverine can come out. It's gonna be either really good
or really fucking amazing, just like Travis Herndon said. There are no other options. As
much as I hate the idea of- Hugh Jackman coming back to the role of Wolverine after he ended
it on a perfect note with Logan. I do have to admit that the pairing of Ryan Reynolds and
Hugh Jackman is comedic perfection. I mean, well, we did see it happen already in X-Men
Origins Wolverine, but also we tried to forget about that movie. I already did. Thanks for
reminding me. I'm sure they'll be making a reference to that film in the Deadpool and Wolverine
movie that comes out. Great answer, Travis. Our final honorable mention goes to... Koyen
Liao who said, Hi there, Koyen Liao speaking here, listening from Singapore. I'd say my
answer would be Deadpool and Wolverine because you don't get this kind of collaboration every
year and Joker followed you is kind of stupid. I mean the musical is kind of stupid. But yeah,
my answer would be Deadpool and Wolverine. So yeah, that's it I think. That's it. That's
all that needs to be said. Joker Folly I do is stupid. How about that, Jonathan? Well,
I think specifically said that musicals are stupid, which I could disagree every single
freaking podcast episode leading up to the Joker movie where everyone is proven wrong. But I
understand that sentiment exists out there. If you guys think musicals are stupid, I recommend
checking out like Flight of the Concords or Sweeney Todd. They're not all bad. Sweeney
Todd wasn't that good, man. I watched that movie. I didn't like it that much because you're stupid.
If you want to talk about a good musical, I thought Team America was a pretty good musical.
Oh, that's a great one. Hamilton actually was fantastic. It's probably the best one. We really
don't get better than Hamilton. Yeah, you can't get better than Hamilton. Yeah. Great answer,
Koyan. We want to give a quick shout out to both JP and Josh Hayward. First time colors
who also gave the answer of Deadpool and Wolverine. Everybody basically gave the answer of Deadpool
and Wolverine. How could you not, right? How could you not? Except for the winner of this
week's No Prize, who is Miggy Mathingian? He said. Hey, what's up guys, this is Miggy, and
I'm looking forward to Folly a Do more than Deadpool because it's gonna be like more intelligent,
just a better objectively better made film, probably gonna win more awards. Yeah, I don't
know. I'm just like as a DC fan, like just more intelligent than like the brainwashed MCU zombies.
You know what I'm saying? So, yeah. That's right MCU fans, you guys are brainwashed. You guys
need to get with the program and start watching more intelligent films like Joker Follyadoo.
The only reason Miggie's answer won the question of the week was because there was no way to
choose between all the other answers of Deadpool and Wolverine, of which they staggeringly outnumbered
Miggie's answer of the Joker sequel. More people are in fact looking forward to Deadpool and
Wolverine. And yeah, you may like, I don't know, try to rile us up by saying we're less intelligent
for that. But that just makes you look petty because obviously everyone knows Deadpool and
Wolverine is going to be the better superhero film. But I mean, do they? Like, I don't know
that. I don't know that. And I'm more intelligent because I'm a DC fan. Wait. So you're saying
that you don't know something and that you're more intelligent. I think that's kind of contradictory.
Fuck. Yeah. No, honestly, I'm really curious to see who's going to come out on top in the
box office. because the Deadpool films have made over a billion dollars. They're rated
R. The first Joker film is rated R, and it's actually the highest grossing rated R film
of all time, making over a billion dollars. So these are both billion dollar rated R franchises.
They're both sequels. Who's gonna win the box office? That's what I really wanna know. You
wanna place a bet on it now? I think you've lost every single bet that we've made. I don't
remember that. I remember winning all of the bets. No. All right, let's do a bet. 50 bucks
says that Joker comes out on top. 50 bucks overbending money, not pride. Cause last time you lost
these bets, you had to say live on air that Batman is a piece of shit. But we'll do money.
Money's fine. I could use some money. Oh, I don't know. Okay. No, if you lose, you have
to say Marvel sucks ass. Okay. And if you lose, you have to give me 50 bucks. Deal. Damn it.
But congrats to Miggi for winning this week's No Prize. If you the listener want a shot at
winning your own No Prize, stay tuned till later on this episode when we'll be asking another
question of the week. And now that that's done, on to the news.
Okay, so this past week, the wrap, I believe, was the first trade to get the exclusive castings
for Jonathan and Martha Kent, the farmer adoptive parents of Superman in the upcoming Superman
film. Jonathan Kent is going to be played by Pruitt Taylor Vintze, who I most know from
Constantine. He was Constantine's priest friend. But he's also had a recurring role on Netflix's
Stranger Things. He was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was in Heroes Reborn, True Blood, The Walking
Dead, The Mentalist, Murder One, which he actually won an Emmy for. The guy has a pretty robust
filmography. Who was he in Agents of Shield? I don't remember him. I don't know. I didn't
watch that show. Well, why don't you look it up on IMDb and then tell me? Hey, hey, same
to you, pal. Same to you. You're the one asking the question. OK, according to IMDb, he played
a character named Grill in four episodes in season five of Agents of Shield. And I don't
remember that character at all. I may have to revisit that. Well, I think is fairly recognizable
as an actor. He may not be a household name, but I think he's a good actor. And I think
he could definitely pull off the Kansas farmer for sure. As can Neva Howell, who will be playing
Martha Kent. I don't know if I've actually seen her in anything. She was in Diary of a Wimpy
Kid, The Long Call, Logan Lucky and My Fellow Americans. She looks a little familiar, but
yeah, not really familiar with her at all. So is this the most boring casting news ever?
I think so. I'm pretty bored. Are you excited? Hell yeah, I'm excited. I think this just continues
James Gunn's streak of casting this movie perfectly. I mean, they kind of look more the part, I
would say, than Kevin Costner and Diane Lane. Like those actors are very like... Model-esque
I would say whereas these guys definitely, you know resemble more of what I imagine a Kansas
farming couple would look like A little bit more down-to-earth, I guess. Exactly. Sure.
And since there's nothing really left to say about this topic, that brings us to our question
of the week.
What casting announcement for a Marvel or DC film were you most hyped about when you first
heard about it and why? Yeah, this goes back through the history of Marvel and DC films.
What was the announcement that when you heard it you were just like so freaking pumped to
see the movie? Because of this announcement. Think about it, let us know. Record your answer
at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the
screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds
long. And don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick
our favorite answer and award that person a dynamic dole no prize that will post to Instagram.
Be sure to answer before April 27th.
But I think that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and move into
our main event, where we find out who'd win in a fight between the JSA villain of Psycho
Pirate and the X-Men villain, Mastermind.
Alright, Psycho Pirate versus Mastermind. These are both illusionist characters. They can make
people see things psychically that don't actually exist, but they're highly manipulative in that
fashion. No, well for Psycho Pirate, these things actually do exist. They're like, they're lifelike
duplicates. What the fuck? How is he an illusionist then? That's like reality warping, not illusions.
Yeah, yeah, he's a reality warper, you could say. Well, this is a stupid match. Whose idea
was this? Miggy's? No, actually, it was your idea. We were trying to think of a match up
for Psycho Pirate because he's going to be featured, it looks like pretty heavily in the upcoming
Crisis on Infinite Earths animated film. And you were the one who suggested Mastermind.
I think I suggested it because Psycho Pirate has empathy powers, empathic abilities. Yes.
And Mastermind can also elicit emotions through the use of his illusions. And plus, to the
person experiencing the illusions, they are real according to all of their senses. So for
all intents and purposes, to his victims, it almost is like mastermind is warping reality.
So, Psycho Pirates going down, and I'm not scared. You will be.
Okay Yoda, can't wait to get into this duel matchup, but to explain the methodology behind
our duels, let's go to our sentient duel simulator, Alfred Jarvis 9000. AJ and Ayn K, tell our
listeners how you go about determining a winner in our duel matchups. Yes, of course sir. The
way I determine a winner between the contestants is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations
using the characters statistics. A Monte Carlo simulation is a probabilistic model used to
determine outcomes through random sampling. In this case, I randomise the statistics along
a normal distribution as a way to simulate the many variables that can occur during battle.
The stat parameters are based on the official Marvel power grid from which the DC characters
statistics are extrapolated. Additional stat categories are included such as range, 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 beat for beat. And I believe it's my turn to go first with the DC character,
so let me tell you all about Psycho Pirate. Now on Earth 2, an alternate reality from DC's
primary universe, a greedy, middle-aged pressman for the Daily Courier newspaper named Charles
Halsted hated his publisher for not paying him enough. This hatred drove Charles into orchestrating
a series of crimes based on emotion as the costumed villain Psycho Pirate. As Charles became successful
in his crimes, he became bolder, though after he challenged the Justice Society of America
to stop him, the team managed to do just that, and Charles was put in prison. You can learn
more about the JSA in our Justice Society vs. Fantastic Four episode. Charles became obsessed
with manipulating people's emotions and dabbled in psychology and mysticism, enabling him to
escape prison several times, only to be returned to his cell. by the JSA over the decades. By
the mid-60s, Charles grew ill in prison, and, wanting to pass on his secrets before death,
taught his young cellmate Roger Hayden everything he knew about manipulating emotions and also
revealed the existence of the Medusa Masks, mystic and ancient golden masks discovered
by the archaeologist Kent Nelson, aka Dr. Fate of the JSA. The Medusa Masks portrayed emotional
expressions that were projected onto anyone who saw them. You can learn more about Dr.
Fate in his duel episode with Dr. Strange. Charles died soon after, and Roger, who had been sentenced
to a year in prison for attacking his father, an emotionally abusive psychiatrist, was set
free. Roger was eventually able to acquire the Medusa Masks, which he used successfully to
commit crimes as the new Psycho Pirates. It wasn't long before Roger decided to melt and
merge the masks into a single, all-powerful Medusa mask, allowing him to manipulate others
across the broad spectrum of emotions without having to change masks. Confronted by the JSA,
Psycho Pirate soon realized that merging the masks had corrupted their magic, resulting
in him being able to, and needing to, feed on others' emotions, otherwise he would succumb
to mental anguish. Thanks to Dr. Fate, The GSA was able to imprison Psycho Pirate, who was
later broken out of jail by the Ultrahumanite, so that he could join a secret society of supervillains.
Over time, Psycho Pirate was driven insane by the pain of needing to feed on emotions, though
he was eventually cured by the multiversal overseer known as the Monitor, who had recruited Psycho
Pirate and other heroes and villains to save the multiverse from his brother, the Anti-Monitor,
who was destroying it. The Anti-Monitor kidnapped Psycho-Pirate, however, and after being promised
an entire world of beings whose emotions he could toy with and drain, Psycho-Pirate manipulated
the Monitor's champions and at one point was able to manipulate entire universes. This proved
to be too taxing over time, however, and resulted in Psycho-Pirate losing his powers. After the
Anti-Monitor's defeat, the multiverse was merged into a single universe in which Roger, was
confined to Arkham Asylum, driven insane after being connected to the minds of so many beings
as well as being one of the few in existence to remember the multiversal crisis and the
existence of past universes. PsychoPirate eventually escaped Arkham with help from a fifth dimensional
genie known as a Thunderbolt, and was able to purge his memories of the past multiverse through
the Thunderbolt's electroshock treatments.
the teams of Infinity Inc and the Outsiders, Psycho Pirate was imprisoned once again. The
Thunderbolts therapy eventually wore off, however, and Roger's pre-crisis memories returned. The
strain of remembering so many lives that had been lost caused Psycho Pirate's Medusa mask
to manifest the fallen characters, returning them to life. The characters eventually discovered,
though, that not only were they illusions created by
With help from Animal Man, the characters and Psycho Pirate were put at ease and faded from
existence. The Medusa mask, however, did not disappear and bounced from Arkham Asylum to
the Outsiders and the Suicide Squad. When the Archdemon Neron unleashed the underworld on
Earth, it was revealed that Psycho Pirate had been residing in Limbo, and he agreed to sell
his soul to Neron in exchange for life and power. While Neron was on Earth, The Psycho Pirate
was able to transform the Medusa Mask into an eye patch and remained sane. Upon Neiron's
defeat, however, the Medusa Mask returned to its earlier state as did Psycho Pirate's mind
over time, remembering pre-crisis events and characters. It was the return of Psycho Pirate's
memories that caused him to realize that he and Power Girl, originally Earth-2's Supergirl,
were the only two survivors of Earth-2 in the new You can learn more about Power Girl in
our Power Girl vs Valkyrie episode. After failing to get Power Girl to join his cause in helping
Alexander Luther of Earth 3 to restore the multiverse, the emotionless Black Adam straight up killed
Psycho Pirate by shoving his fingers through his face, and the Teen Titan Raven later destroyed
the Medusa Mask. That is until the Blackest Night, when zombified heroes and villains returned
from the dead to kill all life in the universe. With the Medusa mask constructed from his black
ring, Psycho Pirate pit Superman and Superboy against each other, though once Superboy managed
to steal the black Medusa mask and use it against the black lanterns, Psycho Pirate and the others
returned to inanimate corpses. When the Flash reset DC's continuity in a Flashpoint event,
Roger Hayden was one of twenty humans that were captured and experimented on by the villain
Brainiac, giving them psychic abilities. While hunted by the Hive Queen, another member of
the Twenty, Roger sought and fought the Medusa Mask, which was now simply an artifact capable
of blocking out psychic attacks and manipulations from others. After Psycho-Pirate attacked Metropolis,
Superman destroyed the Medusa Mask, causing Roger to flee. This was later retconned when
DC's pre- and post-Flashpoint timelines merged, resulting in a rebirth of DC's continuity.
The villain Bane... who you can learn more about in our Bane vs Iron Fist episode, captured
Psycho Pirate and forced him to use his powers to help Bane overcome his childhood trauma
and addiction to the Venom steroid. Batman managed to abduct Psycho Pirate and kept his Medusa
mask in the Batcave, where it later brought back to life old characters that had not yet
been reintroduced to continuity, such as Jay Garrick the Flash. as well as characters from
alternate universes such as the Flashpoint Thomas Wayne version of Batman. Now powers-wise, Psycho
Pirate is typically shown as having no natural superhuman abilities other than a master understanding
of human emotion and manipulation. When donning the Medusa Mask, Psycho Pirate is able to project
emotions onto others, often by magically manifesting objects or beings that cause a person to feel
a specific emotion. For example, If you wanted to instill fear in you, Joseph, he'd create
a spider on the wall right behind you! Okay, didn't work! Or if you wanted to instill joy
in me, he'd create a spider on the wall right behind you! Damn it! Maybe don't have a big
smile on your face when you're saying this, because then it's not believable. Fuck! Now
the Medusa Mask can also create characters from universes or timelines that have been destroyed.
It can create illusions that can disguise Psycho Pirate or create false duplicates of himself.
He does have several weaknesses, however. One being that he's insane, and the other that
he begins to feel psychic pain if he's not around others with emotions. That's Psycho Pirate.
So the purpose of his illusions are more to elicit a certain fear, as opposed to like a
broad illusion casting ability that has nothing to do with empathy. Oh, it's not specific to
fear. He's not a mind reader and he can't quite control the things that are created. It's more
about the other person manifesting things that would make them feel an emotion that he wants
them to feel. Wait, so it's the victim that's manifesting the illusion. So the mask has some
kind of psychic ability that can read the victim's mind. Exactly. Kind of like Mirage. Yeah. Yeah,
actually just like that. Yeah, Mirage doesn't necessarily know what illusion she's going
to create. She just has the ability to manifest an illusion of the victim's greatest fear.
You can learn more about Mirage in our Arrowette versus Mirage Duel episode. But it sounds like
those two characters are kind of similar. Yeah, yeah, you could say that. And to be fair, Mastermind
is also very similar. So that's good. Let me go ahead and get into his backstory and tell
you all about him. Little is known about the early life of Jason Wingard, as it's believed
that name is as false as the man himself. Prior to being discovered by Magneto working as a
carnival mentalist, all that was known of the man named Jason was that he lived a life of
deception through his mutant ability to cast telepathic illusions that causes victims to
see whatever he wished them to see. Spurred by malice and hatred, plus his desire to be
with the Scarlet Witch, Jason joined Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants team and their goal
of mutant superiority through the subjugation of humanity. He proved instrumental in the
Brotherhood's first mission when they captured the entire South American nation of Santo Marco,
with help from Jason's illusion that they had thousands of soldiers on their side. It was
there that the Brotherhood first clashed with the X-Men, a team of mutant heroes who opposed
Magneto's agenda. You can learn more about the X-Men in our Titans vs X-Men Team Duel episode.
and more about the Brotherhood in their duel against the Rogues. The Brotherhood and X-Men
would repeatedly clash over the years, and Mastermind would employ such illusions against them as
flames, duplicates of himself, or he would just use his trusty handgun that he always carried
with him. The Brotherhood was often defeated, however, and the frustrated Jason joined a
new group of mutants bent on world domination called Factor III, alongside other X-Men enemies
as the Blob, Vanisher, Eunice the Untouchable, and Changeling. They planned to instigate a
nuclear war between the United States and Russia, however when it was revealed that the team
leader Mutant Master was an extraterrestrial, Factor 3 and the X-Men united to defeat him.
At one point, Mastermind teamed up with the Sentry villain known as the General to implant
the illusion in the hero's mind that he should no longer use his powers. You can learn more
about the Sentry in our duel episode where we pit him against Zod. Later, a secret group
of influential mutants called the Hellfire Club invited Jason to join their inner circle, seeing
his power set as a valuable asset for their agenda to amass greater wealth and power. You
can learn more about the Hellfire Club and their tradition of codenaming their highest ranking
members as chess pieces in our Poison Ivy vs White Queen Emma Frost duel episode. To prove
his worth to the Hellfire Club, Jason set out to manipulate the X-Men member Jane and turn
her into the Inner Circle's Black Queen. He wasn't aware, however, that at that time, Jean
Grey was actually a manifestation of the cosmic entity called the Phoenix Force, who had taken
on the appearance of Jean in order to experience new sensations. Jason exploited her mind into
joining the Hellfire Club, though the X-Men leader Cyclops tried to intervene. When Jason
cast an illusion to the Phoenix Force that he killed Cyclops, whom she loved, he inadvertently
unleashed her fury and transformed her into the Dark Phoenix, which you can learn more
about in our Raven versus Phoenix episode. In retaliation for Jason's manipulation, the Phoenix
Force opened his mind for a moment to the vastness of the universe, driving him insane. He was
rejected from the Hellfire Club and taken to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric recovery.
Upon being released several years later, he set about getting revenge on the Inner Circle
and the X-Men. He attacked Emma Frost, putting her into a coma. He created a rift between
Rogue and her adoptive mother Mystique. And he got Wolverine's fiancee, Mariko Yashida,
to call off their wedding. Finally, he convinced the X-Men that Cyclops' new fiance, Madeline
Pryor, was the Dark Phoenix, hoping to get them to kill her. However, Cyclops discovered Jason's
deception, and the X-Men defeated him. Eventually, Jason discovered he had contracted the Legacy
Virus, a disease lethal to mutants that was unleashed by Cable's clone from the future
named Strife. Jason's legacy was carried on, however, by several of his estranged daughters,
two of whom inherited his illusion casting abilities and took his codename of Mastermind. His first
daughter, Martinique Wingard, was hired by the villain Arcade to frame Wolverine for the murder
of several women in London. She turned on Arcade, however, whom you can learn more about in our
Riddler vs Arcade duel, and later joined Mystique's Brotherhood of Mutants team. Martinique was
eventually incarcerated and forced to join a new team called X-Core, led by the former X-Men
member Banshee, who felt the best approach to achieve Professor X's dream of peaceful coexistence
between humans and mutants was to have a mutant police force to regulate the activities of
other mutants. However, it was revealed that Banshee was using Martinique's illusion casting
powers to placate the more villainous quote unquote reformed members of the team. After
the revelation of this news, the X-Core was disbanded. Jason's other daughter and Martinique's
half-sister was named Regenwingard. She was hired by Sebastian Shaw, the Black King of
the Hellfire Club, to manipulate the mutant Sage into betraying the X-Win and compelling
Rogue to attack her teammates by making her see them as someone else. Eventually her illusions
were turned back on Regan, leaving her in a vegetative state. She was taken in and cared
for by the X-Men, and when she recovered, she ended up joining the team for a time. However,
it turned out to all be a ruse in coordination with the villains Mr. Sinister and Mystique,
and Regan revealed a team of mutant villains that she had been concealing this whole time
called the Marauders, who went on to attack and capture some of the X-Men heroes. The X-Men
later fought back against Mr. Sinister, and Wolverine stabbed Regan. taking her out of
commission for a time. You can learn more about Mr. Sinister in his duel against the Ultra-Humanite.
Eventually, both sisters, Martinique and Regan, joined the Sisterhood of Mutants, led by Jean
Grey's clone and Cyclops' former fiancee, Madeleine Pryor, who was after Jean Grey's DNA in order
to form herself a new body. Though the team was unsuccessful, the sisters soon learned
that Jason had another daughter named Pixie, who had wings and could emit hallucinogenic
dust. The three sisters worked together to defeat a horde of demons and then parted ways, with
Pixie remaining with the X-Men. Afterward, Regan ended up contracting MPOX, which was another
disease that mutants were susceptible to after the release of the Terrigan Mists in the Earth's
atmosphere by the Inhuman King Black Bolt, whom you can learn more about in our Shazam vs.
Black Bolt duel episode. The mutant known as Mirage, another illusionist, convinced Regan
to seek treatment at the X-Men healing facility set up by Storm called X-Haven. When Professor
X and Magneto founded a home for mutants on the sentient island nation of Krakoa, they
established a process for resurrecting mutants using a combination of mutant powers, including
mass generation, reality warping, time manipulation, and genetic and psychic archiving. Using a
DNA sample from Jason, they were able to bring Mastermind back to life after he had succumbed
to the legacy virus years ago. He ended up partnering with the villain Mr. Sinister, helping him
keep secret a clone farm that he had set up behind the Krakoan Council's back. You can
learn more about Krakoa in his duel against Danny the Street. Powers-wise, Mastermind has
the mutant ability to cast psychic illusions. His illusions affect all the senses of his
victims. making them able to see, hear, smell, touch, and even taste what is projected into
their minds. This not only lets Mastermind alter his opponent's perception of their environment,
but also their perception of him. These illusions are so strong that even if a person is consciously
aware that they're inside of an illusion, their mind will still react to it as if it were reality.
He can extend his illusions to affect up to an entire city, and the more intelligent the
victim, the greater the effect. His one weakness is that he has to keep his concentration in
order to maintain his illusions, leaving him vulnerable to people who aren't under his influence.
Finally, Mastermind carries a regular handgun, and he will shoot your ass. How's that for
a superpower? Pfft, I'm not scared! You're bringing a gun to a mask fight, bro! Hahaha! Now Mastermind
was in the movie X-Men 2, right? Like there was a character, there was a combination between
Mastermind and Legion. Yeah, he was William Stryker's son. He was in a wheelchair and he
basically manipulated Professor X to use Cerebro in Stryker's plan to kill all mutants on Earth.
This version of Mastermind in the movie was very different from the comics version. The
comics version isn't in a wheelchair. He doesn't have two different color eyes and he's not
the son of William Stryker. Gotcha. Okay. But he was pretty twisted in that movie. I remember
Striker saying that his wife ended up killing himself with a drill to the temple in order
to bore the images out that Mastermind was casting in there. So he's a pretty kind of scary villain,
actually. Not a scary psycho pirate.
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Visit dynamicpodcast.com where we settle the debate and settle the score.
But now that we've got their histories and abilities out of the way, let's speculate on how one
of the 1000 simulated matches will go. The winner is determined by simulations, not this speculation,
but it's fun to imagine how this fight could play out. AJ9K, what are the rules of our speculation?
Well, I should say there are no rules, other than the characters have no prior knowledge
of the other going into the fight. All they are aware of starting out is that the other
character is a threat that needs to be eliminated. For the speculation... contestants will begin
approximately 50 meters apart in a nondescript environment that will have no bearing on the
match itself as no environmental statistics are considered in my simulations the contestants
must earn victory on their own merit. Alright then let's get into it. Psycho pirate and mastermind
to meet on the battlefield who goes first? This is gonna be hard I feel like but I'm gonna
say that psycho pirate goes first cuz he's just crazy So he'll probably want to scare Mastermind
right away, you know, in order to feed off of his fear. So Psycho Pirate starts by making
Mastermind see a series of mirrors surround him, showing him grotesque exaggerated reflections
of his own creepy ass face. That makes sense because Mastermind is notoriously ugly in the
comics and he often cloaks his appearance with an illusion to make others see him as more
handsome. So he's kind of insecure about that. I feel like that's a good start. So he's gonna
see his hideous form and he's gonna be like, eeeeh, and he's gonna cast an illusion of darkness
around the whole environment so that he can't see himself and other people can't see him
either. Wait, wait, so Psycho Pirate can't see? Exactly. Okay, uh, fuck. In the comics, when
Psycho Pirate wants to cast an emotion upon someone, like you see that emotion form on
his Medusa mask, which is normally blank. I'm not sure if people need to see that in order
to feel the emotion. or if like the magic of the mask projects that emotion on them regardless.
Well, it's called the Medusa mask, right? That's that's true. You probably have to see the mask
in order to be affected by it. So that would actually make this darkness illusion probably
much more effective than you realized it would be. I don't really think Psycho Pirate can
do anything about it either. So I guess it's still your move. OK. All right. All right.
So the darkness is there. And then suddenly the lights come back on. and Psycho Pirate
finds himself in a medieval torture chamber illusion and he's strapped to like this torture
rack where this executioner guy is slowly stretching Psycho Pirate and Psycho Pirate's in a tremendous
amount of pain actually believing that he's being stretched. Oh okay uh wow uh can Mastermind
see what's happening to Psycho Pirate? Yeah yeah actually he's in disguise as the executioner
I'm gonna say. Sweet okay. Now, even though Psycho Pirate is in like an extreme amount
of pain, his Medusa Mask has a smile on its face, which causes a bunch of feathers to dance
around Mastermind, tickling him and making him laugh and be happy, which breaks his concentration
and causes him to drop the illusion. Tickling? What's the stupidest thing I've ever heard
of? Hey, don't tell me that! Tell Mastermind! So, Psycho Pirate is back on his feet and Mastermind
is just giggling like an idiot. Wait, so Mastermind is being tickled because the Medusa mask conjured
up a way for him to be happy, and that's what happened? Yeah, that's how he feels he would
be happy, by being tickled. Okay. Hahaha. Stupid. So Mastermind is probably wondering what the
fuck's going on as he's being tickled. Uh, yeah, the illusion drops. He's probably gonna assume
that the feathers that are tickling him have manifested- due to his opponent. So he's gonna
try as he can to fight through the silliness and he's gonna cast a bunch of duplicates of
himself, like 20 duplicates around the battlefield who aren't being tickled and they surround
Psycho Pirate in like this circle. And this is gonna cause the feathers to disappear since
Psycho Pirate believes that there's suddenly a lot more opponents to contend with. Interesting,
okay. So Psycho Pirate, you know, he's probably gonna try and defend himself from the horde
of masterminds. by making them feel wrath and just start attacking each other. But of course,
this obviously isn't going to work because they're not real. Right. And he's going to realize
that he's going to realize that they must be fake because, you know, his mask can affect
even beings as powerful as the specter. Now, this wrath is going to affect the real mastermind,
and he's just going to run into the circle of illusion duplicates that he created and try
to start physically attacking Psycho Pirate. But before he can. Psycho pirate switches from
inciting wrath to inciting trust. Not before mastermind shoot psycho pirate with his handgun
in all of his wrath. An illusion bullet or a real one? Straight up real ass bullet. Psycho
pirate gets shot. Too bad mastermind aimed for psycho pirate's head because that bullet just
bounced right off of the Medusa mask. So psycho pirate is shocked, but he's not dead. unconscious
if he was shot in the mask. Yeah, it's like made of magic metal. He's been shot in the
mask before. Really? Yeah. So now that Psycho Pirate knows Mastermind has a gun, uh, that's
when he's going to project severe depression and just cause Mastermind to, you know, unalive
himself with his own gun. Jeez. That's dark. That's real dark. You must be from the DC universe.
Um. Except by this point, I'm gonna say Mastermind is pretty much onto Psycho Pirate's powers
of emotional manipulation. So, before Psycho Pirate makes Mastermind depressed, Mastermind
is gonna cast an illusion of like a thick cloud of gas to hide himself. And Psycho Pirate's
gonna see it as poison gas. He's gonna think it's poison gas, so Psycho Pirate's gonna choke
on it and die. In reality, just choking on, you know, the air or his own spit or something.
How would Psycho Pirate know if a gas he's breathing in is poisonous? Because it looks poisonous,
you know, it's gonna be like a green gas that smells like sulfur or something like that.
Okay. But, I mean, it's not real poisonous gas. So, you know, Psycho Pirate's just gonna wake
up while he's on the ground and realize he wasn't really choking. So now he's pissed and he's
gonna project the Earth-2 versions of the entire Justice Society. You know, like Dr. Fate, Hawkman,
Green Lantern, all the badasses. And they're just going to straight up beat Mastermind to
death. What does the justice society have to do with emotions? They don't, but he can also
manifest beings who died in like past dead universes. OK, and these projections are real or they're
illusions? They are illusions, but they are solid. They're solid constructs. OK, so. Mastermind
sees the Justice Society and before he gets beaten up, he casts an illusion of the X-Men.
And the X-Men are gonna beat the shit out of Psycho-Pirate, or you know, that's what Psycho-Pirate
experiences anyway. And he's just gonna die from the pain of being beat up by the X-Men.
Illusion X-Men. And I think that's the perfect place to end the match. Either Mastermind gets
beat up by the projections of the Justice Society, or Psycho-Pirate's mind succumbs to the pain
of being beat up by illusions of the X-Men. Alright yeah, that's a great place to leave
off. Let's go ahead and find out which of these scenarios happens by inputting the character's
stats, running the simulations, and coming back with a winner. AJ9K, hit it! Inputting data.
Running calculations. Processing results. Simulations complete. Now should we have run stats on the
JSA vs the X-Men for this particular speculation? Oh jeez, no. No, we just ran the stats between
Mastermind and PsychoPirate and let me tell you, these guys are not impressive statistically.
No, they are super weak, which surprised me honestly because PsychoPirate is kind of a
big deal in DC somewhat. Like he always seems to be involved in some crisis or another. But
yeah, statistically, not impressive. I mean, they're average when it comes to things like
speed, durability, strength, fighting skill, intelligence. You know, these guys were pretty
basic. Where they both kind of shine though, is more along the lines of evasiveness, range
and versatility. They're really more about like manipulating things than actually doing damage
to them. Right, exactly. But when it came to things like range and evasiveness, we did give
Mastermind the slight edge. Considering the fact that yeah, we figured people probably
do need to be looking at the Medusa mask for it to affect them. And outside of major feats
like the crisis on infinite earths with affecting entire multiverses or the new 52 where Psycho
Pirate was an actual psychic and that was retconned, Psycho Pirate really didn't have the same sort
of common feats that Mastermind had when it came to affecting large groups of people. Psycho
Pirate got the edge in perception though because he can actually sense people's emotions and
then feed off of it. Right, and he also got a slight edge in intelligence despite being
insane. He's still one of the foremost authorities on emotions and manipulation in DC. So taking
all of this into account, Joseph, who do you think came out on top? I don't know. It's so
hard to say. I mean, I think these characters were really hard to pin down statistically
due to the nature of their powers. The speculation was actually really hard. As you guys know,
we edit these episodes and if we didn't, you'd just hear long pauses as we were trying to
figure out what the heck to do. Which is strange considering that conceptually these guys can
do so many different things, but it's hard to conceptualize a battle between two illusion
casters and how that would affect each other kind of, you know? Yeah. So feeling so in the
dark on all of this, I think I'm just going to go with my gut and choose Mastermind as
my guess for who's going to win. Instagram does not agree with me. 69% of our poll takers there.
believe that Psycho Pirate is actually going to take this one. And that actually surprised
me because I don't think Psycho Pirate is that much more popular than Mastermind, you know,
considering Mastermind was sort of in an X-Men movie. I kind of chalked this up to not only
Psycho Pirate's involvement with major crises that kind of, you know, make him feel bigger
than he actually is, but also because he kind of looks like Iron Man in like a medieval jester
costume. Mastermind probably has the worst supervillain costume in all of Marvel comics. It's really
bad. He basically just wears like a brown sack, so he's not impressive looking visually. Well,
let's see if he's impressive in his win rate. AJ 9K, the results, please. Hey, Yuasa. The
winner of the matchup between Psycho Pirate and Mastermind is. Psycho Pirate. Okay, barely.
By how much? PsychoPirate won 517 of the 1000 matches compared to Mastermind who won 483.
So it's 51.7% compared to 48.3% of the total matches. That's pretty close. Yeah, it was
really close. It's pretty much a coin toss, tit for tat. Less no fun. You know, you would
think for characters that have vaguely similar power sets, but are entirely different. There'd
be a greater discrepancy in the win rate, but I guess this was maybe just a better match
than we thought. Apparently, and you were really scared when we got into the main event. Yeah,
I guess I shouldn't have been though. I should have trusted my own judgment. Or Miggies, whoever
thought of this matchup. Yeah, it was pretty interesting. It was pretty fun to try and come
up with the speculation. I thought it was going to be so much more interesting. I'm actually
a little bit disappointed in myself, but it was really hard to combat how PsychoPirate
kept making Mastermind feel certain emotions, you know? It was fun. Tickle, tickle, tickle.
Stupid. I tell you what, though, you tickle me. I'm not experiencing joy. I'm experiencing
pure rage. That's how you listen to your rage out of me. But that does it for this duel,
guys. Let us know what you thought about the results by writing to us at dyna or by visiting
us on Instagram, which you can find a link to on our show notes or by going to our website
at dynamicduel.com. And on our site, you could also find a link to our Patreon page. where
you could join our Dynamic 2.0 tier and chat with us and fellow listeners, our Fantastic
Four tier, which gets you bonus content each month, our X-Force tier that makes you an executive
producer of this podcast, or our newest tier that lets you join our DynaMic Podcast Network.
And guys, please don't forget to rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or on
our website. In our next episode, we will be reviewing part two of the Justice League Crisis
on Infinite Earth's animated film. I have not seen it yet because it actually comes out the
day we released this episode, but Psycho Pirate is a character in there and I'm looking forward
to watching it. I really liked what they did with the first one. Yeah it was interesting.
But that does it for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers
Ken Johnson, John Sturowski, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Belcombe, Mickey Mountain-Geehan, Brandon
Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Austin Wiselowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho. Adam
Spies, Andrew Shunk, Dean Molesky, and Devin Davis for helping make this podcast possible.
And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers.