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Hi, welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate
the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters and stat-based battle simulations.
I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother Marvelous Joe. And welcome to episode 254! We're doing
a team duel this episode. We're going to pit the Justice League Dark against Marvel's Midnight
Suns. We wanted to do this on episode 250. But of course, we've had to do quite a few reviews
lately, and that pushed our big team duel episode back by a month. Yeah, we were trying to get
to this before Halloween, but it just didn't work out that way. But this team duel episode
ties into Halloween in that these teams that were pitting against each other are Marvel
and DC's respective supernatural teams. These are the guys that fight the things that go
bump in the night, the monsters, the demons, the ghosts, the things like that. Yeah, I love
doing these team duels. Can't wait for the main event later on in the episode. Before that,
we're going to break down the comic book and movie news items from the past week, of which
it's all Marvel news once again, thanks to Disney Plus Day, in which they gave us our first looks
at She-Hulk, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, and a lot more. 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. Just a reminder guys that only the four most recent episodes
of this podcast are available to the listening public. If you guys want access to over- 250
episodes now of archived content including our Justice League Dark review, Dr. Fate vs. Dr.
Strange, our Blade review, Zatanna vs. Scarlet Witch, our Swamp Thing review, or Constantine
vs. Brother Voodoo. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast on Spotify or Patreon, both of
which will provide you with an RSS feed to use in your own podcast app. And on Patreon you
also get bonus
blooper reels, watch along parties and more. It's only $2 a month to subscribe on Spotify
or Patreon and you could do so by visiting dynamicduel.com slash subscribe, which is linked in our show
notes. I want to quickly reach out to one of our executive producers who happens to be sick
with COVID at this time. Guys, stay safe out there. We're definitely not out of this COVID
thing yet. Get vaccinated if you can and well wishes to anyone who is currently sick out
there. Yeah, man, if you're listening, get well soon. We're rooting for you. We also want to
give a shout out to patron Lizzie Dyer, whose birthday was a few days ago. Happy birthday.
If I had to give you a gift from Marvel, I would give you Hawkeye's quiver of trick arrows,
including, you know, his birthday candle lighting arrows, which you know he totally has. Like
a lighter arrow? Yeah, yeah. He just, you know, shoots across the wicks and it lights everything.
Interesting. Lizzie, if I could get you a gift from DC, it would be Big Barter's Mega Rod.
Way cooler than a bag of arrows. Well, I mean, if she doesn't like the gift, there's no receipt.
So, whatever. But with that out of the way, quick, to the No Prize! A No Prize is an award
Marvel used to give out up until the 90s to fans. Our version, the dynamic dual No Prize,
is a digital award we post on social media that Jonathan draws for those who we feel gave the
best answer to our Question of the Week. Last week's question coming off the news that Marvel
is going to do a Halloween special in 2022 based on the werewolf by night character, we asked,
what's a cool Marvel or DC holiday special that you would like to see? We got some awesome
answers for this one. Let's go ahead and run down our honorable mentions as well as the
no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Michael Haggerty, who said, hello boys,
Michael Haggerty here. I want to see a Justice League Dark Christmas Carol with Constantine
or Constantine based on your regional preference. As Ebenezer Scrooge, there's already ghosts
in Just League Dark and there's ghosts in Christmas Carol. So it kind of matches up perfectly.
The only question left is who would be little Timmy? Who would be God bless us everyone?
What character would play that character? I think that's the bigger question, but that's
my answer. All right, boys, gotta go, bye. A Christmas Carol featuring John Constantine
is probably one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever heard come out of a question of the
week. John Constantine is totally like a selfish Scrooge. So for him to be visited by the ghosts
from his past totally makes sense. And as for the Timmy character, that's obvious. Astralogue,
the little girl he tried and failed to save at Newcastle from the demon Nurgall. Oh my
gosh dude, Michael Haggerty, you blew my mind. I think a better Tiny Tim would be Damien Wayne,
Robin. That is a terrible idea. Why? Because Constantine trying to save Astralogue in the
same way that Scrooge tries to save Tiny Tim just writes itself. What about like Snapper
Car? Get the fuck out of here. That's rude, you're like a screwed yourself. This story
needs to happen, I swear. Our next honorable mention goes to Miggy Mathenkean, who said.
Hey, what's up guys, it's Miggy, and I would love to see a Cinco de Mayo DC holiday special.
I think it would just be really dope to see Jaime Reyes, Jessica Cruz, and Cisco Ramon
just like all, you know, get together, just celebrate the holiday, and then maybe have
to team up against like Bain. Now to my knowledge, they don't actually celebrate Cinco de Mayo
in Mexico. Yeah, it's much more celebrated in America. But, you know, Cisco, Jaime, and Jessica
are all, you know, Latin American. So I think it works. Are they all Mexican American? Well,
Blue Beetle is Mexican American. Cisco, I think, is Puerto Rican. And I guess Jessica is half
Mexican, half Honduran. And of course, Bain is from a Latin Caribbean country, right? Like
a riff on Cuba. Yeah, Santa Prisca. But you know what? They still come together to celebrate.
Yeah, it's kind of just like a drinking holiday, right? It's like... It's like St. Patrick's
Day, just an excuse to drink. It'd be cool if they all got drunk and then tried to fight
Bane, who was also drunk. And then they all come together to recognize the official meaning
of the holiday, which was the Mexican defeat over the French on the 5th of May. Yep, there
you go. Our final honorable mention goes to Michael Harald, who said, Hey guys, it's Michael
Harald. So I think the holiday special I'd like to see would be Lego Batman in live action
with a Will Arnett and all them doing Mother's Day and Father's Day to see them hamming it
up over not having his parents. or really just any holiday. I think that could be pretty funny.
Yeah, maybe live action can work. I still love Lego Batman in his animated form. I really
wish they would make a sequel to the first movie because I really liked it. Well, Lego Batman
is pretty funny. I'll admit that I've always wanted to see Will Arnett, who does the voice
for Lego Batman, dressed up in the bat suit and do his shtick in live action. I think that
would be pretty cool to see. And considering that Batman has no parents, it would be interesting
to see. him do a holiday special on Mother's Day or Father's Day. Or in the case of Lego
Batman, who prefers to be called Padre, Padre's Day. I think it would definitely build upon
the movie where we see Batman take Robin on as a father. So you know, you can learn about
the true meaning of fatherhood. Before we announce the winner of this week's No Prize, we want
to give a quick shout out to Corey Wooten, who took the time to visit our site and record
an answer. Yeah, his answer of Santa Claus was really good also. But the winner of this week's
No Prize... goes to someone who only identified themselves as the man who said, Hello Marvelous
Joe and Johnny DC. Stan Lee here. How about we get a holiday special featuring yours truly?
Just an idea. Thank you, true believers for keeping the spirit of Marvel strong. Excelsior.
That impression, if it was an impression that wasn't actually just Stan Lee speaking to us
from beyond the grave, that was so good. That was incredible. I don't even understand how
an impression is possibly that good. It sounded just like him. Not only did it sound like him
with like the cadence and everything, it sounded like what Stan Lee would actually say. I'm
just blown away by this impression, and that's why he gets this week's no prize. But also,
it would be really cool to see a Stan Lee holiday special where he celebrates just any holiday
visiting his favorite creations from Marvel. I've got chills. It's so spot on. There's got
to be like only a few people in the world that can do an impression that good. If this guy
is not getting paid to do Stanley impressions, he should be. Because my first impression to
hearing that was actually fright. You know, I was like, oh my God, that was actually him.
And I really want to believe that it is. Well, you know, maybe that reaction is appropriate
for this Halloween themed duel we have coming up. You know, what's interesting, though, is
that Stanley actually died three years almost to the day. so this episode is being done on
the anniversary of his passing. But congrats again to The Man for winning 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!
All right, this past Friday was Disney Plus Day. I didn't even really know that was gonna
be a thing until like a few weeks beforehand. But basically, it kind of served as a news
event for what the past year held on Disney Plus as well as what's to come. Yeah, it was
kind of like a lame version of the DC fandom, right? If by lame you mean better with more
news, then yeah, lame. I didn't mean that. We got quite a few. Surprise announcements in
addition to first looks at some of the upcoming shows that were announced a while ago Including
Moon Knight she Hulk and Ms. Marvel We'll go over those first looks first starting with
Moon Knight Which is kind of turning out to be way different than I thought it was gonna
be it looks definitely more mature than any other Disney plus show that has come out so
far almost like a Netflix series looking show It looks dark which is great because it's a
Moon Knight so it should seeing him just like clobber some guy on the ground in this white
cape and hood was kind of frightening. Yeah, the costume looks really good in the comics.
When you draw an all white costume, you can still really hide it through shadow. But in
live action, he looks very immaculate, almost priestly in his garb, which is, yeah, kind
of like haunting, you know, seeing him leap across that night sky with the crescent moon
in the background was everything I wanted it to be. It was so freaking cool. It's everything
I've ever wanted to see in a Batman movie. Well, Batman can't leap across a whole city street.
What? He can leap across an alley, sure, but he's not superhuman. He can grapple across
a city street. I mean, he could glide though. That's true, that's true. But if you're aware
of the Moon Knight character, you know that he has strength that waxes and wanes with the
phases of the moon, so it's apt here. I think the thing that shocked me the most though was
Oscar Isaac's voices that he does for his different personalities. Like his Mark Spector or maybe
Jake Lockley has a British accent, which was interesting compared to his Moon Knight voice,
which is very dark and almost Batman-esque. It was really cool. Kind of creepy, which again
is pretty good and pretty apt. We don't get a lot of footage here, but the fact that Oscar
Isaac seems to be as confused with what we're seeing as you know, we are is a good sign.
I think. Yeah. He's switching in and out of his multiple personalities. The way the show
seems to be handling that looks fascinating. Just like Fight Club, like how we describe
the character in our duel episode with him against Batman. Oh, like Tyler Durden? Yeah, exactly.
I'm definitely looking forward to this one. We don't have a release date, do we? No, we
don't have release dates for any of these. They all say that they're just streaming soon. So
next year sometime. The next first look that we got was of Ms. Marvel. We didn't get a look
at her costume or of her using her powers, really. We do see this like purple energy emanate from
her. But it was the first live-action footage we're getting from the show. We see her kind
of struggle with her identity as a hero, her family praying as Muslims, and claiming that
heroes don't usually look like brown girls from Jersey. The only costume that we really see
her in is when she's wearing her Captain Marvel Halloween costume, which I think is what maybe
a lot of us would do as kids if we first discover superpowers and we don't have any sort of like
tailor, you know? We'll just put on the superhero costume of the hero that we admire the most.
I like that angle here as kind of a nod to her origin in the comic books and the origin of
her superhero name. We do get to see her like running across the sky, which I thought was
interesting. I'm really curious to see how they're going to depict her power. Yeah, it's not going
to be stretching really like how it is in the comics. Essentially, it looks like her bangle
that she wears on her wrist, which she wears in the comics as an heirloom, that's going
to be the source of her superpowers. It emanates like this personal energy field around her.
that she can manipulate in a way that is akin to stretching, like enlarging her fists or
stretching her legs out or something like that. It's gotta be like Kree technology or something,
right? Perhaps. It's an interesting take. I think they're doing it, one, for special effects
reasons, two, to make it so that Mr. Fantastic is the first elastic hero within the MCU, and
three, to make all of the Marvel's characters in the upcoming The Marvel's film all energy-based,
including Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Photon. Makes sense. The next first look we got was
of She-Hulk, and this was our first glimpse of the logo, which I thought was pretty weird.
It almost looks something like the practice or Ally McBeal or something like that. Like
Nip Tuck. Yeah, Nip Tuck, yeah, that was interesting. It looks very like 90s legal drama. And I wonder
if that's the vibe that the show is going for, because toward the end of this teaser, which
starts off with Jennifer Walters introducing herself, and then we see a glimpse of her in
her She-Hulk form, at the end. She's like breaking the fourth wall like the character does in
the comics, speaking to the audience and saying, don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when
I'm angry. And that setting in which she does it looks very 90s. I was gonna say 70s. Yeah,
could be 70s. Anywhere between like the 70s and 90s, I would say. Okay. I wonder if it's
gonna be like a lawyer commercial or something like that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know
what's happening there. It's really strange that like Bruce Banner was just kind of...
standing still in the background. I wonder if like everybody freezes in the show as she speaks
to the audience in the same way like saved by the bell or something like that. I never knew
that She-Hulk broke the fourth wall in the comics. That seems so weird to me. Yeah, she used to
do all the time way before Deadpool was doing it. It does look like they're gonna go the
CG route with She-Hulk just like the Hulk and not just like paint her skin green. I hope
the special effects on Tatiana Maslany are as good as they are on Mark Ruffalo. I'll be really
interested to see like the facial expressions on this character design. Timeline-wise, it
appears like this may take place in between the events of Avengers Endgame and Shang-Chi
because we see the Hulk here in his Professor Hulk form. But I can't be certain on that.
Maybe Mark Ruffalo can still change back and forth while still retaining his personality.
I was gonna say that this takes place before because the Hulk's arm isn't like scarred and
broken and damaged. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. We'll see when the show
comes out next year. So that was really it for the first looks. We did get a brief glimpse
of Samuel L. Jackson's character as he's going to appear in Secret Invasion, in which he has
a longer beard and isn't wearing the eye patch, which is interesting. Makes me suspect he's
a Skrull. Right off the bat. We also got announcements that they're coming out with a season two of
What If, which we already knew. But we did get new announcements of shows that were not announced
previously by Disney Plus, including Echo, which will be a spinoff of the Hawkeye series. Marvel
Zombies, which might be an animated spin-off of What If? Agatha House of Harkness, which
is definitely a spin-off of WandaVision. And most surprisingly, a show called Spider-Man
Freshman Year, which will be animated, perhaps voiced by Tom Holland or maybe the actor who
did Spider-Man's voice in What If? But basically it looks like it's going to recount Spider-Man's
origin story within the MCU. Which is really cool, because we never got to see that. Yeah,
I'm excited for this, for sure. They also announced that they will be doing more X-Men cartoons,
like the 90s version of the X-Men. I was surprised that they put the Marvel Studios banner above
that one, considering it's not part of the MCU though. No, it's like an alternate universe
X-Men, kind of. It's great that they're bringing that back though. Hopefully with better animation
and fingers crossed it's the same voice cast. This will be Marvel Studios first X-Men project,
which is also exciting. Oh yeah, so much to look forward to. Way better than that fan dome
crap, who needs that when you have Disney Plus Day? Oh gosh. Yay logos! Yay for logos. Marvel
fans always excited by them logos. I mean, we didn't even get a logo for Blue Beetle or Batgirl.
So how about that? No, we got to see concept art of them in costume. Oh, concept art. Yay.
Whatever, dude. All I'm saying is I got way more pumped from this news than I did at the
fandom. I'm sorry. What's your name again? Marvelous Joe? OK, that makes sense. I can't wait till
we get dates on all of these. It looks like next year is going to be just as big of a year
as 2021 was. Lots to look forward to. Lots to review. Too much Marvel stuff to watch. Ugh.
But regarding all the news to come out at Disney Plus Day, that brings us to our question of
the week.
What was your favorite news to come out of Disney Plus Day and why? Record your answer at dynamicduel.com
by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner, which will prompt
you to leave us a voicemail. Your message can be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget
to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer
and draw that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to social media. Be sure to
answer before November 20th. But that does it for the news for this episode. Let's go ahead
and get a word from our sponsor, HBO Max. Bruce Wayne may appear to be a wealthy playboy, but
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stream Batman The Audio Adventures only on HBO Max. Thanks to HBO Max for sponsoring this
episode. Now let's go ahead and get into our main event where we find out who would win
in a fight between the supernatural teams of DC's Justice League Dark and Marvel's Midnight
Suns.
Okay, Justice League Dark versus the Midnight Suns. These are both DC and Marvel's most prominent,
supernatural super teams. Though I gotta be honest, I only learned about the Midnight Suns
like earlier this year. Well, yeah, I told you about them when we were trying to come up with
our next team duel episode. I thought it would be really cool since Episode 250 was gonna
land around the same time as Halloween to do a kind of Halloween themed team duel. Right.
It's a little disappointing that we're two weeks past Halloween now, but that's just how the
episodes fell. Basically, we didn't want to skip a review because then we'd be pushing
back all of the review episodes that we were going to do. But to me, it was never the end
of the Halloween season until we got to this episode. I'm going to get right back into it.
Just jack-o-lanterns and black cats and autumn leaves falling in the dead of night. That's
where my mind is at right now. Yeah, the duel is supposed to not take place in any kind of
environment. But that's the environment I'm going to be imagining for this matchup. Now
the only prime exposure I have to Justice League Dark is the movie that we reviewed a couple
years ago, the animated film Justice League Dark, and its sequel, Justice League Dark Apocalypse
War. Yeah, that wasn't quite a sequel specifically to Justice League Dark. I'm not sure why they
called that film Justice League Dark Apocalypse War. It probably should have just been like
Apocalypse War. But yeah, both of those films featured characters from Justice League Dark.
Back when we started this podcast too, We were talking about how Guillermo del Toro was supposed
to make a Justice League Dark movie. I think he was calling it Dark Universe at the time,
and that seemed like it was really cool. Still waiting for that to materialize. But I guess
that JJ Abrams is working on bringing some of those characters to the screen for HBO Max,
like as we speak. So that's exciting. Yeah, and sometime in 2022, we're supposed to get
a Midnight Suns video game, which I think will be the primary exposure of that team to the
world at large. It is spelled S-U-N-S, which the developer did to make the team seem more
inclusive. And in that video game, the team is actually named after a rare astronomical
event, during which time the demon character Lilith attempts to resurrect C'thun, the Elder
God of Chaos. So I actually think that's pretty cool. I think the name reads cooler with S-U-N-S,
and I do think that Marvel will follow suit with the next incarnation of the team. So the
title of this podcast will use that newer spelling. S-U-N-S? Yeah. Well, I can't wait to learn
more about them. If you've never listened to one of our duel episodes before, the way we
determine a winner for these two teams is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations using
their statistics. And actually it's more than 1000 when we do team duels, we're actually
comparing matrices of data. Yeah, between each character, so it's 49,000 Monte Carlo simulations
technically. Friggin' crazy. It takes a long time. Now if you're wondering what a Monte
Carlo simulation is, It's a probabilistic model used to determine outcomes through random sampling.
And in our case, it randomizes statistics along a normal distribution, which is a bell curve
as a way to simulate the many variables that can occur during battle. The stat parameters
we use are based on the official Marvel Power Grid, and we use that criteria to extrapolate
the DC character stats. We've included some additional stat categories of our own, such
as range, damage potential, versatility, and perception. in order to create a more complete
and robust simulation. Running these 1000 simulations gives us a percentage of wins for each team,
and we declare the team with the higher percentage to be the ultimate victor considering that
they're more likely to win any given battle. No characters ever win 100% of the time. Comics
have shown that there's always a way for Batman to defeat Superman, so we feel our method falls
in line with the precedents that have been established in the comic book stories. And we used this
method because it was the least subjective, most unbiased way to determine who would win.
Of course, we are both heavily biased toward our respective allegiances, and instead of
debating these matches forever, we just let the math decide for us. So there's no fan votes
here, and no relying on just feats. Before we run the simulations though, we like to break
down each team's histories and rosters, before improvising a scenario on how we imagine one
of these simulations would play out beat for beat. It's been a while since we've done a
duel episode. Yeah, I think not since Manbat vs Morbius, like almost a month. It's crazy.
It's crazy. So many reviews. But I think it's my turn to go first with the DC backstory,
so let me tell you all about Justice League Dark. Now, though the most recent iteration
of the team is known as Justice League Dark, the Magic-based group is much less renowned
than the popular superteam, the Justice League, which you can learn more about in our 100th
episode, Justice League vs Avengers. Justice League Dark actually has its roots in a team
known as the Sentinels of Magic, which emerged in the Day of Judgment storyline where the
demon Etrigan tricked the hostless spirit of vengeance known as the Spectre to bond with
the fallen angel Asmodel in Hell. With his new, nearly limitless power, Asmodel caused Hell
to freeze over and unleashed hordes of demons on Earth as well as powerful, evil spirits
such as the Enchantress. With the Justice League and Justice Society overwhelmed, magicians,
sorcerers, and occultists from around the world joined together, namely Zatanna, the Phantom
Stranger, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, Raven, Ragman, Faust, Doctor Occult, and the Green Lantern,
Ellen Scott, in order to stop Asmodel and find a new host for the Spectre. After slaying the
Enchantress to reignite the fires of Hell, the Sentinels helped the who you can learn more
about in our Green Lantern vs Nova episode. Eventually, Hull Jordan was separated from
the Spectre's spirit, which was manipulated by the spirit of wrath known as Eclipso, into
destroying all magic. You can learn more about this in our Spectre vs Galactus episode. Now,
after the Spectre destroyed the Rock of Eternity, an incapacitated sorcerer is powerful enough
to stop him, such as Dr. Fate and Madam Xanadu, several other magic users banded together to
take a stand against the Spectre, including a resurrected Enchantress, Blue Devil, Ragman,
Nightmaster, Nightshade, and Detective Chimp, forming a team known as Shadow Pact. Though
Zatanna wasn't an official member of the team, she and other magical heroes did help them
reform the Rock of Eternity. Shadow Pact was unsuccessful in stopping the hostless Spectre,
whose threat to magic was
by Heaven after the Spectre killed the powerful ancient wizards Shazam and Naboo. Shadow Pact
remained together, operating out of the Oblivion Bar, which existed in a pocket dimension accessible
to magic users, and taking on new members such as the angel Zareel, who you can learn more
about in our Zareel vs Archangel episode. Together, they defeated magical threats to Earth from
groups such as the Pentechol and the Congregation, and they stopped villains like Dr. Gotham.
In post-Flashpoint continuity, DC's premier Magic team became known as Justice League Dark,
a team initially consisting of John Constantine, Zatanna, Deadman, Shade, Mindwarp, and Madame
Xanadu, the latter of whom brought the team together to stop the succubus Enchantress after
she became unbound to her host, June Moon, and defeated the Justice League. Constantine was
able to re-bind Enchantress to June Moon, and the team disbanded for a short time before
coming together again, sans mind warp, to fend off Kane and his legion of vampires. Joined
by the vampire Andrew Bennett from the series I, Vampire, the team defeated Kane, drawing
the attention of the government agency Argus, who actually gave the team the name Justice
League Dark. Argus commissioned the League to stop the sorcerer Faust, who planned on taking
control of all magic using the Books of Magic. That's a clever name. That was the name of
the Timothy Hunter book written by Neil Gaiman for Vertigo. Now after accidentally unleashing
the Demons III, a trio of powerful demons under Faust's control, the team discovered Faust
was actually working for Nick Necro, the mentor to both Constantine and Zatanna. With the help
of Black Orchid, Frankenstein, Amethyst, and the boy sorcerer Timothy Hunter, Nick Necro
was defeated. During the Trinity War storyline, Wonder Woman approached the League in order
to help determine how a mystic artifact known as Pandora's Box was able to manipulate Superman
into killing. The Box, Constantine discovered, was actually a gateway to Earth-3, home to
the Crime Syndicate and the likes of evil Justice League doppelgangers like Ultraman, Superwoman,
and Owlman, who broke through Pandora's Box and trapped all the members of the Justice
League, Justice League of America, and Justice League Dark. Constantine, however, was rescued
by the Justice League Dark's base of operations, the sentient and interdimensional House of
Mystery. With the help of Nightmare Nurse, Swamp Thing, the Phantom Stranger, Pandora, Zareal,
and Deadman, the latter of whom also escaped capture, Constantine located Zatanna, and together,
they stopped Nick Necro and Faust again, who had partnered with the Crime Syndicate, but
this time, they stopped him in Nandaparbat. which you can learn more about in our Dead
Man vs. Magic episode. Their battle there eventually awakened an evil old god of Nandaparbat, Pantheon,
whom the Justice League Dark managed to defeat. When their House of Mystery merged with Nick
Necro's House of Secrets to form the House of Wonder, the League was forced to destroy it
since it had become powerful enough to conquer the planet. After the events of Dark Knight's
Metal resulted in a break in the Source Wall, Magic was thrown into flux. and Wonder Woman
formed a new Justice League Dark Team in response. This team initially consisted of Wonder Woman,
Zatanna, Detective Chimp, Manbat, and Swamp Thing, though it wasn't long before Constantine
got involved in a battle against the hostless spirit of Naboo, as Dr. Fate, who was trying
to destroy the chaos of magic by summoning the Upside-Down Man and the other kind to devour
it. Wonder Woman was able to fend off the Upside-Down Man, however, thanks to a burgeoning magical
ability that she later learned was derived from the Greek goddess of magic, Hecate. After Hecate
corrupted and took control of Wonder Woman and several other magic heroines, including Black
Orchid, Manitou Dawn, and Witchfire, Wonder Woman used the Upside-Down Men to devour Hecate
and free the women from her curse. After Detective Chip inherited the Sword of Nightmaster, he
was able to transfer many heroes to the Mystic Realm of Myrrah. including Swamp Thing, Etrigan,
and Deadman, where they would be safe from being devoured by the upside down man and his other
kind. Naboo and the other Lords of Order, however, were able to invade the realm and began stripping
the citizens there of magic. Zatanna and Wonder Woman, meanwhile, were transformed into Lords
of Chaos for a time by the Chaos Lord Mordru, and the League defeated the Lords of Order
with Wonder Woman bringing magic back to the world. With Wonder Woman's arch-nemesis Cersei
now in control of Hecate's magic, Cersei formed an Injustice League Dark villain team, in which
she allowed herself to be possessed by Eclipso and teamed up with Floronic Man, Clarion the
Witch Boy, Papa Midnight, and Solomon Grundy. Thanks to help from the Upside-Down Men and
the other kind, the League was able to stop the Injustice League Dark. Recently, the Injustice
League Dark team became more closely partnered with the Justice League, became a new official
member of the team as the most powerful and dangerous sorcerer, Merlin, was resurrected.
And that's the team's history so far. Now there are a ton of magic-based superheroes in DC,
many of whom have been members of the Justice League Dark and its previous incarnations.
One character that has been in almost every iteration of the team, however, is Zatanna.
So she was a no-brainer, as was Constantine, who's not the biggest team player, but a powerful
and popular figure in DC's world of magic. Like Zatanna and Constantine, Deadman was an original
member of the first Justice League Dark team, so he's in, as is Swamp Thing, who was also
there early on thanks to his ties to Constantine. A lot of these characters so far have had their
own Vertigo titles, so in keeping with that, I wanted to include Black Orchid on the team
since she was a more prominent member of the initial team than characters like F- Frankenstein
Amethyst or the Vampire Andrew Bennett. Since what Roman took over the team, both Detective
Chimp and Manbat have become mainstays, though of the two, I opted for Manbat due to his versatility.
And finally, I chose my seventh team member to be Etrigan. He's only been a member of the
Justice League Dark for a short time, but Jason Blood is often depicted as being on the team
in other media and alternate timelines, including the and even Guillermo del Toro's Justice League
Dark script. So that's my team. Yeah, that makes sense. What do you think of the name Justice
League Dark? Because you mentioned their previous incarnations as like the Sentinels of Magic
and stuff. I think that's way better and less derivative. Yeah, it's named Justice League
Dark so that it sells, but I would much prefer a team name of like Shadow Pact or something
like that for sure. Or even like Constantine's like old band name, Yookus Membrane. I'm sure
he would have voted for that over Justice League Dark. Yeah, I think when it comes to the names
of these teams, Midnight Suns is just way better. And actually, they're just a better team in
general when you think about it. And I think our listeners agree when they compare the Justice
League Dark backstory to the Midnight Suns backstory. Okay, let's hear it. So the story of the Midnight
Suns goes back hundreds of years, beginning as an ancient secret order of protectors with
the mission of stopping supernatural threats to humanity. Their ranks included members that
were reputed to have a taste of damnation, those with some measure of exposure to the darkness
of paranormal, mystical, and hellish evils on Earth. Their greatest feat among battling the
likes of Dracula was the defeat of Lilith, the mother of all demons and former wife of the
devil himself. The Midnight Suns cast her and her children, the Lilin, to a dark dimensional
prison called the Shadow Side. though it was prophesied among the Order that she would one
day return and that nine of their own would stand against her. That day came hundreds of
years later when Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, detected a rift in the Shadow Side
and that Lilith would soon escape and come back to Earth. He knew that he couldn't face her
himself because the magical energies that would stem from the battle would weaken the dimensional
barriers between the two realms, and so he would have to gather the nine together that were
foretold in the prophecy. Doctor Strange reached out to his occasional ally, Johnny Blaze, who
was host to Ghost Rider, the vengeful demon, and his brother, Ketch, who was host to the
Spirit of Vengeance, both of whom had also seen a vision of Lilith's return. On their motorcycles,
the brothers traveled to gather Doctor Strange's recruits, including the reluctant pseudo-vampire
Morbius, and the group known as the Nightstalkers, who were Hannibal King, the self-loathing vampire
detective, Frank Drake, a descendant of Dracula, and the daywalker, Blade. the Vampire Hunter.
The last of their recruits were three experts on the occult and the Darkhold, a book of black
magic. They were Victoria Montessi, Sam Buchanan, and Louise Hastings, together known as the
Darkhold Redeemers. Dude, the Books of Magic is a way better name than the Darkhold. I noticed
you can't help but hide that smile as you say that. That's right. The prophesied nine collectively
battled and killed four of the Lilin, and who managed to escape, though she was severely
weakened. Though the nine heroes fulfilled the prophecy and sealed the rift in the Shadowside,
they knew that Lilith would soon sire more children and try to conquer Earth's realm again. They
maintained a loose connection, though one day Blade, in his desire to obliterate all vampires
from existence, tried to use a spell from the Darkhold to do so. This backfired, transforming
him into the possessed Switchblade, who went on a supernatural killing spree. He murdered
many of the prophesied Nine, though the Darkhold Redeemers were able to use the book to counter
the spell and undo the damage that Blade had caused. Reunited, the group of Nine learned
that Lilith had partnered with the demon Xerathos, who had opened a portal to the Shadow Side
within Salem Field Cemetery. Xerathos is the Ghost Raider? Yeah, this demon was not connected
to Johnny Blaze at the time. Okay. The prophesied Nine traveled to the cemetery to try to stop
Lilith and her Lilin again, though they were overwhelmed and had to flee with the help of
the Caretaker. They regrouped at Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, where it was discovered
that Morbius was a traitor to the Nine due to an infection with Lilin blood. They were overrun
again, leading Dr. Strange to cast a spell that magically detonated his Sanctum, killing the
Lilin inside. They helped Morbius fight off his infection, and traveled back to the cemetery
and used a magic medallion provided by the Caretaker to send Lilith back to the Shadow Side. They
also defeated Xerathos and his followers using a mystic sword, though throughout the whole
ordeal, several members of the Nine fell in battle. With Lilith finally gone for good,
the surviving members, including Ghost Rider, Strange, Blade, and Morbius, underwent a ceremony
in which they were branded with the mark of the Midnight Suns, a flaming dagger that resembles
a small cross, officially making them members of the ancient order. Years later, a zombie
virus infiltrated Earth's realm through the nexus of all realities, located in the swamp
where the creature known as Manthing lived. Morbius saw the need for a supernatural fighting
force to return and formed a new Midnight Suns group consisting of himself, Jennifer Kael,
who is Ghost Rider's cousin, Hellstorm, the son of Satan, Jack Russell, the werewolf by
night, and Manthing. Though Morbius' zombie cure failed, the team was able to mystically
transfer the virus into one person named Simon Garth, aka Zombie, a man who was already undead
due to a voodoo curse. Later, the city of Las Vegas was burned down and sent to hell during
a takeover by the criminal organization Hydra. The city was resurrected using magic, but while
it was in hell, Mephisto had created a casino called Hotel Inferno. It was brought to earth
with the rest of Vegas, where gamblers could bet- their very souls. Holy crap! Doctor Strange
made a deal with Mephisto where if Strange won, the casino's souls would be set free and Mephisto
and the Hotel Inferno would return to hell. If Strange lost, Mephisto could claim his soul.
Notified of the wager, Strange's assistant, Wong, summoned the Midnight Suns again, including
Blade, Ghost Rider, and Man-Thing, with new recruits Brother Voodoo, Moon Knight, Iron
Fist, Scarlet Spider, and Elsa Bloodstone. Together, they traveled to Vegas and fought Mephisto's
Demon Army. Ghost Rider fought Mephisto head on, who killed Johnny Blaze and sent him to
Hell. There, Blaze and the Spirit of Vengeance freed the Casino's captured souls from their
vault and usurped the Crown and Throne of Hell, cutting Mephisto off from his power. The rest
of the team then defeated the Demon Lord and saved Doctor Strange's soul. That's the comics
team history. I did want to note that the upcoming video game that renames the team to Midnight
Suns with a U does recruit other Mystic heroes such as Niko Minoru, a former Runaways character,
and the new mutant member known as Magic. Which makes sense. Yeah. For this team duel, I chose
seven members to represent the Midnight Suns. Doctor Strange, who is Marvel's foremost Magic
hero and who was the initial recruiter for this present-day incarnation of the Order. Ghost
Rider. first gathered the team and is also a supernatural heavy hitter. Blade and Morbius,
both original members with vampiric abilities. Man-Thing who is recruited into Morbius's team
and whom I've always thought was pretty creepy and cool. And lastly Brother Voodoo and Bloodstone,
both newer recruits but also characters I think are badass and really grew to love during their
individual duel episodes that we've done. Yeah if you want to learn more about the individual
characters on each of our teams we've done duel episodes with all of them so... Definitely
go back and check out the catalog. It's only $2 on Spotify. I would have included characters
like Moon Knight and Iron Fist, but of course they were in our last team duel where we pit
the defenders against the Suicide Squad. So you have like two sorcerers in Doctor Strange
and Brother Voodoo. You have two vampires in Morbius and Blade. You have a swamp monster
in Man-Thing, a monster hunter in Bloodstone, and I guess a fiery demon in Ghost Rider. Bring
them on, I'll take them. I'll take them all on. Haha so cocky, we'll see how this plays
out. Because now that we've gotten their histories and abilities out of the way, we're going to
speculate on how one of the simulated matches will go. The winner is determined by simulations,
not the speculation, but it is fun to imagine how this fight could play out. We don't set
any rules for this match, other than the characters don't know anything about each other going
in, except that the other team is a threat that needs to be put down. And we say that each
team starts off about 50 meters apart. in an environment that has no bearing on the match
itself because we don't take stats for the environment. Yeah, plus certain characters have advantages
in some environments over others, and we want these teams to win on their own merit. So let's
get into it. Justice League Dark and the Midnight Suns meet on the battlefield. Who goes first?
I could guarantee you right away that Constantine, he's just gonna look at this whole situation
and be like, oh bloody hell, and then just like make himself disappear from the situation.
Where does he go? He just... Turns himself invisible. All right, so Dr. Strange, he's gonna use his
Eye of Agamotto. You know, he's gonna fly into the air and the eye is gonna glow and shine
an eye symbol onto the foreheads of each of his teammates on the Midnight Suns, which is
gonna grant them the Eye of Agamotto's sight. Right, so that means that throughout the course
of this match, they can see through any illusion or hidden being, including Deadman and the
now hidden Constantine. What? I feel like that's cheating. Swamp Thing, he's gonna start things
off just by shoving his hands like into the ground and he's gonna cover the floor beneath
the Midnight Suns with foliage and branches before they even get a chance to move, right?
And he's just gonna grab their ankles and hold them in place. While Etch again, he's gonna
breathe out a blast of hellfire that just sets that foliage ablaze and he just burns the shit
out of the Midnight Suns where they stand with hellfire. You know that like half this team
is like immune to fire, right? What do you mean? I guess it's just- Ghost Rider and Brother
Voodoo. But actually, you know what? Brother Voodoo, not only can he control fire, he can
also control plant life. So what Brother Voodoo is gonna do is he's just gonna handle this.
He's gonna release the team from the branches that they're stuck in by commanding them to
let go, and then he's just gonna manipulate the Hellfire so that it extinguishes before
it burns anyone. So like, Dr. Voodoo was the ultimate defense against this attack. And with
the team free, the Midnight Suns are just gonna rush forward and charge Justice League Dark.
The fastest one on the team out of anybody here, I think, is Ghost Rider. So on his motorcycle,
he's going to be the first one across the battlefield. He's just going to ride right over to Swamp
Thing, who's like the biggest guy on the Justice League Dark, and he's going to wrap Swamp Thing
up in his Hellfire chains and just burn this plant man to a crisp. Is it like Swamp Thing?
He goes up against fire guys all the time. I feel like he's just going to slough off the
burnt parts, right? So he's probably just like a pair of legs right now, but he'll regrow.
It's fine. So like the rest of the Midnight Sun's approach, the Justice League Dark. Zatanna,
she's just gonna summon forth magic armor for her entire team. She's just gonna be like Kegum
Ram-ra-poo. What is that? That's magic armor up. What kind of armor is this? I don't know,
it's like medieval kind of chest plate and shoulder armor and a helmet that's like made of light.
Okay, even for Deadman? Who's not physical? Everyone except for a Deadman, alright? But
Deadman, he's gonna fly into the body of Man-Thing, alright? And possess his body becoming Deadman-Thing.
And in this body, he's going to be attacking Blade, just taking him by surprise, grabs his
arm, and just burns it with a sulfuric acid touch. Well, Blade wears a jacket, you know,
it's like a thick, durable, heavy leather jacket. So, you know, that's going to protect him a
little bit from this Man-Thing touch. But Blade is going to be surprised, yeah, and he's going
to like slice off Man-Thing's arm as it's grabbing him. And he's going to like spin around, yanking
off his jacket before the acid burns his flesh. I could totally see that into Wesley Snipes'
like, twirl. Yeah, and he's gonna finish off the twirl by slicing Man-Thing right in half
at the waist. Which, you know, won't kill Man-Thing, but you know. Yeah, Man-Thing, he just regenerates,
right? Exactly. So, Blade is probably gonna mouth like, What the fuck? Hahahaha! Just with
like, what was the blood god's name? Like, yeah, from the movie. Yeah. So meanwhile, nearby
Man-Bat, he's gonna unleash this debilitating scream at Elsa Bloodstone specifically. just
dropping her to her knees. And as she's disoriented, he's gonna grab her with his talons, just swoop
high above the battle, and just let her go, just drop her straight down. Okay, um, all
right. As Elsa Bloodstone is falling, she's gonna throw up a dagger that sticks right into
Manbat's leg, because she's just not pleased with what he just did to her. And right before
she hits the ground, Doctor Strange is gonna save her by slowing her descent using the winds
of Watomb. So she's fine. and man bats like bleeding out from his leg. Oh, awesome, okay.
Meanwhile, Morbius, he'll have snuck behind Zatanna at this point, and he's gonna attack
her, biting her in between her helmet and shoulder armor, sinking his teeth into her neck. And
this is gonna turn her into a vampire. So her skin turns white, her eyes glow red, nose flattens,
fangs grow, and she'll now be known as Batanna, the pseudo-vampiris. Who is basically on the
side of the Midnight Suns against her own team since she's like a familiar of Morbius I was
gonna say, oh thanks for just leveling her up with like vampire powers But you're saying
she's now under Morbius's command? Not under his command, but on his side So what she's
gonna do is she's gonna yank Constantine out of his cowardly hiding spell and from her hat
She's gonna pull this like army of vampire rabbits that just freaking pounce on Constantine and
feast on him They're like biniculas. Yeah, exactly, like binicula. She pulls out an army of biniculas
from her hand now that she's a vampire. That's kind of cool. But like Constantine, he has
demonic blood, which actually makes him immune to vampire bites. So these rabbits, they're
just going to like explode upon biting him, all right? And he's going to pull out this
like vial from his pocket, which is like an anathema for vampirism. And you're just going
to throw it at Zatanna's feet and it's going to emit this smoke, like a smoke bomb. that
transforms her back into her normal self. I mean, would he really have an anathema for
pseudo vampirism? This works on, like, vampirism of any form. He's prepared for shit like this.
Okay. Meanwhile, Black Orchid, she's going to be going up against Brother Voodoo, and she's
going to emit these pheromones that control him into shooting a magic blast at Ghost Rider,
just knocking him straight off of his hell cycle. Right on his ass. Okay, so it's a lot of teammate
turning on teammate here, huh? Yeah. Well, Brother Voodoo is, you know, easily manipulated by
external forces because within him resides the spirit of his brother. So Daniel, his brother,
he flies out of his brother and like shakes him out of this daze that he's in. And brother
Voodoo is able to prevent further pheromone control on him by using this like special Voodoo
herb mixture that counteracts the pheromones. And then Daniel the spirit is going to go off
and freaking tackle Deadman thing which pushes Deadman out of the body. And those two are
just going to start fighting as ghosts. Okay, okay. And as payback for manipulating Kim,
Brother Voodoo is gonna in return manipulate Black Orchid. Since she is part plant and he
can command plants, he's gonna like freeze her in place where she stands as he just strikes
her in the head with his staff of legba. Oh, you mean he strikes her in her magic helmet?
Oh yeah, that's stupid magic armor. It's still around, I gotta get rid of that. Edrigan meanwhile,
he's trying to attack Dr. Strange, just slashing through. His magic shields laughing and rhyming
about how he's gonna feast on his entrails, you know? Jesus. And finally, he's gonna break
through Dr. Strange's defenses and shields, alright? And Etrigan, he's just gonna bloody
Dr. Strange with his teeth, claws, and superior strength. Because Etrigan's like Hulk strength,
remember? With magic. Okay, yeah, I think that would mess Dr. Strange up if he started getting
like pummeled by Etrigan. So he's probably gonna be near death, but he's gonna raise up his
hand, and he's gonna call upon the Spear of the Seraphim. to just fall from the sky and
impale Edrigan where he stands, like right through his armor and everything. And since it's from
the Seraphim, you know, Seraphim are angels. So it's just gonna freaking cause Edrigan to
explode in this bright, holy light that exercises the demon and sends him back to hell, leaving
just the human, Jason Blood, in his place. And this holy light explosion is gonna be so powerful
that it's also going to demolish the magic armor that everybody's wearing. What? Conveniently.
Like what, shatter? Yeah, it's like a angelic light spear, you know, it carries a big punch.
I feel like that's a really random way to get rid of the armor, but okay. It's magic. No
question it. Okay. Uh, but by this time Swamp Thing, he's regrown his body and he's going
to see the vampire Morbius and he's going to turn his hand into like this wooden stake and
he's just going to quickly stretch out his arm, running the wooden stick right through Morbius'
heart as he was gliding through the air. That doesn't work on Morbius. He's not a real vampire.
It's. Stakes through the heart don't actually do anything, nor do holy water or garlic or
things like that. I'm pretty sure getting impaled would do something to Morbius. I mean it would,
like he'll be out of commission for a bit as he regenerates his heart using his healing
factor. But you know, he's not out of the match. And suddenly, like swamp thing, his head freakin'
explodes into shredded lettuce. Because Bloodstone is gonna unleash two Goliath rounds from her
shotguns at him point blank. Goliath rounds? Yeah, it's like getting hit with a bus. I guess
it's a good thing that Swamp Thing doesn't really care about that. He'll be fine. Meanwhile,
Manbat, he's gonna dive bomb right into Manthing at full speed, just splattering him into canned
spinach. Like all over the battlefield. Oh, really? Yeah. You do know that Manthing is
full of like, sulfuric acid. So he's like splattered all over Manbat, meaning Manbat essentially
is just burning himself alive. I take it back! That was a really dumb move. And then- and
then Man-Thing, he's gonna reform from the splatter, and Manbat's like, he's done for. He's burned
all over his body, like his flesh is burning off all over his body, and he's just gonna
finish Manbat off by ripping off Manbat's Manbat-Thing. What? He's done, he's out. Manbat dies. He
can't survive that. What a way to go. That was literally like the worst death we've ever had
in any of these team duels. That was so dumb. Manbat is dead now, but- Meanwhile, Deadman,
using his superior agility, he's gonna evade this Daniel brother voodoo ghost, and he's
gonna leap into Bloodstone's body, and he's gonna use her red gem to blast Daniel, like,
out of existence. Okay, yeah, I mean, it's a magic blast. I think he could do that, yeah.
And then, he's gonna take one of her knives and use it to slice her own throat, like cutting
off the Bloodstone, which causes Morbius to become, like, overwhelmed with blood drink
her dry, removing bloodstone from the match. That's messed up. Well, I mean, like Morbius
was regrowing a heart at this time. But I guess the sight of seeing bloodstone bleed from her
neck would compel him to gather his strength to go feast on that because he can't help himself.
But the bloodstone makes her blood toxic to vampires. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Dead men
cut that off when he slit her throat, too. So OK, so Morbius takes out bloodstone, which
is fucked up and like Blade is going to be like really pissed off. You know, he's not having
any of that shit. That's everything that he stands against. So Blade would at this point
probably kill Morbius for killing Bloodstone. This is an interesting turn of, I'm gonna allow
this. I'm gonna allow this. I mean, it's what would happen. I think, so he's gonna chop off
Morbius' head, pick it up and like shove it in front of Dead Man's face since he can see
him, you know, due to the Eye of Agamotto spell. So Morbius' vampiric eyes, they're gonna mesmerize
Dead Man giving Doctor Strange enough time to freaking cast Deadman into like the dark dimension.
Deadman's gone. Wait, so Blade decapitated Morbius, but used his vampiric gaze from his head to
stun Deadman? Yeah, yes, yes. Like, uh, Perseus did with Medusa. I just recently watched Clash
of the Titans. That may be where I'm getting this from. Okay, Deadman's gone, but meanwhile,
Constantine and Jason Blood, they're gonna be working together on exercising Xerathos. from
Ghost Rider, who I imagine is back on his bike and you know is pretty hard to capture, alright?
Yeah. Now Dr. Strange killed Etrigen, but that just sends Etrigen back to hell, where Jason
Blood can resummon him. So as Constantine is distracting Ghost Rider, that's what Jason
Blood does. He's like gone, oh form of man. No, no, no. Before he can even finish this.
First of all, the spirit of the Seraphim didn't just banish Etrigen back to hell, it fucking
destroyed his ass. What? But second of all, it doesn't matter regardless because... Before
Jason Blood can even finish performing this transformation incantation, he just gets run
over at full speed by Ghost Rider's motorcycle. He's like, one, two, cheese! It's cold! So
freaking Jason Blood is dead. Wow. And as Ghost Rider rides past Constantine, he's gonna yank
him by his collar while he's riding. You know, he's gonna like stand up and surf on his bike
as he's holding onto Constantine, and he's just gonna peer into his eyes and do the pen and
stare on Constantine, forcing him to relive all the pain that he's ever caused on others.
For Constantine, that's a lot. So the Hellblazer is just gonna go out in a blaze of glory, going
to hell for all the shit that he's done, finally. Yeah, that pen and star would absolutely destroy
Constantine. But it's a good thing that's not Constantine, I guess. Because instead of exploding,
Constantine's skin just like sloughs off like dead leaves. It was actually Black Orchid pretending
to be Constantine. The real Constantine is actually nearby, having finished like an exorcism spell
that causes Ghost Rider in his entirety to get sucked into this tiny vial in Jon's hands with
the Seal of Solomon on it. Boom. Ghost Rider is out of the match. You just got conned! Why
would the Pennanesther work on Black Orchid? She's a hero. She's not a criminal. Well, no,
she's done some shit in her past. She's very mysterious, right? But like even in the comics,
like when she was taken over by Hecate, like she destroyed the Parliament of Tres. She's
done some shit. You can't say she hasn't. But I mean, that's not really her sins. Like, I
don't think the Pennanesther would actually kill Black Orchid. No, no, she's not dead.
But but she is likely overcome with the fear and the pain that she's inflicted. And so Man-Thing
is gonna capitalize on it. Since she feels fear, Man-Thing is just gonna burn her and tear her
to shreds. So Black Orchid's now out of this match. That's right, because he's attracted
to fear. Well, he's not attracted to it. It makes him uncomfortable, so he tries to get
rid of it. Okay, so RIP Black Orchid. Meanwhile, Zatanna and Swamp-Thing, who by this point
has regrown his head, are going toe-to-toe with Dr. Strange. Now Swamp-Thing, he creates these
duplicates of himself, and together, They manage to bind Dr. Strange's hands, which allows Zatanna
to hit him with this massive energy blast. Well, Dr. Strange has, like, magical blast resistance,
as it were, you know? So, this magic blast, I'm gonna say it's not gonna kill him or anything.
If it's really that strong, it'll probably knock him unconscious. But before he loses consciousness,
he's going to eject his astral form. And he can still do magic in his astral form. And
in his spirit mode, he's going to recognize that swamp thing... is essentially also an
astral form just inhabiting this massive plants. So he's gonna pull out Swamp Thing's spirit.
What's Swamp Thing's real name? Alakolland. But Swamp Thing isn't actually Alakolland.
It was an entity that thought it was Alakolland for a time. Well he's gonna pull out that entity
and he's gonna take him up onto the astral plane where Dr. Strange turns into like this giant
fiery beast that just burns Swamp Thing and all of his incarnations and the green itself.
It's just all gonna burn. Dude! Dr. Strange just fucking killed everybody. If the green
is gone, there's no more plant life. Yeah, just in the DC universe. That's fine by me. Well,
so in the battlefield, no one knows really what's going on, but the swamp things just disintegrate.
And Dr. Strange's astral form goes back into his unconscious body. I think Constantine would
have seen what happened, you know, on the astral plane, because he's psychic, right? So before
Dr. Strange's astral form could return to his body, Constantine's just gonna perform this
spell that banishes Dr. Strange's astral form. to hell, like preventing him from returning
to his comatose body and eliminating him from the match. First of all, Dr. Strange would
go to heaven. So he's trapped in heaven. No, he went to hell. That's where Constantine sends
people. So essentially, Dr. Strange is in the afterlife now. He's out of this match. Right.
But it would take time for Constantine to invoke this spell, right? So right after he finishes,
he finds that a glaive has just decapitated him. Thrown by Blade. What? Yeah. So Constantine's
head falls off. and the glaive returns to blade like a boomerang and he just catches it like
a badass and like removes his sunglasses and is like some motherfuckers always trying to
ice skate uphill
Okay, I did not see Constantine being taken out with a sword or a glaive, but his trench
coat is demonically possessed All right So upon Constantine's death it's gonna fly off of his
body and just wraps around blades face and neck Just smothering and strangling him. Well blade
could just cut that jacket off. No big deal No, because as blade is trying to cut it off
Zatanna causes all of blades weapons to transform into like liquid which allows blade to get
strangled and he's out of the match What's the spell for turning blades into liquid? Oh gosh.
Take your time. Nort-ot, do you kill? Something like that. Okay, so Blade is gone. He's been
smothered to death. But Man-Thing appears behind Zatanna and just slashes her across her back,
leaving these painful burning slash marks. Okay, but Zatanna, she's gonna turn around and just
compress Man-Thing's matter into like this crystal ball. And then she's gonna like lock this crystal
ball in a magic chest that just appears. And then wrap that chest in like magic chains.
And then just cause the whole chest to disappear. Presto, chain Joe. That was like a pretty elaborate
elimination. She had to get rid of him. And I think I only have one guy left. Yeah, actually
it's just Zatanna and Brother Voodoo now, I believe. I wasn't even keeping track. So if
it's Brother Voodoo versus Zatanna, of all the magics that Zatanna is well versed in, I bet
you one of them is not necromancy like Brother Voodoo is. He's gonna raise all of his fallen
comrades, including Blade, Morbius, Bloodstone, Dr. Strange. They're all gonna come back in
zombie form under Brother Voodoo's command. What? So really, it's Brother Voodoo and the
Marvel zombies against Zatanna. And they're all just gonna freakin' dogpile on her and
feast on her flesh. I mean, she could just set them on fire before like, any of them even
get close though. That's not how you kill a zombie, fool. All you did was just turn him
into fire-covered zombies. They're still lurching forward, they're still tackling, they're still
feasting. Well, little did you know though, that Zatanna was actually possessed by Deadman
at the time of her death. Because he could teleport between planes of existence. So when Doctor
Strange banished him, he just came right back in the nick of time. And since these zombies
have been given new life, Deadman, he's gonna duplicate himself and take control of each
one. Brother Voodoo no longer has any control of these guys. So they turn on him. Well then
at this point brother Voodoo would just blast all the zombies heads off and be the last survivor
No, no, cause Deadman is an acrobat He's gonna use his superior agility to dodge like any
magic blast that brother Voodoo may send at the zombies to defend himself Acrobatic zombies?
What is cooler? So the dead man zombies are just gonna tear brother Voodoo apart and give
Justice League Dark the win I disagree I think brother Voodoo kills the zombies and then destroys
dead man using Voodoo giving Midnight Sons the win Well, let's take it to the stats and see
what happens Alright yeah, either Dead Man Zombies feast on Brother Voodoo, or Brother Voodoo
vanquishes Dead Man. We'll run the simulations and be right back with the results.
Alright, that was a spooky good time. I always enjoy these team duel matches. This one got
pretty interesting because I felt like there were a lot of possessions and like forcing
other people to do things through magic and stuff. Yeah, yeah, it got pretty crazy. I think
that's why I kind of lost track of who was still alive and who was dead. So we ran the simulations.
Basically, when it comes to team duels, we don't run sets of data against each other. We run
matrices. So it's all seven of the Justice League Dark characters against all seven of the Midnight
Suns characters. Yeah, I was pretty surprised to see how these stat totals added up. The
teams were pretty even, even though I would say that these teams specifically, probably
more so than any of our other previous team duels, had a pretty wide range between like
really powerful characters and really weak characters. Well, that was also the case for our JSA vs.
Fantastic Four duel, but yeah, same here. Now, for purposes of balance, when we determine
who's going to fight in these team duels, we kind of pair characters up against each other.
So the pairings for Justice League Dark vs Midnight Suns were Zatanna vs Doctor Strange, Constantine
vs Brother Voodoo, Swamp Thing vs Man Thing, Echigan vs Ghost Rider, Black Orchid vs Bloodstone,
Man Bat vs Amorbius, and Dead Man vs Blade. But that's just for balance. Every character
is fighting every other character. Looking at the results, Doctor Strange was definitely
the most powerful character out of both teams. He won a whopping 84%. of all of his fights.
Yeah, he was definitely the most powerful character out of both teams. But Swamp Thing wasn't too
far behind him as my most powerful character, winning over 75% of his matches. I only had
a total of three characters on the Midnight Suns who had a win rate above 50%. Besides
Doctor Strange, that was Brother Voodoo and Ghost Rider. Justice League Dark had a few
more people with an over 50% win rate, including Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Constantine, and Ettrichin.
But you had the lowest win rates as well. Yeah, Deadman had the lowest win rate, honestly,
because his stats... He's a ghost, his stats aren't that great. So he only had a win rate
of like less than 15%. And considering he's going up against a bunch of like magicians
and sorcerers and stuff like that, it kind of makes sense. And Black Orchid and Manbat didn't
fare too much better either, with their win rates both in the 30s. Your weakest character
was Bloodstone. It was either Bloodstone or Manthing, they were also both in the 30s. They
were almost tied, basically. Manthing, even though he's seemingly a powerhouse, he's just
not... very impressive statistically given that he doesn't really have a mind, you know? But
I have the final results between these two teams Justice League Dark and Midnight Suns. Who
do you think came out on top? I'm gonna say I'm gonna say Midnight Suns because both teams
have a large disparity in terms of power levels, but Dr. Strange is the most powerful statistically.
And plus the Midnight Suns didn't have anyone as low as Deadman. So since I have the most
powerful and you have the least powerful, I think I got this. Even though freaking Instagram
doesn't agree On our Instagram poll, two thirds of the voters, 67%, said that they think Justice
League Dark is gonna win. But I think that's because the Midnight Suns aren't very popular.
Right, they haven't had a movie like Justice League Dark has. And their game hasn't come
out yet. Well, let's see how close our Instagram followers were. The winner of the matchup between
Justice League Dark and the Midnight Suns is Justice League Dark. No. Yes, psych. They won.
52.3% of the team matches. Wait, how much? 52.3. 523 of the 1000 matches between both teams.
So, Midnight Suns won 477. Yes, yeah. I mean, that's pretty close. I mean, it's like the
least close team duel we've ever done so far, actually. The rest of them have been closer
than this. Your mom has been closer than this. That's stupid. That doesn't sound right to
me. Dr. Strange, he's got a... find more powerful Marvel characters to add to his team next time.
Because although Dr. Strange was the most powerful, you know, the combined might of Zatanna, Constantine,
Swamp Thing, and Etchigan was just too much for your team to handle. Yeah, I guess Man-Thing,
Bloodstone, Blade, and Morbius were a little bit lower on the spectrum. But I thought Dr.
Strange could compensate for that. Yeah, I guess he's the Sorcerer sub-prime. Well, the Justice
League Dark are the Justice League dorks. I fucking suck. That was bad. That wasn't bad.
I'm pissed off. I got nothing. I'm actually heartbroken right now because I love Marvel's
supernatural characters. But whatever, I'll get you on the next team duel. Yeah, that'll
be in April and we're gonna be doing our very first villain team duels. We're gonna be pitting
Batman's Arkham villains against the Sinister Six. Right, yeah, and this is gonna piggyback
off of the Spider-Man No Way Home movie, which we suspect will feature the Sinister Six. So
that'll be a fun one. We're talking like Joker vs. Green Goblin, Scarecrow vs. Mysterio, Penguin
vs. Vulture, Mr. Freeze vs. Electro. Clayface vs Sandman, and Bane vs Kraven the Hunter.
Yeah that's gonna be an awesome matchup. I can't wait for that one. But that does it for this
duel. Let us know what you guys thought about Justice League Dark vs Midnight Suns by writing
to us at dyna or by visiting us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You can find links to
all of our accounts by checking out our show notes or visiting our website dynamicduel.com.
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20 at cufflinks.com to get 20% off any order and to listen to Batman the Audio Adventures
on HBO Max. Our next episode, next week's episode is going to be another review. This past week
we got the last episode of Doom Patrol Season 3, so we're going to be reviewing that. Yeah,
it's another review, but luckily Doom Patrol is a good show. Definitely check it out on
HBO Max if you haven't already. But that does it for this episode, we want to give a big
thanks to our executive producers, John Spees, Ken Johnson, Jace Crump, John Storosky, Zachary
Hepburn, John Beccinina, Mitchell Phipps, Dustin Belcombe. Salvador Hernandez Contreras Jr.
and Levi Yeaton for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week.
Up up and away, true believers.