Abra Kadabra vs Mandarin

Hey guys, Johnny DC here to remind you that if you haven't nominated Dynamic Duel in the Colorado Podcast Awards, you have one day after this episode drops to do so. 

That's right, December 2nd is the last day to nominate us. If you remember from our last episode, we explained that last year we received more nominations than any other podcast in our home state of Colorado, but we didn't win a single award. This year, we hope to change that, particularly in the best fans award category. 

Right, we have absolutely the best fans. To nominate us, visit HouseOfPod.org and click on the Hoppies link at the top of the page or visit the link in our show notes. Please make sure to put our podcast's full name, Dynamic Duel DC vs Marvel, in all of the categories except for Best New Podcast, because we've been around a while. It would mean a huge deal to us if you could take one minute out of your day to nominate us. 

You guys truly are the best. Thanks for listening, let's get on with the show. Hi and welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. 

I'm Johnny DC and I'm his twin brother, Marvelous Joe. And in this episode, and lead up to our review of Iron Man 3 for the holidays, we will be pitting Abra Cadabra against The Mandarin in one of our duel simulations. The Mandarin of course was in Iron Man 3, sort of notoriously, played by Ben Kingsley. Wink wink. 

Yeah, that was bullcrap. Of course, the real Mandarin is going to be in the upcoming Marvel Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings movie, so Marvel can redeem themselves on the character. Today, we're going to learn who the Mandarin really is. Before we get into that duel though, we're going to break down the movie news items from the past week of which there wasn't really too much news other than the fact that the Daredevil writes have reverted from Netflix back to Disney, so that's pretty exciting. 

We'll be talking about that later. 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. Real quick, we want to give a shout out to our newest Patrons, Richard McGrew and Tim Brown. Yeah, now they have access to our card game that we put out called Dynamic Duel War, which you can have available to you as well by joining us on Patreon. On any one of our Patreon tiers, all you have to do is simply make a one-time donation of $30 and we'll send you the game. If you want to have fun simulating battles between Marvel and DC characters, check us out at patreon.com. 

Also, just a quick reminder guys to please subscribe to our show if you haven't already and if you have, please help us grow our podcast audience by leaving a quick rating or review on whatever platform you're listening to us on or by sharing us with your fellow DC and Marvel fans. And 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 Duel No Prize, is a digital award we post on social media that Jonathan personally draws for those who we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. And last week's question tied into the news that Marvel has hired the Mollinoo Sisters to write the upcoming Deadpool 3 movie, which was their first move in the production of that film. It's really exciting to know that mutants are making their way toward the MCU. 

So we asked, who do you want the villain to be in Deadpool 3 and why? And we got so many great answers that I had to pick four honorable mentions because there was just no other way. We did pick one answer for the No Prize, but let's go down our list of honorable mentions. First honorable mention goes to Adam Spees, who said that T. Ray should be the villain for the Deadpool 3 movie because he would bring something different like Voodoo to the franchise and he's unique to Deadpool and it would make all the DP fanboys like him go wild. I have no idea who T. Ray is, but I do know that Adam is in fact a big Deadpool fan and so I trust him. Yeah, I had to look more into T. Ray's history. So allegedly T. Ray's real name is Wade Wilson and he is the guy that Deadpool stole the identity of back in the past that he doesn't even remember because it was all brainwashed by Weapon X. So it's unclear whether or not his original name was Wade Wilson or T. Ray's really was, but basically T. Ray is a magic-based mercenary type and he has a sword that can actually negate Deadpool's healing factor. 

So he's a real threat. Oh, that's cool. That's really cool. 

Our next honorable mention actually goes to four different people who gave the same answer. Richard McGrew, Ken Johnson, Jacob Proper, and Joshua Smith said that they want the Deadpool 3 villain to be Mr. Sinister. Yeah, I particularly like Richard McGrew's reasoning that he's been teased a lot so that you should bring him into the fold and they could also write it into the story that he was the one behind Ajax and the experiments that created Deadpool. I absolutely agree. I think Mr. Sinister is the biggest X-Men villain that they have yet to use within an X-Men movie and I think it'd be a great way to kick off the X-Men within the MCU. Yeah, especially considering Mr. Sinister's ties to early X-Men characters like Cyclops and Jean Grey. 

Yeah. Our next honorable mention also goes to four other people and I kind of combined answers here because again, you guys just gave way too many good answers. So, back to Trucker 307, Caleb Albers, John Staroski, and Dustin Balcom. You guys get the honorable mention for saying Evil Deadpool and Strife. I kind of paired those together. Evil Deadpool is a character from the comics who is kind of a composite Deadpool reformed when a bunch of his severed limbs grew into one Deadpool character. 

Wow. And Strife is a character who is Cable's evil clone. So, I think it would be cool to put Deadpool and Cable against their evil doppelgangers, Evil Deadpool and Strife. 

Yeah, that's right. I guess Josh Brolin probably would be in the next Deadpool film. I guess if it's not just a straight-up reboot. Yeah, which could get awkward considering he has Thanos' likeness and voice, but you know. I'm sure they would totally plan to that. 

That'd be hilarious. Our final honorable mention goes to George Crenatus and J. Moldenhauer Salazar who said that Deadpool 3's villain should be Hit Monkey, who is the famous Marvel monkey assassin. And the reasoning they both gave was because monkeys, which you know, can't argue with that. Deadpool vs. an assassin monkey is just movie gold. 

It sounds perfect. Before we announce the winner of this week's No Prize, we want to give a quick shout out to everyone who sent us an answer, including Sean Nightingale, Neil Polling, Harrison Fox, Colby Henshies, John Speese, Nathaniel Wagner, Jacob Bell, by DearBangura, Michael Haggerty and Shane Havazine. Yeah, thank you guys very much for all of your amazing answers as well. But the winner of this week's No Prize goes to Tim Brown, who said that Arcade should be the villain in the next Deadpool film. Which I think is awesome. Now Arcade has never really gone up against Deadpool in the comics, but he is a long-standing popular X-Men villain. And the sole reason I want to see him in the Deadpool movie is because Murder World would be so cinematic. It would just be amazing. It would be amazing. 

The other reason is that I don't think we would actually see Arcade as a villain in the standard X-Men movie, so I think this is his one shot. Yeah, Tim Brown totally sold me on this with his Seth Green casting. The guy's hilarious. 

I think he has comedic chops that could go toe-to-toe with Ryan Reynolds. It just sounds perfect. And plus, within Murder World, since it's a setting that incorporates a lot of random elements, you can actually touch upon a lot of these other question of the week answers. You could have people like Strife, an evil Deadpool, and Hitmucky, and even Hugh Jackman. I think it's a great way to incorporate a lot of different elements within one story. 

Yeah, we'll see what they ultimately go with, but so far Arcade is also my favorite answer. So congrats to Tim Brown. You win 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, lots of the news. Alright, a couple years ago we reported on this show that the Marvel Netflix series were coming to an end because Marvel was working out a new system for their television offerings, wherein Jeff Loeb was getting the boot and Kevin Feige was now being put in charge of all Marvel television. However, as part of their contract, Marvel was not able to do anything with those characters of the Marvel Netflix shows for a few years. 

It wasn't just that either, though. For Disney to get the rights back, Netflix, who have the rights to the character, also wouldn't have been able to do anything with the character in that same two-year period. So everyone on Twitter today was in a panic wondering if Netflix was going to announce something new at the last minute with Daredevil. Yeah, it was a pretty tumultuous time, but just how Marvel got the rights back to all the Fox properties, the Netflix characters are starting to trickle back in one by one. The big get on November 29th was Daredevil. Prior to that, Marvel got back the rights to Luke Cage on October 19th and Iron Fist on October 12th. They still have yet to get the rights back to The Punisher, which will happen on February 18th, and they'll get Jessica Jones back that same day. Now, this would be especially big news if we learned that Marvel in fact had plans to continue on these shows with the same cast and crew, because for the most part, they were doing well. Even shows that kind of sucked like Iron Fist, I was interested in seeing what the next season held for that character. But Marvel now has the opportunity to not just continue these stories on in television form, they could also choose to create films based on these characters, which would also be really exciting, especially since under the guidance of Kevin Feige, it's more likely that these characters will be even truer to the spirit of their comic book counterparts. 

And they were pretty true in the Netflix shows. I don't think it would take much tweaking to take the existing characters and put them in the more faithful MCU. Right, and you could get a great street perspective of what's going on within this continuity, maybe even a second Defender series or movie that incorporates characters like The Punisher and even Moon Knight. Yeah, ultimately, whether or not Kevin Feige is going to use the old Netflix shows as continuity and keep the same actors and crew and everything, I think it all comes down to his approach to Moon Knight. If that's dark, if that's gritty, just like the Netflix shows, I think there's a good chance of these properties melding as they currently exist. 

That would be amazing. That being said, if Moon Knight is lighter in tone and more Disney in feel, then I don't think there's any way that Kevin Feige will continue the course that Netflix set. Funny you should mention that though, because the current rumor is that within the next month, Disney is going to announce a more adult-oriented section of the Disney Plus app. 

Disney 18 Plus. That'd be good. But we'll see what happens. I'm really excited that these characters are coming back into the fold, along with everything else that's now going to come under the Marvel banner like Fantastic Four, like X-Men. I don't know what I'm excited for more. 

And that brings us to our question of the week. Which characters would you like to see make their MCU debut first? Fantastic Four, X-Men, or Daredevil and the other Netflix defenders? 

And why? Post your answer to our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or email us at dynamicdoolpodcastatgmail.com. We'll pick our favorite answer and draw that person a Dynamic Duel No Prize that we'll post to social media. 

Yeah, really looking forward to your answers on that one, guys. But I think that doesn't for the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get into our main event where we find out who'd win in a fight between the Flash villain, Abra Kedabra, and the Iron Man villain, the Mandarin. Okay, so Abra Kedabra versus the Mandarin. These are two characters who are both sorcerers without actually being sorcerers, without actually being magic practitioners. Abra Kedabra uses technology from the future to make people believe that he's performing magic, and the Mandarin has alien technology that gives him this air of mystery and sorcery. Yeah, and that's why we ended up putting these two characters together because of that similarity. Their powers are kind of broad and vaguely defined, so in terms of practicality, they can kind of perform magical feats, but in terms of reality, they're just both tech users. There were a few options that we could have gone with for any of these characters. 

I think the producers were leaning toward Enchantress, but in the end, Enchantress would be better suited toward another magical base character like Thor's Enchantress or something like that. So I think that this is the best pairing that we could have for these characters, and I think it'll be a whole lot of fun to play out the scenario in which they fight. Now, if you've never listened to one of our dual episodes before, the way we determine a winner between these two characters is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations using their statistics. And what's a Monte Carlo simulation? It's a probabilistic model used to determine outcomes through random sampling. 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, and perception in order to create a more complete and robust simulation. Now, running these 1000 simulations gives us a percentage of wins for each character, and we declare the one with the higher percentage to be the ultimate victor, given that they're more likely to win any given battle. No character ever wins 100% of the time, you know, comics have shown that there's always a way for Batman to defeat Superman. We feel our method falls in line with the precedents that have been established in the comic book stories. And we use this method because it was the least subjective, most unbiased way to determine who would win. Of course, we are both very 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 character's histories and abilities before improvising a scenario and how we imagine one of the 1000 simulations we run would play out beat for beat. 

And I think it's your turn to go first this episode, Jonathan, since I went first last episode with Emma Frost, so let's go ahead and hear all about Abracadabra. So in DC's future timeline, beyond the 25th century of Booster Gold, or the 31st century of the Legion of Superheroes, in the 64th century, Earth was ruled by Cronark, who controlled society through a supercomputer system known as the Central Clockworks. Within the society was a man named Citizen Abra, who valued his individuality and rejected the Central Clockworks. His whole life, he had only ever wished to be an illusionist like the stage magicians of the past. Since he lived, however, in a time when simple tricks and sleight of hand could not rival basic technology and science, no one showed any interest in his shows. Luckily for him, it was in the 64th century that time travel was rediscovered thanks to a new, rare, radioactive alien element known as M-Metal. Seeing an opportunity to travel back to the 20th century, a time when stage magicians were appreciated, Abracadabra used his trickery to steal the M-Metal rod to power a time machine. After arriving in Central City during the 20th century, Abracadabra took up the stage name of Abracadabra and used future technology to pull off impossible acts of stage magic, using the M-Metal rod as a wand. To Abracadabra's surprise, however, people continued to show little to no interest in his magic shows, in part due to the impressive feats they had become accustomed to with the onset of superheroes, particularly Central City's very own hero, the Flash, aka Barry Allen, who you can learn more about in our Flash vs. Quicksilver episode. With no more M-Metal radioactivity left to power another time jump, Abracadabra decided that if he could not achieve fame, he could at least achieve notoriety as a supervillain to the famous Flash. After several very public heists in which he was successful in paralyzing the Flash, Abracadabra promised to show the masses the greatest magic trick of all time during one of his shows, which turned out to be a trap for the Flash that launched the hero into outer space. The hero was able to return, however, and captured the villain off-guard, resulting in Abracadabra's arrest. 

While in prison, Abracadabra was able to assemble a crude hypnotizing gray using pots and pans that he used to compel the governor to give him a pardon. Abracadabra became one of the Flash's most formidable rogues, though after several more capers got him imprisoned, Abracadabra was eventually caught and captured by the authorities of the 64th century and was returned to his time. From the future, however, Abracadabra was still able to send various gadgets into the past that tormented the Flash in the 20th century. Abracadabra was eventually able to escape his future prison after the Flash killed another time-traveling supervillain, Professor Zoom, of the 25th century. 

Zoom's death created a time paradox that made the future timeline malleable. Abracadabra took advantage of the disturbed time stream and traveled back to the 20th century, where he posed as Professor Zoom returned from the dead and forced the Flash to chase him into the future, where Abracadabra planned on trapping the Flash as the timeline solidified once again. With the Flash trapped in the future, Abracadabra deduced that he would be free to do whatever he wanted if and when he eventually managed to return to the 20th century. Despite being defeated by the Flash in the 64th century, Abracadabra was partially successful in his plot in that the Flash did not return to the 20th century, but remained in the 30th, where Barry's wife Iris West now lived. It wasn't long ago, however, before the Flash died to protect the multiverse during the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, during which Abracadabra did his part to protect reality as part of a team of heroes and villains that attacked the universe destroying anti-monitor. After returning to the 64th century, Abracadabra became a revolutionary, fighting for individuality and freedom, inspiring other citizens to revolt against the central clockworks. 

Eventually, Abracadabra was captured by the Kronark and was banished to the 20th century as punishment for his insurrection. By this time, Wally West, the Flash's former sidekick, Kid Flash, took up his deceased mentor's mantle. You can learn more about Wally in our Flash vs. Speedball episode. In Abracadabra's and Flash's first confrontation, the teleportation circuitry within Abracadabra's suit was damaged in an explosion, causing Abracadabra to partially phase out of existence. The circuitry eventually repaired itself and Abracadabra returned to reality, horribly burned and scarred. As Abracadabra battled the new Flash in revenge for his disfigurement, both were transported to the 64th century, where they learned that the central clockworks' banishment of Abracadabra did nothing to stop the rebellion he had started and that the Kronark was going to instead execute Abracadabra publicly to make an example out of him. After witnessing the tyranny imposed on society by the central clockworks, the Flash rescued Abracadabra and helped him overthrow the Kronarky. 

For the first time in his life, Abracadabra was adored and applauded by the masses. Not wanting to leave Abracadabra in charge, however, the Flash carried Abracadabra with him back to the 20th century. Robbed of his glory, Abracadabra developed an unbound hatred for the new Flash and orchestrated events that made the Flash a fugitive of the law. During the battle that followed, Flash and Abracadabra were once again transported to the 64th century, this time by guardians of the time stream Rip Hunter and Wave Rider, who needed their help in stopping a reality-destroying time rift traveling backward in time. Though Flash was able to stop the time rift, he was not able to save the 64th century. With nothing left to lose, Abracadabra sold his soul and the soul of five other rogues to the Archdemon N'erron in exchange for real magical ability, which Abracadabra used to kidnap Wally's fiance Linda Park during their wedding and erased all memories of her from existence. 

Imprisoned outside of the time stream, Linda managed to escape into another timeline where she was eventually found and rescued by the Flash. Over time, Abracadabra's magical abilities faded and he was forced to return to a restored, alternate 64th century to collect new tech. Eventually, Wally West retired and his sidekick Bart Allen became the new Flash, though it wasn't long before he was captured and beaten to death by Abracadabra and other Flash villains. Just before the events of Flash Point, in which Barry Allen was resurrected and seemingly reset the DC timeline, Abracadabra successfully trapped Wally West within the Speed Force and erased the memory of him from existence, just like how he had done to Wally's wife Linda years prior. Inadvertently, because of the Flash Point, Abracadabra's memory was erased as well, while he eventually managed to escape the Speed Force with the help of Barry, at which point reality began to heal itself to the existence prior to the Flash Points. This included Abracadabra's memories, and he was nearly successful in destroying Wally West's team, the Titans, and dropping Wally within the Speed Force again, but Abracadabra was defeated and banished back to the 64th century. Powers-wise, Abracadabra wields a wand made of M-Metal that allows him to alter reality and time travel when it's radioactively powered. He doesn't actually need the wand to perform his magic, he also carries a variety of hidden gadgets on him that grant him various abilities, such as teleportation circuitry woven throughout his suit and a mind control lapel, but a showmanship style makes it look like all of his abilities come from his wand. Among these abilities are transmutation, intangibility, energy and time manipulation, as well as creature and object conjuring. Honestly, there's almost nothing he can't do. You name it, he could probably do it. 

Anything, huh? Pretty much. But can he eat his own head? No. 

So then he can't do everything. Is that from Team America? Yeah, glad you caught that reference. That's a pretty vague power description. Manderan's is a little bit more defined than that, but he's no less powerful. Let me go into his history and abilities. The real name of the Mandarin is Unknown, though he was thought to be the son of a Chinese aristocrat and English noblewoman who was later revealed by a hired videobiographer that the would-be conqueror and crime lord was actually the son of a prostitute living in an opium den in Inner Mongolia, China. He lived under forced labor in his father's criminal operation, surviving through his own wits and vigor until his teenage years when his mother died of an overdose. Mandarin then killed his father and took over his criminal dealings, expanding its operations and becoming a powerful figure in the Chinese underworld. Eventually, the Chinese Communist Revolution in the mid-20th century forced him to flee as a fugitive across China into the Valley of Spirits, a forbidden forest where no one had set foot in centuries. Deep within the valley, the Mandarin followed a strange glowing light and came across a wrecked alien ship from the planet Maklu-4 and within it was a mortally injured McLuhan. McLuans are a dragon-like race of alien beings, Fin Feng Fuum being one of its members. The Mandarin slew the surviving alien and wandered into the engine room where he saw that the starship was powered by 10 small hollow cylinders spinning like a dynamo. He snatched them up and put them on like rings. Why the hell does this sound like Green Lantern? 

It's not, mind your own business. Assumed by their power, he began conquering local villages and used his new abilities to establish a new criminal empire running guns for the government and drugs. As his wealth and influence grew, he began presenting himself as a Chinese nobleman and a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, acquiring his own island off mainland China and calling it Mandarin City. 

He became determined to conquer the world and rule it in quote wisdom and harmony, and he knew the best way to do that was to bring it out of chaos. He allied himself with terrorist entities around the world, including the one that would eventually capture the fatally injured Tony Stark, who managed to escape by constructing a metal suit of armor and destroying his captors. You can learn more about this in our Cyborg vs. Iron Man Duel episode. As part of the Mandarin's plot of global disturbance, he began sabotaging American missiles and spy planes that happened to be built by Iron Man, who eventually flew to the Mandarin's castle in China to investigate. The two Nemesis fought each other for the first time, with Mandarin using his 10 rings of power to incapacitate Iron Man and take him prisoner. While the Mandarin's minions were attempting to remove his enemy's armor in order to study it, Iron Man revived himself and escaped, detonating the Mandarin's castle in the process. This led Mandarin to swear an oath of vengeance against Iron Man, Tony Stark, and Stark Industries. Using his vast resources, he set up a small orbiting satellite that fired a death ray directly at Tony Stark's home, destroying it. 

Though the Mandarin and most of the world thought Tony Stark was dead, Iron Man survived. He destroyed the satellite and directed Mandarin's weapons against the Chinese military, causing the government to sever ties with the Mandarin for his apparent betrayal. The Mandarin then established a new hidden base in the Gobi Desert, and later formed his own villain team to attack Iron Man and the Avengers called the Avatars of the Mandarin, composed of Chinese superhumans. Seeking to increase the power of his rings, the Mandarin manipulated the inhuman royal family who were living in the Himalayan Mountains at the time into acquiring a power enhancing talisman for him, called the Eye of Yin. Blackbolt managed to stop Mandarin from using the talisman, however, and fought and defeated him, stripping him of his rings and hiding them, rendering Mandarin powerless. Mandarin later traveled back to the Valley of Spirits and acquired a new headband device that let him track down and regain the ten rings, which he then used to restore his original castle. After one particular visit to America to attack Iron Man, the Mandarin's castle was overtaken by a rival Chinese villain known as the Yellow Claw. Mandarin waged an all-out battle against the other villain and was victorious in defeating him and reclaiming his castle, but was fatally injured in the process. Mandarin used the headband device to transfer his consciousness into the rings where he waited, and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. 

History became legend, legend became myth, and for two and a half hours, the rings passed out of all knowledge, until, when chance came, they ensnared a new bearer. Was he a hobbit? No, he was a servant of the Yellow Claw. He donned the rings and the spirit of the Mandarin overcame him and took over his mind. The Mandarin transformed his new younger body into his own likeness and was resurrected. 

Interesting. The Mandarin then transformed some of his criminal empire into legitimate business dealings and became a top mogul in Hong Kong. He took over the mystical ninja assassin clan known as the Hand and would lend one of his rings to its members as they took on missions against Iron Man and War Machine. The rings were set up so that if the Hand Ninja failed their mission, the Ring would teleport back to the Mandarin. 

Eventually he lost control of the Hand when he was exiled from the clan after an attack from Scyloch and the X-Men. Mandarin later travelled to the Valley of the Sleeping Dragon near the Valley of Spirits where Fin Feng Fum laid dormant. He awoke the dragon and controlled him into taking over one third of China. Iron Man managed to save the day by grabbing Mandarin's hands and forcibly fusing his technology with the rings, firing a blast that destroyed both the dragon and the Mandarin's hands. 

His hands eventually grew back except as reptilian dragon-like claws. He then used a mystical artifact known as the Heart of Darkness to transform China into a feudal state where technology could not operate and he constructed a large flying fortress to prove to Iron Man the feudal nature of capitalism. Iron Man destroyed the flying fortress and the Mandarin did not appear again for nearly a decade. 

His estranged son Temujin attempted to claim his father's mantle for a time but later changed his ways and became a force for good alongside Jimmy Wu and other Marvel Asian and Asian American superheroes as an agent to Batless. Eventually the Mandarin returned, having survived into prison all these years without food or water through the power of his Qi. After an unsuccessful attempt to destroy most of humanity with the extremist virus, the Mandarin kidnapped Tony Stark to have him build 10 dragon-like mechnoids that would house the spirits of the 10 rings. As it turned out, the rings possessed the souls of 10 McLuhan warriors who the Mandarin planned on releasing into the world. Stark rebelled however and the Mandarin was destroyed. However the rings soon gained their own sentience and mysteriously made their way out of shield custody onto the hands of 10 earthly warriors, codenamed Mandarin 1 through Mandarin 10. 

Eventually however they were stopped and the rings found their way back to the Mandarin. And that's his history. Powers-wise, without his rings the Mandarin is exceptionally skilled in nearly every form of martial arts known to man. He is the leading authority on McLuhan science and lore and has an expert knowledge of strategy and history. He has a mastery of his personal Qi energy and can manipulate it to enhance his strength, durability, healing, and resistance. With his 10 rings of power he has the following abilities. On his left hand his little finger wields zero, the ring with the mastery of cold and ice. His ring finger wields the Liar, the ring with hypnotic and illusion casting powers. His middle finger wields Lightning, the ring that can emit electricity. 

His index finger wields Incandescence, the ring that can emit heat and flame. And his thumb wields Dymonic, the ring that can manipulate light within the electromagnetic spectrum. On his right hand his little finger wields Nightbringer, the ring that can manipulate dark force energy. His ring finger wields Spectral which can separate molecular structures in a disintegration beam. His middle finger wields Spin, the ring with the mastery of air and wind. His index finger wields Influence, the ring that can project force blasts and grants telekinetic ability. And finally his thumb wields Remaker, the ring that can transmute elements. 

In addition to the rings, the Mandarin also has a McLuhan teleportation device and a McLuhan mind transference device. And that's everything he could do. That is a lot. 

That is very specific holy cow. But it's nothing that an M-Wand can't go toe to toe with. Oh we'll find out. We'll find out. Yeah let's get into the duel and speculate on how one of the 1000 simulated matches will go. The winner is determined by simulations, not the speculation, but it's fun to imagine how this could play out. We don't set any rules for this match other than the characters don't know anything about each other going in, except that the other character is a threat that needs to be put down. And we say they start off about 50 meters apart in an environment that has no bearing on the match itself because we don't take stats for the environment. 

Plus certain characters have advantages in some environments over others, and we want these characters to win on their own merit. So let's get into it. The characters meet on the battlefield? Who goes first? 

I don't think Mandarin will go first, he'll just kind of like stand there, like menacingly with his hands and his sleeves just watching, waiting for his foolish opponent to make his first move. Okay, Abra will start off then with the magic trick. Let's say he starts off with a card trick. He'll pull out this deck of cards from his suit, that he'll just shuffle through the air and they just fly around him before he sends them zipping right towards the Mandarin. Their rays are sharp so they're just going to slice him to bits. Except without even moving a muscle, Mandarin just stands there and sees these cards flying toward him and right before they touch him and cut him, they get disintegrated mid-air through the use of the Mandarin's spectral ring. That's one that disintegrates things? 

Yeah, it separates molecular structures. And then the Mandarin counters. He points a fist right in Abra Kadabra's direction and he shoots out of his incandescent ring this flaming fiery mythical serpent that snakes its way mid-air toward Abra Kadabra and just engulfs him in flame. Okay, but before that fiery serpent can reach Abra, he removes his top hat and from that hat he conjures this flock of ice birds that just dive bomb the flaming serpent and douse him from the cold. Don't you know that fire melts ice? 

Come on. Yeah, but I mean fire melts ice into water which puts out fire. So in the end, ice wins. Plus they're just really cold. 

So okay. Abra's then going to take that hat and he's going to fling it towards the Mandarin like a frisbee and it just starts circling around the Mandarin, generating this tornado that just sends the Mandarin flying uncontrollably into the air. Except it wouldn't because Mandarin has his spin ring which controls wind. So he's able to control himself while he's in mid-air and he like lowers himself back down toward the ground while on this like air cloud while shooting huge ass lightning bolts at Abra using his lightning ring. Okay, I mean but Abra, he just uses his M metal wand as like a lightning rod to absorb the electricity. 

And then gets electrocuted. No, no, it all gets stored into the wand. And then from like behind his back he pulls out this crystal ball and he taps it with his wand so all the electricity transfers into the crystal ball which then just curls towards the Mandarin and like traps him inside of it. Traps him? I thought it was going to like explode or something. 

No, no, no, no. It traps him and then like flies back to Abra and he's able to look into it and like it reveals to him everything that the Mandarin's rings can do, all ten of them. Well that's pretty cool, he's like a fortune teller. 

Exactly, yeah, yeah. So the Mandarin's trapped inside this crystal ball, how is he going to get out? He's not, it's magic. 

Or you know, kind of like magic. Alright, well the first thing that Mandarin is going to do while he's inside the crystal ball is to prevent Abra Kedabra from learning everything about his rings. Mandarin is going to use his Nightbringer ring to kind of cloud the crystal ball with dark force energy so Abra Kedabra can't divine shit from it. 

Okay? And then Mandarin teleports out of the ball using his McLuhan teleportation device and he uses his Ice Ring Zero to transform the crystal ball that's in Abra Kedabra's hand into ice which then freezes Abra Kedabra's hand. And with the crystal ball and Abra Kedabra's hand frozen, Mandarin shoots out this focused force beam with his influence ring that just shatters the ball and Abra Kedabra's hand. His hand shattered? 

Yeah. Well I mean, Abra, you know, he still has his other hand with the wand so he just gestures to the shattered pieces and they reform into like a solid hand which flies toward the Mandarin like really fast and just starts choking him out. Now as that happens, as it happens, Abra's real hand emerges from his sleeve. The Mandarin just froze a fake one. It was like a false hand? Yeah. Chokes him out? Yeah. 

That's kind of, I don't know, that's macabre. He's done that to the flash before. Oh really? Yeah, with a disembodied arm. Interesting. Okay, well the Mandarin is just going to use his Qi strength to just rip that disembodied hand off of his throat and then he's going to summon this Terracotta Warrior army from the ground using his Remaker ring which he's done before against Iron Man and with this army of stone warriors he commands them to march toward Abra and just surround him and just stab him with their spears or swords or whatever they have. 

That's actually pretty cool. But what ring can control Terracotta Warriors? Oh, it's probably a mixture of a few rings, definitely Remaker, probably a little bit of the Lyre ring and influence and spectral. He can like use them in combinations and stuff. 

Okay. It looks like Abra gets stabbed to death. Or so Mandarin thinks. Really Abra getting stabbed to death was just an illusion. In reality, he teleported away from the Warriors and behind the Mandarin. And you know how like magicians are always like stealing people's watches and stuff without them even like noticing? Nope. Yes you do. 

Don't lie. As the Mandarin is like distracted by all the carnage, Abra could Abra uses like sleight of hand to quickly remove the Mandarin's rings and put them on his own fingers. Or so Abra thinks because Mandarin can use illusions too. So Abra looks down at his hands to see the rings vanish because they were never really there. 

They were an illusion created by the Mandarin's Lyre ring because Mandarin's smart enough to not get pickpocketed. And to teach Abra a lesson in getting too close, he's just going to karate chop Abra's wand in half and just kick him right in his chest away from him, knocking him to the ground. Then as Abra's lying on the ground, Mandarin's going to be like you fool and just laser blast him into a smear. Or so Mandarin thinks. Because out of the ring instead of a laser, it just shoots out like a bouquet of flowers. 

Okay. Abra knew that Mandarin has an illusion cast in green from you know when he saw into the crystal ball. So he was able to preempt like a counter to Mandarin's own counter. In reality, Abra is wielding the rings and he just stands up and shows the Mandarin his hands with all of the rings on them. 

And the Mandarin looks down at his own hands like confused and his rings just vanish. You can't do that. You can't out illusion an illusion master. 

That doesn't work. Abra's way better at illusions than Mandarin. It's like his whole thing. 

You don't even know that. So now that Abra has all of his rings, he just points them all at the Mandarin and fires them all off at the same time, obliterating Mandarin and ending this match. Except what you don't know is that Mandarin has a psychic link with the rings, having spent years training in how to use them and use them a clue in technology. So other people can't just steal these rings and use them. So they do nothing for Abra. And in fact, Mandarin is able to pull them back to him telekinetically back onto his hands. 

Even without a ring, you could do that. Yep. Okay. 

Okay. But before the Mandarin gets his rings back, like Abra's technology is self repairing. It's like self healing. So that M wand that the Mandarin karate chopped in half. Yeah. By this time, it's already repaired itself. 

It's one whole thing. And as the Mandarin's rings are flying back to him, Abra uses his wand to conjure up his top hat in the path of the flying rings. So the rings fly into the hat and Abra makes the hat just vanish, just disappear. So now you see them. Now you don't. 

That was really good. So where did the rings go away? Far, far away. 

Never going to see them again for the rest of this match. Mandarin is now like powerless. All right. Well, okay. 

That sucks. But Mandarin doesn't need the rings necessarily to be formidable. So he's just going to savagely just blitz Abra and just kick the shit out of him. It's going to be hilarious to watch. Like he's going to get punched like 10 times in the face. 

And and Mandarin is just going to wipe the floor with him using his knowledge of the martial arts and his enhanced strength. Like Abra is going to get smashed ribs. Both of his legs are going to get broken. He's just he's going to be bruised and bloody. And he's going to learn how the Mandarin just doesn't fuck around with a bunch of silly shit when it comes down to it. 

You think Abra is going to let all of that happen to him? I think he's going to be surprised by how formidable of a hand to hand combatant Mandarin is. And I think he's going to get his ass beat 10 times over before he even realizes what's happening. He probably gets his ass beat like maybe once or twice times over. We'll say five. We'll say five. 

Sure. I guess regardless, you know, Abra still has his power. So he uses his M wand to like manipulate the time around the Mandarin and just age him rapidly, turning him into like a fleshy skeleton and then eventually into dust. He's just gone. There's nothing there. 

Game set match. But Mandarin still has his mind transference headband on his head. And as he's turning into a skeleton before he turns into dust, Mandarin transfers his mind into Abra's. That's so dumb. 

Game set match. What you don't know, though, is that Abra has like psychic defense technology from the future that you don't even know about that prevents the Mandarin from going into his head. Is that true? 

Does he have a sure? So Mandarin's mind has no place to go. Then Mandarin's mind is going to go into Abra cadavers wand itself, the M metal wand, but he can project his consciousness, not just into people, but into objects like how he did with his rings. So Mandarin's consciousness is in the wand and Mandarin uses the wand's power to just vaporize Abra. And then Mandarin lives on within the wand to, you know, possess whoever possesses it next. The end. 

The heck? He was dead long before that ever happened. He was his mind was already gone. There's nothing to transfer. There's nothing there. Nope. He's in the wand like Soran was in his ring. 

That's crazy. I think that's actually probably a good place to end the match. So either the Mandarin vaporized Abra and lives on within Abra's wand or Abra dusted the Mandarin before he could transfer his mind. Let's go ahead and run the 1000 simulations on these guys and find out who wins and which scenario takes place. These two guys can just do way too much stuff. I'm just going to say that they're both really powerful villains. I don't know how Iron Man or how the Flash ever stand a chance because they're they're pretty badass. 

Yeah, statistically, they're pretty up there in the charts. We said that Abra was slightly more evasive than Mandarin just because he often goes intangible when going up against foes like Superman or the Flash. We also said that he's more perceptive just because he carries a lot of tech on him like his crystal ball that's able to give him information and what he calls mystic senses. Yeah, but intangibility isn't that much greater than the Mandarin's force fields that he can generate. But Mandarin freaking knows martial arts like no one's business. He freaking annihilated Abra Kadabra within the fighting skill stat. Everything else is pretty close. Yeah, that fighting skill stat is freaking killing me. That was like the biggest disparity between the characters. 

It makes me super nervous. And we said that Mandarin was more durable than Abra Kadabra considering that Mandarin can increase his toughness with his chi and take hits from like Iron Man. Whereas I've seen Abra Kadabra get his jaw broken pretty easily and pretty quickly, obviously, by the Flash. 

Yeah. So after going through all of the stats and running all of the simulations, who do you think came out on top? If I had to guess, it's going to be Mandarin just because of the disparity on that fighting skill stat. And according to the polls that we sent out to social media, the fans agree with me 62% of them sided with the Mandarin in this fight. Which is crazy because early on when I first put up that poll, Abra Kadabra was leading by so much. When I checked it again today, I was like, what? 

What happened? I was pretty confident going into this, that Abra Kadabra was going to win. He just has so much going for him. 

There's almost nothing he can't do. But compared to the Mandarin, he did fall short a little bit more than I thought he would because the Mandarin won this match 65.7% of the time or 657 of the 1000 simulations that we ran. And that's actually really close to what the people guessed in the polls. And it's also like crap because I did not think it would be that high. 

I thought it would be closer to like 50-50. But it's that fighting stat. Like, Abra Kadabra really needs to go to like kung fu lessons or something like that. 

He needs to up his close quarter physical combat game for sure. Yeah, because take away the technology and what else he got. Super villains need something to fall back on. Got to do a burst fight. I think, you know, Abra's kind of proven throughout the years, time and time again, that he really doesn't have that. 

So he's always getting imprisoned or sent back to his original timeline. So I guess all I could say is whatever dude? No, you're supposed to say congrats. No, that's what you're supposed to say. Never. 

I will never do that. Well, if it's any consolation as cool as the Mandarin is in the comics, next week we are going to review Iron Man 3 where you can find out just how uncool he is in that movie. For now, I bet he's going to be really cool and chanky. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. 

But that does it for this duel. Let us know what you thought about the results by writing to us at DynamicDuelPodcast at gmail.com or by visiting us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. You can find links to all of our accounts by visiting our website, dynamicduel.com. And on our site, you can also find a link to our Patreon page where we offer bonus content, including a blooper reel episode that's going out today, actually December 1st. And you can get access to our very own Marvel vs DC card game called Dynamic Duel War. Check out patreon.com slash dynamic duel right after this episode. 

Our lowest tier is only $2 a month. Also, after this episode, don't forget to visit HouseOfPod.com and click on their link for the Hoppies to nominate our podcast for the Colorado Podcast Awards. Again, the nomination submissions close on December 2nd, so you have until then to nominate Dynamic Duel colon DC vs Marvel. 

Yeah, that'd be cool if you guys could help us out with that. Because remember, a vote for the best fans award is not just a vote for us, it's a vote for you. But that does it for this episode. We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers Ken Johnson, Jace Crump, John Staroski, John Spees, John Bacchinina, Isaiah Bethune, and Zachary Hepburn. Thank you guys very much for making this podcast possible, and we'll talk to everyone next week. Up, up and away, true believers. 

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