Authority vs Cabal

This is a DynaMic Network Podcast. 

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 in stat-based battle simulations. 

I'm Johnny DC and I'm his twin brother Marvelous Joe. And in this episode we are doing a team duel against two of the most baddest teams in DC and Marvel, repeating the authority against the Cabal. 

Yeah, for those who may not know who the Cabal are, it's basically Marvel's villain version of the Illuminati, the Illuminati being a clandestine group of superheroes that tackle threats covertly. The Cabal is comprised of some of Marvel's most nefarious villains and you are so fucked for this episode. The authority is going down so damn hard that there's no way they stand a chance. I'm sorry to tell you this now. 

No way, the Cabal is exactly the type of team that the authority would just annihilate. Just freaking destroy them. You don't know anything about the authority. They're not originally from DC Comics, they're from Wildstorm Comics, so I would not expect you to know how powerful they are. But you're gonna learn today. We're gonna tell you all about the teams, run statistics to find out who would actually win between them later on in this match before that. We're gonna break down the comic book and movie news from this past week, which is a lie again because there wasn't any. Studios are really slow on the news lately. It's like they're so gun-shy right now. You don't get why. It's like give us more stuff to talk about. Don't you want us talking about Marvel in DC? 

Yeah, don't they know we have a podcast to run here? What the hell? Selfish bastards. But as always, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Guys are artificially intelligent dual simulator, AJ9K has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up. 

Why hello there. Do you want even more from this podcast? Then become a part of the dynamic dual community on Patreon where you can choose from three tiers. The Dynamic 2.0 tier gives you access to our Discord chat server. 

The Fantastic 4 tier gives you two bonus episodes each month and the X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of this show. Lastly, the Diner Mike podcast network tier lets you create your own podcast using this Monte Carlo simulator. Johnny and Joe will help you develop your show, provide graphic support and consultation, and get you simulation results. Pitch the twins your ideas via email at dynamicduelpodcastatgmail.com. Check it out at patreon.com slash dynamicduel. Pip pip cheerio. 

Thanks AJ9K and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. 

Be sure to tune into the other shows on the Diner Mike podcast network this week including the console combat podcast where hosts John and Dean simulate battles between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode they found out who'd win between Adam Smasher from Cyberpunk 2077 versus Veronica Santangelo from Fallout New Vegas. 

Over on the Max Destruction podcast hosts Scotty and Gilly pay your favor action heroes from film and television against each other. The Macho Twins are taking a quick break for the month of November but they'll be back in December with some Christmas season duels. 

And on the Send Joe World podcast hosts Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. In his next episode Zach is revealing who'd win between Shigio Kageyama aka Mob from Mob Psycho 100 and Tatsumaki the tornado of terror from One Punch Man. 

Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all of the shows in the Dino Mike podcast network. But with that out of the way quick to the no prize. 

A no prize is an award that Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the dynamic duel no prize is a digital award we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week we asked you guys which company would you most want to acquire Warner Brothers and DC Studios and why and this is coming off of the news that Warner Brothers is for sale with a number of other studios placing bids for the acquisition. 

We got three honorable mentions which we'll go over before revealing this week's no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Alex Albro who said, 

Hey guys I think it ought to be Paramount. They've already shown interest in acquiring DC. They don't have any super major theme parks that they're going to want to just market to. They produce great movies you know early MCU films Watchmen, Top Gun Maverick, they've done Footloose, Friday the 13th, they've done a lot of animation stuff. 

They can handle anything that DC is going to throw at them. They also seem to be interested in keeping gun which is good for continuity and their app doesn't charge crazy fees so more people will be inclined to sub and watch the show. 

I would not mind it if Paramount acquired Warner Brothers and I had actually forgotten that they produced some of the early MCU films like Iron Man. 

Yeah that's true Marvel's initial deal was with Paramount for distribution plus Paramount also owns other IP like the Ninja Turtles and all of Nickelodeon which I think DC would be well folded into. 

Great answer Alex our next honorable mention goes to DC Joe who said. 

Definitely don't want Paramount to acquire them for political and sensitive reasons. I'm not going to get into it you guys can look it up. It's very well documented. As for who I do want them to be acquired by universal definitely universal for many synergy reasons. The theme parks the other IPs that they hold their distribution and they support physical media. 

Yeah I had to look up Paramount politics in order to be clear on what Jose Marcell is referring to in regards to the politics of the studio and it looks like decisions like ending the late show with Stephen Colbert are all based around owners David and Larry Ellison trying to court favor with the administration by steering their content away from what they perceive as a liberal bias. Therefore universal would also not be a bad option. 

I like the universal answer mainly for the theme park angle Disney gets a lot of revenue through their theme parks and the Marvel rides have become some of their most popular rides. I would love DC to be able to compete at that same level because I actually think universal studios is superior to the Disney parks. 

Having never been to either of them I will have to take you out your word on that. 

Our final honorable mention goes to Scott Camacho who said. 

I think it's no question it's wherever universal studios is. Just as you have Disney, Marvel, and Fox universal DC and Warner Brothers need to be together on that. I mean just imagine even the universal studios theme parks if you had DC attractions there it's in the writing let it happen. 

Right like I said theme parks huge attractions I want to visit the DC universe IRL and I think the theme parks is the best way to do that. 

You really hunk up on the theme park aspect of this potential deal. 

Well because I know universal could deliver on that end as well as the movie end there's really nothing that Paramount can do that universal can't. 

Plus universal has their hands on some pretty solid IP as well such as the Jurassic franchise. 

Right and movie monsters although they're really not doing anything with that right now. They need DC as a strong IP. So great answer Scotty. The winner of this week's no prize however is by DearBangora who said. 

Hi Denimado. I think the best company to purchase Warner Brothers and DC studios would be Amazon. I think with their deep pockets and their capacity to bring to life the boys as well as Vinceable with a great audience and great awards for both those shows I think they could do something truly amazing with DC studios and DC comics in general. I'd be so excited to see what the future would hold. 

So this was an interesting answer because Amazon is currently not one of the companies that are courting Warner Brothers Discovery to attain their content. That said Amazon is huge it has their fingers in a bunch of different pies including movie studios like MGM including publishing which I think would be great for DC comics. 

And really that's why you picked this answer as the no prize. 

Right because I'm terrified that movie studios will only want to focus on movies and not really care about the comics. I think if anyone were to have the best interests of the publishing aspect of DC it would be a company like Amazon. 

Yeah I'm not sure if like Comcast Universal or Paramount or any of the other studios have strong publishing arms. I know that like Netflix doesn't right because they focus on movies solely but yeah whoever ends up acquiring Warner Brothers and therefore DC would also be acquiring the publishing division and you would want to make sure that that's in good hands because you know that's the source of all this movie and TV show content is the comic books. 

Exactly so great answer by dear 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 in this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done I want to the question of the week. 

Now that peacemaker has come out and we've gone through all of the Marvel and DC shows coming out in 2025 which Marvel or DC movie or TV show from this year has been your favorite and why. 

Yeah there was a number of DC and Marvel projects to come out this year we want to know which one was your favorite. Record your answer at dynamic duel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award that person a dynamic duel no prize that will post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before November 16th. 

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Give 15% off any order with the code Duel at checkout that's D U E L at checkout go to oldglory.com grab the superhero gear you've been meaning to get and use the code Duel to save instantly that's oldglory.com promo code duel. 

But let's go ahead and move on to the main event of this episode a team duel between the hardcore super teams of DC's authority and Marvel's cabal. Okay the authority and the cabal as I mentioned earlier these are two hardcore bad ass super teams who don't take no guff from nobody. 

Yeah I mean the cabal got quite good at destroying entire universes leading up to the events of secret wars where they were ensuring the survival of Marvel 616 at the expense of all the other realities and the multiverse. 

Yeah and the authority is no stranger to destroying planets as well. The authority is a team of good guys but they play by bad guy rules they're all anti heroes 

and they are supposed to be getting a movie within the DC cinematic universe led by James Gunn I wonder if that's still gonna happen. 

Well we did see one of the members of the authority the engineer in the Superman movie that came out this past summer. The authority was supposed to originally be the second movie that was released under the gods and monsters phase one essentially of the DC universe that's changed I'm not sure when we're going to get an authority film rumor has it that it's been transitioned from live action into an animated project but we'll see. Interesting interesting. Of course we've seen a number of members from the cabal in live action including Emma Frost, Dr. Doom, the Submariner and recently 

The Hood and Loki and Norman Osborn yeah basically Marvel is just really on top of things when it comes to getting their characters depicted in live action. Unless it's Modoc then they suck. 

That's true that's true Modoc being a member of the cabal not in the comic books but in the cartoon and video game space. I'll get into the rosters later on but first to explain the methodology behind our duels let's go to our sentient duel simulator Alfred Jarvis 9000. AG9K tell our listeners how you go about determining a winner in our team duel matchups. 

Yes of course sir the way I determine a winner between the two teams is by running 1000 Monte Carlo simulations between every character on each team using their statistics. A Monte Carlo simulation is a probabilistic model used to determine outcomes through random sampling. In this case I randomize the statistics along a normal distribution as a way to simulate the many variables that can occur during battle. The stat parameters are based on the official Marvel power grid from which the DC characters statistics are extrapolated. 

Additional stat categories are included such as range, damage potential, versatility and perception in order to create a more detailed and accurate simulation. The results of the 49,000 simulations provide a percentage of wins for each character on both teams. The team with the higher average win rate is declared the victor as they have a higher probability to win any given battle. In an equitable pairing neither team should win 100% of the matches. The comic book stories have shown that there's even a way for Batman to defeat Superman so the confidence rate of my method falls in line with the precedents that have been established in the source material. My mathematical simulations are without subjectivity or bias. Feats are not the sole consideration nor are fan votes tabulated for determination of the winner. 

Thanks a J9K. 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 the thousands of simulations would play out beat for beat. It's my turn to go first with the DC team's backstory so let me tell you all about the authority. Now before the rise of the authority, Earth's defense against extraterrestrial and metahuman threats was managed by Stormwatch, a United Nations crisis intervention force headquartered aboard the satellite Skywatch. Under the command of successive weathermen including the manipulative Henry Bendix, Stormwatch operated publicly but also covertly through Black Ops teams like Stormwatch Black, composed of Jenny Sparks, the spirit of the 20th century who could manipulate electricity and technology, Jack Hawksmore, a man biologically engineered to bond with cities and draw power from urban environments, and Swift, a Tibetan meta-avian capable of high-speed flight and combat. When Skywatch fell and most of Stormwatch perished in an alien attack, its surviving covert members abandoned the UN Charter and reformed independently. From the ashes of Stormwatch, the authority was born, a new team with a goal of changing the world by any means necessary. Joining them were Angela Spieke, the second engineer who replaced her blood with nanotechnology and became a living machine, Jerome Thorndike, the latest doctor and wielder of Earth's shamanistic magic lineage, and two enhanced operatives rescued from Stormwatch Zero. 

Apollo, a solar-powered superhuman with strength and flight rivaling Superman, and Midniter, a brutal hand-to-hand combatant with a cybernetic brain that could predict every possible move in a fight. The team discovered and took residents aboard the Carrier, a sentient interdimensional vessel capable of traversing the multiverse through the bleed. The authority made their debut, repelling the global assault of Kaizen Gamora, who unleashed his engineered super soldiers, the children of Gamora, across major cities. The team predicted and intercepted Gamora's final strike in Los Angeles, and Midniter destroyed his cloning facility using the Carrier. 

Their next threat came from sliding Albion, an imperialistic version of Britain from a parallel universe born from human alien interbreeding. The Carrier breached their dimension and the authority dismantled their regime from within. In 1999, as the millennium ended, Earth's original creator, a vast god-like entity, returned to reclaim and terraform the planet. The team infiltrated the being's colossal form, and Jenny Sparks electrocuted it from within its brain, ending the threat at the cost of her life. As the spirit of the 20th century, her death marked the end of her era, and leadership of the team passed to Jack Coxmore. The authority retrieved Jenny Quantum, a newborn in Singapore, in the spirit of the 21st century, who had been abducted by Medi-human engineer Dr. Jake Gip Krikstein. 

Swift negotiated her release in exchange for his services aboard the Carrier. Soon after, the Earth's magnetic poles began to reverse due to a former doctor who had succumbed to despair. The authority evacuated Earth's population to alternate Earth's to prevent extinction, and when the rogue doctor was overcome by empathy, he became vulnerable and was killed by Apollo and the engineer, allowing Earth's population to return safely. 

The authority's global interventions attracted opposition from the G7 nations. They dispatched Seth, a being engineered with over a thousand powers who defeated the entire team except Midnighter. While the others were captured and replaced with government-created duplicates, Midnighter escaped with baby Jenny, freed Apollo, and together they eliminated the imposters. Jenny Quantum, now of speaking age, activated a fail-safe that neutralized Seth's abilities. The team was restored and Apollo and Midnighter were married, adopting Jenny as their daughter. They next confronted Reality Incorporated, a multiversal corporate entity that attempted to colonize Earth for profit, as well as a charismatic Medi-human named John Clay, who most of the team was affected. Midnighter and the doctor resisted, the latter managing to purge Clay's influence to end the crisis. In the aftermath, the doctor founded the Church of the Shaman to meet the world's growing spiritual hunger. 

When the US military triggered a rift in the bleed causing the destruction of Florida, the authority staged a bloodless coup and assumed control of the United States to enact reform and prevent further catastrophe. Soon after Jenny Quantum was targeted by her twin sister Jenny Fractal, a genetically altered assassin raised in secret by the Chinese government. Fractal murdered Jenny, but the doctor preserved her soul. 

Midnighter traveled back in time and eliminated the infant Fractal, allowing Jenny Quantum's spirit to inhabit her sister's body. The authority's government collapsed when the Sons of Liberty, a team of superhumans from earlier generations, incited nationwide rebellion. During the conflict, a nuclear-powered sun detonated on the White House lawn, destroying much of Washington, DC. Disillusioned, the authority disbanded. Jenny Quantum, now eight, ventured into the infinite city, a realm inhabited by past Jennies, where she met Jenny Sparks and resolved to rebuild the team. Jenny Quantum aged herself into adolescence and reassembled the authority to challenge a resurgent Henry Bendix, who had orchestrated their downfall. Bendix had corrupted a woman named Rose Tattoo into the spirit of murder and used her to assassinate the doctor, while a president his successor, Habib bin Hassan. During Bendix's confrontation with the authority, he manipulated Midnighter to turn against his team. 

Engineer and Jenny Quantum disabled the threat, and Midnighter executed Bendix. Hassan, as the new doctor, purified Rose Tattoo into the spirit of life who joined the team. The authority then encountered Captain Adam, displaced from the DC universe, who you can learn more about in our Captain Adam vs Wonderman duel episode. Though they sought to return him home, his unstable energies threatened to unravel their universe's reality. As reality collapsed, Captain Adam killed Apollo, Midnighter, and Jenny Quantum, before the hero Void extracted part of her essence from him, triggering a universal reboot. 

You can learn more about Void in our Wildcats vs Inhumans team duel. In the newly formed universe, the authority crash landed in a parallel world devoid of metahuman life. They faced a lovecraftian creature at the bottom of the ocean that psychically fed on the planet's collective unconscious fears. Though the doctor destroyed it using a local human as a conduit, the act wiped out all life on the planet, and the authority departed the dead world aboard the carrier. When the number of the beast program initiated a reality damaging event, the carrier crashed into London, forming the city of Unlondon. Earth became a poisoned wasteland, Jack Hawksmore was gravely injured, the engineer disabled by electromagnetic storms, and Apollo exiled to the upper atmosphere to escape the toxicity. Midnighter roamed the devastated surface, while Swift operated as a scout. 

Survivors mutated into monstrous incubates from exposure to the Warhol virus, while Apollo became infected and was later frozen for safety. Kaizen Gamora resurfaced with a mobile city, seeking to harness authority technology. Swift and the engineer were kidnapped by Prince Lorenzo of Sliding Albion, who sought to harvest their technology, but the two escaped and rescued a long lost member of the Golden, a powerful ancient race once allied with humanity. Jack, merged with Gamora Island's infrastructure, regained his powers and repelled the invasion. Apollo, thought and infected, was released to aid in the final battle. 

Midnighter discovered that Habib bin Hassan, now calling himself the Green Man, had to become unhinged. The authority rescued Gaia, a new century baby, who gifted Midnighter a restorative apple. He used it to cure Apollo, reuniting them, and once the carrier was fully restored, Jack offered humanity refuge aboard the vessel, and a new authority team was formed to lead the Exodus. During the voyage, they encountered the Caribbna, an alien race that consumed living beings for energy. 

With the help of a sentient brain, the surviving remnants of an alien species that fell victim to the Caribbna, the authority defeated them and liberated the captive species. Returning to Earth during a rampage from Gaia, Shift, as the new Doctor, managed to calm her down and end the threat. Following the Flashpoint event, the Wildstorm and DC universes merged. 

In this new reality, a previous version of the authority had existed, with Jenny Sparks and the Doctor operating in secret. A new incarnation emerged when Superman, weakened by alien radiation, sought allies to liberate Warworld from Mongol. Superman's first recruit was the powerful telepath, Manchester Black, whose injuries were healed in exchange for service. They rescued June Moon from a magical prison, adding Enchantress to the team, who you can learn more about in her duel against Marvel's Enchantress. Apollo and Midnighter joined for their strength and precision, while Natasha Irons, Steel's niece who adopted his mantle, came aboard as a tech expert. Light Ray, an alternate universe's version of the Flash, was recruited for her light speed travel, and an Omec android was added as a living weapon. 

The team's first mission went to Rai when Omec attacked Apollo during an attempt to retrieve Light Ray, imprisoned by Eclipsus. Meanwhile, Superman was trapped in the bottle city of Kandor by Ultra Humanite, who planned to possess his body. Superman escaped with help from Brainiac, who delayed humanites' plans. 

You can learn more about Brainiac and Ultra Humanite in their duel episodes against Ultron and Mr. Sinister respectively. As the team regrouped, Apollo and Enchantress and Omec succeeded in freeing Light Ray. With their roster complete, the Authority departed Earth in a new carrier and launched an assault on Warworld and its tyrannical ruler, Mongul, who you can learn more about in our Mongul vs. Annihilus episode. In their opening engagement, Light Ray was killed and Apollo gravely wounded. Most of the team was captured, leaving only Midnighter free to initiate a rebellion that eventually led to Mongul's death and the liberation of Warworld. 

And that's the Authority's history so far. Now for my seven member roster, I'm going with the original team members of Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmore, Swift, Engineer, Doctor, Apollo, and Midnighter. Jenny Sparks is the cynical spirit of the 20th century who commands electricity, is able to travel through power lines, fire lightning, and transform into energy. Jack Hawksmore is a post-human urban avatar whose cybernetic body draws power from cities, giving him enhanced senses, leaping phasing, and even control over the urban landscape itself. 

Swift is a Tibetan-born metahuman with avian traits, including talons, supersonic flight enhanced senses, and a psychic rapport with birds. The Engineer is a genius nanotech cyborg with liquid metal blood that allows her to shapeshift, self-replicate, fabricate weapons, manipulate tech, and alter her size. The Doctor is Earth's shamanistic protector with reality-warping magic drawn from the collective memory of all who have ever lived, granting him near-limitless power and wisdom. Apollo is a solar-powered powerhouse with super strength, durability, and speed, as well as the ability to fly and emit energy. 

His husband, Midnighter, is a bio-engineered super-soldier and master tactician with an arsenal of club and edged weaponry, as well as enhanced strength, reflexes, healing, and the ability to predict every possible outcome of a fight before it begins. That's the Authority. 

With as many times as their planet went to shit in the history of the team, I'm not convinced that they're going to be able to hold up to the cabal. 

Every time I went to shit, it was not really their fault, and they kind of rescued it. 

Excuses, excuses. I don't want their excuses. I think the team's going to be in big trouble in this matchup, and let me tell you why by going into the history of the cabal. The Skrulls, a shapeshifting alien race secretly infiltrated Earth over years by replacing key heroes, politicians, and leaders with imposters, believing their infiltration fulfilled a prophecy to make Earth their new homeworld. The invasion erupted into full-scale war between them and Earth's protectors when their deception was exposed. This war culminated in the public execution of the Skrull Queen Varanke by Norman Osborn, who at the time led the Thunderbolts and was suppressing his Green Goblin persona through medication. You can learn more about Osborn in our Joker vs Green Goblin Duel and more about the Thunderbolts in their duel against the Watchmen. Following the secret invasion, Norman Osborn parlayed his superheroic actions into unprecedented political capital. He was given command of National Superhuman Security after the international espionage organization Shield was dismantled and he began a new one called Hammer. Osborn seized Avengers to have Ozborn's Council, soon known as the Cabal, contained influential villains from around the world. Its initial inclusions were the Submariner, Emma Frost, Dr. Doom, Loki, and the Hood, the latter of whom's real name was Parker Robbins, a small-time criminal who gained mystical powers after stealing a cloak and boots from a slain demon servant of Dormammu. 

The cloak granted the Hood invisibility, levitation, and limited mystical energy projection, making him a formidable street-level crime boss with supernatural power. Ozborn's arrangement promised each member of the Cabal a path to their ambitions in exchange for supporting his regime and answering his summons when called. Ozborn's pitch tailored incentives to each conspirator. He sought Frost's telepathy to help keep the table's liars honest, while capitalizing on her leadership stature among mutants. He expected Doom to normalize relations between Liberia and the United States through a personal understanding. He demanded that the Hood register his criminal army on the streets through government channels so they could be deployed under Thunderbolt's control. He agreed to advance Loki's designs on Asgard's throne and help return the realm to the heavens, as, at the time, Asgard was in the skies above Oklahoma after being rebuilt following the events of Ragnarok. 

You can learn more about this in our Aries vs. Loki duel. Finally, he dangled the surface world's cooperation with Atlantis before Namor, something that the shield had never offered. Even as the Cabal nodded along, power dynamics behind the scenes remained volatile. Ozborn quietly held a deterrent in reserve, the sentry's destructive other self known as the Void, threatening to unleash him should any member of the Cabal betray him. 

Even at its inception, the group's alliances nested within alliances. Namor and Dr. Doom, long comfortable dealing at sovereigns beyond ordinary law, renewed their understanding when Ozborn inevitably imploded, Doom would rule the land and Namor the seas. Emma Frost and Namor, whose brief past romance had been revealed during an earlier attempt to recruit him into the Hellfire Club, forged a new pact with clear contingencies. Frost promised to protect Namor's psyche from Ozborn's coercion, while Namor vowed to stand for mutant kind if Frost needed him. You can learn more about Namor and Frost and their respective duels against Aquaman and Poison Ivy. Loki moved first to hasten Ozborn's downfall while empowering himself. 

On the geopolitical front, Loki courted Doom with a bargain to relocate Asgard from Oklahoma to Liberia, provided Thor was banished, a condition that Doom imposed to ensure his realm did not inherit the God of Thunder. In the super-criminal underworld, the hood's mystical connection to Dormammu was severed when sorcerers including Dr. Strange and Dr. Voodoo purged the demon's influence and his signature cloak was lost in battle. Loki exploited the vacuum, leading the hood and Madamask to Cuba to recover the Asgardian Nornstones, restoring the hood's power and making him indebted to Loki. Each maneuver weakened Ozborn's stability by army gactors whose loyalties lay with Loki's long game rather than with Hammer. Within mutant politics, Frost set conditions that would determine whether the cabal fractured or endured. As Ozborn moved to contain the X-Men by constructing a Dark counterpart team under his authority, similar to the Dark Avengers. This led to intensified friction with Namor, who called on an Atlantean terrorist cell that in turn prompted a heavy-handed response from Hammer. 

Namor's cousin Namor interfered against Ozborn's horses, also deepening the rift. When the moment came, Emma Frost revealed herself as a double agent to the cabal after discovering Charles Xavier had been tortured in Hammer custody. With Namor at her side, she turned the Dark X-Men confrontation into a rout, publicly undercutting Ozborn's claim to control mutant affairs and forcing him to accept the new mutant nation of Utopia near San Francisco, despite his orders that Namor's head and Frost's heart be brought to him as trophies. As cracks widened, Ozborn's control faltered even within the cabal's council chamber. A confrontation with Doom escalated until the L'Averian ruler retaliated with a bio-weapon attack on Avengers Tower and then walked away from the arrangement, forcing Ozborn to bring Taskmaster on board. When Dr. Doom later demanded the Submariner honor their agreement, Ozborn unveiled the terrible deterrent he had hinted at from the start, the Void. 

The Void hurled Doom through a wall, but it was actually a Doombot who dissolved into swarms of mechanical scarabs that overran Avengers Tower, forcing the Dark Avengers into retreat. The spectacle exposed Ozborn's dependence on intimidation and the brittleness of a coalition held together by threats. The cabal's reputation among villains did not translate into lasting leverage. 

For example, the groups perceived influence encouraged even warlords such as Dracula to seek latitude for his European conquests through Doom, arrangements that Doom refused to indulge. However, the broader villain community ultimately turned against Ozborn due to his own escalation. The act of his dark reign over the superpowered populace culminated in an attempted siege of Asgard itself. The overreach shattered the state façade that had shielded Ozborn and he was brought down by the combined efforts of Earth's heroes and public scrutiny. 

Ozborn was imprisoned, the Hood and Taskmaster were apprehended, Loki's body was destroyed in the battle, Emmafrost and Namor returned to their ranks and Doom resumed uncontested rule in Latteria. With its architect disgraced and its member scattered, the cabal disbanded. However, years later a new iteration emerged from a different ethical crisis. The Illuminati were forced to confront apocalyptic collisions between universes called incursions that could only be averted by destroying one of the Earth's involved. 

For a time, the Illuminati bore that burden, but the moral cost grew intolerable. Everyone but Namor refused to continue annihilating other worlds to save their own. Concluding that survival required the will to do what the others would not, Namor assembled a new cabal of beings for whom extinction level of violence was an acceptable instrument of policy. This included Thanos and his Black Order, whom you've learned more about in their duel against Darkseid's elite. In contrast to Ozborn's backroom government, this version of the cabal was an operational death squad, aimed at preserving a single Earth at the expense of all others. 

This new group prosecuted its campaign with Muthas efficiency. Where the Illuminati had agonized, Namor's cabal acted, detonating worlds and leaving entire realities in ruins. Namor's actions destroyed his old alliances. 

He didn't just abandon the heroes' methods, he rejected their entire sense of morality. Each successful destruction forestalled the next incursion at the price of incalculable deaths, and each victory pushed Namor deeper into reliance on his new allies, whose goals of cosmic domination and nihilistic balance diverged sharply from his own. As the final worlds collapsed toward a final incursion, Namor ensured that his cabal would not perish with the dying worlds. Anticipating the end, they secured passage aboard a specially designed life pod unit built by an alternate reality, Reed Richards, a vessel capable of withstanding the universe's unraveling. Reality gave way into the battle world, a patchwork planet ruled by Dr. Doom and composed of various worlds from throughout the multiverse. The cabal endured the journey there, but they disbanded as Thanos abandoned their goals to instead make an attempt for Dr. Doom's newfound power, only to have his spine ripped out. 

And that's the cabal's history. For the person roster, I'm choosing to forgo some of the key members, such as Norman Osborn, who was part of our Sinister Six team duel, Namor, who was part of the Fantastic Four duel, and Thanos, who was part of the Black Order duel. But I am including the original members of Dr. Doom, Emma Frost, the White Queen, Loki, and the Hood. To round out the remaining spots, I'm going with two villains who are members of the cabal in the Avengers Assemble cartoon, and the contest of champions video game, and that is Red Skull and Modoc. 

For the seventh and final spot, I'm going with a villain who is also a member of the cabal in the cartoons, and that is the Hulk's arch nemesis, the leader, who started out as a janitor named Samuel Stearns, who was exposed to gamma radiation at the chemical plant where he worked. It granted him superhuman intelligence and an enlarged cranium, making him as smart as the Hulk was strong. He possessed a genius-level IQ, perfect memory, and the ability to process information and devise strategies far beyond human capability. He can communicate telepathically, move objects with telekinesis, and can emit gamma radiation blasts from his head. 

He has built advanced technology including laser pistols, kinetic absorption gauntlets, and teleportation devices. So that's my team to reiterate you're going up against Dr. Doom, Ammafrost, Loki, the Hood, Red Skull, Modoc, and the leader. 

In a world where fantasies collide and heroes clash, one podcast network rises above the rest. Prepare yourself for the ultimate showdowns in comic books, video games, movies, and anime. The Dynamite Podcast Network presents Console Combat, where video game legends brawl every Monday. Dynamic Duel, where comic book titans smash every Tuesday. Max Destruction, where TV and action heroes battle every Wednesday. And Sendro World, where anime champions clash every Thursday. Join us as we speculate on the matches and armed with the power of mathematical simulations, discover who will emerge victorious. Visit dynamicpodcast.com where we settle the debate and settle the score. 

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That's OldGlory.com, promo code, Duel. Now that we got the team's histories and rosters out of the way, let's speculate on how one of the thousands of simulated matches will go between them. The winners determined by simulations, not the speculation, but it's fun to imagine how the fight could play out. AG9K, what are the rules of our speculation? 

Well, I should say there are no rules, other than the teams have no prior knowledge of the other going into the fight. All they are aware of starting out is that the other side is a threat that needs to be eliminated. For the speculation, the groups will begin approximately 50 meters apart in a nondescript environment that will have no bearing on the match itself, as no environmental statistics are considered in my simulations. The teams must earn victory on their own merit. 

Alright then, let's get into it. The authority and the cabal meet on the battlefield. Who goes first? I'm gonna say that Emma Frost starts out. She's gonna scan the minds of every member of the authority, and she's gonna be like, holy crap, I thought we were fucked up guys. But she delivers all the details to every other member of the cabal, psychically. 

Okay, so the Garden of Ancestral Memory is going to warn the doctor that he's being brain scanned. And since all of the members of the authority wear this radio telepathic nanotech device on their temporal lobe, the doctor is able to warn all of them that Emma Frost is psychically scanning them. And so Jenny Sparks is gonna tell Swift telepathically to take out Emma Frost. So Swift jets toward her at hyper speed, Talon's first, and she just slashes her to rubens. 

Yeah, it's too bad that the cabal do everything about the authority now, and they knew about the nanotech device, and they anticipated Swift's attack. Because Emma Frost just turns into Diamond. And so Swift isn't scratching shit. And Modoc, he's just gonna straight up disintegrate Swift with an energy beam from his headband. So now the authority know that the cabal aren't fucking around. 

Damn, like that, huh? Okay. Well, the authority also does not fuck around. And they're gonna let the cabal know that by having the engineer duplicate herself into like six other engineers who all form their forearms into machine guns, and start firing at the cabal laying down suppressive fire while Apollo is going to speed bullets Dr. Doom and punches 10 head right off of his body. 

Force field. Dr. Doom blocks both the bullets from the engineer and Apollo's attack with a dome force field. And so the authority are trying to get inside this force field dome, but it fills up with green smoke hiding every member of the cabal that's inside of it. 

Except that Jack Hawksmore, he's also known as the king of cities. He has this spatial sense that allows him to see what they're doing within the green smoke. And with each of their locations pinpointed within, he's going to cause the ground directly beneath them to quickly just launch upwards, slamming all of them into the ceiling of the dome shield. And it's going to knock all of them out, as well as bring down the force field. 

Oh, oh, he thinks so, huh? Yeah, when the force field dissipates and the green smoke clears away, the only thing that's left there is a green snake that grows into the size of like a freight train. Because the hood teleported every member of the cabal out of the force field just in time, except for Loki, who was providing a distraction with the smoke and shape shifting into a giant serpent. And that snake is just going to wrap around Apollo and devour him whole. 

Okay, well, that snake and Loki, I guess, is going to explode in this blinding light of energy from Apollo from within. And with Jack able to sense the cabal teleporting probably behind them, he's able to warn the others. And Jenny Sparks generates this powerful arc of electricity that chains to all of them and electrocutes them. 

Yeah, yeah, Jack thinks he's able to sense the cabal behind him, but only because of a psychic suggestion by Amarfrost. Jack doesn't really know anything. He's been manipulated this whole time. In reality, Jenny doesn't hit anything with her electricity. And when the cabal do reappear from the hood's teleportation, they're actually surrounding the authority on all sides, including Loki. He didn't actually get blown up. 

It was just an illusion diversion. And the red skull shoots from a gas gun, his dust of death compound at midnight, which poisons midnight and just desiccates his face into a red skull killing him. 

Midnighter is going to calculate what red skull is about to do. So just before red skull pulls the trigger on his gas gun, midnighters going to hurl his night stick into Red skull's chest area with enough force that it impales him. That's going to cause the red skull to squeeze his trigger as he gets knocked backward. And he ends up spraying the white queen in the face, desiccating her and causing her to die. Well, that's stupid. 

Two birds with one stone, I guess. That's right. But the hood is going to go for the same. He said he's going to up the game by shooting hellfire bullets from his twin pistols that are going to curve and hit Jenny Sparks and Midnighter and to the doctor all in one shot. 

Oh, no worries. The doctor, he's going to transmute those bullets into butterflies and Jack causes a massive geyser to erupt beneath the hood that's going to launch him into the air with boiling hot water. 

Hot water is not going to affect the hood. You know, he's like partially possessed by a demon while wearing the cloak. I don't think boiling water is going to hurt him if he's not hurt by like fire, you know, the hood is just going to teleport off this geyser and then in his demon form, he's just going to eviscerate Jack Hawksmore. So Jack is out and then Dr. Doom shoots an electric blast that fries the engineer circuits. So she's out too. 

I'm sorry. Jenny Sparks controls electricity, like all electricity around them. So she redirects that blast toward Modoc, which fries his circuits and shuts him down. So he's out of the match. Meanwhile, the doctor seeing the hood demon exercises the demon using knowledge from an old priest. And with the hood depowered, the doctor is going to cause him to just melt into a puddle. So he's out as well. 

Okay. Well, Jenny, she suddenly gets a dagger in the back by Loki, who snuck over to her and stabbed her. And then he teleports over to Midnighter and freezes him with an ice blast. 

Okay, well, Apollo doesn't appreciate that. So he's going to fly over and land between Loki and Midnighter, generating this blending flash of light to stun Loki before picking up and flying off with Midnighter to thaw him with heat energy. Meanwhile, the engineer is going to go up against Dr. Doom, and they're going to be exchanging laser blasts as a distraction while her duplicates maneuver behind him and infect his suit, shutting it down. 

You don't think that Doom has protection from nanite invasion? Like his systems have their own like mini nano Doom bots that would prevent such an attack like this. They stop the shutdown, and then in fact, they remotely hack the engineer's technology, infecting her with a virus into her system that turns into like this uncontrollable swarm of malfunctioning nano bots. 

I'm sorry, you don't think engineer has protection against other nanites? I say it's a Doom's nano bots that get the virus, infecting his system and causing all of his armor, like even his helmet, to fall off revealing his ugly mug. 

You can't just repeat my attack. You just literally did what I did. I say Doom's nanite attack is superior. You say otherwise. So it looks like we just have a stalemate, which means that Doom and the engineer are just going to be glitching each other in attempts to hack each other with nano bots. Meanwhile, while that's happening, the leader, he's going to mind control Apollo into crushing Midnighter like a grape, just turning him into this paste that will take way too long for Midnighter to heal from. 

Oh damn. Okay. Well, I guess to prevent the leader from controlling Apollo into killing everyone else on his team, the doctor is going to have to kill his own teammate by sucking all of the light and energy away from Apollo with this magic black hole, which is also going to pull him in. But the doctor is also going to maneuver that black hole over to Loki as well, vanishing him from the match before sealing that black hole closed. Okay. 

So your guy took out both Apollo and Loki? Yes. Okay. Uh, well, while that's going on, Dr. Doom manages to out hack the engineer by using magic, because he can do magic. She can't. Dr. Doom adds magic to his computer virus that she can't out hack. So he shuts her down with his magic nano bots. She's out of the match. And then the leader is going to fire a gamma mental bolt from his brain that just fries the doctor's mind and sever his connection to all those other minds in the ancestral garden. 

Okay. For maybe like a second, because at the last second, the doctor, he's going to stretch time and that's going to give him enough time for past doctors in the garden of ancestral memory to help the doctor regain access to his body, at which point he's just going to transform the leader's head into an actual scrotum with testes instead of brains. So he's out. And it looks like all we have left is Dr. Doom versus the doctor. So the doctor is going to end this right away by having doom be surrounded by his worst nightmare, a swarm of endless squirrels that devour him whole leaving nothing but his faceplate in the end. 

You're talking about when Dr. Doom was allegedly quote unquote defeated by squirrel girl. I mean, it was not alleged it happened. Well, Dr. Doom, while he's being attacked by the squirrels is going to remotely activate the time circuitry in his armor. That's going to rewind time to the point that the doctor summoned the squirrels and then doom just casts a mirror spell that results in the doctor getting eaten alive by his own swarm of squirrels. 

Okay, you want to play with time? I'm going to say that doesn't happen. And instead, the doctor actually jumps back in time to when doom was a newborn baby. And he just kills him in the crib. 

No, Doom already has a contingency set up as like this magic trap for anyone who would try to kill him as a baby. And so the doctor attempts to do this, but he just gets deatomized by like a trio of demons. 

Okay, and then the doctor reatomizes himself and then kills dooms parents instead. 

How does he reatomize himself? This is magic, bitch. But it's magic deatomization. I guess we have a stalemate here too. It's Dr. Doom's magic versus the doctor's magic, except that doom is going to out magic the doctor by incorporating science into his magic, which is something the doctor can't do. So there you go. The cabal wins. 

Yeah, sorry, magic trump science. So the cabal loses, in fact. 

Well, let's go ahead and leave the match there. Let's run the simulations. We'll find out which one of these scenarios happens. Either Dr. Doom manages to out time magic the doctor or the doctor manages to out time magic Dr. Doom. It's a weird sentence there, but let's run the stats and find out what happens. Agenine K hit it. 

Inputting data, running calculations, processing results, simulations complete. 

This was a good one. The authority is hella powerful, except for Swift, which we'll get into later. The cabal is also hella powerful, except for Red Skull. So it's kind of probably fitting that we paired up Swift and Red Skull being as they were by far the weakest members of each of our teams. Right. 

Yeah, we paired up Swift and Red Skull. We also paired up Apollo and Dr. Doom sort of in a callback to our Superman versus Dr. Doom episode. Statwise Midnighter was comparable to the Hood, Jenny Sparks to White Queen, the Engineer to Modoc and the Doctor to Loki, and Jack Hawksmore to the leader. Yeah, that was not a great matchup, but that was kind of all that was left. But statwise, as always in our team battles, everyone went up against everyone else. As we mentioned, Swift was my weakest character. She had an average win rate of only 12.3%. 

Yeah, I thought the most powerful member of your team was going to be Apollo, but it was actually the Doctor. And before this matchup, I had no idea who the Doctor was. Yeah, the guy's insanely powerful. 

He's actually a pretty cool character. I'm glad we pin him up against Loki. They're both almost omnipotent. 

Loki was actually just as powerful as Dr. Doom, who is incredibly impressive statistically. It's probably why he beat Superman all those years ago. He's basically like Batman meets Dr. Strange meets Iron Man all rolled up into one. So yeah, Dr. Doom had quite the impressive win rate winning 74.4% of all his matches. Loki won 73.9% of all his matches. 

More of the authority characters on my roster had higher win rates than yours. Four of my guys had average win rates above 50%. 

Yeah, whereas I only had three, which included Dr. Doom, Loki, and Modok. Although the leader was right there winning 49.5% of all his matches, so roughly half. In regards to the overall stat comparison, the authority just wiped the floor with the cabal when it came to speed. But the cabal totally dominated the authority when it came to intelligence. There were a lot of master minds on this version of the cabal. 

So taking all of this into consideration, Joseph, which team do you think came out on top in this team duel match? 

I got to give it to the cabal. How can you not? There's Doom. You don't bet against Doom. You don't bet against the Red Skull, Modok, White Queen, Loki, Leader, I just I'm naming everybody now. 

They're all fantastic. Who the hell is Jack Hawksmore? That's not even a real name. It's certainly not the name of someone who deserves to win a match. I mean, his nickname is also the King of Cities. King of shitties. I don't know what I'm saying. 

I think that Instagram agrees with me because 51% of our followers who voted in our poll voted for the cabal. Well, that's now a whole lot at all. Were you trying to rhyme right there? No. Okay. 

I mean, any chance I get? Well, let's find out who won. A.J .9K. The results, please. The winner in the team duel matchup between the authority and the cabal is the cabal. 

Damn straight. What did you say about me learning today earlier? What was that, Jonathan? 

Are you going to learn something because the cabal only won 50.6% of the thousands of matches compared to the authority who won 49.4. This was an insanely close matchup. 

That is closer than I thought it was going to be. Actually, given the stat discrepancies, I would have figured that the cabal would have come out more wins ahead. I guess that means that in the simulations, the team didn't perform as well as they probably should have. 

I'm not going to lie. After we entered all of the stats, I thought the cabal was going to do a lot better. I'm not sure what happened there. 

There may have been some luck in your favor with that. Not enough to win though, but I got close. 

I got real close, and that's all that matters. It's not who wins. It's just about having fun. 

I did have fun winning. Yeah, you're right. Did you have fun losing? I mean, not really. You just said it's about having fun. Whatever. Great job, Marvel fans. You did it again. Like I said, we're winning the whole month of November. This is just the start. AG9K, help close us out. 

In our next episode, we are doing another duel, this time pitting the cowboy, Jonah Hex against the zombie cyborg, Deathlock. 

We want to give a big thanks to our executive producers, Jon Straussky, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin 

Belcom, Nathaniel Wegener, Levi Aitin, Austin Wieselowski, E.J. Dunkerly, Nick Ibonto, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Speese, Dean Malesky, Devin Davis, Joseph Kirsting, Mike Williams, and Paul Graves for helping make this podcast possible. We'll talk to you guys next week. 

Up, up, and away, true believers. 

You will respect my authoritar.