Authority vs Cabal

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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This is a DynaMic Network Podcast. Hi, welcome tothe Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we

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review superhero films and debate thesuperiority between Marvel and DC by comparing
their characters in stat-based battlesimulations. I'm Johnny DC and I'm his twin
brother Marvelous Joe. And in this episode we aredoing a team duel against two of the most baddest
teams in DC and Marvel, repeating the authorityagainst the Cabal. Yeah, for those who may not know

(00:51):
who the Cabal are, it's basically Marvel'svillain version of the Illuminati, the
Illuminati being a clandestine group ofsuperheroes that tackle threats covertly. The
Cabal is comprised of some of Marvel's mostnefarious villains and you are so fucked for this
episode. The authority is going down so damn hardthat there's no way they stand a chance. I'm sorry

(01:13):
to tell you this now. No way, the Cabal is exactlythe type of team that the authority would just
annihilate. Just freaking destroy them. Youdon't know anything about the authority. They're
not originally from DC Comics, they're fromWildstorm Comics, so I would not expect you to know
how powerful they are. But you're gonna learntoday. We're gonna tell you all about the teams,

(01:35):
run statistics to find out who would actually winbetween them later on in this match before that.
We're gonna break down the comic book and movienews from this past week, which is a lie again
because there wasn't any. Studios are really slowon the news lately. It's like they're so gun-shy
right now. You don't get why. It's like give us morestuff to talk about. Don't you want us talking
about Marvel in DC? Yeah, don't they know we have apodcast to run here? What the hell? Selfish

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bastards. But as always, we list our segment timesin our episode description, so feel free to check
out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to aparticular topic. Guys are artificially
intelligent dual simulator, AJ9K has a quickmessage 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

(02:21):
Patreon where you can choose from three tiers. TheDynamic 2.0 tier gives you access to our Discord
chat server. The Fantastic 4 tier gives you twobonus 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 Carlosimulator. Johnny and Joe will help you develop

(02:41):
your show, provide graphic support andconsultation, and get you simulation results.
Pitch the twins your ideas via email atdynamicduelpodcastatgmail.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 onthe Diner Mike podcast network this week

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including the console combat podcast where hostsJohn and Dean simulate battles between popular
video game characters. In yesterday's episodethey found out who'd win between Adam Smasher from
Cyberpunk 2077 versus Veronica Santangelo fromFallout New Vegas. Over on the Max Destruction
podcast hosts Scotty and Gilly pay your favoraction heroes from film and television against

(03:27):
each other. The Macho Twins are taking a quickbreak for the month of November but they'll be back
in December with some Christmas season duels. Andon the Send Joe World podcast hosts Zachary
Hepburn speculates on fights between fanfavorite anime and manga characters. In his next
episode Zach is revealing who'd win betweenShigio Kageyama aka Mob from Mob Psycho 100 and

(03:49):
Tatsumaki the tornado of terror from One PunchMan. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link
in our show notes to listen to all of the shows in theDino Mike podcast network. But with that out of the
way quick to the no prize. A no prize is an award thatMarvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the

(04:09):
dynamic duel no prize is a digital award we post onInstagram for the person that we feel gave the best
answer to our question of the week. Last week weasked you guys which company would you most want to
acquire Warner Brothers and DC Studios and why andthis is coming off of the news that Warner Brothers
is for sale with a number of other studios placingbids for the acquisition. We got three honorable

(04:33):
mentions which we'll go over before revealingthis week's no prize winner. Our first honorable
mention goes to Alex Albro who said, Hey guys Ithink it ought to be Paramount. They've already
shown interest in acquiring DC. They don't haveany super major theme parks that they're going to
want to just market to. They produce great moviesyou know early MCU films Watchmen, Top Gun

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Maverick, they've done Footloose, Friday the13th, they've done a lot of animation stuff. They
can handle anything that DC is going to throw atthem. They also seem to be interested in keeping
gun which is good for continuity and their appdoesn't charge crazy fees so more people will be
inclined to sub and watch the show. I would not mindit if Paramount acquired Warner Brothers and I had
actually forgotten that they produced some of theearly MCU films like Iron Man. Yeah that's true

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Marvel's initial deal was with Paramount fordistribution plus Paramount also owns other IP
like the Ninja Turtles and all of Nickelodeonwhich I think DC would be well folded into. Great
answer Alex our next honorable mention goes to DCJoe who said. Definitely don't want Paramount to
acquire them for political and sensitivereasons. I'm not going to get into it you guys can

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look it up. It's very well documented. As for who Ido 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

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be clear on what Jose Marcell is referring to inregards to the politics of the studio and it looks
like decisions like ending the late show withStephen Colbert are all based around owners David
and Larry Ellison trying to court favor with theadministration by steering their content away
from what they perceive as a liberal bias.Therefore universal would also not be a bad

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option. I like the universal answer mainly for thetheme park angle Disney gets a lot of revenue
through their theme parks and the Marvel rideshave become some of their most popular rides. I
would love DC to be able to compete at that samelevel because I actually think universal studios
is superior to the Disney parks. Having never beento either of them I will have to take you out your

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word on that. Our final honorable mention goes toScott Camacho who said. I think it's no question
it's wherever universal studios is. Just as youhave Disney, Marvel, and Fox universal DC and
Warner Brothers need to be together on that. I meanjust imagine even the universal studios theme

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parks if you had DC attractions there it's in thewriting let it happen. Right like I said theme
parks huge attractions I want to visit the DCuniverse IRL and I think the theme parks is the best
way to do that. You really hunk up on the theme parkaspect of this potential deal. Well because I know

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universal could deliver on that end as well as themovie end there's really nothing that Paramount
can do that universal can't. Plus universal hastheir hands on some pretty solid IP as well such as
the Jurassic franchise. Right and movie monstersalthough they're really not doing anything with
that right now. They need DC as a strong IP. So greatanswer Scotty. The winner of this week's no prize

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however is by DearBangora who said. Hi Denimado. Ithink the best company to purchase Warner
Brothers and DC studios would be Amazon. I thinkwith their deep pockets and their capacity to
bring to life the boys as well as Vinceable with agreat audience and great awards for both those

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shows I think they could do something trulyamazing 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 arecourting Warner Brothers Discovery to attain
their content. That said Amazon is huge it hastheir fingers in a bunch of different pies

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including movie studios like MGM includingpublishing which I think would be great for DC
comics. And really that's why you picked thisanswer as the no prize. Right because I'm
terrified that movie studios will only want tofocus on movies and not really care about the
comics. I think if anyone were to have the bestinterests of the publishing aspect of DC it would

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be a company like Amazon. Yeah I'm not sure if likeComcast Universal or Paramount or any of the other
studios have strong publishing arms. I know thatlike Netflix doesn't right because they focus on
movies solely but yeah whoever ends up acquiringWarner Brothers and therefore DC would also be
acquiring the publishing division and you wouldwant to make sure that that's in good hands because

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you know that's the source of all this movie and TVshow content is the comic books. Exactly so great
answer by dear you win this week's no prize if youthe listener want a shot at winning your own no
prize. Stay tuned to later on in this episode whenwe'll be asking another question of the week. And
now that that's done I want to the question of theweek. Now that peacemaker has come out and we've

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gone through all of the Marvel and DC shows comingout in 2025 which Marvel or DC movie or TV show from
this year has been your favorite and why. Yeahthere was a number of DC and Marvel projects to come
out this year we want to know which one was yourfavorite. Record your answer at dynamic duel.com
by clicking on the red microphone button in thebottom right hand corner of the screen which will

(10:15):
prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your messagecould be up to 30 seconds long and don't forget to
leave your name in case we include you on thepodcast. We'll pick our favorite answer and award
that person a dynamic duel no prize that will postto Instagram. Be sure to answer before November
16th. Superhero tees are everywhere but findinggood ones the kind with officially licensed art

(10:43):
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oldglory.com promo code duel. But let's go aheadand move on to the main event of this episode a team

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duel between the hardcore super teams of DC'sauthority and Marvel's cabal. Okay the authority

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and the cabal as I mentioned earlier these are twohardcore bad ass super teams who don't take no guff
from nobody. Yeah I mean the cabal got quite good atdestroying entire universes leading up to the
events of secret wars where they were ensuring thesurvival of Marvel 616 at the expense of all the
other realities and the multiverse. Yeah and theauthority is no stranger to destroying planets as

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well. The authority is a team of good guys but theyplay by bad guy rules they're all anti heroes and
they are supposed to be getting a movie within theDC cinematic universe led by James Gunn I wonder if
that's still gonna happen. Well we did see one ofthe members of the authority the engineer in the
Superman movie that came out this past summer. Theauthority was supposed to originally be the

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second movie that was released under the gods andmonsters phase one essentially of the DC universe
that's changed I'm not sure when we're going to getan authority film rumor has it that it's been
transitioned from live action into an animatedproject but we'll see. Interesting interesting.
Of course we've seen a number of members from thecabal in live action including Emma Frost, Dr.

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Doom, the Submariner and recently The Hood andLoki and Norman Osborn yeah basically Marvel is
just really on top of things when it comes togetting their characters depicted in live
action. Unless it's Modoc then they suck. That'strue that's true Modoc being a member of the cabal
not in the comic books but in the cartoon and videogame space. I'll get into the rosters later on but

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first to explain the methodology behind our duelslet's go to our sentient duel simulator Alfred
Jarvis 9000. AG9K tell our listeners how you goabout determining a winner in our team duel
matchups. Yes of course sir the way I determine awinner between the two teams is by running 1000
Monte Carlo simulations between every characteron each team using their statistics. A Monte Carlo

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simulation is a probabilistic model used todetermine outcomes through random sampling. In
this case I randomize the statistics along anormal distribution as a way to simulate the many
variables that can occur during battle. The statparameters are based on the official Marvel power
grid from which the DC characters statistics areextrapolated. Additional stat categories are

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included such as range, damage potential,versatility and perception in order to create a
more detailed and accurate simulation. Theresults of the 49,000 simulations provide a
percentage of wins for each character on bothteams. The team with the higher average win rate is
declared the victor as they have a higherprobability to win any given battle. In an

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equitable pairing neither team should win 100% ofthe matches. The comic book stories have shown
that there's even a way for Batman to defeatSuperman so the confidence rate of my method falls
in line with the precedents that have beenestablished in the source material. My
mathematical simulations are withoutsubjectivity or bias. Feats are not the sole
consideration nor are fan votes tabulated fordetermination of the winner. Thanks a J9K. Before

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we run the simulations though we like to break downeach team's histories and rosters before
improvising a scenario on how we imagine one of thethousands of simulations would play out beat for
beat. It's my turn to go first with the DC team'sbackstory so let me tell you all about the
authority. Now before the rise of the authority,Earth's defense against extraterrestrial and

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metahuman threats was managed by Stormwatch, aUnited 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

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century who could manipulate electricity andtechnology, Jack Hawksmore, a man biologically
engineered to bond with cities and draw power fromurban environments, and Swift, a Tibetan
meta-avian capable of high-speed flight andcombat. When Skywatch fell and most of Stormwatch
perished in an alien attack, its surviving covertmembers abandoned the UN Charter and reformed

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independently. From the ashes of Stormwatch, theauthority 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 withnanotechnology and became a living machine,
Jerome Thorndike, the latest doctor and wielderof Earth's shamanistic magic lineage, and two

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enhanced operatives rescued from StormwatchZero. Apollo, a solar-powered superhuman with
strength and flight rivaling Superman, andMidniter, a brutal hand-to-hand combatant with a
cybernetic brain that could predict everypossible move in a fight. The team discovered and
took residents aboard the Carrier, a sentientinterdimensional vessel capable of traversing

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the multiverse through the bleed. The authoritymade their debut, repelling the global assault of
Kaizen Gamora, who unleashed his engineeredsuper soldiers, the children of Gamora, across
major cities. The team predicted and interceptedGamora's final strike in Los Angeles, and
Midniter destroyed his cloning facility usingthe Carrier. Their next threat came from sliding

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Albion, an imperialistic version of Britain froma parallel universe born from human alien
interbreeding. The Carrier breached theirdimension and the authority dismantled their
regime from within. In 1999, as the millenniumended, Earth's original creator, a vast god-like
entity, returned to reclaim and terraform theplanet. The team infiltrated the being's

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colossal form, and Jenny Sparks electrocuted itfrom 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 authorityretrieved Jenny Quantum, a newborn in Singapore,
in the spirit of the 21st century, who had beenabducted by Medi-human engineer Dr. Jake Gip

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Krikstein. Swift negotiated her release inexchange for his services aboard the Carrier.
Soon after, the Earth's magnetic poles began toreverse due to a former doctor who had succumbed to
despair. The authority evacuated Earth'spopulation to alternate Earth's to prevent
extinction, and when the rogue doctor wasovercome by empathy, he became vulnerable and was

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killed by Apollo and the engineer, allowingEarth's population to return safely. The
authority's global interventions attractedopposition from the G7 nations. They dispatched
Seth, a being engineered with over a thousandpowers who defeated the entire team except
Midnighter. While the others were captured andreplaced with government-created duplicates,

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Midnighter escaped with baby Jenny, freedApollo, 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 andMidnighter were married, adopting Jenny as their
daughter. They next confronted RealityIncorporated, a multiversal corporate entity

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that attempted to colonize Earth for profit, aswell as a charismatic Medi-human named John Clay,
who most of the team was affected. Midnighter andthe doctor resisted, the latter managing to purge
Clay's influence to end the crisis. In theaftermath, the doctor founded the Church of the

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Shaman to meet the world's growing spiritualhunger. When the US military triggered a rift in
the bleed causing the destruction of Florida, theauthority staged a bloodless coup and assumed
control of the United States to enact reform andprevent further catastrophe. Soon after Jenny
Quantum was targeted by her twin sister JennyFractal, a genetically altered assassin raised

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in secret by the Chinese government. Fractalmurdered Jenny, but the doctor preserved her
soul. Midnighter traveled back in time andeliminated 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 fromearlier generations, incited nationwide

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rebellion. During the conflict, anuclear-powered sun detonated on the White House
lawn, destroying much of Washington, DC.Disillusioned, the authority disbanded. Jenny
Quantum, now eight, ventured into the infinitecity, a realm inhabited by past Jennies, where she
met Jenny Sparks and resolved to rebuild the team.Jenny Quantum aged herself into adolescence and

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reassembled the authority to challenge aresurgent Henry Bendix, who had orchestrated
their downfall. Bendix had corrupted a womannamed Rose Tattoo into the spirit of murder and
used her to assassinate the doctor, while apresident his successor, Habib bin Hassan.
During Bendix's confrontation with theauthority, he manipulated Midnighter to turn

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against his team. Engineer and Jenny Quantumdisabled the threat, and Midnighter executed
Bendix. Hassan, as the new doctor, purified RoseTattoo 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 duelepisode. Though they sought to return him home,

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his unstable energies threatened to unraveltheir universe's reality. As reality collapsed,
Captain Adam killed Apollo, Midnighter, andJenny Quantum, before the hero Void extracted
part of her essence from him, triggering auniversal reboot. You can learn more about Void in
our Wildcats vs Inhumans team duel. In the newlyformed universe, the authority crash landed in a

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parallel world devoid of metahuman life. Theyfaced a lovecraftian creature at the bottom of the
ocean that psychically fed on the planet'scollective unconscious fears. Though the doctor
destroyed it using a local human as a conduit, theact wiped out all life on the planet, and the
authority departed the dead world aboard thecarrier. When the number of the beast program

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initiated a reality damaging event, the carriercrashed into London, forming the city of
Unlondon. Earth became a poisoned wasteland,Jack Hawksmore was gravely injured, the engineer
disabled by electromagnetic storms, and Apolloexiled to the upper atmosphere to escape the
toxicity. Midnighter roamed the devastatedsurface, while Swift operated as a scout.

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Survivors mutated into monstrous incubates fromexposure to the Warhol virus, while Apollo became
infected and was later frozen for safety. KaizenGamora resurfaced with a mobile city, seeking to
harness authority technology. Swift and theengineer were kidnapped by Prince Lorenzo of
Sliding Albion, who sought to harvest theirtechnology, but the two escaped and rescued a long

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lost member of the Golden, a powerful ancient raceonce allied with humanity. Jack, merged with
Gamora Island's infrastructure, regained hispowers and repelled the invasion. Apollo,
thought and infected, was released to aid in thefinal battle. Midnighter discovered that Habib
bin Hassan, now calling himself the Green Man, hadto become unhinged. The authority rescued Gaia, a

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new century baby, who gifted Midnighter arestorative apple. He used it to cure Apollo,
reuniting them, and once the carrier was fullyrestored, Jack offered humanity refuge aboard
the vessel, and a new authority team was formed tolead the Exodus. During the voyage, they
encountered the Caribbna, an alien race thatconsumed living beings for energy. With the help

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of a sentient brain, the surviving remnants of analien species that fell victim to the Caribbna,
the authority defeated them and liberated thecaptive 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 Wildstormand DC universes merged. In this new reality, a

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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 firstrecruit was the powerful telepath, Manchester
Black, whose injuries were healed in exchange forservice. They rescued June Moon from a magical

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prison, adding Enchantress to the team, who youcan learn more about in her duel against Marvel's
Enchantress. Apollo and Midnighter joined fortheir strength and precision, while Natasha
Irons, Steel's niece who adopted his mantle, cameaboard as a tech expert. Light Ray, an alternate
universe's version of the Flash, was recruitedfor her light speed travel, and an Omec android was

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added as a living weapon. The team's first missionwent to Rai when Omec attacked Apollo during an
attempt to retrieve Light Ray, imprisoned byEclipsus. Meanwhile, Superman was trapped in the
bottle city of Kandor by Ultra Humanite, whoplanned to possess his body. Superman escaped
with help from Brainiac, who delayed humanites'plans. You can learn more about Brainiac and Ultra

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Humanite in their duel episodes against Ultronand Mr. Sinister respectively. As the team
regrouped, Apollo and Enchantress and Omecsucceeded in freeing Light Ray. With their roster
complete, the Authority departed Earth in a newcarrier and launched an assault on Warworld and
its tyrannical ruler, Mongul, who you can learnmore about in our Mongul vs. Annihilus episode. In

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their opening engagement, Light Ray was killedand Apollo gravely wounded. Most of the team was
captured, leaving only Midnighter free toinitiate 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 theoriginal team members of Jenny Sparks, Jack

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Hawksmore, Swift, Engineer, Doctor, Apollo, andMidnighter. Jenny Sparks is the cynical spirit of
the 20th century who commands electricity, isable to travel through power lines, fire
lightning, and transform into energy. JackHawksmore is a post-human urban avatar whose
cybernetic body draws power from cities, givinghim enhanced senses, leaping phasing, and even

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control over the urban landscape itself. Swift isa Tibetan-born metahuman with avian traits,
including talons, supersonic flight enhancedsenses, and a psychic rapport with birds. The
Engineer is a genius nanotech cyborg with liquidmetal blood that allows her to shapeshift,
self-replicate, fabricate weapons, manipulatetech, and alter her size. The Doctor is Earth's

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shamanistic protector with reality-warpingmagic drawn from the collective memory of all who
have ever lived, granting him near-limitlesspower and wisdom. Apollo is a solar-powered
powerhouse with super strength, durability, andspeed, as well as the ability to fly and emit
energy. His husband, Midnighter, is abio-engineered super-soldier and master

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tactician with an arsenal of club and edgedweaponry, as well as enhanced strength,
reflexes, healing, and the ability to predictevery possible outcome of a fight before it
begins. That's the Authority. With as many timesas their planet went to shit in the history of the
team, I'm not convinced that they're going to beable to hold up to the cabal. Every time I went to

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shit, it was not really their fault, and they kindof rescued it. Excuses, excuses. I don't want
their excuses. I think the team's going to be in bigtrouble in this matchup, and let me tell you why by
going into the history of the cabal. The Skrulls, ashapeshifting alien race secretly infiltrated
Earth over years by replacing key heroes,politicians, and leaders with imposters,

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believing their infiltration fulfilled aprophecy to make Earth their new homeworld. The
invasion erupted into full-scale war betweenthem and Earth's protectors when their deception
was exposed. This war culminated in the publicexecution of the Skrull Queen Varanke by Norman
Osborn, who at the time led the Thunderbolts andwas suppressing his Green Goblin persona through

(28:46):
medication. You can learn more about Osborn in ourJoker 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 intounprecedented political capital. He was given
command of National Superhuman Security afterthe international espionage organization

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Shield was dismantled and he began a new one calledHammer. Osborn seized Avengers to have Ozborn's

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Council, soon known as the Cabal, containedinfluential villains from around the world. Its
initial inclusions were the Submariner, EmmaFrost, Dr. Doom, Loki, and the Hood, the latter of
whom's real name was Parker Robbins, a small-timecriminal who gained mystical powers after
stealing a cloak and boots from a slain demonservant of Dormammu. The cloak granted the Hood

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invisibility, levitation, and limited mysticalenergy projection, making him a formidable
street-level crime boss with supernaturalpower. Ozborn's arrangement promised each
member of the Cabal a path to their ambitions inexchange for supporting his regime and answering
his summons when called. Ozborn's pitch tailoredincentives to each conspirator. He sought

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Frost's telepathy to help keep the table's liarshonest, while capitalizing on her leadership
stature among mutants. He expected Doom tonormalize 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 channelsso they could be deployed under Thunderbolt's
control. He agreed to advance Loki's designs onAsgard's throne and help return the realm to the

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heavens, as, at the time, Asgard was in the skiesabove Oklahoma after being rebuilt following the
events of Ragnarok. You can learn more about thisin our Aries vs. Loki duel. Finally, he dangled the
surface world's cooperation with Atlantisbefore Namor, something that the shield had never
offered. Even as the Cabal nodded along, powerdynamics behind the scenes remained volatile.

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Ozborn quietly held a deterrent in reserve, thesentry's destructive other self known as the
Void, threatening to unleash him should anymember of the Cabal betray him. Even at its
inception, the group's alliances nested withinalliances. Namor and Dr. Doom, long comfortable
dealing at sovereigns beyond ordinary law,renewed their understanding when Ozborn

(31:31):
inevitably imploded, Doom would rule the land andNamor the seas. Emma Frost and Namor, whose brief
past romance had been revealed during an earlierattempt to recruit him into the Hellfire Club,
forged a new pact with clear contingencies. Frostpromised to protect Namor's psyche from Ozborn's
coercion, while Namor vowed to stand for mutantkind if Frost needed him. You can learn more about

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Namor and Frost and their respective duelsagainst Aquaman and Poison Ivy. Loki moved first
to hasten Ozborn's downfall while empoweringhimself. On the geopolitical front, Loki courted
Doom with a bargain to relocate Asgard fromOklahoma to Liberia, provided Thor was banished,
a condition that Doom imposed to ensure his realmdid not inherit the God of Thunder. In the

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super-criminal underworld, the hood's mysticalconnection to Dormammu was severed when
sorcerers including Dr. Strange and Dr. Voodoopurged the demon's influence and his signature
cloak was lost in battle. Loki exploited thevacuum, leading the hood and Madamask to Cuba to
recover the Asgardian Nornstones, restoring thehood's power and making him indebted to Loki. Each

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maneuver weakened Ozborn's stability by armygactors 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 Ozbornmoved to contain the X-Men by constructing a Dark
counterpart team under his authority, similar tothe Dark Avengers. This led to intensified

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friction with Namor, who called on an Atlanteanterrorist cell that in turn prompted a
heavy-handed response from Hammer. Namor'scousin Namor interfered against Ozborn's
horses, also deepening the rift. When the momentcame, Emma Frost revealed herself as a double
agent to the cabal after discovering CharlesXavier had been tortured in Hammer custody. With

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Namor at her side, she turned the Dark X-Menconfrontation into a rout, publicly
undercutting Ozborn's claim to control mutantaffairs and forcing him to accept the new mutant
nation of Utopia near San Francisco, despite hisorders that Namor's head and Frost's heart be
brought to him as trophies. As cracks widened,Ozborn's control faltered even within the

(33:45):
cabal's council chamber. A confrontation withDoom escalated until the L'Averian ruler
retaliated with a bio-weapon attack on AvengersTower and then walked away from the arrangement,
forcing Ozborn to bring Taskmaster on board. WhenDr. Doom later demanded the Submariner honor
their agreement, Ozborn unveiled the terribledeterrent he had hinted at from the start, the

(34:07):
Void. The Void hurled Doom through a wall, but itwas actually a Doombot who dissolved into swarms
of mechanical scarabs that overran AvengersTower, forcing the Dark Avengers into retreat.
The spectacle exposed Ozborn's dependence onintimidation and the brittleness of a coalition
held together by threats. The cabal's reputationamong villains did not translate into lasting

(34:30):
leverage. For example, the groups perceivedinfluence encouraged even warlords such as
Dracula to seek latitude for his Europeanconquests through Doom, arrangements that Doom
refused to indulge. However, the broader villaincommunity ultimately turned against Ozborn due
to his own escalation. The act of his dark reignover the superpowered populace culminated in an

(34:54):
attempted siege of Asgard itself. The overreachshattered the state façade that had shielded
Ozborn and he was brought down by the combinedefforts of Earth's heroes and public scrutiny.
Ozborn was imprisoned, the Hood and Taskmasterwere apprehended, Loki's body was destroyed in
the battle, Emmafrost and Namor returned to theirranks and Doom resumed uncontested rule in

(35:17):
Latteria. With its architect disgraced and itsmember scattered, the cabal disbanded. However,
years later a new iteration emerged from adifferent ethical crisis. The Illuminati were
forced to confront apocalyptic collisionsbetween universes called incursions that could
only be averted by destroying one of the Earth'sinvolved. For a time, the Illuminati bore that

(35:39):
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 newcabal of beings for whom extinction level of
violence was an acceptable instrument of policy.This included Thanos and his Black Order, whom

(36:02):
you've learned more about in their duel againstDarkseid's elite. In contrast to Ozborn's
backroom government, this version of the cabalwas an operational death squad, aimed at
preserving a single Earth at the expense of allothers. This new group prosecuted its campaign
with Muthas efficiency. Where the Illuminati hadagonized, Namor's cabal acted, detonating

(36:22):
worlds and leaving entire realities in ruins.Namor's actions destroyed his old alliances. He
didn't just abandon the heroes' methods, herejected their entire sense of morality. Each
successful destruction forestalled the nextincursion at the price of incalculable deaths,
and each victory pushed Namor deeper intoreliance on his new allies, whose goals of cosmic

(36:44):
domination and nihilistic balance divergedsharply from his own. As the final worlds
collapsed toward a final incursion, Namorensured that his cabal would not perish with the
dying worlds. Anticipating the end, they securedpassage aboard a specially designed life pod unit
built by an alternate reality, Reed Richards, avessel capable of withstanding the universe's

(37:06):
unraveling. Reality gave way into the battleworld, a patchwork planet ruled by Dr. Doom and
composed of various worlds from throughout themultiverse. The cabal endured the journey there,
but they disbanded as Thanos abandoned theirgoals 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

(37:31):
roster, I'm choosing to forgo some of the keymembers, such as Norman Osborn, who was part of our
Sinister Six team duel, Namor, who was part of theFantastic Four duel, and Thanos, who was part of
the Black Order duel. But I am including theoriginal members of Dr. Doom, Emma Frost, the
White Queen, Loki, and the Hood. To round out theremaining spots, I'm going with two villains who

(37:56):
are members of the cabal in the Avengers Assemblecartoon, and the contest of champions video game,
and that is Red Skull and Modoc. For the seventh andfinal spot, I'm going with a villain who is also a
member of the cabal in the cartoons, and that is theHulk's arch nemesis, the leader, who started out
as a janitor named Samuel Stearns, who was exposedto gamma radiation at the chemical plant where he

(38:20):
worked. It granted him superhuman intelligenceand 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 beyondhuman capability. He can communicate
telepathically, move objects with telekinesis,and can emit gamma radiation blasts from his head.

(38:44):
He has built advanced technology including laserpistols, kinetic absorption gauntlets, and
teleportation devices. So that's my team toreiterate you're going up against Dr. Doom,
Ammafrost, Loki, the Hood, Red Skull, Modoc, andthe leader. In a world where fantasies collide and

(39:26):
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(39:50):
Wednesday. And Sendro World, where animechampions clash every Thursday. Join us as we
speculate on the matches and armed with the powerof mathematical simulations, discover who will
emerge victorious. Visit dynamicpodcast.comwhere we settle the debate and settle the score.

(40:10):
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(40:55):
rosters out of the way, let's speculate on how oneof the thousands of simulated matches will go
between them. The winners determined bysimulations, not the speculation, but it's fun to
imagine how the fight could play out. AG9K, whatare the rules of our speculation? Well, I should
say there are no rules, other than the teams have noprior knowledge of the other going into the fight.

(41:15):
All they are aware of starting out is that the otherside is a threat that needs to be eliminated. For
the speculation, the groups will beginapproximately 50 meters apart in a nondescript
environment that will have no bearing on the matchitself, as no environmental statistics are
considered in my simulations. The teams must earnvictory on their own merit. Alright then, let's

(41:36):
get into it. The authority and the cabal meet on thebattlefield. Who goes first? I'm gonna say that
Emma Frost starts out. She's gonna scan the mindsof every member of the authority, and she's gonna
be like, holy crap, I thought we were fucked upguys. But she delivers all the details to every
other member of the cabal, psychically. Okay, sothe Garden of Ancestral Memory is going to warn the

(42:02):
doctor that he's being brain scanned. And sinceall of the members of the authority wear this radio
telepathic nanotech device on their temporallobe, the doctor is able to warn all of them that
Emma Frost is psychically scanning them. And soJenny Sparks is gonna tell Swift telepathically
to take out Emma Frost. So Swift jets toward her athyper speed, Talon's first, and she just slashes

(42:27):
her to rubens. Yeah, it's too bad that the cabal doeverything about the authority now, and they knew
about the nanotech device, and they anticipatedSwift'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 hisheadband. So now the authority know that the cabal

(42:50):
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 thatby having the engineer duplicate herself into
like six other engineers who all form theirforearms into machine guns, and start firing at
the cabal laying down suppressive fire whileApollo is going to speed bullets Dr. Doom and

(43:16):
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 sothe authority are trying to get inside this force
field dome, but it fills up with green smoke hidingevery member of the cabal that's inside of it.

(43:37):
Except that Jack Hawksmore, he's also known as theking of cities. He has this spatial sense that
allows him to see what they're doing within thegreen smoke. And with each of their locations
pinpointed within, he's going to cause the grounddirectly beneath them to quickly just launch
upwards, slamming all of them into the ceiling ofthe dome shield. And it's going to knock all of them

(44:02):
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, theonly 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, exceptfor Loki, who was providing a distraction with the

(44:24):
smoke and shape shifting into a giant serpent. Andthat 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 Jackable to sense the cabal teleporting probably

(44:44):
behind them, he's able to warn the others. AndJenny Sparks generates this powerful arc of
electricity that chains to all of them andelectrocutes them. Yeah, yeah, Jack thinks he's
able to sense the cabal behind him, but onlybecause of a psychic suggestion by Amarfrost.
Jack doesn't really know anything. He's beenmanipulated this whole time. In reality, Jenny

(45:05):
doesn't hit anything with her electricity. Andwhen the cabal do reappear from the hood's
teleportation, they're actually surroundingthe authority on all sides, including Loki. He
didn't actually get blown up. It was just anillusion diversion. And the red skull shoots from
a gas gun, his dust of death compound at midnight,which poisons midnight and just desiccates his

(45:29):
face into a red skull killing him. Midnighter isgoing to calculate what red skull is about to do. So
just before red skull pulls the trigger on his gasgun, midnighters going to hurl his night stick
into Red skull's chest area with enough force thatit impales him. That's going to cause the red skull
to squeeze his trigger as he gets knockedbackward. And he ends up spraying the white queen

(45:54):
in the face, desiccating her and causing her todie. Well, that's stupid. Two birds with one
stone, I guess. That's right. But the hood is goingto go for the same. He said he's going to up the game
by shooting hellfire bullets from his twinpistols that are going to curve and hit Jenny
Sparks and Midnighter and to the doctor all in oneshot. Oh, no worries. The doctor, he's going to

(46:17):
transmute those bullets into butterflies andJack causes a massive geyser to erupt beneath the
hood that's going to launch him into the air withboiling hot water. Hot water is not going to affect
the hood. You know, he's like partially possessedby a demon while wearing the cloak. I don't think
boiling water is going to hurt him if he's not hurtby like fire, you know, the hood is just going to

(46:39):
teleport off this geyser and then in his demonform, he's just going to eviscerate Jack
Hawksmore. So Jack is out and then Dr. Doom shootsan electric blast that fries the engineer
circuits. So she's out too. I'm sorry. JennySparks controls electricity, like all
electricity around them. So she redirects thatblast toward Modoc, which fries his circuits and

(47:05):
shuts him down. So he's out of the match.Meanwhile, the doctor seeing the hood demon
exercises the demon using knowledge from an oldpriest. And with the hood depowered, the doctor is
going to cause him to just melt into a puddle. Sohe's out as well. Okay. Well, Jenny, she suddenly

(47:26):
gets a dagger in the back by Loki, who snuck over toher 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 andMidnighter, generating this blending flash of

(47:47):
light to stun Loki before picking up and flying offwith Midnighter to thaw him with heat energy.
Meanwhile, the engineer is going to go up againstDr. Doom, and they're going to be exchanging laser
blasts as a distraction while her duplicatesmaneuver behind him and infect his suit, shutting
it down. You don't think that Doom has protectionfrom nanite invasion? Like his systems have their

(48:14):
own like mini nano Doom bots that would preventsuch an attack like this. They stop the shutdown,
and then in fact, they remotely hack theengineer's technology, infecting her with a
virus into her system that turns into like thisuncontrollable swarm of malfunctioning nano
bots. I'm sorry, you don't think engineer hasprotection against other nanites? I say it's a

(48:40):
Doom's nano bots that get the virus, infecting hissystem and causing all of his armor, like even his
helmet, to fall off revealing his ugly mug. Youcan't just repeat my attack. You just literally
did what I did. I say Doom's nanite attack issuperior. You say otherwise. So it looks like we
just have a stalemate, which means that Doom andthe engineer are just going to be glitching each

(49:01):
other in attempts to hack each other with nanobots. Meanwhile, while that's happening, the
leader, he's going to mind control Apollo intocrushing Midnighter like a grape, just turning
him into this paste that will take way too long forMidnighter to heal from. Oh damn. Okay. Well, I
guess to prevent the leader from controllingApollo into killing everyone else on his team, the

(49:26):
doctor is going to have to kill his own teammate bysucking all of the light and energy away from
Apollo with this magic black hole, which is alsogoing 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 bothApollo and Loki? Yes. Okay. Uh, well, while that's

(49:53):
going on, Dr. Doom manages to out hack the engineerby using magic, because he can do magic. She can't.
Dr. Doom adds magic to his computer virus that shecan't out hack. So he shuts her down with his magic
nano bots. She's out of the match. And then theleader is going to fire a gamma mental bolt from his

(50:15):
brain that just fries the doctor's mind and severhis 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 enoughtime for past doctors in the garden of ancestral
memory to help the doctor regain access to hisbody, at which point he's just going to transform

(50:41):
the leader's head into an actual scrotum withtestes 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

(51:03):
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 isgoing to remotely activate the time circuitry in
his armor. That's going to rewind time to the pointthat the doctor summoned the squirrels and then

(51:27):
doom just casts a mirror spell that results in thedoctor getting eaten alive by his own swarm of
squirrels. Okay, you want to play with time? I'mgoing to say that doesn't happen. And instead, the
doctor actually jumps back in time to when doom wasa newborn baby. And he just kills him in the crib.
No, Doom already has a contingency set up as likethis magic trap for anyone who would try to kill him

(51:52):
as a baby. And so the doctor attempts to do this, buthe just gets deatomized by like a trio of demons.
Okay, and then the doctor reatomizes himself andthen kills dooms parents instead. How does he
reatomize himself? This is magic, bitch. But it'smagic deatomization. I guess we have a stalemate

(52:14):
here too. It's Dr. Doom's magic versus thedoctor's magic, except that doom is going to out
magic the doctor by incorporating science intohis magic, which is something the doctor can't do.
So there you go. The cabal wins. Yeah, sorry, magictrump science. So the cabal loses, in fact. Well,

(52:34):
let's go ahead and leave the match there. Let's runthe simulations. We'll find out which one of these
scenarios happens. Either Dr. Doom manages to outtime 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, runningcalculations, processing results, simulations

(52:57):
complete. This was a good one. The authority ishella 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 beingas they were by far the weakest members of each of
our teams. Right. Yeah, we paired up Swift and RedSkull. We also paired up Apollo and Dr. Doom sort of

(53:23):
in a callback to our Superman versus Dr. Doomepisode. Statwise Midnighter was comparable to
the Hood, Jenny Sparks to White Queen, theEngineer to Modoc and the Doctor to Loki, and Jack
Hawksmore to the leader. Yeah, that was not a greatmatchup, but that was kind of all that was left. But

(53:43):
statwise, as always in our team battles, everyonewent up against everyone else. As we mentioned,
Swift was my weakest character. She had an averagewin rate of only 12.3%. Yeah, I thought the most
powerful member of your team was going to beApollo, 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

(54:04):
a pretty cool character. I'm glad we pin him upagainst Loki. They're both almost omnipotent.
Loki was actually just as powerful as Dr. Doom, whois 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

(54:25):
74.4% of all his matches. Loki won 73.9% of all hismatches. More of the authority characters on my
roster had higher win rates than yours. Four of myguys had average win rates above 50%. Yeah,
whereas I only had three, which included Dr. Doom,Loki, and Modok. Although the leader was right

(54:47):
there winning 49.5% of all his matches, so roughlyhalf. In regards to the overall stat comparison,
the authority just wiped the floor with the cabalwhen it came to speed. But the cabal totally
dominated the authority when it came tointelligence. There were a lot of master minds on
this version of the cabal. So taking all of thisinto consideration, Joseph, which team do you

(55:10):
think came out on top in this team duel match? I gotto give it to the cabal. How can you not? There's
Doom. You don't bet against Doom. You don't betagainst the Red Skull, Modok, White Queen, Loki,
Leader, I just I'm naming everybody now. They'reall fantastic. Who the hell is Jack Hawksmore?
That's not even a real name. It's certainly not thename of someone who deserves to win a match. I mean,

(55:32):
his nickname is also the King of Cities. King ofshitties. I don't know what I'm saying. I think
that Instagram agrees with me because 51% of ourfollowers who voted in our poll voted for the
cabal. Well, that's now a whole lot at all. Were youtrying 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

(56:03):
matchup between the authority and the cabal is thecabal. 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 matchescompared to the authority who won 49.4. This was an

(56:29):
insanely close matchup. That is closer than Ithought it was going to be. Actually, given the
stat discrepancies, I would have figured that thecabal would have come out more wins ahead. I guess
that means that in the simulations, the teamdidn't perform as well as they probably should
have. I'm not going to lie. After we entered all ofthe stats, I thought the cabal was going to do a lot

(56:51):
better. I'm not sure what happened there. Theremay have been some luck in your favor with that. Not
enough to win though, but I got close. I got realclose, and that's all that matters. It's not who
wins. It's just about having fun. I did have funwinning. Yeah, you're right. Did you have fun
losing? I mean, not really. You just said it'sabout having fun. Whatever. Great job, Marvel

(57:13):
fans. You did it again. Like I said, we're winningthe whole month of November. This is just the
start. AG9K, help close us out. In our nextepisode, we are doing another duel, this time

(57:56):
pitting the cowboy, Jonah Hex against the zombiecyborg, Deathlock. We want to give a big thanks to
our executive producers, Jon Straussky, ZacharyHepburn, Dustin Belcom, Nathaniel Wegener, Levi
Aitin, Austin Wieselowski, E.J. Dunkerly, NickIbonto, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Speese,
Dean Malesky, Devin Davis, Joseph Kirsting, MikeWilliams, and Paul Graves for helping make this

(58:18):
podcast possible. We'll talk to you guys nextweek. Up, up, and away, true believers. You will
respect my authoritar.

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Authority vs Cabal

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