The Smark Avengers - Who Wins the DC Villains Bracket?! Darkseid, Joker & More Clash

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Who Wins the DC Villains Bracket?! Darkseid, Joker & More Clash The Smark Avengers Marvel vs DC Tournament reaches a critical turning point as Corey, Dylan, and Jon dive headfirst into the DC Villains side of the bracket! With the Final Four on the line, the debates get heated, the matchups get wild, and the Wheel of Chaos once again threatens to derail logic entirely. This episode features brutal villain-vs-villain matchups including: Joker vs Mister Freeze Deathstroke vs Sinestro General Zod vs Brainiac Parallax vs Darkseid Starro vs Poison Ivy From cosmic tyrants and emotional spectrum gods to street-level killers and world-ending parasites, the crew breaks down powers, tactics, intelligence, and comic book history to decide who truly deserves to represent DC Comics’ darkest side. Who survives the madness and earns a spot in the Final Four? And which villain gets robbed by the wheel? 🔔 Subscribe for more comic debates, tournaments, and deep-cut discussions 👍 Like the video if you love DC villains and unhinged bracket chaos 💬 Comment below: Who should’ve won the DC Villains bracket? Click the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk Click the link for Dylan's Twitch stream: http://Twitch.tv/spookylaroux Click the link for Jon's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/bigjonbowski/ Click the link for Corey's project "Henry's Usual": https://www.tumblr.com/henrysusual Click the link for Corey's show "Large Old Cup": https://open.spotify.com/show/2YHMppnl9inQevwLIxR64f

Yeah, there's no, there's no, there's no, like, every scene where Sonic would take a little red shoes off and, like, stretch his toes out. They immediately, like, had to cut it because Egersel... They had to cut that. I don't know how to act right now. They have to cut it because it's gross. Ejerselva, why, Ejjjelva wants to suck on Sonic's blue toes? No, just had Sonic taking his shoes off and wiggling his toes. Like, I don't, nobody's like...

If Jerselva's going to be all over it, that's why they had to cut it. That's not, that's not part of the Sonic ethos. They're not like, you know what the best part of where Sonic is, his feet. Like, no, nobody wants to, no, what? Right. All right, hi, everybody. Welcome to Smart Avengers. I'm Corey.

With me's Dylan and John. How's it going, guys? Hi. That's what John's allergic to. That's what he's allergic. There we go. Stock the Hedgehog's feet. Just feet in general.

I understand that. That's fair enough. All right, everybody. Welcome back. We are still doing our Marvel and DC tournament. last episode, we got through the DC Hero side with John Constantine being named the victor. So we have three of our final four competitors selected. It's time to choose our fourth, and we're going to the DC villain side.

So same rules as applied. We're going to go through each round and basically talk up the characters who we think would win in a fight. If it's not unanimous, we take it to the wheel. And that's how we figure out if there's going to be an upset or not. So that being said, This is what he does. That's what he does. This is dusty.

I'm going to have to draw the cat. I'll put the cat on the thumbnails too. The cat's giving me the thumbnail. You're going to be on the thumbnail. That being said, are you guys ready to go over and do our bracket? We. Yes. Are you ready to go?

It's dusty right. I think he is. All right, guys, we have our DC villains bracket here. As you can see, our final four is almost complete. representing Marvel Heroes, Scarlet Witch, Marvel Villains, Apocalypse, DC Heroes, Constantine, and today we'll find out who's going to represent the DC villains and face Constantine to determine who will face the winner of Scarlet Witch versus Apocalypse to ultimately decide who's winning our bracket. Are you guys ready?

Yes. Yeah. Up first in our very first round, we have got Mr. Freeze versus the Joker. So, Dylan's feelings on The Joker are very well known, but we'll go ahead and just kind of go through it. Mr. Freeze is a genius-level scientist who has permanently altered his chemistry in an accident that has left him basically confined to extreme cold temperatures to survive. He has also gone to extreme lengths to try to save his wife, who he has kept in a sort of frozen and suspended way, until he can find a cure for a disease for her. Against him is the Joker, the embodiment of chaos,

a unhinged sociopath, psychopath, mass murdering serial killer clown. One has a freeze ray, the other has Joker gas or Joker fish, whichever way you want to go about it. That being said, I know Dylan's going to have some feelings about the Joker up front. What are your thoughts in general on Mr. Freeze versus the Joker?

Mr. Freeze is he's got he's very cold He's very chilly I guess it's game over then Thank you So he wins the free just wins the whole thing So you don't have to do the rest of the bracket

We're good We're going to worry about Constantine And Constantine And Constantine wins because he has Pyroconesis So Bad luck Mr. Freeze

But You're best You tried Yeah he tried There's no shame in trying. The best. Yep, yep, yep. I mean, Joker has the whole

chaotic evil element going on. I think that's going to be his sort of a trump card that he can play. Because he's, you can't predict what he's going to do next. He can't even predict what he's going to do next. But it's probably going to fuck someone up.

And in this case, I think it's going to fuck up Mr. Freeze. But if you freeze somebody, then they can't do anything. You know, much like how Batman has plot armor, Joker also has plow armor. That's why he uses arch nemesis. Joker literally survives damn near everything

that should kill him. That being said, though, John, you brought him an excellent point. You have chaotic evil versus what some would say is lawful evil. Mr. Freeze is a character with some morals. You know, he will do what he needs to do to get what he needs done.

But there's also seemingly lines that he doesn't cross. Joker doesn't really believe in lines. He just does what he does. And sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it doesn't. I will say that when we were first putting these together, and looking at the list we have in front of us,

a lot of big fucking heavy hitters on here, this is like the perfect first round for Joker, because I don't think he's going to get much further just off of fucking firepower alone. I'm going to incline to believe that Joker could pull this off. I think he's clever enough. I think he's crafty enough.

And I think he's also chaotic enough that he could get past Mr. Freeze. Can't argue with that? Dylan, you are, I know your stance on Joker. Does that mean you're with Mr. Freeze? Yeah, sure. Why not?

You know, I was going to, I was going to pick Joker just because, like you said, it makes sense that Joker wouldn't get too far in the bracket, but because of that kind of talk, it means that Joker will end up getting all the way through the fucking bracket

and winning. So I'm like, no. I'm going to roll the dice once again. Start off hot. If I heard her last episode, you'll know that I started to show off hot. And I wrote that all the way to the end. So I'm going to roll the dice once again and see what happens.

Okay. I don't think it would be too successful. I think I blew all my luck on par girl, which was my mistake. But let's just go, Mr. Freeze. All right, well, we'll see. All right, we're going to spin our wheel here. If it lands on Dylan, Mr. Freeze advances in the wheel. love Dylan last episode.

Yeah, I think I blew it. No, I think you didn't. No, you sure didn't. Oh, fuck. Jake. Mr. Freeze is going to move past the Joker in the first round. Oh.

Joker has been eliminated. I should bother you, though. Oh, bitch. All right. Our next matchup, we have Cinesro against Deathstroke. Now, I don't know how familiar you are with these guys. I can kind of give you a run down if you would prefer, but sort of the Cliff Notes version. Sinestro was once the greatest

green lantern until he had his fall from grace and realized that the world, the universe could be ruled through fear much stronger than led through willpower. Deathstroke, the Terminator, is one of the world's greatest assassins. Pretty much if there's a hit on you and Deathstroke's taking that contract, you're not going to do super hot. Deathstroke forever a pain in the ass of most of the Teen Titans, and depending on who's riding him, has a significant amount of plot armor. So we have a guy who is an expert hand-to-hand combatant. He has a level of a healing factor to him, a lot of very high-tech gadgetry at his disposal against a man who has a cosmic ring, much like the Green Lanterns, but his is yellow and is powered by his ability to instill great fear,

basically by being a dictator. Thoughts on Sinestro versus Deathstroke. is this feels like one of those like Deadpool versus um you know other powered character that we've had this conversation before like one might be really good at like shooting

and fighting and stuff like that but the other one if they can find a way around the easily avoidable shooting and punching probably has the upper hand right you know what you mean maybe

I mean I don't think Deathstroke is the kind of guy who's going to scare easily. And if Sinistro is like you know, his whole deal is ruling through fear.

Yeah, like I don't think that's going to be that big of a weapon in his arsenal. That's a good point. That's a very good point. That's very good. So power rings have a charge to them. You have to recharge your power ring. every so often.

How do you charge them? Oh, there's actually a... It is like a fucking lantern. Like, legitimately, you basically are able to summon a lantern. You put your ring to it, and it charges it up. It's like having...

How long does it take... Not terribly long. It does take some time. But the thing is, is like... Sinester is able to make constructs, much like a green lantern. Can't accept his. His are going to be yellow,

and they're using his ability to instill fear. Deathstroke is a man who isn't susceptible to fear conventionally. He's got it with a lot of trauma. He's a dude who's fucked his personal life up. Something fucking fierce. Alienate, you know, Strange's wife was responsible for one of his kids dying, his other two children hating his guts.

Not a great guy. I think the thing about it is both of these guys are very arrogant and very, very very egotistical. Destrook knows he's fucking good. Sinestro also doesn't have a high opinion of humans. So I think the thing about it is it's guns and swords and conventional human weaponry against a cosmic power.

You know, it's not necessarily like Martian Mantor versus Green Lantern was. It's going to be more conventional weaponry against something from fucking space. And I feel like Sinestro wins this one. that's what I was thinking. John did a very good job of like kind of winning me over with the whole fear thing.

Like I get that. But like just off the bat, I thought if you're, if you're thinking about like the more conventional weaponry and way to fight people versus like some weird space shit, you know,

space shit's got a good shot, right? Yeah. Maybe. I mean, my thinking is Who did we have when Talking about storm against someone And like someone with a gun shooting her from really far away

Was it? Oh, there you go And that, you know, he could kill her if he did that Like, without getting hit by lightning or whatever Maybe Deathstroke with enough time, preparation and distance Yeah, he could shoot Zanestro before he can use any of his

powers against him. Weren't you Hmm No you, I think, wait, were you on Team Storm or were you not on Team Storm? Oh, I can't remember. I don't remember. So John was on Team Storm,

and then I brought that up that from a distance with a sniper rifle without her, if she didn't know that he was looking for her, then Deathstroke could take out Storm. Because she's not impervious to bullets. that we know of that we know of so yeah

I'm gonna go Deathstroke just to throw a bit of a wild card in there okay so if it lands on John death stroke

the Terminator will move past Sinestro Hey yeah yeah yeah give one of those episodes huh

so yes John it landed on John meeting Deathstroke the Terminator will move to the next round where he will face off against

Mr. Freeze but first this one's also going to be a little bit of a weird one. We have Cosmic Against Earth. We have Staro, the Conqueror, a giant space starfish against Poison Ivy,

who is the ability to control plant life. So, again, what's interesting about this one is Poison Ivy has the ability to sway people under her control using like spores and pheromones and what have you. Starrow is also the ability to take over people of mind by basically creating his own spores,

which are smaller jellyfish versions of himself that attach to their fucking face. space. So this would like actually be something would be like two generals leading armies, essentially, without a fight happening. Because if you put poison ivy against Staro, she is a average size human woman. And Starro is a giant fucking starfish from space. So, so on a physical hand-to-hand person-to-person combat, that one's a little hard to judge because the difference is mass. but if you would for the idea of both of them having armies of, you know, brainwashed servants essentially fighting for them, a little more even ground. So, again, real quick, what's your knowledge of poison ivy and starro?

I would have more knowledge on poison ivy than it would on Staro. Okay. Starro, the Conqueror, is a parasitic alien starfish. He is a giant starfish with a single eye depicted with turquoise. and taffy colors. He has mind control abilities, telepathy. He can reproduce by making countless smaller versions of himself. He can grow to massive size and holds power with each host he controls.

And he also has superhuman strength, flight regeneration, and energy projection. He is an ancient alien conqueror that travels the universe enslaving full planets. In some retellings, he was once a humanoid alien who merged with the star-o entity. Poison Ivy was a botanist who... had some stuff happen, depending on which origin you're looking at, and basically decided to say, fuck humans. But real quick,

poison ivy's abilities are, well, just because we're going to be fair and read them both out, she is a doctorate and botany, she can manipulate, he has manipulation of plants and toxins, she can self-sustain herself, she is a skilled seductress and a skilled gymnast and hand-to-hand combatant.

Again, not necessarily skilled seductress, you say. She went to The doctor's school You go fuck that giant starfish If I get to the wind You know what you mean? Yeah

Is that the chocolate starfish that Fred Dost was singing about? Oh John What character Why are you going to lower the tongue like that? Why are you going to bring a Limpis into this? Someone had to

I don't think somebody did have to. We're at that point where people are uniron liking them again. So, you know. Well, people, as we've established, are idiots. So we won't. I think this is tricky because it's a big fucking starfish. It's a giant fucking starfish. How would Poison Ivy be able to use her abilities against a big space starfish?

You know what you mean? She could summon some sort of big giant, you know, like Venus flytrap style plant to take a bite out of it, maybe. Couldn't it just take a bite out of the Venus flytrap? He would also regenerate himself. Starro doesn't. So you know, big jaw?

Like a big starfish might? In some adaptations, yes. The opposite end of his body. Like, you know, are you like kind of familiar with starfish anatomy? They have the underside where the mouth and anus and everything is. That's kind of what his deal is.

Yeah. So you could just jump over this big mic. you know okay well in that case i'm gonna go with starro then this one i find it really hard but like i feel like once you read all that shit out like it's probably the big starfish right yeah the giant starfish is gonna be pretty difficult to handle yeah all right we have we gotta go with that star o the conqueror moving past poison ivy i mean star o the conqueror yes he's conquered shit they don't hand that name out lightly you know so you got star of the conqueror Conqueror and Deathstroke the Terminator.

Yeah. And then Mr. Freeze, the Freezy. Obstacle. Yeah. All right. This one is, this one's interesting because like this is one of those that the first

round matchup is I think surprisingly even matched. Considering against any other characters, it'd be a wash. So we have parallax versus dark side. Now, Real quick, dark side is the god is the god of evil, the anti-life god from apocalypse.

He is a genius level intellect. He's a master tactician, superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, and reflexes. He's immortal. He's considered invulnerable. He's a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, and he's powered by the omega effect, which basically grants him omega beams, which he shoots out of his eyes and can bend around corners. And basically, once they're locked in on you, you're probably going to get hit. He can fly.

He has telekinesis, telepathy. can travel between dimensions and can manipulate matter and energy. He is against parallax. Parallax is the powerful parasitic cosmic entity. That represents the yellow light of fear. So the thing that gives Sinestro his powers comes from Parallax. He is the embodiment of fear, essentially. And Parallax, let me go in real quick.

He's able to possess people. So he's large-scale reality, alteration, control time, flight possession, mind control, fear induction, and create solid energy constructs. He's a giant yellow space bug against a giant space god. Like I said, surprisingly evenly matched considering they could go up against any other person in the first round, and it'd be a little more hard and a little more difficult. So, that being said, your feelings on Parallax versus Darkside. I agree with you in that this is, is,

is as close as we could have got it. Whenever we were coming up with this bracket, we were talking about how what's the power level for some people? Are we going to have a point where like somebody's just going to walk away with it? And then Parallax is a very powerful. Anthony,

dark side is also very powerful entity. This is as close as you're going to get out. Yeah. I feel like despite that, you're probably still talking about Darkside. but it's pretty close, I think. Darkside is the big bad at DC.

He's DC's Dr. Doom. You know, like there's no greater threat or evil than Darkside. I mean, currently between the, you know, DC launched the absolute universe. That all came about because Darkside found himself in this world that was Malibal. And he was like, all right, cool, if I can manipulate this world, I'm going to make sure that every fucking hero has the worst possible timeline. and that's what he did he's spiteful he's cunning he's incredibly creatively powerful character i'm inclined to go with dark side yeah i'm probably gonna go a dark side i'll say parallax just to throw in a curveball good man i think if any match was gonna have the

potential to you know knock dark side out it's probably this one can i choose my ball I agree with John in that if anybody's going to knock out Darkside it's this guy Yeah so that means that it has to land on me For Darkside to move forward Yeah Because like we'm sure we can figure it away

To get rid of Paralax but this is our only chance To stop Darkside Dylan you change in your mind did That played a factor landed on you Yeah Wow So we're going to knock out Darkside in the first round as parallax, the embodiment of fear moves forward.

I also think it's fun. One reason I think it's fun is because Corey was like, well, he's like Marvel's Dr. Doom. And I'm like, well, Dr. Doom didn't win our villain bracket. Fuck him. Oh. All right. Next up, we got two flash villains. We've got the reverse flash and we've got Gorilla Grod.

So real quick, what's your knowledge of the reverse flash? He's like backwards flash. Yeah. can only run backwards. Yeah. All right. So Eobard Thon is the reverse flash. He has access to the reverse speed force or the negative speed force.

He's also a genius level intellect. So the negative speed force grants him superhuman speed, time and dimensional travel, cellular regeneration and accelerated healing, intangibility, sonic shockwave projection, vortex generation, memory and speed absorption, age alteration, electrocinesis power absorption cosmic awareness molecular acceleration reality alteration and retro cognition um which is always really yeah that's just a that's remember how he said that the flash kid like basically you speed his brain up and remember stuff that he forgot a negative flash the reverse flash has the ability too uh-huh i fucking love talking

about the flash with you dillon it's the best gorilla grotto uh A gorilla Grod is a evil super intelligent gorilla who gained mental powers after being exposed to strange meteorites radiation. So that sort of comes about with a genius level intellect, superhuman strength, stamina, durability, speed, agility reflexes and senses, telepathy, telekinesis, and he has a connection to the speed force. So, giant super intelligent gorilla, reverse flash. What are your thoughts? He has a connection to the speed force? Yeah. I

It has to do I think it was his long-term exposure to Like the Flash granted him that ability Okay Well then I'm gonna go for the monkey Anything Against the Flash 100%

I am going Towards the reverse Flash Just because Again he's got all these multitude of powers, just like the regular flash does.

And Rida Grod is just basically a monkey with, you know, like, telepathy. So, I don't think... He has access to the speed force, John. Yeah, but then so does the reverse flash. Right.

So Gorilla Grod has access to the speed force and also he's a monkey. So he's got two things going for him. Hmm, maybe. I'm going to stick With reverse flash, though. Fair enough. Whatever you want.

I will go with reverse flash. So, we're going to take it to the wheel. If it lands on Dylan, it's Gorilla Grodd. Dylan has had a very good night with the wheel. But not for this one. Reverse flash will be advancing. Well, I had a good run.

All right, up next, we've got a Batman villain against the greatest Superman villain. We have Clayface versus Lex Luther. Now, you guys are familiar with both, I imagine. If not, let me know, and we can do a little bit of a deep dive on both. I believe I married Lex Lutha when we killed someone, so yes, I'm very familiar with him. I believe that was... Did you give him syphilis?

Yes. Did you give him syphilis? No, he gave me. Yeah, that's how it's done. Rude. No need for that. Clayface is a shapeshifter, can regenerate his body, and he has superhuman strength, stamina, and durability.

Lex Luthor is a genius-level intellect, inventor, and has basically all the resources that Batman has. So... I'm going to go with Lex Luthor. Yes. I'm inclined to go with Lex Luthor as well. Genius-level intellect, proficient engineer and scientist, criminal mastermind, and the...

war suits that he has, which are his power armor, superhuman strength and durability, energy projection, flight, and advanced weaponry that often incorporates kryptonite. Just sometimes like resources and shit, Lex Luthor has got, he'll just find a way to easily be Clayface, I think. If Clayface, is his power is like sort of similar to Sandman where he can basically turn into his body into different sort of weapons and or even make it sort of lick. equity in... Yes.

So I think Clayface could be an underdog here where he just smothers Lex Luthor in his liquid clay. His goo. Yeah, his goo.

And then just like chokes him out. You know? Boom. Done. I think it wouldn't be as easy as that, though. I don't feel like Lex Luthor would just let that happen. Luther is a contingency. What's he going to do?

I mean, he's got the war suits. I mean, he's a contingency kind of guy. He is someone who is quite used to people trying to kill him and is often trying to kill people in return. It would be very difficult to catch him flat-footed. Plus, we're, you know, I have... Well, I have... Joe Marita.

I have faith in Clayface. Okay. Fair enough. All right, we're going to take... If it lands on John, Clayface is moving past Lex Luthor. It probably would be a massive fucking upset. And because I said that, we're going to will. Oh, I hope it is, John.

No. So it's going to land on me. And so Lex Luthor will move past Clayface. Mr. Lutha. All right, we've got our first Kryptonian and our only Kryptonian of this particular round. As we have General Zod versus the Brainiac, two Superman villains. against one another. How familiar are you with both?

I feel like I'm more familiar with Breaniac the Mazzad. Oh, Rainey. I'm the other way around. So that means Corey can explain everything. Yes. Perfect. Which is great. You should get, you know, Brainiac will, I think they've already announced he is going to be the main villain of the Man of Tomorrow film by James Gunn. So we will be seeing a little bit more Brainiac.

Brainiac is Commonly depicted as a super intelligent android or cyborg from the planet Kolu Who's obsessed with collecting knowledge in the known universe His power and ability Most consistent power is his 12th level intelligence allowing calculation abilities enhanced memory And advanced understanding of mechanical engineering, bioengineering physics as well as other theoretical and applied scientists His mental abilities have shown him capable of possessing others, absorbing infaration from beings, transferring his consciousness, creating and manipulating computer systems, replicating duplicate bodies of himself, and exerting powers to traverse or control space time.

Among organic beings, Brainiac views only his frequent partner, Lex Luthor, as a peer intellect. He has often been depicted as well as having incredibly high levels of strength, durability, and speed. The exact level varies, but usually hovers around what Superman's strength level is. is. There have been multiple versions of Brainiac over the years, with small variations and changes to appearance as well as power level. But General Zod, however, is full-on Kryptonian, was a considered somewhat of a peer with Superman's father, but he was representative of the Cryptonian Military Guild. Zod's ability, superhuman strength, stamina, and dur at speed, agility, reflexes, intelligence, longevity, and hearing, he can absorb,

the solar energy of the yellow sun, which gives him the full bevy of his powers. Basically, he has all of Superman's abilities plus being a master military mind. So he knows how to fucking fight. So Zod versus Brainiac. Both of them have experienced fighting Superman. Brainiac has experienced,

and both of them have experience fighting, you know, Kryptonians. So that being said, what are your thoughts on Zod against Brainiac? I feel like with that description, you made a pretty good kiss for Zod, right? Really? I was thinking Brainiac. He said he has all of Superman's pars, but also he's really good of fighting.

He's a cold, yeah, he's whatever. Superman is basically like self-taught farm kid fighting. You know, like he punches and he knows how to fight through just years of experience that way. Zod was trained in the military and ran the military. So he is... So you're talking about supermap, but he fights better. Like, that's hard to be.

A more disciplined fighter in the sense of, like, trained at it. Mm-hmm. That's... That's... Isn't Brainiac, isn't his whole gimmick, like, shrinking stuff? I mean, the Bial City of Kandor, yes.

So, why not just shrink General Zod and then put in a little bottle? And he has done that game over right there. And it didn't work out completely for him. So it's not a full proof strategy. Now, of course, the thing is about that. Well, maybe he learned his lesson from last time.

But he's never done to Zod, though. So the thing to remember is that General Zod does have the weaknesses of Kryptonian. So kryptonite is a weakness to him. Magic is a weakness to him. Cutting him off from yellow solar energy is a weakness to him. Brainiac's weaknesses more have to do with just his core of cold and unfeeling nature. And, yeah, that kind of goes in his favor. But yes, Zod versus Brainiac.

What are your thoughts? That's a tough one. I'm still going to go with Zod. No, you know what? Fuck, I'm going to Brainiac. Okay. There you go. Yeah, I'm going Braniac.

Yep. I'm sticking with Brainiac as well. I'll go Zod just to give our Kryptonian, our lone Croptonian a fighting chance on this one we're gonna spin our wheel lands on me General Zod advances anybody else gonna be Brainiac brainiac it is yep all right in our final first round match it's a tough one both of these guys synonymous with the 1990s in big moments in DC comics we have Bain the man who broke the bat against Doomsday the creature that killed Superman I'm not gonna lie

this is a bad draw for Bain. Bain is a, you know, Bain is a genius level strategist, incredibly strong thanks to Venom, strong without the venom, but even more so if he's using it. The problem is, Doomsday is a monster that is immortal. Every time he dies,

he comes back to life and has adapted to what killed him the first time. He's incredibly strong. He's incredibly durable. He has survived and lived through so much shit. He exists because he was brought up as this baby creature and brutally killed, resurrected, brutally killed again over and over and over again until his body adapted. Doomsday is a killing machine. Bane's a dude in a luchedore mask.

That's a tough fight. I mean, if it was pro wrestling, and if it was AEW, they'd be able to gimmick it. Yeah. Bain wins in like three minutes, you know. Well, they never do a match that's three minutes in AEW. If it's a tiny Lutrador guy against a big fucking Roridae, dude, yeah, they would go three minutes and have the Lichador win. So, 100%. So it sounds like Dumesday is advancing.

Yeah, Domsday? Yeah, Dumesday. I mean, yeah. I mean, one broke Batman's bat, the other killed Superman. man. Yeah. So, things and

write about it, all right. So that's it for our first round matches. We're going to head back to the top and we have

Mr. Freeze versus Deathstroke the Terminator. Mr. Freeze got here by freezing the Joker. Deathstroke got here

by sniping Sinestro out of the sky. I will not lie. I think this is the low end of the power scale in this tournament right now. Deathstroke is a

skilled master assassin. That is for sure. and Mr. Freeze is a genius super criminal. I think Deathstroke the Terminator, though, is the kind of guy that's going to absolutely exploit Mr. Freeze's weaknesses and use them against him and I think pull up the victory. I am in agreement. I think Deathstroke's a more ruthless individual

who is going to be more willing to, you know, cross lines. you know like exploit Mr. Freeze's weaknesses and yeah do whatever it takes to win so yeah I'll go with Deathstroke Dylan

I also agree with you guys honestly like Deathstroke's probably going to be the winner right I really want to just go to the wheel I don't care enough about it to go to the wheel so let's say Deathstroke Okay so Duststroke will be advancing Up next We have our battle of cosmic beings.

We have a giant starfish, star of the conqueror, against the intergalactic space entity of fear, parallax. What are our thoughts? I think the star did a pretty good job getting this far, but I feel like Parallax is going to be the winner here. Yeah, I'm sort of leaning in the same direction, I think. Parallax, I mean, he's riding high right now. he's just knocked off

Dark Side. Yeah. Only good time. Yeah, I'd say he's probably got this one in the bag. I like Starro the Conqueror, but a lot of Starro's strength comes from the ability to

mass produce and brainwash people and form an army, and that's not really going to do too much against a intergalactic space entity. So I do think that Starro, the Conqueror, is not going to advance past parallax.

Okay, so Parallax? Parallax. Parallax will be moving on. Speed. This round's going real quick. All right, we've got the reverse flash against Lex Luthor. Reverse flash has access

to the negative speed force, and Lex Lugar's Lex fucking Luther. Does Lex Luthor fought the regular Flash before? Yes, in a couple of different areas. Very famously in the Justice League cartoon. Do we know how to fight the Flash? I would say so. I mean, he's also the kind of person that, again, he has a Batman quality to him, and then he has contingencies.

Again, he deals with Superman who also has superhuman speed, who is on par with most version, well, with most of the flashes. He's not on par with Wally West, but he's probably on par with Iobar Thon. Well, I'm going to go with Lex Luther then. Yeah, I can't. I can't be a conscious bump off Luther for the reverse flash. Really? I'm going to go reverse flash. I think he's got all the superpowers. He's a pretty smart guy as well.

And yeah, I think he could pull off an upset here. See, my rationale behind it is that Lex Luthor constantly is dealing with the person who has the most superpowers. And at the end of the day, is just a rich genius. Who at one point was sort of, they made a version of Donald Trump. So we'll go ahead and take it to the wheel. If it lands on John, reverse flash makes the upset against Lex Luthor. Oh, just barely. We landed on Dylan, so Eobard Thun and reverse Flash will not be advancing Lex Luthor moves to the final four.

Next up, this one's brutal. We got Brainiac versus Doomsday, both Superman villains. Of course, Brainiac was, we've discussed super, beyond superhuman level of intellect and hold emotion and Doomsday, the thing that basically constantly is evolving. Personally speaking, I could see Brainiac being able to outlast Doomsday for a period of time. Because again, so, okay, there is a villain in the Doom Patrol comics who, this is a Grant Morrison invention, so Dylan, I know you're going to love it. their character has every superpower available.

The problem is you can remove that superpower if you name them. So if you're fighting this character, you just have to start shouting powers and they'll start losing them. Raniac is somebody who can conceivably think of millions of strategies to deal with Doomsday. The problem is Doomsday is going to keep coming back. How long the fight goes depends on how long. it takes for Doomsday to get his hands on Brainiac, in my opinion. Because Brainiac can probably keep him busy for a while

by putting up roadblocks and killing him off in unique ways until he comes back again. You know, that's the thing. Right off the bat, I was thinking, Doomsday is going to win just because he beats the shit out of him. But then I was thinking maybe Braniac, because if anybody's going to find out a way to get around stuff that Doomsday is.

can do. It would be a guy like Braniac with that kind of like intelligence. He would be I feel like he would be able to crack the code to Doomsday that nobody else would be able to figure out. You know what you mean? I feel like just his raw, like his intelligence would figure out a way

to get that upper hand. So at first I was going to go with Doom's Day. But now I think I'm speaking towards Brainiac. I don't know, though. Like, I see what you're saying, but I think Doomsday, if he, like, well, if Brainiac makes just, like, one mistake and Doomsday can get his hands on him, then that's probably, you know, game over right there. That's an if, though. It's an if, but, like, an inevitable if. It's going to happen at some point.

But somebody's going to be able to, like, incapacitate. Doomsday and find a way to, like, stop him for good. It'd be braniac, you know. That makes sense to me. I think there's only one way to sell this. What does Corey think? I think Doomsday is just unrelenting. I think that's the problem with Doomsday is, you know,

like this is a character that literally got stuck in hell and fought his way out of hell. Okay. So I think Doomsday could... Here's a thing. It would be a war of attrition, but I think... think that it's inevitable. Here's the thing, right? I was thinking about Doomsday to begin with.

So, like, if you guys wanted to go with Doomsday, I'm happy to go with Doomsday. I think it makes sense. I think Brainiac has a good shot. I think, I think Brainiac's a good, is a good fight against Doomsday, just as, again, if there's anyone who's going to think of a way to

prolong the fight, it's going to be him. He's not going to get as overwhelmed as quickly, I think. But again, it's inevitable. Right. Do you want to say Doomsday? I'm going Doomsday personally. I'm happy to go with that. Okay. So we're going to have

Doomsday advanced past Braniac. So here's our final four. A little off-sighted a little bit. We've got Deathstroke the Terminator, Parallax, Lex Luthor, and Doomsday. That's two Superman villains there at the end. So our first of this, though, Destrook the Terminator against Parallax. We have a master assassin against a cosmic entity of fear.

I think Death Sturg has had a good run so far, but he, I think that run is over. I am a feeling it might be. I would go for Parlax in this one. Yeah. I don't think you can really shoot a cosmic entity of fear. You can try. I don't think we'll get to too far. I agree.

I think that's parallel. Lex's ticket to the finals. And then next up, also kind of almost, I want to say almost a wash. We got Lex Luther versus Doomsday. I love Lex.

Shear intellect and money and prep can only go so far against Doomsday. Like that was the point of Doomsday. When they created the character to beat Superman, they were like, Superman is constantly being put against like these super level geniuses with all this money and resources. Like,

what if we go the opposite direction and we just have a, brute, mindless force of nature that exists only to kill. You know, like, Doomsday exists because they wanted something to kill Superman, and Lex Luthor was not going to do it. Yeah, I feel like, like, you know, as much as we want to boil down, Lex Luthor has been this really smart, intelligent guy. You can have all the suits that he wants, all the plans or whatever. Like, Dunez-Doseys is going to pommel of, right?

Absolutely. It'll beat the show of him. Okay, but hear me out. What if Lex Luthor gets Doomsday in the Torture Act? Well, listen, people have got out of the torture rack before. Okay, yeah, that's a good point. You know what you mean? Okay, I'm going with Doomsday.

Okay. Yeah, like you said, that round went quick. quick because the matchups were a little on the lopsided side. But we do have... That's still a good final, I think. That's a great final. We got Paralax, a cosmic entity of fear, and Doomsday, who literally evolves to kill. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good final.

Now, here's the thing. Parallax's abilities are essentially the ability to, like, take over someone's, possess someone's mind, and by basically making them experience great fear. He was able to possess Hal Jordan by the nervous breakdown Hal had after, you know, cyborg Superman, nuked his home city and killed all of his friends and family. Like, it was like worst case scenario. He was at his most susceptible and that was that.

There's not really something you can possess in Doomsday. Doomsday is just as much a force of nature. But then maybe he's a blank slate, though. Maybe he's easier to possess because there's not much going on there. Right. Maybe it's straight into the brain, you know. I'd imagine what would happen if Parallax was able to take over Doomsday. Maybe invincible.

Pretty much. You know, that's, when you put it like that. I don't know. See, I'm all the opposite in. I just don't think there's, he has, he's the ability to take over because he's manipulating that person into weakening themselves out of, fear but there's nothing like doomsday doesn't fear anything he doesn't feel anything he's but if anybody could make he's only anybody can make do you or something it would be parallax wouldn't it

yeah but again like there's it's he's not capable of feeling anything but bloodlust there's been one hyper intelligent version of doomsday and he's the he's a character that's referred to as I think it's the timekeeper. And it's like a version of Doomsday that is so evolved into the future that like he, he like came to the past to warn Superman about something. I don't know, man. We're going to take it to the wheel. I don't know.

I'm on the fence. I'm on the fence with this one. Okay. I mean, Doomsday makes sense from a logical point of view, but I think John makes a good point that like if, if Arlax was to get into Doomsday, that's game over. It's a big if.

So take it to the wheel. I'm definitely on team doomsday. John is on parallax. Dylan, are you choosing a side or are you abstaining and we're going for a re-roll if it lands on you? I don't know. Okay. I don't know.

Yeah, I'm going to abstainting for this one. Okay. It's really shitty for me to abstain the final, I guess, right? Yeah, that's going to say. Let me think about it. Oh, no, he's already spined the way. I already spun it. But it's okay because it looks like it's landing on John.

Well. All right. So that settles it. Parallax will move to the final and represent our DC villains. So let's, uh... Excellent choice. Let's head back over to our cam and we'll go from there. Okay, guys.

So that settled it. Parallax is going to be representing our DC villains. That's kind of a big deal. He was a big villain in the 90s. However, at the time, he wasn't a cosmic space bug. He was just the name that Hal Jordan gave himself when he broke bad and became evil, and Jeff Johns rewrote him to be a cosmic space bug. Regardless, that's where we're running with.

So, our final four has been set representing the Marvel Heroes. We have Scarlet Witch, the Marvel villains. We've got Apocalypse, the DC Heroes. We've got John Constantine, and the DC villains. We have parallax. So kind of... Mixed bag. They're kind of...

There's an odd level of... being parallel on that. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah. We'll have another, we'll have one more episode where we'll do our final four, and that one's going to be really more involved, I think.

You know, I'll have proper level of research into all four of the characters. That way we do have a, we should have a decent level of discussion for those final three matches that decide our ultimate winner. But, that being said, regarding this episode,

what surprised you the most out of the DC villain side? uh probably me fucking over the joker but to be fair like corey said the joker as as a character compared to a lot of these guys has a shelf life like you know the joker versus jimsy the joker versus parallax the joker versus uh you know dark side at some point his his joker power would run out you know so

I don't think he would have won the thing anyway, really. Well, I was going to try and make him win the thing, but you ruined it. As I often do. It worked out. That's why I'm here, to ruin things. Other than that, though, I think a lot of that went pretty smooth. I think that one might be the smoothest one. Well, I mean, the dark side lost against parallax in the first round.

sort of change the way it was going to, well, probably most of us thought it was going to go. Yeah. I thought Darkside was just going to, you know, cakewalk it all the way to the finals. But. Agreed. Agreed. So again, we will have another episode down the line where we're going to look at those three final matches where we will find out who wins between Scarlet Witch and Apocalypse,

who wins between John Constantine and the parallax. And then ultimately, who wins the whole goddamn thing? Until then, our last episode, we discussed John's final movie and final count of 2025. It is 2026 now. It has been for a little bit if you're watching. But that being said, John, where are you at on your movie count for 2026? So, so far in 26, I have watched 31 movies. Nice. What was the last one?

The last one was The Life of Chuck, which was Mike Flanagan doing another Stephen King adaptation, although this wasn't really a horror one. This was more sort of I don't know, kind of

a sweet, beautiful kind of life-affirming story. So it was, I really enjoyed it. Highly recommend. There you go. What score did you give it? 4.5

out of 5. Mostly based on Tom Hiddleston's dancing. I've got moves. Fair enough. Fair enough. So, that being said, where can they go to read more of your thoughts on

this movie? They can head to Letterbox and find me at Big John Bowski, Orwellmwood. And Dylan, what have you been up to lately? I do a radio show that happens every Monday nights. 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock, UK time.

You can listen to it on Bynes Digital Radio. at K., you can check that out every Monday night. A lot of rock music and play a lot of, just whatever I like. It's a good time, good vibes. And then I've been doing a lot of animating recently. Sometimes I stream it on Twitch. Spooky LaRue. And then I upload them to YouTube.

Team Crows and I, and I think it's the same on TikTok as well. Just, you know, go watch the shows and make them really popular. Please, I need money. That's it. All right. I've got my show, Large Old Cup. You can find a link to that and some other stuff down in the description. But until next time, we will see you all later.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye.