It’s been quite refreshing during this recent round of superhero podcast reviews as I’ve been trying to experience a few different styles of podcasts rather than just the traditional movie reviews. Though I haven’t always come fully on board with them, it’s been nice to listen to these varying types. And as usual, for each of these reviews I list out the details of the podcast and it all comes down to my final rating of: Subscribe, Unsubscribe, or Selected Episodes. And if you know of or host a superhero related podcast, feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail me at Bubbawheat@msn.com.

The Basics

Website: https://www.dynamicduel.com/
Episode count (as of 1-12-19): 105 plus bonus Patreon episodes
Episodes listened to: 6
Episodes recommended to me: Episode 100: Avengers vs Justice League, Clayface vs Venom, Dark Knight review, X-Men Origins: Wolverine review, Nightwing vs Daredevil, Aquaman vs Sub-Mariner
Release schedule: weekly on Tuesdays
Episode Length: 0:50-1:20 averaging around 1:00
Audio Quality: Clear
Language rating: R
Spoilers: Yes
Production format: A single conversation between cohosts discussing what the latest Marvel & DC news of the moment before getting to the main subject of the episode which is either a review of a Marvel or DC movie or a proposed match-up between a Marvel hero or group of heroes vs a DC hero or group of heroes with backstories, a description of the imagined battle, and the reveal of a winner determined by statistics.

The Format

The hosts are Johnny DC and Marvelous Joe who represent DC and Marvel respectively. They respect the classic Marvel No-Prize for their question of the week which also includes their audience participation and feedback. The news is generally kept short and sweet with the major new trailers, new title announcements and cancellations before going into their main feature. The movie reviews are generally on the basic side of things, looking at the plot, overall feelings, and various other criteria. But the more interesting episodes are the duel episodes where they pick two similarly matched characters from Marvel and DC and pit them together in an imaginary battle. Before they start, they go through the history of the character via the comics, then they describe what the battle might be like before giving the final results using official power ratings from Marvel and translating the DC characters into similar ratings.

Comics vs Movies

There seems to be a fairly even split between comics and movies with the episodes nearly split 50/50 between review episodes and duel episodes. The duel episodes tend to be a bit more comics-centric as the histories seem to follow comics storylines much more than any movie or TV versions of the characters. But even on the duel episodes, the news portion of the episode generally focuses on TV and movie news rather than any comics news. And the movie review episodes generally stick to the movie itself rather than spending much time comparing the movie to the comics.

The Verdict

One of the first things that many people think of when they think of comic book nerds is that they spend all their time pontificating over “who would win in a fight?” and this podcast is the personification of that. But it’s done in one of the best ways possible. The two hosts are great at describing the actual battles using interesting techniques and tactics that use the characters in the best way possible, including the occasional deep-dive use of their powers brought upon by their knowledge of the characters at hand. The movie review episodes are also quite good and while they do stick to the mainstream by only reviewing Marvel or DC titles, they do spread out to the home video and TV markets to give a little more variety.

Dynamic Duel Podcast: Subscribed