The roots of the worldwide phenomenon, that is, this ’urban’ culture, are from New York. The explosion that occurred between many creative arts, politics, and lifestyles, very much affected New York. This occurred between the 60’s and 70’s. During this time, Stan Lee and co. created a revolution in comic book culture. They created a very real world, where heroes were insecure, had psychosis, were monsters, and had moral ambiguities. The writers also tackled current political issues, race wars, and drugs. Most importantly, Stan Lee had set ALL of this, in a very real, and a very current New York. And still with current media and pop culture, the popularity for these characters is in great abundance, especially with the slew of Marvel films that have come out in recent years.

Music and art have always been associated, and this is a team up that makes sense. DJ’s and urban DJ culture has great respect for the urban comic book style that is Marvel Comics. Well, this is natural, especially seeing as the cultures spawned from the same time, in the same city, in the same country. DJ and turntable pioneer Afrika Bambaataa created a historic record cover when he teamed up with the Soul Sonic Force to release ’Renegades of Funk.’ The album cover was taken straight from a Marvel Comics cover. This went on to inspire a trend of DJ’s dressing up as super heroes. The rapper MF Doom frequently talks about Marvel Comic characters in his lyrics. The mainstream rapper Method Man also has an alias John Blaze, which is the name of Ghost Rider. The DMC winning DJ team The X-Cutioners were originally called The X-Men because of their love of the comic. From the team, the DJ Roc Raider shocked the DJ world when he introduced body tricks while scratching at the DMC’s. He wore a Marvel X-Men t-shirt for the occasion.