It's no secret that rappers love comic books. MF Doom has based much of his solo career on Dr. Doom, and members of the Wu-Tang Clan have taken on the ideology of some of their favorite comic characters. Ghostface Killah's first album is called Ironman (and he calls himself Tony Stark on a regular basis), Method Man goes by Johnny Blaze aka Ghost Rider, etc. RZA even created a new superhero, Bobby Digital, and invested much of his fortune into developing him into an RLSH, complete with a bulletproof outfit and a themed, souped-up car.
But besides rap's fascination with comic culture, what could Marvel's Avengers team possibly have to do with the rap group the Wu-Tang Clan? The answer may surprise you. Several years ago I wrote an essay for my first book about going to see the Wu-Tang Clan in Orlando in 2005. It was a great concert, but one of the things I focused on for my essay was the business end of the Wu and how they'd built an empire based on correlating products.
The short(est) version of it is this. In 1993, Wu-Tang released their debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang, which was a blowout success. It's a great album, featuring all nine emcees in the band throughout, besides being a welcome change from the poppy direction the genre had taken in the late '80s. The real genius of Wu-Tang, though, lay in the group itself. After the release of Enter the Wu-Tang, most of the members of the band released a solo album, mostly showcasing their own talents, but with guest spots from the band and other talent they'd recruited. It's not hard to tell who's who on Enter the Wu-Tang - half their songs feature the rappers calling themselves out for easy identification - and fans found themselves gravitating towards each member's solo albums depending on each fan's preference. The debut album became, in a sense, a sampler for the rest of the Clan's independent effort.
Even stronger for the business was the paperwork. The group's leader, RZA, rallied the other members to sign to different record labels. The band were so hot at the time, the labels agreed to unheard-of clauses in their contracts - including that a percentage of each artist's royalties would go back to the Wu-Tang group itself and divided up between all nine men. Also, any talent that one Wu member would recruit and sign to his label would pay that member royalties on their albums, which would sell better with guest spots the main Wu-Tang artists performed. Essentially, in a matter of a couple years, nine kids from New York City controlled over 30% of the money in the hip-hop industry and record labels were competing with one another to sell their albums, not realizing they were in fact putting all their money directly towards their own (and one another's) artists. Now stick a pin in that whole idea, reverse it and you'll see where where this is headed.
Fast forward to 2008, when Marvel Studios releases a modern take on Iron Man, starring the amazing Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Of course it didn't hurt that Downey's supporting cast included the stellar Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terence Howard - not to mention being in the capable hands of Jon Favreau - but the mainstream movie crowd was still struggling what to think of superhero movies in terms of the 21st-century market. On the one hand, Christopher Nolan's Batman films had done very well - at the time, The Dark Knight was near the top of a short list of highest-grossing movies of all time - as had the first two Tobey Maguire Spider-Man efforts. However, two attempts at bringing The Hulk back (and Spider-Man 3, whose double-time jazz hands still cause me to wake up screaming at night) failed to impress audiences. We were only a year or so out from the poorly-received portrayal of Eddie Brock/Venom by Topher Grace, so in a way, Marvel Studios (and Iron Man) had to cut its jibs and prove itself from scratch.
The same way Batman Begins had to just three years prior.
The same way Wu-Tang had to in 1993.
Perhaps taking a cue from the Caped Crusader's recent successes, all parties involved in Iron Man made an effort to focus less on the campier, classic style of superhero media developed from the '40s to the '80s and update Tony Stark to fit in a little more with contemporary mainstream movies and their more realistic, toned-down portrayals. The last three Best Picture winners were The Departed, No Country for Old Men and Slumdog Millionaire - how much good do you think pun-filled one-liners would do for Marvel Studios? The result was a Tony Stark who was sometimes funny or goofy - again owing to Robert Downey Jr.'s seemingly endless list of good performances - but still grounded entirely in reality. Beyond a couple exaggerated gadgets in his repertoire, Ol' Shellhead was suddenly as believable a character as Bruce Wayne - no radioactive poisoning or freak mutations, no artifact from outer space. Just a guy with his heart in the right place (no pun intended), able to make a striking difference in the world - and who doesn't want to see that?
So Marvel had a hit on its hands. How could it make lightning strike twice? After the end credits of Iron Man, Tony is confronted by Samuel L Jackson playing Nick Fury, who tells Tony he's assembling a team of other people like him - The Avengers Initiative. Audiences went nuts - though it would be another four years before Avengers released, we had proof positive of how good their movies could be, assuming they were all produced under the same umbrella as Iron Man.
Iron Man was followed by Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America, all using cast members and writing styles that would lead up to and return in Avengers. Iron Man 2 and Thor even introduced a couple supporting/fringe heroes, Black Widow and Hawkeye, respectively, who would return in Avengers. It should be noted that the one underrepresented superhero in Marvel's five-year plan is The Hulk, who will be played in Avengers by Mark Ruffalo rather than Eric Bana or Edward Norton who have each played him in recent years. I would imagine Marvel Studios didn't want to try to make a third standalone take on Hulk in a decade just for the sake of rounding out the team, but I'm sure Ruffalo does a great job.
Much like the Wu-Tang solo albums, details have already surfaced about Captain America 2, Iron Man 3 and Thor 2, which will obviously follow some time after Avengers. It seems that up until this point, like the record industry promoting a full-length album by an artist with one or two singles releasing before the album, Marvel Studios has been content for each superhero's movies to work on their own until next Thursday, fueling the release of Avengers. Whereas Wu-Tang released their assembled heroes first to later develop their own solo material, Marvel Studios has taken the opposite route for now - though they may for the next couple years follow suit, earning successes for future individual releases based somewhat on their united group's smash hit.
...Now all we need is a comic series crossover between The Avengers and the Wu-Tang Clan, in which the Wu would get to flaunt the musical and martial arts talents they have in their video game Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style. That or an arcade fighter game: Avengers Vs. Wu-Tang, a la Marvel Vs. Capcom.
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