By: Savas Abadsidis

I’m the king of rock, there is none higher
Sucker MC’s should call me sire…
DMC stands for devestating mic control
You can’t touch me with a ten foot pole…
My name is Darryl, you can call him D
You can call me Darryl Mack, or you can call him DMC
People always ask, “DMC, what does it mean?”
D’s for never dirty, MC for mostly clean
Like we said before, we rock hardcore
I’m DJ Run, I can scratch. I’m DMC, I can draw”

King of Rock, RUN DMC, 1985

Written by Darryl McDaniels and Produced by Russell Simmons

With those lyrics RUN DMC went onto rule the airways for most of the 1980s, but as DMC aka Darryl McDaniels tells me, even then their handles were alter egos, with superheroes influencing them all over their records. Cut to 2014, and McDaniels was omnipresent at New York Comic Con taking photos and talking to fans about his new comic and comic book company DMC (Darryl Makes Comics). In the book, which takes place in the milieu of 1980s urban NYC, a superhero called DMC is busy trying to save the city.

For Mr. McDaniels, who conceived of the premise and worked with a team to make the project a reality, DMC is a celebration of his lifelong love of comics.

“I was a kid who had my lunch money taken away,” Mr. McDaniels said, the neighborhood bullies in Hollis, Queens, had decided he was rich because of his Catholic school uniform. “The walk home to my house was terror ridden. Spider-Man took me to a place where everything was great.” The world presented in DMC also needs a beacon of hope. It’s 1985, and New York is crime-ridden, graffiti-stained and simmering with racial tension. The hero — dressed in an Adidas tracksuit and sneakers, with brass knuckles embossed with “D.M.C.” — is doing his part to protect the powerless.

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