For Ghostface Killah, Tony Starks isn’t just a nom de plume. It’s a rich, cross-cultural grounding for his gritty storytelling, a bridge between hip-hop and comics, two uniquely American art forms that haven’t always been taken seriously by critics.

Ghostface’s decades-long immersion in Iron Man mythology introduced a new generation to the Marvel superhero, foreshadowed other rappers’ Marvel-inspired alter-egos, and paved the way for Iron Man’s arrival on the big screen — a movie in which Ghost very nearly had a cameo.

In an exclusive interview with Inverse, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 stars Karen Gillan & Pom Klementieff discuss the forthcoming, final chapter of their MCU trilogy and their experiences working with writer-director James Gunn.