Back when The Amazing Spider-Man was still in development, one of the biggest names tossed around for the part of Peter Parker was Community actor Donald Glover. Glover himself campaigned hard for the role, but his race was an issue with some people and he was never seriously considered for it. As we know, the role of Spider-Man ultimately went to Andrew Garfield, who has done a pretty good job in an otherwise contentious franchise reboot.
The desire to see Glover suit up as Spidey never died down though, especially when the actor showed up in Spider-Man pajamas on Community. Fan reactions were so strong that they caught the attention of comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli, who were inspired by Glover’s campaign and created a new Spider-Man, the half-black half-Latino Miles Morales who first appeared in Ultimate Spider-Man.
We’ve heard several times that Sony will not use Miles Morales as Spider-Man in a feature film (despite Garfield’s desire to “pass the torch”), and that producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach are only interested in the Peter Parker version of the character. That unfortunately puts the kibosh on seeing Glover as either Peter or Miles on film… but television is another story.
According to USA Today, Glover will voice Miles Morales on an upcoming episode of the Disney XD series Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors. This season, Peter will be traveling across parallel universes and come into contact with several versions of the web slinger including Morales, who took over as Spider-Man after Peter’s death in the Ultimate universe.
Glover spoke with USA Today about finally portraying Spider-Man, his lifelong favorite superhero, and how he still hasn’t given up hope on playing him in a film someday:
“I don’t think it’s hit me necessarily yet how big of a deal this is. I admire anybody who allows themselves to be themselves. Especially a kid. That’s the great part about the Spider-Man costume: He can be anybody. Spider-Man could be a girl. Spider-Man could be an old man. You don’t know. So I just tried to be as me as possible, because you’re always just going to bring it back to yourself when you watch the show. Spider-Man is the best becuase you just don’t know who he is, and he’s funny and he’s poor. I understand Spider-Man a lot on that level. He’s just trying to make it.
I’m still holding out, though. I still have hopes to do something like that one day. I don’t look at this as second place. Spider-Man, he’s such an icon – you have to do something with him.”
Check out a clip of Glover as Miles Morales in Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors below, and let us know how you feel about this news in the comment section.
