8 Characters That Donald Glover Could Be Playing In Spider-Man: Homecoming

It was recently revealed that Community star Donald Glover is to appear in Marvel and Sony’s new Spidey movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming. While it's a great bit of casting in its own right, as Glover is a very charismatic actor, his appointment also has another meaning for fans. Back before Andrew Garfield nabbed the part of Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man, a popular fan movement called for Glover to take on the role. The actor eventually got behind this and made his bid for the part public. Obviously, though, this wasn’t to be and he didn't end up snagging it. Given that there's some history between Spider-Man and Glover though, he's surely been given a meaty role in Homecoming. So far, the identity of his character has been kept under wraps, which might just mean that he's playing an important part. Join us, then, as we offer up eight potential characters from the comics who Donald Glover could be playing. As always, if you have any ideas of your own, be sure to let us know in the comments section below. 8) Miles Morales Something we didn’t mention on the previous page is the fact that, though he didn’t get the part in the movies, Donald Glover did actually end up playing Spider-Man at one point. In the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series he voiced Miles Morales, the half-Hispanic, half-African-American Spider-Man from another universe. Now that it's been announced he's appearing in Homecoming, it's got fans thinking that perhaps Glover is reprising that role in live-action. On the face of it, this sadly seems unlikely. Morales is typically depicted as about 14 years old, while Glover is now in his 30s. Of course, the movie could have swapped the usual story around, so that Miles is an older Spider-Man who mentors the younger Peter, but we don’t think that's what they're doing. While Glover playing Miles in the movie does seem unlikely, it isn’t totally impossible. After all, you never know what'll happen in the crazy world of Marvel. 7) Miles Warren He probably won’t be Miles Morales, but Donald Glover could be playing another Miles in Spider-Man: Homecoming. In the comics, Miles Warren is a former teacher of Peter’s who goes insane (don’t all of Peter’s mentors?) and becomes the supervillain The Jackal. He's also the mastermind behind The Clone Saga storyline from the 1990s, which resulted in various clones of Spider-Man running around and no end of strife in Peter’s life. While Marvel surely wouldn't jump straight into their take on the character with The Clone Saga, Glover could play the younger Miles Warren while he's still a regular teacher at Midtown High. The character’s inclusion could easily set up a future adaptation of that comic book event, or they could just lift the name as a nod for the fans. Either way, this doesn’t seem too far-fetched an option. It's also something we wouldn't mind seeing. 6) The Tinkerer For Spider-Man: Homecoming, Marvel are said to be very inspired by the webhead’s early years. As such, it's commonly thought that the villains Spidey will face in the movie will be The Vulture and The Tinkerer, who both debuted all the way back in The Amazing Spider-Man #2. While the Vulture is assumed to be played by Michael Keaton, there have been no rumours surrounding who might portray The Tinkerer. Could this be the role Glover is taking on? Maybe, but it seems unlikely - as Phineas Mason is an elderly, eccentric scientist in the comics. Not exactly a perfect match for Donald Glover, then, but Marvel don’t seem too worried about that sort of thing this time around. For instance, they cast the “unusually attractive” (in the words of Tony Stark) Marisa Tomei as Aunt May. Glover would surely give a fun, fresh take on this lesser known foe from Spider-Man’s rogues gallery, so we're holding out hope that maybe this could happen. 5) The Prowler Another lesser known figure from Spider-Man lore is The Prowler. Created by Stan Lee and John Buscema for The Amazing Spider-Man #78, Hobie Brown was an African-American teen who, after losing his job, used his engineering skills to build a high-tech suit to commit burglary. Apart from fitting in the with the ‘Spider-Man: The Early Years’ theme, The Prowler would be an interesting character to bring to the screen as he's like a more roguish version of Peter himself. Both are misunderstood kids, but whereas one picked the life of a crime-fighter, the other just chose crime. Another interesting avenue to explore would be the character’s later redemption. Spidey manages to convince Hobie to join the good fight and The Prowler eventually becomes his own superhero. If Glover didn’t manage to get the part of Spider-Man, the least Marvel could do is let him play a superhero who teams up with the wallcrawler, right? 4) Ned Leeds A similar character who's sometimes on Spidey’s side and sometimes isn’t is Ned Leeds. A reporter at The Daily Bugle, Ned was caught up in a love triangle with Peter over Bugle secretary Betty Brant in the character’s early days. Much later on, he was revealed to be the supervillain The Hobgoblin. Going from being an ally of Peter’s, to a rival, to a full-on supervillain, Leeds would certainly offer a lot of dramatic potential for Glover to play with. Introducing The Hobgoblin might also be a good move as, after every previous Spider-Man film has featured him in some capacity, The Green Goblin is pretty old hat by now. The Hobgoblin also has a creepier look, which might prove easier to adapt to the screen than the goofy Green Goblin get-up. 3) Max Modell As well as being inspired by the early Stan Lee-penned Spider-Man comics, Marvel also seem to be looking to avoid rehashing the familiar aspects of the character and doing something we haven’t seen before on the big screen. Back in 2011's The Amazing Spider-Man #648, Peter Parker began working at Horizon Labs under one of his scientific idols, Max Modell. For once, Max was a mentor who stayed that way and didn't, you know, go insane and put on a colourful costume. Captain America: Civil War showcased Peter’s scientific abilities and interests a little bit more in his fiddling with old electrical equipment, so it might make sense to have him work at Horizon Labs in this version, rather than the Bugle. Donald Glover would also be a good choice to play Max, who would be a much more laid-back character than previous scientific mentors we've seen like Tony Stark and Hank Pym. 2) Robbie Robertson After the character was (probably quite rightly) rested for The Amazing Spider-Man movies, Spider-Man: Homecoming has surely got to reintroduce J. Jonah Jameson. And where Jameson goes, the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Bugle is sure to be close by – Robbie Robertson. Previously portrayed by Bill Nunn in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, he was quite a minor part of those movies, but with Glover in the role the character could be expanded. In the comics, he has an interesting backstory that's tied in with the superhuman crime boss Tombstone. This is something that would be interesting to see, as it would involve introducing a formidable foe of Spider-Man’s to the big screen. Alternatively, as Robbie is usually older than Glover, he could be playing the character’s son, Randy Robertson. Again, though, this would involve changing the character’s age, as Randy is usually a classmate of Peter’s. 1) J. Jonah Jameson On the other hand, maybe Glover won’t just be playing Jameson’s right-hand man but will actually portray the big cheese himself. While the actor is quite far removed from the image we all have of Jameson in our heads, that would be exactly why his casting would be a stroke of genius. Whoever took over from J.K. Simmons was always going to have a tough job of it (though we’ve previously named a few who might be able to), so going in a completely different direction would be a clever idea. Donald Glover has obviously proved his comedy chops in Community, so he could make the character just as funny as we would expect him to be. And actually, as long as they retain the core fact that he doesn’t like Spider-Man, the character could easily be stretched away from the usual depiction. Remember, if this turns out to be right, you heard it here first…