Donald Glover's Bid to Play Spider-Man Became a Huge Inspiration for the Creators of Miles Morales
Fans of comic books and the films based on them are all very familiar these days with the Spider-Man, Miles Morales. The first film based on the character, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, was made in 2018, and it launched us into a whole new world of Spidey characters in vibrant colors and an exciting storyline. It was very cool to see a black Spider-Man enter the scene, and it turns out that a major inspiration for the character was Donald Glover.
The actor was starring in the series Community at the time, and a reboot of the Spider-Man movies was in the works. Andrew Garfield ended up playing the webslinger in the Amazing Spider-Man movies, but Glover was vocal about wanting to snag the role before it was set in stone. There was even a #donald4spiderman movement that went viral, and in the second season premiere of Community, Glover's character Troy appeared in Spidey pajamas.
All the while, comic creator Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli were working on the graphic novel Ultimate Spider-Man, and Glover happened to serve as inspiration.
Bendis spoke to USA Today about seeing Glover on the show, saying:
"I saw [Glover] in the costume and thought, 'I would like to read that book. So I was glad I was writing that book."
He went on to add:
"It's certainly long overdue. Even though there's some amazing African-American and minority characters bouncing around in all the superhero universes, it's still crazy lopsided."
Bendis gave "mucho credit" to Donald Glover for inspiring Miles Morales, who first debuted in Ultimate Fallout #4 and bore a subtle resemblance to the actor. Glover's influence continued to inform the character, as he voiced Miles in the 2014 series Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors. Then when the Spider-Man films were rebooted for Marvel in 2017, he made a cameo in Spider-Man: Homecoming. By this point, Glover was obviously much too old to play Miles, but he appeared as Aaron Davis, Miles's uncle. Glover's cameo totally hinted at Miles's existence in the MCU, which we haven’t seen connected yet, but it was an awesome introduction.
Next up, Glover will team up with Marvel and Sony Pictures to bring the villain Hypno-Hustler to the big screen, which he will produce.