Donald Glover cast as Spider-Man transcending the racial divide

Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino will be our next Spider-Man!

No, Donald Glover is not replacing Andrew Garfield. Instead he will be voicing “a” Spider-Man in the upcoming Disney XD cartoon series “Ultimate Spider-Man.” He won’t be the Peter Parker Spider-Man that we all know, instead he will be Miles Morales, a 13 year old boy that acquires similar Spider-Man like powers and takes on the name of our hero.

Miles Morales as Spider-Man in Ultimate Spider-Man

For those completely clueless, this story comes directly from the “Ultimate Spider-Man” comic book series where the “Ultimate Universe” is a more modernized era for many of our favorite Marvel characters. In the story of Miles’ origins, Peter Parker dies and Miles obtains his powers in a similar fashion reluctantly taking the role of Spider-Man. His character caused much controversy when introduced due to his age, race, change of name, and hints of being bi-sexual.

Spider-Men comic book mini-series

More recently a comic book mini-series was released titled “Spider-Men” which merged the Ultimate comic book universe with the regular series uniting both Peter Parker and Miles Morales. This seemed to be an attempt to appease both Peter Parker fans and Miles Morales fans by giving fans the best of both worlds. This seems to be the story that the Disney series will follow based on the clip featured below.

As a die hard fanboy of Spider-Man, I was definitely upset to see Peter Parker go but grew to like Miles despite that fact. When they merged both worlds I felt a little less heartbroken given that I now had the best of both worlds.

If there was ever an actor to play the role of Miles Morales, I can see why Donald Glover was chosen. The Spider-Man humor flows well with his own sense of humor and the guy is extremely talented. From his music as Childish Gambino, his character on “Community,” and even his own personal stand up comedy, I am excited to see Donald Glover take on the role.

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Ryan: Ryan has been fascinated with film and pop culture since childhood. Throughout college he "played it safe" taking the more lucrative route of being a computer programmer while squeezing in film related courses where he could...but even during his post college career, he could never escape his true passion. After following one of his favorite blogs for a long time, he approached the site's Editor about writing and they reluctantly gave him a shot. He later became their Senior Writer which led to a variety of other projects, radio show appearances, features, and high profile celebrity interviews. Despite his success with blogging, he still wanted more so in order to expand his creative addiction, he merged his IT skills and blogging know-how to create FilmFad.com which has continued to grow into a creative Mecca of pop-culture fun and integrity. ryan@filmfad.com Film Fad

View Comments (2)

FilmFadPooya says:
August 26, 2014 at 2:26 pm

I am very pleased with this move! Donald Glover has been chomping at the bit to segue to spandex and I think that this will be a great launching pad. Hopefully he won't fall victim to being relegated to voice acting versus live acting for superhero themed projects... Kinda like Mark Hamill with the Joker and Wolverine.
Richard Dingle says:
August 27, 2014 at 12:53 am

I actually never knew of this storyline arch. Sounds like a pretty interesting turn for the series. I will stay tuned.