It may have taken four years, but the internet’s “Donald Glover for Spider-Man” campaign has finally found success. No, Avi Arad and the folks at Sony have not changed their minds about bringing a black Spidey to the big screen. Instead, Donald Glover has been cast to voice the hero in an upcoming episode in the new season of DisneyXD’s Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors.
USA Today broke the news this morning and also has an exclusive clip from the episode, which you can see here.
Since Ultimate Spider-Man already has its own Spider-Man in Drake Bell’s Peter Parker, the actor/rapper also known as Childish Gambino will be portraying Miles Morales. If you’re a little confused, while Miles Morales is already Spidey in the Ultimate Spider-Man comics, the Disney animated series of the same name actually follows the exploits of (white) Peter Parker and kid-friendly versions of the traditional heroes and villains from the original comics.
In the upcoming season, though, Peter will be traveling through different universes and meeting alternate versions of himself and will ultimately find himself in a universe very similar to the Ultimate Universe of the comics. From the article:
The cartoon Miles is very close to the comic-book version: The 13-year-old is still getting used to being a superhero when he meets the dimension-hopping Peter (Drake Bell), who’s trying to stop his old nemesis the Green Goblin from collecting the DNA of various Spider-Men — from Spider-Man Noir to the porcine hero Spider-Ham — for nefarious reasons.
It’s an emotional moment for Miles, though, because in his world, Peter is dead.
While it looks like the episode will be a one-off (and there don’t seem to be any plans for an animated Miles Morales series), perhaps if enough folks tune in, Disney will see that as an opportunity for an ongoing show based on Morales. We shall see.
The new season of Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors premieres this Sunday at 9am on DisneyXD. The Miles Morales episode will debut later in the season.