Donald Glover’s offer to play Spider-Man became a huge inspiration for the creators of Miles Morales

Fans of the comics and movies based on them are very familiar these days with Spider-Man, Miles Morales. The first film based on the character, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, was made in 2018 and launched us into a whole new world of Spidey characters with bright colors and a gripping storyline. It was really cool to see a black Spider-Man come into the picture, and it turns out he was a huge inspiration for the character Donald Glove.

The actor starred in the series Community at the time, and a reboot of the Spider-Man films was in the works. Andrew Garfield ended up playing the webslinger in Incredible Spider-Man movie, but Glover expressed a desire to snag the role before it was set in stone. There was even a #donald4spiderman movement that went viral, and in the season 2 premiere of CommunityGlover’s character Troy appeared in Spidey pajamas.

Meanwhile, comic creator Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sarah Picelli they were working on the graphic novel Ultimate Spider-Manand Glover served as inspiration.

Bendis spoke to USA Today about seeing Glover on the show, saying:

“I saw [Glover] in costume and thought, ‘I’d like to read that book. So I was happy to write that book.”

He went on to add:

“It’s certainly long overdue. While there are some amazing African-American and minority characters bouncing throughout the superhero universes, it’s still insanely lopsided.”

Bendis has given Donald Glover “a lot of credit” for inspiring Miles Morales, who first debuted in Latest relapse #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 movies were rebooted for Marvel in 2017, he made a cameo Spider-Man: Homecoming. At this point, Glover was obviously too old to play Miles, but he did appear as Aaron Davis, Miles’ uncle. Glover’s cameo totally hinted at Miles’ existence in the MCU, which we haven’t seen connected yet, but it was a fantastic introduction.

Next, Glover will partner with Marvel and Sony Pictures to bring villain Hypno-Hustler to the big screen, which he will produce.