Some actors go their entire lives without getting a chance to land their dream roles, but Donald Glover is no longer on that list. The former star of Community was brought into Disney XD’s Ultimate Spider-Man universe for a guest spot in an upcoming episode, for which he will finally get to play Spider-Man. At least, one of them.
Ultimate Spider-Man’s Season 3 is being dubbed “Web Warriors,” as part of the central hook will involve Peter Parker (Drake Bell) traveling between different dimensions in an effort to stop the Green Goblin from collecting the DNA from Spider-Man’s many different iterations. (Goblins always be stealing that DNA.) One episode, “Meet Miles,” will feature Glover voicing the half-Hispanic, half-black Miles Morales, a young teen who dons a black and red Spidey costume in order to save the day.
In Miles’ universe, Peter Parker is dead, so it’s understandably quite a shock for the young hero to meet his vigilante idol. And while Glover’s voice is slightly too manly to pass as a 13-year-old high schooler, his performance appears to be just as good as one would expect. Take a look and a listen with the first clip below.
Glover first started pining for a Spider-Man gig back in 2010 before Andrew Garfield was hired as yet another white Spider-Man. That yearning – combined with Glover’s Spider-Man pajamas on a Season 2 Community episode – inspired comic book mastermind Brian Michael Bendis to introduce a mixed race Spider-Man to the world in August 2011, following a comic arc ending in the death of Peter Parker. Don’t you just love when things come full circle like that?
But does this mean that Glover is content and giving up his live-action superhero goals? Not a chance. Speaking with USA Today, he says the voice role isn’t exactly what he had in mind but that it’s “pretty good.” He still hopes to actually wear a costume and kick a little ass at some point in the future, but, as he says, “I don’t look at this as second place.” Take a listen to his rap alter ego Childish Gambino mention his big screen superhero rejection in the 2011 track “Not Going Back.” It’s NSFW, by the by.
Glover, whose fans will often ask him to autograph Miles-centered comics, can be heard in the ninth episode of Ultimate Spider-Man, though there is no specific date set for it. The third season premieres this weekend on August 31 with the two-parter “The Avenging Spider-Man,” written by Paul Dini.
