Four years ago, Donald Glover expressed an interest in playing Peter Parker in the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise.
The hashtag #DonaldGlover4SpiderMan was born, and while Glover obviously was not cast in the part, it gave writer Brian Michael Bendis an idea, according to The Mary Sue.
Donald Glover stood up and said, “I want to be Spider-Man.” I was like, “I would like him to be Spider-Man. Very much.” I said so publicly at the time, and that came and went. We got closer and closer and closer to working on it, and then they did that hilarious bit on Community at the beginning of last season where he got out of bed and was wearing Spider-Man pajamas, and he looked fantastic! I had already written my first issue, and I was like, “Oh, I would so like to read that book!” then I was like, “I am writing that book. That’s awesome!”
So Bendis wrote the character of Miles Morales in Ultimate Spider-Man with Glover in mind.
And now, the Disney XD network has not only created an animated series called The Ultimate Spider-Man, they’ve cast Glover as Miles Morales!! Here’s a clip:
In the Ultimates universe, “Peter Parker is killed in action and the Spider-mantle is taken up by 13-year-old Miles.” In the upcoming show, Morales will appear in series of episodes with a bunch of other parallel universe Spider-Mans (Men?).