Hank McCoy (Before the Fur)


After giving this some thought, even I'm surprised about my own opinion on this. I suppose writing about Spider-man is kind of redundant at this point: the internets have kind of blown up with every possible opinion someone COULD have about Spidey's upcoming inclusion in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. But given the magnitude of this, I think It’d be kind of silly not to write about it.

My first though is I love this. See, I want to see all of the Marvel characters done by Marvel. They’re the ones who do their own stuff best. A Spider-man movie made by Marvel would probably be phenomenal. We’ve enjoyed all of the others, but you just know Marvel Studios will do it better somehow.

My second thought is that a standalone Spidey movie is unlikely. Mainly because I guess Sony is still making them and, well, we’ve seen five of them by now. We don’t actually need another Spidey move to get made and making him a character in an Avengers movie, a la Hulk, is probably just fine. The thing is, there's just too much money available to not keep making standalone Spider-man movies, which means we'll be seeing more of Spider-man in high school most likely.

My third thought is that Marvel needs to get X-Men back. C’mon! Let’s not forget that many years ago, X-Men was the comic that ushered in the current age of comic book obsession! We loved this comic and knew every X-Men character and you bought it and its many, many redundant spin-off books like an addiction. I want Wolverine in an Avengers movie. I want an X-Men movie done by Marvel Studios. Whoever brokered this Sony deal? Make this happen next. Please.

By the time I had progressed through these three thoughts, I moved on to considering the exact wording we’ve heard: a ‘deal’ has been made. My fourth thought is what does that mean exactly?

I suppose, one possibility is that Spidey might appear, although not in the copyrighted and printed form we know and love as Peter Parker. Maybe it’d be some future version of Spider-man. Or maybe even something like you see Spider-man, but since the Avengers don’t know who Spider-man is we actually never see Parker himself in the movie, even though we all know it’s him. See, I started to worry. Worried that this would actually result in something weird, rather than awesome. Deal. Deal. What was the deal?

Now the topic of Miles Morales has been floating around and that’s been interesting. My gut reaction was, like many, to think no, it can’t be him, it’s got to be Peter Parker. But you know what? I like Miles as a character. And what I said about Miles a long time ago was this: if you are going to have Miles around you gotta get behind him and make him Spider-man. And maybe this is the chance to do that. The more I thought about this idea the more I opened up to it. So finally, after 24 hours or so, I came to one cathartic realization that many before me have come to:

Donald Glover.

No really. Him. It needs to be him. This is what it needs to be. I want Donald Glover as Spider-man in an Avengers movie. I’m not kidding. I don’t want it to be like an actor like Glover. I want him playing Miles Morales. This is the best compromise between not doing something that’s been done to death on film and giving us a character we know and love. I’ve thought about it again and again. And what I’ve realized is, even though I love Peter Parker, and I love Toby Maguire, I actually think this version of Spider-man--played by this actor--is the version of Spider-man I would most want to pay money to see. I’m totally serious about this. Because, I’m not saying a version of Spidey played by Glover won’t have elements that are touching and moving. But frankly, I think a version of Spidey played by Glover would be frickin’ funny.

I mean, Spider-man is supposed to make you laugh. That’s why we loved HIM. He’s the only superhero we’ve ever seen literally push a villain into making a mistake by insulting them to the point where they could no longer tolerate it and Glover would bring that back to us. But he could also hint at and show us the depths of what we know Spidey has gone through, you know? He’s an actor that I think could straddle this line perfectly. But see, that's what I want--for him to be 50/50 on this. I want more funny for my Spider-man, if that makes sense.

I think Spidey is a very meaningful character and the stories they’ve been running in the movies are ones that I love. But I’m ready to just enjoy him a bit more, you know? I mean, can’t you just see Glover sort of mixing in his kind of thing into the Avengers' chemistry? He’s perfect. He would be hysterical. What always sticks out to when Spidey is around the Avengers is how he seems a bit overshadowed compared to the others? Like maybe he’s out of his depth? But then the thing is, when it comes down to it, he always comes through in this big way and surprises everyone with just how amazing he really is. Tell me you can picture this. Give it a chance. Thoughts?

See, my only other comment about this is is that maybe Marvel has been planning this for a while. I mean, the recent decision to bring Miles Morales into the current timeline (or...whatever you want to call the new Secret Wars) seems a bit too convenient with this deal being made, doesn't it?

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