Across the Spider-Verse’s Donald Glover Prowler cameo links to the MCU

You can also find out more about the following: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s multiverse extravaganza, any Spider-Man ever made is fair game. We know as much from the movie’s trailers, which have made direct (jokey) reference to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man No Way HomeMarvel Cinematic Universe. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a full-length movie. villainsYou can also play.

This gives you Across the Spider-VerseMiles Morales’s biggest cameo is a mix of cinematic magic, brand connections flexing and a tribute of Miles Morales.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.]

If you’ve already headed out to see the movie, then you know: Miguel O’Hara, the Spider-Man from the future, has gathered a coalition of Spider-Persons to repair the multiverse. One of their big jobs is to capture displaced supervillains and send them back to the universe from which they came, treating us to a great series of blink-or-you’ll-miss-it cameos from an array of traditional Spider-Man villains in nontraditional getups. The cameo of one Spider-Man villain is unlike the rest.

Donald Glover plays the prowler in one of these live-action cameos.

Donald Glover, the prowler: What’s his story?

Image: Sony Pictures

2017 feels like a million years ago, but that’s when actor and musician Donald Glover made his debut in Marvel and Sony’s first joint Spider-Man production, Spider-Man Homecoming. Glover didn’t have a huge role in the film — he’s a potential buyer of alien technology that’s been reengineered into weapons. Spider-Man bumps into him, and gives some advice to the boy. All of it was very intentional.

Homecoming director and writer Jon Watts petitioned for Glover’s inclusion in the film as a hat tip to the future inclusion of Miles Morales in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It wasn’t definitive, but Glover’s character made reference to his nephew in dialogue, and was listed in the credits as Aaron Davis, the same name of Miles’ uncle — the implication being that Miles was out there somewhere in the MCU’s New York City, even if the MCU hasn’t yet introduced him.

Across the Spider-VerseThis is taken a step further by showing Glover wearing the purple-and-black supersuit of Prowler. It implies that Aaron, his uncle, has also undergone the same transformation.

Glover’s connection to Spider-Man dates back over a decade, to the time when Sony Pictures was in the process of casting a new actor as Peter Parker for the studio’s third Spider-Man franchise. Glover became (inadvertently, according to Glover), the focal point of a fan-driven campaign. And while the excitement of (and blowback to) those fans didn’t directly inspire the creation of Miles Morales, co-creator Brian Michael Bendis has said that he gave the Marvel Comics creative team a certain amount of resolve to follow through on their ideas. Miles Morales would be voiced by Glover in two episodes. Ultimate Spider-ManCartoon series.

So Glover’s Across the Spider-Verse cameo isn’t just a way to link the animated franchise up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s also another way for the Spider-Verse franchise to nod back at the comics, cartoons, and cultural presence of Spider-Man from which everything in it springs.