Miles Morales steps up as Marvel's new Spider-Man

Miles Morales, the half-black, half-Hispanic Spider-Man introduced in 2011, is set to take a more prominent role in Marvel Comics this fall.

Morales is poised totake over as the wise-cracking super-hero,according to the New York Daily News, replacing Peter Parker, who has been the web-slinger'salter ego since the title was introduced in the early 1960s.

Morales will reportedly be featured on the cover of arelaunched Spider-Man comic book, due out this fall.

Morales first appeared in 2011 inthe Ultimate line of Marvel's comics, which depictsan alternate universewith updated orreworked versions of well-known characters. Morales, a pre-teen with an African-American father and Puerto Rican mother, inherited the mantle of Spider-Man after that universe's Peter Parker was killed.

(That's the Ultimate version of Peter Parker, not the original Peter Parker, who is still alive in the "main" Marvel Comics Universe. We know, it's confusing.)

With this summer's Secret Warsstoryline, however, Marvel is collapsing its sprawling multi-verse into a single world, cleaning up the alternate-version-character clutter and rebooting many of its comics series in the process. Some Ultimate universe characters, including Morales, will live on in the rebooted Marvel universe.

Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man, will still be aroundaccording toBrian MichaelBendis, creator of the Moralescharacter and writer for the upcoming comic. But Parker will be more of a mentor to Morales.

"Our message has to be it's not Spider-Man with an asterisk, it's the real Spider-Man for kids of colour, for adults of colour and everybody else,"Bendistold the Daily News.

Promoting Morales as the "main" Spider-Man follows a string of shake-ups toMarvel'ssuperherolineup, at least in print. The company has drawnattention and sales with several recent revamps of classic characters, including:

• afemale Thor, who was later revealed to be Jane Foster, the original Thor's sometimes-love interest.
• promoting CarolDanvers, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, to Captain Marvel, who will star in a movie in 2019.
• introducingKamalaKhan, a Muslim-American teenage girl, asthe new Ms. Marvel.
• promoting African-American hero Falcon to succeed Steve Rogers asthe new Captain America.

The news also follows some negative reaction to Sony Pictures' supposed contractual obligations for the on-screenportrayalof Spider-Man. The notes,originally posted byGawker, revealed a strictly traditional profile for Spider-Man, and even stricter guidelines if his on-screen alter-ego is Peter Parker.

TobeyMaguireand Andrew Garfield both played Peter Parker in Spider-Man films in recent years. When Sony and Marvelannounced a partnership that would allow Spider-Man to join The Avengers on the silver screen, some fans clamoured for them to use Morales. Marvel later clarified that Parker would be Spider-Man in film for theforseeablefuture, though he'll be younger probably a teenager, or roughly around the same age as Morales in the comic.