Meet the new Spider-Man in the main Marvel Universe

 

Remember Marvel's promise to shake up its entire comics universe? Looks like it's fulfilling that promise by doing what many considered unthinkable: replacing longtime mainstay Peter Parker as Spider-Man.

 

A report on the New York Daily News said Parker will be replaced by Miles Morales as the "primary" Spider-Man once the comics is relaunched.

 

Morales was a popular version of Spider-Man who only existed until now in a secondary, alternate universe.

 

“Many kids of color who when they were playing superheroes with their friends, their friends wouldn’t let them be Batman or Superman because they don’t look like those heroes but they could be Spider-Man because anyone could be under that mask,” it quoted writer and co-creator Brian Bendis as saying.

 

Bendis added this "meant a great deal to a great many people.”

 

An earlier report on Mashable said the Marvel reboot, dubbed "All-New, All-Different Marvel," takes place eight months after "Secret Wars."

 

Editor-in-chief Axel Alonso had told Mashable then that such changes "will be very much along the lines of the female Thor (who turned out to be Jane Foster) and black Captain America (Sam Wilson, the erstwhile Falcon)."

Origins

 

In the Spider-Man universe, Morales is the teenage son of an African-American father and Puerto Rican mother.

 

Morales replaced Parker in the “Ultimate” line in 2011 and has become a popular character, though he has not become the primary Spider-Man until now.

 

As for Parker, he may act as 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 color, for adults of color and everybody else,” Bendis said.

 

Miles Morales' popularity

 

Bendis said Miles Morales' impact sank on him when his four-year-old adopted African-American daughter found a Miles Morales Spidey mask in a toy aisle.

 

She put it on and he recalled her saying, “Look daddy, I’m Spider-Man!”

 

“I started crying in the middle of the aisle. I realized my kids are going to grow up in a world that has a multi-racial Spider-Man, and an African American Captain America and a female Thor," he said. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News