Daredevil: Born Again Season 2's first trailer is hiding a subtle callback to a key figure from Spider-Man's webbed history. Marvel Television previously confirmed that Disney+'s Daredevil Season 2 will impact Spider-Man 4, presumably through the ramifications of Wilson Fisk's anti-vigilante agenda terrorizing New York. Fans have long been eager to see Tom Holland's Spider-Man team up with Charlie Cox's Daredevil to bring down Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin once and for all. While a Kingpin confrontation is reportedly on the cards for the next Spider-Man trilogy, there are no signs of it coming anytime soon.
Peter Parker may not be joining the fight against Kingpin in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, nor will the Man Without Fear be coming to the big screen in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but that hasn't stopped Marvel Studios from including an unexpected connection to the wall-crawler's MCU franchise in the Disney+ trailer.
Marvel Studios pulled back the curtain on Born Again Season 2 to the music of Childish Gambino and the song "Lithonia" from his July 2024 fifth studio album, Bando Stone & the New World. The energetic needle drop provides a unique connection to the Spider-Man mythos, as Childish Gambino is better known to movie buffs as the beloved actor Donald Glover, who has appeared in the MCU.
Glover joined the interconnected Marvel world in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming as New York criminal Aaron Davis, who sought to buy alien-hybrid weapons from Adrian Toomes' crew. Confronted by the Wall-crawler, Davis mentioned that he has a nephew living in the neighborhood, one who has yet to appear on-screen in the MCU but will be known well to most Spider-Man enthusiasts.
Davis is famously the uncle to Marvel's second-most-famous Spider-Man, Miles Morales, who features in Sony Pictures' Spider-Verse franchise. He is also well-known as the villainous Prowler, a nickname he already goes by on Earth-616, even though he has yet to wear any kind of supervillain costume.
While Childish Gambino hasn't returned to the MCU since Homecoming, he did enjoy a live-action cameo in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. A Prowler, played by Glover, was seen incarcerated in the Spider-Verse society in the 2023 sequel, while concept art revealed this Prowler did indeed come from the MCU.
That isn't Glover's only connection to the wonderful world of the wall-crawler, as he also voiced Morales himself in Disney XD's Ultimate Spider-Man. He appeared in the Season 3 storyline, "The Spider-Verse," in which the series' Peter Parker leapt across the Multiverse and teamed up with Morales.
The actor's casting marked a full-circle moment for Morales, as the Afro-Latino hero's creator, Brian Michael Bendis, confirmed to USA Today (via Slash Film) that Glover himself was an inspiration. He revealed that it was a 2010 campaign for the Community star to play Peter Parker, combined with his appearance in a Spider-Man suit in the NBC sitcom, that inspired his new, diverse wall-crawler.
At one point, Glover was attached to play another Spider-Man villain during Sony Pictures' era of obscure spin-off films that spawned Morbius, Venom, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter. In something of a perfect casting, given his real-life music career, Glover was expected to play Hypno-Hustler in a solo flick that he would also produce, using instruments fitted with hypnotic technology for crime.
The full trailer for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, including its perfect "Lithonia" needledrop from Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover, can be watched below:
Is Miles Morales Coming to the MCU?
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed some time ago that Miles Morales "can enter the MCU in live-action" after Sony completes its animated trilogy with Beyond the Spider-Verse. That flick will arrive next year on June 18, 2027, just months before Avengers: Secret Wars hits theaters on December 17, 2027.
The timing is certainly opportune for Marvel Studios to bring Morales into the fold in the MCU's next saga after Avengers 6 soft reboots the MCU. It's easy to imagine Marvel Studios wanting to bring Morales into the fold as soon as Spider-Man 5, building some relationship between him and Tom Holland's Peter Parker before he actually gets powers, akin to the dynamic in Insomniac's Spider-Man games.
Fan casts for Morales have been flying around for some time, with Stranger Things actor McLaughlin a popular choice. However, at 24, the studio may be eager to cast a younger newcomer, as it once successfully did with Holland.
Sadly, at 42 years old, Glover has aged out of playing Morales in live-action, unless it were as another Variant in Beyond the Spider-Verse. That said, whenever the Afro-Latino web-slinger finally enters the MCU, the musical actor may finally get a chance to reprise Aaron Davis and even suit up as the Prowler again.
It may have been almost 10 years since Davis was last seen in the MCU, but as the studio is only just following up on Spider-Man: Homecoming's Scorpion cliffhanger in Brand New Day, anything is on the table for reviving old storylines.
