Spider-Man Could Appear On Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

In a new interview with Access Hollywood, Clark Gregg teases, "We're out to kind of find the new threats and deal with old Marvel business and maybe you'll see some kind of surprising villains and surprising superheroes every once in a while." Of course, this comment got us wondering, "What could Gregg mean by surprising superheroes? Who would be really surprising?" Well, the most surprising superhero we could think of appearing on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. would be Spider-Man. As most in the comic book world know, Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man, which is why Spider-Man isn't a member of The Avengers. But do the TV rights go with the movie rights? We did some snooping around, and here's what we came up with. In some cases, studios apparently own the live action rights to a character, which would cover both movies and live action TV shows, but not animated cartoons. However, in the case of Spider-Man, Disney actually acquired the TV rights back from Sony. According to a report on IGN back in 2009, Sony relinquished all television rights to Spider-Man in exchange for some concessions in regards to the movies.  This means that Disney could include Spider-Man in a live action TV series. Now, this doesn't mean that Spider-Man will definitely be in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., because we've heard no rumors along those lines, beyond Clark Gregg's generic tease of "surprising superheroes." However, why would Marvel give up anything to get the TV rights back to Spider-Man if they never planned to use them? Why not use their most well-known character in a TV series since they can't use him in a movie? Here's another interesting piece of speculation. When executive producer Jeffery Bell denied that J. August Richards was playing Luke Cage, he reportedly started to say a name that begins with the letter "M." In the Ultimate version of the Marvel Universe, an African-American and Latino teenager named Miles Morales is Spider-Man. Including the Ultimate version of Spider-Man in the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. would certainly be an interesting way for Marvel to utilize their Spider-Man TV rights without contradicting or stepping on the toes of Sony's Peter Parker version of Spider-Man. The Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is set to air on Tuesday nights at 8 PM on ABC in the Fall.