Miles Morales Co-Creator Brian Michael Bendis Reacts to Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales PS5 Reveal

Ultimate Spider-Man writer Brian Michael Bendis, co-creator of spider-powered teen Miles Morales with artist Sara Pichelli, says he’s a “proud dad” after Insomniac Games and Sony Interactive Entertainment on Thursday unveiled Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales for the PlayStation 5. Sequel to Marvel’s Spider-Man, released exclusively on the PlayStation 4 in 2018, the launch title is the latest project starring the fan-favorite character who headlined Bendis’ Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man and Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man. There a guilt-ridden Miles — endowed with super-human abilities after being bitten by a mutated spider — was first inspired to take up the mantle of Spider-Man when the web-swinging superhero was killed battling the Green Goblin.

Posting the game’s trailer to his Instagram page with a quote from the footage — where the voice of Peter Parker (Yuri Lowenthal) can be heard telling Miles (Nadji Jeter) it’s his turn to be a hero like his father, fallen NYPD Officer Jefferson Davis (Russell Richardson) — Bendis wrote he’s a “proud dad.”

“What is interesting is that the response to [Miles], just from the cartoons or whatever, is just… in so many reasons, he should not have worked,” Bendis told io9 in a 2016 interview, ahead of the release of the Miles Morales-starring Spider-Man #1. “Peter Parker’s not broken. There’s nothing wrong with Peter, but here’s this other thing we want to do. The response to that has been so overwhelmingly positive from older fans and younger fans… I can’t tell you what a wonderful, heartwarming experience it is to hear from people about Miles every day. It’s amazing.”

The character has appeared in multiple animated series, including Disney XD’s Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man, and headlined the Academy Award-winning animated feature film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. When Miles premiered in the pages of Ultimate Fallout in 2011, Bendis said the arrival of a starring multicultural hero was “long overdue.”

“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,” Bendis told the New York Daily News in 2015. “But now it’s true. It’s meant a great deal to a great many people.”

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which has already stirred high levels of anticipation since being revealed during a PS5 event Thursday, releases alongside the all-new PlayStation 5 this holiday season. Get a high-resolution look at the game here.