Spider-Man 2: Puerto Rican Miles Morales Swings into PS5 With Latino Representation

Miles Morales, the Afro-Latino Spiderman in two of the superhero's latest movies, is swinging into Play Station 5 consoles through Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which will be released on Friday, October 20.

Despite being a cartoon character, Morales' relevant for representation in the Marvel Universe is not small, considering he's the first on-screen Spider-Man who not white. In the two feature films he's starred (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) Morales lives in Brooklyn, New York. There are plenty of nods to his Latino culture in the movies, such as Puerto Rican flags and him speaking Spanish with his mom.

Morales has been around for over 10 years now, appearing in an Ultimate Fallout comic in 2011 after the death of Peter Parker. However, his rise to prominence took place in 2018 after hitting the movies with the first of the Spider-Verse series.

The first movie had a $90 million budget and grossed over $384 million dollars, procuring an encouraging start for the series, which will consist of three films. The second one, Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse, was released this year and received mainly positive reviews.

Sony has already used its multi-platform power to seize the popularity of the movies: it released Spider-Man: Miles Morales in late 2020 and now will continue doing so with the new videogame.

If representation plays a role in gamers buying a title, Spider-Man 2 could appeal to a largely untapped community: according to a report by the Entertainment Software Association, 72% of all people who play videogames are White. Hispanics come in second, representing 10% of the total. But considering that 76% of kids under 18 and 62% of adults play videogames and that Latino Gen Z's represent almost a quarter of this younger demographic, there's a significant portion of them who don't play.