When Sony decided to reboot their Spider-Man franchise rather than continuing with the Sam Raimi directed series starring Tobey Maguire, one of the popular rumours for the new Spidey suggested Community's Donald Glover in the role. Ultimately the studio went for a more conservatively conventional choice with Andrew Garfield, who has proved one of the stronger elements in a largely pointless reboot. (Glover, who Garfield himself suggested would make a good future Spidey, has at least the consolation of voicing alternative Spider-Man Miles Morales in an upcoming arc of the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon). The big screen version of the story did feature a black actor in a leading role, however, in last summer's Amazing Spider-Man 2. The movie's main villain, engineer Max Dillon (AKA Electro), usually portrayed as a white guy in a somewhat preposterous green and yellow jumpsuit and star-shaped mask of lightning bolts, was completely reimagined and redesigned. In the context of changing the whole character's look so that he was blue skinned and crackling with electric currents, having the pre-transformation Electro appear as African-American is a relatively minor shift. Oscar winning actor Jamie Foxx gave Electro more presence than the rest of the excessive number of villains and was successful enough to be likely to return in a leading role for 2016's Sinister Six.
