Ned Leeds
Ned Leeds, in The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 1 #245 (October 1983). Art by John Romita Jr.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	The Amazing Spider-Man #18 (November 1964)
Created by	Stan Lee (writer) Steve Ditko (artist)
In-story information
Full name	Edward "Ned" Leeds
Species	Human
Place of origin	Huntington, New York
Team affiliations	Daily Bugle
Supporting character of	Spider-Man Baron Mordo
Notable aliases	Hobgoblin
Abilities	Expert deductive reasoner, reporter, and investigator As the Hobgoblin: Use of goblin-themed weapons and paraphernalia Superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, agility and reflexes via the Goblin Formula Wielding chaos magic: Teleportation, time manipulation, reality warping Elemental manipulation Able to sense magic Spell casting Flight

Edward "Ned" Leeds is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. A supporting character in stories featuring the superhero Spider-Man, he has been a reporter for the Daily Bugle, and husband of Betty Brant. Leeds is one of the characters that appears under the mantle of the supervillain Hobgoblin. For a long time believed to be his true identity. However, ten years following his assassination, he is retroactively established to have been brainwashed to serve as a stand-in for Roderick Kingsley and later left to be killed when he was no longer deemed necessary. The character was revived in a 2018–2022 storyline, with both Ned and Roderick brainwashed again by the Queen Goblin to serve as Hobgoblins once more, in service to her. Synergetic with his MCU adaptation, Ned's Hobgoblin was revealed to be a sorcerer, having trained under Baron Mordo in the art of reality-altering chaos magic in Symbiote Spider-Man.

Jacob Batalon portrays Ned Leeds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), appearing in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home (both 2019), and The Daily Bugle and Spider-Man: No Way Home (both 2021).

Publication history

Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Ned Leeds made his first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #18 (November 1964). His character is killed off in the one-shot Spider-Man vs. Wolverine (February 1987), written by then Spider-Man editor Jim Owsley. Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, and Peter David (of the creative teams on the ongoing Spider-Man books) found this objectionable, saying that Owsley gave them no warning that he was going to kill Leeds, then a regular cast member in the Spider-Man books. Frenz remarked:

Owsley let Tom [DeFalco] and I continue with our plans without telling us in advance that he was going to kill Ned. We had no heads up until Spider-Man vs. Wolverine came out that Ned Leeds was killed in that story. I can't speak to why he did it, but I can speak to the way he did it. He kept it a big secret until we felt screwed.^[1]

Fictional character biography

Ned Leeds was a reporter for the Daily Bugle. He and Peter Parker compete for the affections of Daily Bugle secretary Betty Brant, but Parker drops out of the running due to realizing that Brant will not be able to accept Spider-Man's double identity.^[2] He would win outright when Betty went into stress induced shock after J. Jonah Jameson was attacked at the Daily Bugle by the Scorpion. Leeds and Brant are married shortly after. However, the couple's marriage is often strained, eventually becoming abusive.^[3]

When Spider-Man battles the Hobgoblin, Ned follows the Hobgoblin to a hideout. When the Hobgoblin realizes Ned is present, Ned is captured and brainwashed as a scapegoat in case of being unmasked.^[4] Wanting to find out about the Kingpin, Ned approaches Richard Fisk. Discovering that Richard hates the Kingpin, Leeds helps create Richard's secret identity as the Rose. The Hobgoblin manipulates Ned to remove the Kingpin from the scene.^[5] Ned's regular brainwashing causes his marriage with Betty and professional relationships to fall apart. Increasingly mentally unstable, Ned drives Betty to seek solace in Flash Thompson. While Flash makes statements about the Hobgoblin and events are staged so Flash is revealed as the enigmatic villain, Ned and Richard reach a disagreement and Ned decides to turn in the Rose to the Kingpin, and thus Ned is no longer needed as Hobgoblin. After Flash is cleared of being framed, the New York underworld empire is known that Ned is actually Hobgoblin and that he would soon be traveling to Berlin. Ned and Peter go on an assignment in Berlin, and Leeds is murdered by the Foreigner at Jason Macendale's request as a replacement Hobgoblin.^[6][7] The Kingpin presents photos of Ned in the Hobgoblin costume (which was obtained via the Foreigner) to Spider-Man in an attempt to get Spider-Man to go after the Foreigner.^[8] Peter reflected on Ned's death years later, believing Ned must have been framed as Hobgoblin as the Foreigner's non-superhuman operatives would never have been able to defeat the real Hobgoblin. Around this time, the original Hobgoblin returns to eliminate Macendale, revealing the deception of Leeds being a stand-in. Spider-Man and Betty subsequently provoked Roderick Kingsley into confessing to Ned's framing on tape.^[4]

During the "Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy" storyline, a clone of Ned Leeds is created by Ben Reilly (posing as Jackal) and is seen in New U Technologies' facility Haven.^[9] The clone is revealed to have survived the end of the event and disguised himself as a hobo to continue watching over Betty. It is shown that Betty still cares for Ned. While still unaware of his survival, Ned feels that he is proud of Betty's accomplishments.^[10] The clone later dies during a conflict between Spider-Man, Rhino, Taskmaster and Black Ant and tries to warn Spider-Man of something after Betty in the near future, revealed to be the real Ned Leeds, apparently revived.^[11]

In Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality, set before Ned's death, Ned is revealed to have become the sorcerer apprentice of Baron Mordo while serving as the Hobgoblin, training under him in the art of reality-altering chaos magic. On assisting Mordo in reshaping reality to make Mordo Sorcerer Supreme, Ned also makes himself Spider-Man's main archenemy, before luring the wall-crawler to the Sanctum Sanctorum to do battle with him, killing his Aunt May in front of Peter's newly resurrected uncle. Swearing revenge, Peter retreats into his own body, with Venom taking over his functions to train for years in a pocket dimension with Doctor Strange to defeat Ned, beating the Hobgoblin to a pulp as his girlfriend the Red Cat flees, before travelling into the realm of Nightmare to return reality to its normal state, with both Peter and Ned losing their memories of the "alien reality" as a result.^[12]

By the time Spider-Man meets Kindred in person during the "Last Remains" arc, he finds that Kindred had dug up the bodies of Ned Leeds, Ben Parker, George Stacy, Gwen Stacy, Jean DeWolff, and Marla Jameson and sat them around a dinner table.^[13]

In spite of this, Ned is revealed to have been alive all along, his body having resurrected himself immediately following his assassination due to him having ingested Norman Osborn's Goblin Formula beforehand. After spending years in hiding, stalking Betty, he reveals himself to her and convinces her to let him back into her life, getting back together with her and eventually even have a child together. In "The Hobgoblins' Last Stand", both Ned and Kingsley are both turned into Hobgoblins again by the Queen Goblin, serving as her enforcers.^[14]

Peter Parker: "If you're wondering whether the Hobgoblin is Ned Leeds or Roderick Kingsley…
…The Answer is “Yes.” It's not a whole lot of fun, frankly."^[14]

Powers and abilities

Ned Leeds had a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism, and was a master of deductive reasoning and investigation. He was a normal man who engaged in regular exercise, which increased to more intensive levels after assuming the Hobgoblin role. As the Hobgoblin, Ned wore his signature uniform and used the glider and equipment which included Jack O'Lantern bombs, razor bats and electrical shock gloves. However, he had no healing factor or superhuman strength, prior to ingesting the Goblin Formula, after which he developed superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, and stamina as well as a low-level rapid healing factor,^[15] the latter of which allow him to survive otherwise fatal gunshot wounds.^[16]

Other versions

In other media

Film

See also: Ned Leeds (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Actor Jacob Batalon portrayed Ned Leeds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

• Ned Leeds appears in films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), portrayed by Jacob Batalon. This version is Filipino-American and Peter Parker's best friend who is initially unaware of the latter's secret identity as Spider-Man and is partially inspired by Ganke Lee.^[21]
  • Introduced in Spider-Man: Homecoming,^[22] Leeds discovers Parker's secret and begins supporting him as his self-proclaimed "guy in the chair".
  • Leeds makes a cameo appearance in Avengers: Infinity War, aiding Parker by distracting their classmates so the latter can leave and help the Avengers.^[23]
  • Leeds makes a cameo appearance In Avengers: Endgame, sharing an emotional reunion with Parker following their return from the Blip.^[24]
  • In Spider-Man: Far From Home,^[25] Leeds becomes romantically involved with classmate Betty Brant despite his initial claims of being a single bachelor throughout a school field trip to Europe while supporting Parker's feelings for MJ. Following the end of the trip however, Leeds and Brant mutually break up and remain friends.
  • In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Leeds, Parker, and MJ have trouble applying to colleges after Mysterio publicly exposes Parker's identity. Parker seeks help from Doctor Strange for help in making everyone forget. However, Strange's spell backfires and pulls in supervillains who fought Spider-Man from across the multiverse. Strange tasks Parker, Leeds, and MJ with capturing the villains, but Parker traps Strange in the Mirror Dimension in an attempt to reform the villains. While using Strange's Sling Ring to find Parker, Leeds and MJ encounter two alternate universe versions of Parker that they nickname "Peter-Two" and "Peter-Three". Once the three Spider-Men defeat and cure the villains, Strange returns the displaced individuals to their respective home universes before Parker asks him to erase all memory of the latter from everyone in their universe, resulting in Leeds forgetting his friendship with Parker and Spider-Man's secret identity.^[26]
• An alternate universe incarnation of Ned Leeds from Earth-65 makes a minor non-speaking appearance in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) as one of Peter Parker's bullies.^[27]

Notes

References

External links

• Ned Leed's Profile at Spiderfan.org Archived 2010-01-26 at the Wayback Machine
• Squandered Legacy