Ned Leeds


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 the first Hobgoblin, ten years following his assassination, he is retroactively established to have been the second Hobgoblin, 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. Synergetic with his MCU adaptation, Ned is revealed to be a sorcerer who trained with Baron Mordo to learn chaos magic, rewriting reality in an attempt to make himself the one-and-only Hobgoblin, archenemy of Spider-Man and lover of Natasha Romanoff.
Jacob Batalon portrays Ned Leeds in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, the web series The Daily Bugle and Spider-Man: No Way Home, and will return in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Publication history

Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Ned Leeds made his first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #18 as an unnamed employee at the Daily Bugle. In the following issue, he is introduced to Peter by Betty as Ned Leeds.
His character is killed off in the one-shot Spider-Man vs. Wolverine, written by then Spider-Man editor Jim Owsley. Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, and Peter David 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:
Leeds was revealed to be the Hobgoblin in The Amazing Spider-Man #289.

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. 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.
When Spider-Man battles the Hobgoblin, Ned follows Hobgoblin to a hideout. When Hobgoblin realizes Ned is present, Ned is captured and brainwashed as a scapegoat in case of being unmasked. 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 Rose. Hobgoblin manipulates Ned to remove the Kingpin from the scene. 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 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. The Kingpin presents photos of Ned in Hobgoblin costume to Spider-Man in an attempt to get Spider-Man to go after Foreigner. Peter reflected on Ned's death years later, believing Ned must have been framed as Hobgoblin as 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. Spider-Man and Betty subsequently provoke Roderick Kingsley into confessing to Ned's framing on tape.
During the "Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy" storyline, a clone of Ned Leeds is created by Ben Reilly and is seen in New U Technologies' facility Haven. 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. 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.
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 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 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.
In spite of this, Ned is revealed to have been alive all along, his body having resurrected 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 having 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.

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, the latter of which allow him to survive otherwise fatal gunshot wounds.

Other versions

Ultimate Marvel

An alternate universe variant of Ned Leeds from Earth-1610 appears in Ultimate Spider-Man #121. This version is an alcoholic Daily Bugle reporter who has an antagonistic relationship with Betty Brant.

''Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane''

A teenage alternate universe variant of Ned Leeds appears in Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. This version is the boyfriend of Betty Brant who previously dated Mary Jane Watson.

In other media

Television

  • Ned Leeds appears in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, voiced by Bob Bergen. This version is a reporter for the Daily Bugle.
  • * Additionally, Leeds as the Hobgoblin serves as partial inspiration for the series' version of the character, Jason Phillips, voiced by Mark Hamill.
  • A character based on Ned Leeds named Ned Lee appears in The Spectacular Spider-Man, voiced by Andrew Kishino. He is a Korean-American reporter for the Daily Bugle who is convinced that he can uncover Spider-Man's secret identity and that the Green Goblin is connected. He also displays an attraction to his co-worker Betty Brant. He primarily makes minor appearances, investigating leads on Spider-Man's identity throughout the series, most notably determining it cannot be Peter Parker after Venom tried unsuccessfully to out the hero's identity.

    Film

  • Ned Leeds appears in films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 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.
  • * Introduced in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Leeds is a student at the Midtown School of Science and Technology alongside Parker and a member of the Academic Decathlon team. After discovering Parker's secret identity, he begins supporting him as his self-proclaimed "guy in the chair", to help him in his quest to find and defeat the Vulture before he could sell high-tech hybrid weapons to the criminal underworld.
  • * Leeds makes a cameo appearance in Avengers: Infinity War, aiding Parker by distracting their classmates so the latter can leave and help the Avengers.
  • * Leeds makes a cameo appearance in Avengers: Endgame, sharing an emotional reunion with Parker after the two are resurrected from the Blip.
  • * In Spider-Man: Far From Home,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. When their journey was cut short due to the Elemental Crisis, Leeds would do his best to cover for Parker while he investigated and fought the perpetrator, Mysterio, so that his secret identity as Spider-Man would not be revealed. After Leeds learned that MJ also discovered Parker's secret identity, he, MJ, and Happy Hogan teamed up alongside Brant and Flash Thompson to escape from the Stark Industries Combat Drones sent by Mysterio before being saved by Spider-Man. Following the end of the trip, 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 exposed 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 variants 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.
  • * Leeds will return in the film Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
  • An alternate universe variant of Ned Leeds from Earth-65 makes a minor non-speaking appearance in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as one of Peter Parker's bullies.