Hobgoblin was one of Spider-Man’s most mysterious and deadliest villains, and Ned Leeds was revealed to have been under the villain’s mask.
The Ned Leeds of the Marvel Comics Universe and the Ned Leeds of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are two very different people. While the MCU version is a science nerd and Peter Parker’s best friend, the one from the Spider-Man comics was a love interest of one of Peter’s first crushes, Betty Brant.
However, in both cases, Ned and Peter became close friends. In the comics, Ned ended up turning into a supervillain known as the Hobgoblin against his will, and there are rumors of that exact story playing out with Ned in the MCU as well.
Ned Leeds first appeared in 1964’s Amazing Spider-Man #18 by Stan Lee, Stever Ditko & Sam Rosen. Peter Parker was going through a lot in his life, and Betty broke things off with him and started dating Ned. By Amazing Spider-Man #30 by Stan Lee, Steve Ditko & Artie Simek, Leeds proposed to Betty. However, that wedding did not happen until 11 years later in Amazing Spider-Man #156 by Len Wein, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, Glynis Wein & Gaspar Saladino, where Peter served as the best man.
The original Hobgoblin, Roderick Kingsley, faked his own death but then returned stronger than ever, which was when Ned first began acting as the Hobgoblin. His first appearance in costume was 1984’s Amazing Spider-Man #257 by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, Josef Rubinstein, Joe Rosen & Christie Scheele. What really happened was kept a secret until over a decade later in the 1997 miniseries Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives by Rober Stern, Ron Frenz, George Perez, Christie Scheele & Jim Novak. In that miniseries, Jason Macendale went on trial for his role as the Hobgoblin. During this time, Macendale told the world that the first Hobgoblin was Ned Leeds. This led Roderick Kingsley, the real first Hobgoblin, to kill Macendale to shut him up.
Macendale’s claim and murder led Peter and Betty to investigate the case to learn the truth. The real Hobgoblin eventually captured Betty and admitted to everything. He told her he kidnapped Ned when he realized the reporter was tailing him. He then brainwashed Ned using a machine called The Winkler, named after a man who once worked for Norman Osborn. He got information from Ned using this technique and also had him act as a stand-in to do his dirty work, specifically striking deals with The Rose, who, at the time, was Richard Fisk, the son of the Kingpin. Ned was never the villain that Spider-Man fought; he was merely a decoy.
The Hobgoblin’s identity was a mystery for such a long time that it wasn’t clear that there had been more than one Hobgoblin until that miniseries. But before that information became public, the experience already took a heavy toll on Ned’s life. The brainwashing caused Leeds to lose control and become violent at home with Betty, paranoid about everything happening around him. This is when Betty saw him dressed as Hobgoblin and believed her husband was a murderer. Once Kingsley was tired of dealing with Ned’s growing paranoia, he leaked info to the Foreigner that Ned was the Hobgoblin, knowing the villain would find and kill him.
In 1987’s Spider-Man Versus Wolverine #1 by Christopher Priest, Mark Bright, Al Williamson, Petra Scotese & Bill Oakley, Peter Parker went to Berlin with Ned Leeds for a story, hunting down leads on a case about a killer named Charlemagne who was killing former KGB agents. While they were there, the Foreigner’s men attacked and killed Ned. In Amazing Spider-Man #289 by Peter David, Alan Kupperburg, Tom Morgan, Jim Fern, Rick Parker & George Roussos, Kingpin revealed the truth to Spider-Man that Ned was the Hobgoblin and that Jason Macendale posed as Hobgoblin after Ned’s death. However, it wasn’t until the 1997 miniseries that Spider-Man learned the truth and helped clear Ned’s name once and for all.
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