Ned Leeds

About

Ned Leeds is a fictional Marvel Comics character from the Spider-Man franchise who is portrayed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Jacob Batalon. Though he was an obscure character to casual audiences prior to his film debut in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming, Batalon's portrayal of the character has become a fan favorite for his awkward personality and humorous dialogue and featured in numerous memetic content edits infused with varying levels of irony.

History

Ned Leeds first appeared in 1963 starting in issue #18 of The Amazing Spider-Man, created, as with other early characters of the Spidey mythology, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.^[1] In the comics, he was a white co-worker to Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle and romantically involved with Betty Brant, whom he eventually married. In 1987, the character was seemingly revealed to be the villain known as the Hobgoblin, whose identity had been a long-built mystery since his introduction, in a storyline where he was simultaneously killed off. However, this was a result of behind-the-scenes drama involving conflicting visions between different writers and editors and went against the intentions of the Hobgoblin's original creator, Roger Stern, who meant for the Hobgoblin to be Roderick Kingsley. Years later, it was retroactively revealed that Kingsley was the real Hobgoblin all along after all, having brainwashed Ned to serve as a stand-in for him. Ned himself was also eventually resurrected and returned to being a harmless supporting character. The history of the Hobgoblin's identity debacle is explained at full length in the video seen below.

The MCU version of Ned Leeds bears little resemblance to the original incarnation. In the films, Leeds is a Filipino high school student who is the best friend of Peter Parker. Diehard fans have noticed he has more in common with Ganke Lee, a separate character from the Ultimate Marvel universe who serves the same role in relation to Miles Morales, the second Spider-Man in that continuity. He appears prominently throughout Spider-Man: Homecoming, released on July 7th, 2017, Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home, and briefly in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

Related memes

Jacob Batalon Saying Things / "You Seem Chill"

Jacob Batalon Saying Things is based on a picture of Jacob Batalon at the premiere of Spider-Man: Homecoming which has been repeatedly paired with nonsensical or offensive captions in communities such as r/Okaybuddyretard.

"We're all gonna die!"

"We're all gonna die!" is a phrase uttered by Ned during his sole scene in Avengers: Infinity War, when he sees a spaceship belonging to Thanos from inside a school bus, causing panic among his fellow students and allowing Peter Parker to spring into action as Spider-Man unnoticed by them. It has been used as a generic reaction image expressing panic or mocking mass hysteria.

Ned Leeds Just Standing There

Ned Leeds Just Standing There is based on a poorly fan-made poster for the then-upcoming No Way Home which featured a statically posed picture of Ned standing among other, more exciting characters such as Doctor Strange and Doctor Octopus. This has since been mocked by inserting the same figure into other random contexts.

MCU Hobgoblin rumors

Ever since the character was announced to appear in the MCU, many casual audiences who had never heard of him before have anticipated the possibility of him becoming the Hobgoblin based on out-of-context synopses of his history in comics, generally not understanding that he was not the real Hobgoblin and only became involved with such as a result of executive meddling, nor the fact that the film character is Ned Leeds in name and little else. As of No Way Home, the only potential reference in the movies to this storyline is a line in said film where he assures Peter that he would never become a villain and try to kill him, in response to mentions of this happening with Harry Osborn as a friend of both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Video Edits

A number of video edits featuring the character, generally in the style of the Bully Maguire memes, have been created, mostly by user Free Boredom. A throwaway line from Far From Home mentioning Fruit Cobbler appears to have become a particular running gag in these videos.

Search interest

External References