Actor Jacob Batalon recently went on his hometown Fox Hawaii station KHON to talk about his role in the Spider-Man: Homecoming movie. He confirmed he’s playing Ned Leeds, Peter Parker’s best friend in high school. This is a big change for the character. Ned Leeds is a Stan Lee and Steve Ditko creation. He first appeared back in 1964 in Amazing Spider-Man # 18. He was a reporter at the Daily Bugle and the rival of Peter’s for the affection of Betty Brant. He was then
framed as the Hobgoblin in “Spider-Man Vs Wolverine #1” back in 1987. So the character has been dead for nearly 30 years.
Wikipedia also talks about how in the comic series Mary Jane loves Spider-Man, Leeds was a senior in high school with Peter and the gang.
What are your thought about changing the character so much?
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Sure he ain’t called Need Eats?
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So he’s Ned Leeds in name only. Why bother calling him Ned? Why not just call the character something else? He doesn’t even share any of the persnality traits of Ned because Ned wasn’t peters high school friend!
Now there can’t ever be an accurate depiction of Ned Leeds because the names already taken by a character bearing no resemblance in any way to the comic. I expect this sort of, “we changed everything from the source material” from fox and Sony. Marvels been pretty good at accurate depictions of even minor characters.