History
Edward Leeds, or simply Ned, was an ordinary high school student and the only friend of Peter Parker. It's unknown for how long the two teens have known each other. Ned shared Peter's love for Star Wars and Lego, but Peter's secret double life as the hero Spider-Man severely reduced the amount of time they could spend together.[1]
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Finding out Peter's secret[]
Ned discovered Peter's secret when one day Peter returned home from another day of crime fighting as Spider-Man, only to find Ned waiting for him in his room. Ned promised to keep Peter's superhero life a secret and became his confidant. Using his computer skills, Ned was able to give Peter access to all the abilities of the Spider-Man suit that Tony Stark had built for him. Ned also expressed his desire to become Peter's "guy in the chair", who would assist him during missions with information.
Washington Trip[]
Ned helped Peter analyze the alien power core of a weapon confiscated from Herman Schultz and Jackson Brice, and accompanied Peter when he went to Washington DC with the school's decathlon team to try and stop the criminal Adrian Toomes from robbing a D.O.D.C truck. Ned accidentally endangered the lives of himself and several of his fellow students when he took the power core with him to the Washington Monument, unaware that the core was in fact an unstable Chitauri grenade. The grenade exploded in the elevator, but Peter was able to save everyone.
Homecoming[]
Ned got to live out his dream of being Peter's "guy in the chair" when Peter discovered Toomes was about to hijack a D.O.D.C. plane transporting weapons from Avengers Tower to the team's new headquarters, but had to rely on just his old homemade Spider-Man costume again since Stark had confiscated the high-tech suit following an incident with the Staten Island Ferry. Ned first helped Peter defeat Schultz by webbing up the thug with a web shooter Peter had dropped during the fight. He then used the school computers to track down Peter's phone, which Peter had left behind in Toomes's car, to find out the location of Toomes's lair. Ned was caught in the act by their teacher Ms. Warren, and tried to cover for Peter by claiming to be watching pornography.
Days after the dance, Ned was present when MJ became the new academic decathlon leader. Sometime later, he was interviewed by the school news team on Spider-Man's identity and claimed that it will always be a mystery.[1]
Infinity War[]
Months later, Ned was on a field trip to MOMA and listening to music when Peter tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to cause a distraction. Ned immediately noticed an alien space ship descending upon Greenwich Village and screamed that an invasion was occurring, attracting the other students' attention and allowing Peter to make his escape. [3]
The Snap[]
Ned was among the half of the universe that was slain by Thanos when the Mad Titan snapped his fingers. Five years later, Bruce Banner used the Infinity Stones to resurrect the fallen, including Ned and Peter.[2] With Midtown High restarting the school year to accommodate the resurrected students,[4] Ned joyfully reunited with Peter on the first day of school.[2]
Post Snap[]
Towards the end of the year, Ned, Peter, and several of their classmates attended a field trip to Europe. Intent on becoming a bachelor but wanting to help Peter woo MJ, Ned faked Peter having an allergy, but the plan want awry, ending with Peter next to his teachers and Ned next to MJ's friend Betty Brant. Despite this, Ned and Betty began a relationship.
Attack at Venice[]
At the vacation's first destination, Venice, Italy, the class was interrupted by the presence of the Water Elemental. Peter, who had left his Spider-Man suit at the class's hotel, had Ned and the others evacuate while he tried to fend off the creature, which was ultimately defeated by a newcomer, Mysterio. That night, Ned was tranquilized by "Nick Fury," who soon filled Peter in on the situation. Peter tried to back out of "Fury's" plans, but "Fury" had his agent Dmitri drive the class to Prague, where the Fire Elemental was scheduled to attack. For his part, Ned was excited that S.H.I.E.L.D. had hijacked Peter's vacation.
Attack at Prague[]
To stall for time before helping Mysterio fight the Fire Elemental, Peter had the class attend an opera. MJ, suspicious of Peter's activity, left the opera house, with Ned and Betty assuming that she had left for the Carnival of Lights and following her. When the Fire Elemental attacked, Ned and Betty were caught in the crossfire. Peter donned a black costume to hide his identity as Spider-Man while fighting, which Ned claimed to Betty was a "European knockoff" of Spider-Man named Night Monkey. Eventually, the Fire Elemental was subdued, and Peter rescued Ned and Betty.
Attack on London Bridge[]
However, Mysterio turned out to be a con artist who was using drones and special effects to appear as a hero. Having learned that Ned and MJ knew of Peter's secret, Mysterio guided the class to London, where his final illusion, a hybrid of all four Elementals, would kill them. While Spider-Man fought Mysterio, Ned and the others were saved by Peter's friend Happy Hogan. One of Mysterio's drones chased Ned and the group into the Tower of London, but Spider-Man regained control of the drones, saving them. With the threat ended, Ned returned to New York, but not before peacefully breaking up with Betty.[4]
Peter's Identity Exposed[]
Shortly after their return, Mysterio, in a final act of spite, had sent J. Jonah Jameson of The Daily Bugle doctored footage publicly blaming Spider-Man for the London attacks and exposing Peter's identity.[4] As a result, Ned was caught in legal troubles and interrogated by the Department of Damage Control. He admitted that he had known Peter's secret for far longer than MJ.
Though Matt Murdock was able to clear Peter's troubles, Ned's association with Spider-Man resulted in various colleges, including MIT, reject his college applications.[5]
Catching Multiversal Men[]
In an attempt to restore his secret identity, Peter visited Doctor Strange to cast a spell to make the world forget he is Spider-Man, but the spell went awry, unleashing supervillains from other universes. To help Strange catch them, Peter recruited Ned and MJ to help. With Ned's assistance, Peter tracked down and battled Electro with help from the Sandman, imprisoning them inside Strange's basement. After catching all five misplaced villains, Strange prepared to send them back to their universes, where they are fated to die at the hands of Spider-Man, but Peter refused and offered to help them instead. After a battle within the Mirror Dimension, Peter trapped Strange, stole his Sling Ring, and gave it to Ned for safekeeping while MJ was entrusted with the spell in case his attempt to cure the villains went awry.
Taking refuge with Ned's grandmother, the two waited for Peter's signal, but found nothing. Ned realized he could channel magic and attempted to use a portal to find Peter, accidentally finding two Spider-Men from the villains' universes: Peter-Two and Peter-Three. The four tracked down Peter-One, mourning the loss of his Aunt May at Midtown High, and encouraged him that her sacrifice was not in vain. The three Spider-Men began working on a cure to fix the villains. During the process, Ned learned that Peter-Two had a best friend who had betrayed him, and promised Peter-One that he would never betray him.
The Spider-Men prepared for a final clash with the villains at the Statue of Liberty, ready to cure them. Ned and MJ readied a portal to hide the spell, but were unable to close it, resulting in the Lizard chasing them through the portal and forcing Peter-One to restore the Lizard to normal. However, the Green Goblin had unleashed the spell, bringing in various people from across the multiverse; at Peter-One's suggestion, Strange began to cast a spell to erase all memory of Peter-One from Earth-199999 while sending the cured villains and the other Spider-Men back where they came from. Peter-One shared a tearful farewell to Ned and MJ before the spell was complete.[5]
A New Start[]
Sometime later, Ned and MJ were accepted into MIT and celebrated at the coffee shop MJ worked at.[5]Attributes
Abilities
- Hacking: Ned was able to hack the internal computer of the Spider-Man suit made by Tony Stark and remove the "Training Wheels Protocol."[1]
- Bilingualism: Ned knows Tagalog and English.[5]
Notes
- Jacob Batalon portrays Ned Leeds in the films Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home and in the short film Peter's To-Do List.
- This interpretation of Ned Leeds is extremely similar to Ganke Lee, Miles Morales' best friend, down to sharing a similar physical appearance, personality and computer skills. Ganke Lee's co-creator Brian Michael Bendis addressed these similarities, expressing that he didn't know if Ned was meant to have been inspired by Ganke.[6]
Trivia
- He's the second Ned Leeds to be portrayed as Asian-American. The first being Ned Lee in Spectacular Spider-Man.
See Also
- 10 appearance(s) of Edward Leeds (Earth-199999)
- 2 minor appearance(s) of Edward Leeds (Earth-199999)
- 7 image(s) of Edward Leeds (Earth-199999)
- 1 item(s) used/owned by Edward Leeds (Earth-199999)
Links and References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Spider-Man: Homecoming
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Avengers: Endgame
- ↑ Avengers: Infinity War
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Spider-Man: Far From Home
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Spider-Man: No Way Home
- ↑ Jayson, Jay (7 April 2017) Ganke Creator Comments On Spider-Man: Homecoming's Ned Leeds ComicBook. Archived from the original on 8 April 2017.