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 the abusive husband of Betty Brant. Leeds is the third character to take on the Hobgoblin mantle as a supervillain; ten years following his assassination, he is retroactively established to have been willingly brainwashed to serve as a stand-in for the true first Hobgoblin and mastermind, and killed before he could give them up to the authorities for a lesser sentence: prior to this, from 1987 to 1997, Ned was originally depicted as having been the true identity of the first Hobgoblin. The character was revived in a 2018–2021 storyline where he was revealed to have been a willing Hobgoblin, faking his death to seek revenge on the Foreigner for having attempted to kill him, and using the brainwashing story to convince Betty to take him back and impregnate her.
