Ned Leeds

"Hey, can I be your guy in the chair?" "What?" "You know how there's a guy, with the headset, telling the other guy where to go? Like if you were stuck in a burning building, I could tell you where to go, 'cause there'd be screens all around me, I can shoot around things, I can be your guy in the chair!"

- Ned Leeds and Peter Parker

Edward "Ned" Leeds is a student at Midtown School of Science and Technology. Upon discovering his best friend Peter Parker was Spider-Man, Leeds then focused on assisting his friend's heroic adventures as they attempted to find and defeat Vulture before he could sell high-tech hybrid weapons to the criminal underworld, while also hoping to use the Spider-Man to improve their own social standing at their school.

Friendship with Peter Parker
Ned Leeds is a student at Midtown School of Science and Technology, and Peter Parker's best friend. He was also a member of the Academic Decathlon Team. At school, Leeds told Parker that he had got the Lego Death Star, and asked Parker if he wanted to help build it. Parker declined, saying he needed to work on the Stark Internship.

Spider-Man Discovery
Shortly after, Leeds went to Parker's apartment. While Parker was not in, his Aunt May allowed Leeds to wait in his room. Leeds saw Parker enter through the window while wearing his Spider-Man Suit. He surprised Parker, who had to admit that he was Spider-Man.

Over the next few days, Leeds bombarded Parker with questions over his abilities, and whether he had met other heroes like Captain America. Parker answered the questions, but became frustrated when Leeds blurted out in front of Liz Toomes that Parker knew Spider-Man. When they both got invited to her party, Leeds convinced Parker to make an appearance as Spider-Man to increase their social standing. Leeds was left waiting at the party when Parker had to bail to investigate an explosion that turned out to be an arms deal.

Assisting Spider-Man
After breaking up the arms deal, he discovered a Chitauri power core. Leeds helped him to investigate it and saw that the alien core had been grafted to human technology. They avoided Herman Schultz who was tracking the power core and looking to recover it. Leeds also hacked into the Spider-Man Suit and discovered that the suit's abilities were limited by the Training Wheels Protocol. He disabled it, allowing Parker to access all of the suit's abilities.

Washington D.C. Trip
Leeds joined the Academic Decathlon Team in Washington, D.C. for the finals. Parker was using the trip to investigate the Vulture, a villain who was responsible for the creation of the hybrid alien-human weapons. Leeds disabled the tracker inbuilt in the Spider-Man Suit that relayed his location to Tony Stark's assistant, Happy Hogan. Parker told Leeds to look after the power core and keep it safe.

Parker ended up being trapped in a D.O.D.C. Vault and missed the finals the next day. Leeds participated in the finals, and the Midtown team won. Mr. Harrington took the team to the Washington Monument. At the top, the power core exploded, damaging part of the Monument and trapping several of the Academic Decathlon in an elevator. They were rescued by the arrival of Spider-Man.

Fighting Shocker
"It's a dance. What are you doing here?" "I'm... looking at... porn."

- Warren and Ned Leeds

At the homecoming dance, Parker found out that Liz Toomes' father was the Vulture. Later, when Shocker gained the upper-hand against Parker, Needs intervened and distracted Shocker with one of Parker's web shooters, giving Spider-Man the advantage to web him against a bus. As Parker went after the Vulture, Leeds got his wish to be his "guy in the chair," using several computers in the school to help Parker in his mission. After Parker had defeated the Vulture, Leeds was caught by Warren, one of the school's teachers. To cover for Parker, he told Warren he was looking at pornography.

Personality
"What is like being famous when nobody knows it's you? It's crazy. Should we tell everyone?"

- Ned Leeds to Peter Parker

Ned is a highly intelligent science enthusiast, hacker, gamer, and geek, though he is also somewhat socially awkward, hence his close friendship with Peter Parker. Ned is strongly displeased with being the school geek and wishes to become more popular. Initially upon discovering that Peter is the Spider-Man, Ned wanted to use his friend's alter-ego for rather selfish needs such as making himself and Peter more popular by claiming that Spider-Man was their close friend.

Ned was very excited that Peter is a superhero and immediately wanted to be his "Chair Guy". After realizing that criminals could've killed Peter multiple times he began to take the Spider-Man more seriously and geninuely wanted to help Peter capture the Vulture, offering support whenever he could.

Abilities

 * Gifted Intelligence: Ned, like his friend Peter, is an intelligent science enthusiast, and a member of the Midtown School of Science and Technology academic decathlon team.
 * Expert Hacker: Ned is a skilled hacker, having bypassed the Training Wheels Protocol installed in the Spider-Man Suit by Tony Stark himself.
 * Skilled Gamer: Ned is an avid video game fan.

Family

 * Father
 * Mother

Allies

 * Midtown School of Science and Technology
 * Peter Parker/Spider-Man - Classmate and Best Friend
 * Michelle Jones - Classmate and Decathlon Leader
 * Liz Toomes - Former Classmate and Decathlon Leader
 * Betty Brant - Classmate
 * Charles Murphy - Classmate
 * Cindy Moon - Classmate
 * Abe Brown - Classmate
 * Sally Avril - Classmate
 * Tiny McKeever - Classmate
 * Seymour O'Reilly - Classmate
 * Jason Ionello - Classmate
 * Roger Harrington - Teacher and Decathlon Supervisor
 * Warren - Teacher
 * Hapgood - Teacher
 * Wilson - Coach
 * May Parker

Enemies

 * Flash Thompson - Classmate
 * Herman Schultz/Shocker

Trivia

 * In the comics, Ned Leeds is a reporter for the Daily Bugle who married Betty Brant, and was brainwashed into believing and acting as the criminal known as the Hobgoblin.
 * The MCU version of Ned Leeds shares similarities with Ganke Lee, the best friend of Miles Morales from the Ultimate Universe. Their most notable similarities are their physical appearances, and their shared obsession with superheroes and LEGO. In the comics, Ganke adopted the alias of "Ned" to hide his true identity from Danika Hart.