ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN Writer Admits He's Confused By Peter Parker's Best Friend In SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

While he's stoked and flattered to see one of his characters appearing in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Ultimate Spider-Man writer Brian Michael Bendis has a bit of confusion over the role of Peter Parker's best friend, Ned Leeds. For those unfamiliar with the situation, many Spider-man fans have pointed out that Ned Leeds bears a striking resemblance to a comic book character created by Bendis, Ganke. In the comics, Ganke is the chubby Asian best friend to Miles Morales, who is not the Spider-Man we're seeing on screen. Bendis shares his thoughts on the Ultimate Spiderman podcast (via io9) below: 

I’ll be very honest right now. I have not talked about this publicly, but it feels very bizarre. Most of the time the characters that I’ve had a hand in creating that have made it to the screen, from Jessica [Jones] all the way to Maria Hill and Quake, the level of quality of the adaptation and care in which they bring the character forward past the adaptation into its new life has been uniformly amazing — my luck in this area has been second to none.

I’ve not seen Spider-Man: Homecoming, so I’m gonna wait until we see what we see. But, yeah, it was bizarre and flattering. I don’t even know if Ganke was the inspiration, or they just got to their own place with a character like this on their own. I don’t know. It does seem like it might have been, but no one’s told me either way. There’s so much else in that trailer that’s from ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ that I would assume that, yes, it is… It’s weird only because Ganke wasn’t part of Peter’s story—he was part of Miles’ story.

Keep in mind that we're still unsure of where Ned Leeds story will take us. Ultimately, Ned Leeds goes onto become the Hobgoblin in Peter Parker's storyline, so perhaps going off looks alone and comparing him to Ganke is a bit unfair. Still, the fact that Ganke was a best friend to Morales and Leeds is the best friend to Parker and they both look similar may leave a sour taste in the mouth of Ultimate Spider-Man fans...how do you feel about it? Do you even care?