Peter & Ned Are Set Up As The MCU's New Steve & Bucky

gamerant.com:

After all the villains of Spider-Man: No Way Home are cured and returned to their own universes, the movie sets up a couple of new baddies for the future. The multiversal outline of Kraven the Hunter appears as Doctor Strange tries to seal up the cracks in the sky. In the mid-credits scene, Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock leaves behind a bit of Venom symbiote on his way back to the Sony-verse. The most obvious villain setup in No Way Home is Ned Leeds’ prophesized transformation into the Hobgoblin.

Jacob Batalon’s Ned was introduced as the best friend of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker back in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Across the trilogy, he evolved from Spidey’s “guy in the chair” to a superpowered ally opening and closing mystical portals to redirect villains in the final battle of No Way Home. But instead of turning Ned into Spidey’s sidekick, the threequel has set him up to become the webslinger’s next nemesis. Marvel fans are eager to see Holland take on Venom, Kraven, Black Cat, and countless other iconic villains, but Ned is arguably the perfect bad guy for Spider-Man 4.

No Way Home Makes Spider-Man The MCU's Best Trilogy

In the comics, Ned eventually became a villain called the Hobgoblin. Traditionally, Ned’s only powers in the Hobgoblin guise are a bunch of goblin-themed weapons, but the MCU has introduced the notion that he has “Doctor Strange magic,” so his Hobgoblin could present a supernatural menace. No Way Home was hilariously on-the-nose in foreshadowing Ned’s future as the Hobgoblin. He asks Tobey Maguire’s Spidey if he has a best friend. After Maguire explains his tragic history with Harry Osborn and Andrew Garfield nods to confirm that the same thing happened to him, Ned goes over to Holland and assures him, “I won’t