Brian Michael Bendis has an interesting take on the similarities between Ganke and Ned.

When the first trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming dropped back in December, a lot of elements stood out. However, one of the biggest things that fans noticed was the MCU’s take on Ned Leeds, who now appears to be very similar to Ganke in the comics.

Now, Ganke creator Brian Michael Bendis has finally addressed the situation. While speaking on the Ultimate Spin podcast (via Comic Book Resources), Bendis acknowledged that the character could have been adapted from Ganke, but he won’t say for sure until he sees the film:

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.

Overall, it seems that Bendis doesn’t mind the studio taking elements from his Ultimate-Spider-Man runs. During the podcast, he also discussed the fact that Marvel Studios does usually alter his characters to their liking when they adapt them. But he appears to have been very pleased with how they’ve done this so far:

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.

It’s definitely good to hear that he has enjoyed how his work has been depicted so far, and as long as the quality remains high, he probably wouldn’t mind seeing more of his work on the screen.

Ganke first appeared in Bendis’ Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man in 2011 as a friend of Miles Morales. He immediately learned of his friend’s secret identity as the new Spider-Man, and became a close confidant. Ned Leeds first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man comics back in 1964, and was actually a rival of Peter’s at the Daily Bugle. He later became the villain known as the Hobgoblin.

It is worth mentioning that Ned Leeds was the basis for the character in the film, but he is still not confirmed to actually be the character. According to reports, Ned has no last name in the film or screenplay.

Although we don’t know for sure if this Ned was actually inspired by Ganke, it’s hard to deny the shared characteristics between the two. But like Bendis, we’ll just have to wait and see when the film is released.

Spider-Man: Homecoming hits theaters on July 7, 2017.