The Green Goblin was introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #14, then his identity was kept a secret for 25 issues until the final panel of Amazing Spider-Man #39, when he was unmasked as Norman Osborn.
The truth about the Hobgoblin's identity wouldn't be nearly as clear. Marvel Comics' accepted canon says that the one and only Hobgoblin is Roderick Kingsley, but it's been a long, bumpy, 14-year journey to get there — as covered by Glenn Greenberg at "Back question!" magazine. In When Hobbie Met Spidey, Greenberg interviews various Spider-Man writers/editors from the '80s to decipher how the Hobgoblin's origins became such a tangled web.
Let's set the scene: It's 1983, and Roger Stern is writing The Amazing Spider-Man. He notices that readers who write in the letters page want the Green Goblin back, which inspires him to create a successor villain: the Hobgoblin, designed by John Romita Jr. also be a mystery. (Tom DeFalco, who was Spider-Man's editor when Stern was writing, told Back Issue! that the mystery was his idea.)
Almost from the beginning, Stern intended the Hobgoblin to be Roderick Kingsley; Stern introduced himself to Kingsley in the previous story. According to his remarks on "Back Question!", Stern drawn Amazing Spider-Man #238 without knowing who the Hobgoblin was, but once he started writing the villain's dialogue, he knew it had to be Kingsley. He set up a red herring in The Amazing Spider-Man #249, when the hobgoblin tries to blackmail New York's elite, with Kingsley among the victims. For Stern, this was Daniel Kingsley, Roderick's weak-willed younger brother, who used him as a double.
According to DeFalco's recollection, Stern kept the truth so close to his chest that he didn't even tell his editor: "I told Roger, 'I'm going to keep a list of suspects and cross guys off.' as their times come, and when the time comes to reveal it, you will tell me who you think it is, and if I agree, it will be and if I disagree—well, I'm the editor!'"
Stern intended the Hobgoblin mystery to continue one issue longer than the Green Goblin's (meaning it would be wrapped up in The Amazing Spider-Man #264 or so). Unfortunately, Stern left Amazing Spider-Man due to a personality clash with new editor Danny Finger. Stern's last issue, Amazing Spider-Man #251, teased on the cover that the identity of the Hobgoblin would be revealed, but the issue itself did not follow through.
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After Stern left, DeFalco went from editor to writer on The Amazing Spider-Man. He finally learned the truth about the Hobgoblin from the departing Stern, but the problem was DeFalco wasn't convinced. In particular, he thought the proposed twin trick with the Kingsley brothers would be cheap storytelling. So he went back to his list of suspects and concluded that the Hobgoblin had to be someone else: Richard Fisk, son of the king. As a mob prince, Fisk Jr. would, of course, have connections to the underworld and an ambition to pass as a Hobgoblin.
So DeFalco intended to reveal Richard Fisk as the Hobgoblin and Roderick Kingsley as Hobbie's partner in crime, The Rose. Even Stern agreed that this would be a "good" answer. But that didn't happen; after all, the right one inverse on DeFalco's resolution played. Richard Fisk was the Rose, and Kingsley would eventually be unmasked as the Hobgoblin much later.
In the meantime, however, the Hobgoblin was attached to Ned Leeds. Marvel movie fans might be thinking, wait, Spidey's shiny best friend Ned (played by Jacob Batalon) from the Homecoming trilogy? Well, not really. See, the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Ned Leeds is more like an adaptation of Ganke LeeMiles Morales' Asian-American best friend. Comic Ned Leeds was an adult Daily Bugle reporter and future husband of Betty Brandt. (His name, "Leeds," even it feels like a journalistic pun.) Ned was one of Spider-Man's earliest supporting characters, debuting in Amazing Spider-Man #18, and mostly friendly with Peter. So why make Hobgoblin?
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