The Hand (comics)

The Hand is a supervillain organization appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Hand first appeared in Daredevil #174 (cover-dated September 1981) and was created by writer/artist Frank Miller; they were introduced shortly after Elektra, whom they trained. Later in the 1980s, they appear in stories written by Chris Claremont as antagonists of Wolverine and the X-Men. The Hand is an order of evil ninjas who direct criminal and mercenary activities, particularly assassinations. The Hand covets power above all other objectives. They are primarily based in Japan, but operate internationally. According to later stories by D.G. Chichester and C.B. Cebulski, they were founded in 1588 as a secret society of Japanese nationalist samurai but were soon co-opted by the Snakeroot, an ancient ninja clan. The clan serves a primordial demon known as the Beast of the Hand. Members of the Hand are practitioners of powerful occult magic; they can murder a person and resurrect the person as a servant of the Hand; a few are known to have reversed this programming. The Hand's adversary is the Chaste, a band of warriors once led by Stick, the blind martial arts master and mentor of Matt Murdock, who became the costumed crime-fighter Daredevil. After a series of hostile encounters, Murdock eventually accepts the offer of becoming the master of the Hand for a time, in a storyline by Ed Brubaker. After he is rehabilitated, the Punisher also becomes leader of the Hand, in a storyline by Jason Aaron. The group's appearance in comics has been credited as one of the inspirations for the trend of ninjas in popular culture in the 1980s, and has also been criticized as a stereotypical representation of East Asian culture. In film, the Hand appeared as the antagonists in Elektra (2005). The organization was...