Talk:The Hand (comics)

The Mandarin?

Confused -- is the Hand the same Hand as the one The Mandarin was in in Iron Man? -- grant 03:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. But the Hand has many sects. --Loremaster (talk) 15:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright issue?

The copyedit tag is on this article, but the feel of the text is like it might be taken directly from a comic or something--it's not particularly badly written, just has a storytelling tone. Can someone who has read the relevant books comment on this? --The Famous Movie Director 08:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

These issues seem to be have been resolved since the copyedit tag was removed. --Loremaster (talk) 15:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Golden Age Hand?

Hi, There's also a Golden Age Hand. He's in The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days under February 25. Dawn22 22:59, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to create a Wikipedia article for this character. --Loremaster (talk) 15:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Handelec.jpg

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 09:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The Beast

Why does "The Beast (comics)" redirect here? It's far more commonly used to refer to the X-Man under Beast (comics)... J'onn J'onzz (talk) 16:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Obviously because Beast and The Beast are two different names associated to two different comicbook characters. --Loremaster (talk) 17:43, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Here is some information on Beast of the Hand (Elektra foe) --Loremaster (talk) 23:04, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

This may very well have been the stupidest redirect in the history of Wikipedia. It has been fixed. oknazevad (talk) 05:01, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

The Wolverine 2013 film

Doesn't this appear in the film as the retainers of the Yashida samurai family/keiretsu? With Harada as the most prominent member? (Black Hand?) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:52, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The film is based on the 1982 Frank Miller/Chris Claremont series, in which the Hand appear. In the film, they are renamed the "Black Clan" and given a different history. 20th Century Fox didn't have the rights to the name because the Hand were not considered part of the X-Men IP, even though they appear in X-Men stories. I would include this in the article, if there was a reliable source describing the adaptation. Wrangler1981 (talk) 20:55, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Present/Past tense switch in "Fictional organization history" section

In the "Fictional organization history" section, the first paragraph is in past tense, while the second paragraph is in present tense. Should it be updated so the same tense is used throughout? There's probably a style guideline that applies here, but I don't know where it is.

Bsammon (talk) 00:12, 19 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. For comic-book character articles, the established template is that back story before the events narrated in published material is described in past tense, and plot summaries of stories featuring the character are written in present tense. I've tried to follow this approach. I believe you can read it in the Iron Man character biography, for example. Wrangler1981 (talk) 21:57, 20 August 2026 (UTC)

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Hand (comics)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Wrangler1981 (talk · contribs) 22:12, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: ModlordD (talk · contribs) 01:38, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

Will review this in one of the upcoming days.

Part One

Lead

• First paragraph
  • I know in practically the Hand is certainly a "supervillain organization", but are there any sources that describe it as such? This one is more just something to think about rather than something that needs change
  • Going based off the Iron Man article here, but I think "cover-dated" should just be "cover dated"
  • Repeating "The Hand" in the second sentence feels redundant
  • "they were introduced shortly after Elektra, whom they trained." Uncorroborated in body. Nothing in the body mentions the publication order of Elektra vs the Hand. Elektra also isn't stated to be trained by the Hand in the body, rather she infiltrated the Hand as a Chaste member, and was later corrupted by them.
  • "Later in the 1980s, they appear in stories written by Chris Claremont as antagonists of Wolverine and the X-Men." There is stated in the body of a X-Men story in the 90s with Psylocke. But, and I realize this is pedantic but I have to be for these kind of reviews, it isn't stated with Miller's Wolverine miniseries that the Hand play an antagonistic role. And even in the other stories mentioned that have the Hand as antagonists to Wolverine, those are the 1990s and past.
• Second paragraph
  • "The Hand is an order of evil ninjas who direct criminal and mercenary activities" Is it ever stated that they do mercenary activities?
  • "The Hand covets power above all other objectives." Uncorroborated claim
  • "They are primarily based in Japan, but operate internationally." Them operating internationally is implied, but not stated. Modifying this sentence should be a consideration.
  • "they were founded in 1588" Uncorroborated in body, the body simply states the 16th century.
  • "secret society of Japanese nationalist samurai " are they ever stated to be samurai?
  • "the Snakeroot, an ancient ninja clan." The body states that the Snakeroot were a faction within the Hand.
  • "a few are known to have reversed this programming." This only seems weakly supported at best. For consideration
  • "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. " Again being pedantic, but technically the body never describes Stick as blind or the leader of the Chaste, rather just being a member. Also, none of the Daredevil stuff is corroborated in the body.
  • For consideration, but the lead does skip over Kingpin taking over the Hand. I'm not sure if it is relevant enough however.
• Third paragraph
  • "and has also been criticized as a stereotypical representation of East Asian culture." Is it as much East Asian culture as much as it is simply Japanese culture?
• Fourth paragraph
  • The Hand being the "antagonists" of Elektra and Spider-Man: Brand New Day being a "Marvel Studios" film aren't corroborated in body.
  • Doesn't include Marvel's Wolverine, which I'd argue is a significant enough appearance to be listed in the lead.

Publication history

• 1980s
  • For consistency with lead, first appearance and "cover dated" (not included, but should be) should be linked
  • First citation has incorrect page number. Basing off the page numbers provided in the book using the Internet Archive scan, the page number should be 202.
  • Not necessary, but there should probably be some information on The Hand being hired by Kingpin in their first appearance
  • "Elektra kills one of the Hand's assassins, Kirigi, more than once, but he is continually resurrected by the group's magic" This can probably be written more simply, something along the lines of "Elektra repeatedly kills the assassin Kirigi, whom the Hand continually resurrects"
  • "the Hand attempt to resurrect her" should be "attempts"
  • Last citation in first paragraph has incorrect page number. According to online scan stated before, the page number in this case should be 207.
  • Inconsistent date formatting throughout [ex. " (September-December 1982), (August 1986 - March 1987)]. Needs to be retified
  • " Daredevil volume 1 #174 " writing out like this isn't standard procedure usually. Typically I'd go for something like Daredevil (vol. 1) #174. Regardless of how you format it, it needs to be consistent throughout the whole publication history.
• 1990s and after
  • First citation of section doesn't support that Claremont wrote that story.
  • "This storyline continues in the "Shadowland" story arc written by Andy Diggle (September 2010-January 2011), in which Daredevil transforms the organization into a group of brutal vigilantes." Citation doesn't support that Andy Diggle wrote the story
  • "The Diggle series draws from Miller's earlier work in Elektra: Assassin (1986), demonstrating that the Hand serve a diabolic entity called the Beast of the Hand." The Beast has already been introduced in previous section
  • "The group then appeared in Uncanny Avengers (vol. 3) #14 - #16 (November 2016 - January 2017) (in this story, they resurrect the Hulk)." This could be written better
  • "In a storyline of 2022 by Jason Aaron, the Punisher becomes the leader of the Hand." This can be written better

Thats the first half for now. I'll work on the other half in a day or two.

Thanks very much for your assistance with this article. I appreciate your close reading; it can be hard for me to catch some of these omissions. I have a few questions and responses:

1) I have tried to fix all of the errors you've identified and to respond to almost all of your suggestions.

2) About "supervillain organization": It's a generic term that paraphrases a variety of different characterizations in sources (e.g. Young calls them "evil ninjas" and a "fictional Yakuza-like criminal organization"). Sources have a tendency to presuppose the typical genre conventions and archetypes of superhero comics.

3) I adjusted "a few are known to have reversed this programming" to specify Elektra as the main example. The DeFalco source specifies Elektra, Wolverine, and Psylocke as the three characters who resisted brainwashing (as described in the bio section of this article), but Wolverine and Psylocke weren't killed and resurrected.

4) The citations from the Ridout book have the correct page numbers. I think the version you have checked from the Internet Archive must be a different edition -- I think there have been a few editions of "Marvel Year by Year". I am using the 2022 edition, which I believe is the most recent.

5) Regarding date formatting, "[ex. " (September-December 1982), (August 1986 - March 1987)]." This is how I was taught to do it when I re-wrote the Wolverine article for GA. I thought the Wikipedia style was a hyphen with no spaces for months in the same year, and spaces between the hyphen for different years. I don't know where to find a standard format guide for this, though. I noticed that the FA articles (Iron Man and Black Widow (Natasha Romanova) don't give the months of publication at all, just the year. This would be easier; should I do it that way?

6) The Uncanny X-Men story: Claremont definitely wrote it; it's a fairly well-known story, and Claremont recently wrote a continuation of it. I think it makes sense to specify his authorship in the article because it establishes that all of the early Hand stories are written by either Miller or Claremont. Unfortunately, I am having a trouble finding a strong secondary source to substantiate that he is the author. Do you think I could use a primary source reference in this case?

Thanks again. Looking forward to further suggestions.

Kind regards, Wrangler1981 (talk) 17:57, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Responding to your questions. Writing articles is hard and making mistakes is inevitable, and I make a lot of them myself.

1. Understood
2. Understood
3. Understood
4. My apologies, I didn't realize there were multiple versions of some of these texts. The version I was referring to is the 2017 version on Archive. Disregard those suggestions I made
5. I honestly had no idea this was the case, but you are correct. It is detailed at MOS:DATERANGE. Just keep in mind for date ranges in general, you shouldn't be using hyphens, rather en-dashes. You can choose to do year only if you wish, but since you already went through the trouble of putting the months, just formatting it correctly is sufficient.
6. Yes, since the primary source would only be used to verify a writer, it is fine to use it as a citation. Just make sure to use the "cite comic" template rather than just making a basic template and listing the name; you can use the Uncanny X-Men page to fill out the info.

I will finish the rest of the review shortly. ModlordD (talk) 21:14, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Great; thanks. Wrangler1981 (talk) 22:44, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Part Two

Fictional organization biography

• "The organization was founded by Kagenobu Yoshioka, initially a nationalistic secret society opposed to the powerful daimyo (lords) of that time."
  • This has a dangling modifier in English terms. Needs restructuring
  • Source mentions that Yoshioka founded to oppose the daimyo. But it also mentions that those daimyo were "corrupt" and that the secret society also opposed "the influx of foreign merchants". This information should likely be added
• "Yoshioka recruited leaders from each of the five islands of Japan, claiming that the islands could be like fingers clenched in a fist." Japan is typically described as having four main islands. The source does say a similar thing but it words it a little better, this could use some clarification.
• "They worked closely with Hydra before their expulsion by Baron von Strucker." This immediately follows a quote talking about Wolverine, Captain America, and Black Widow. Its not super clear from the prose itself that "they" is referring to the Hand. Could be worded better.
• ""Elektra infiltrated the Hand, initially working for the Chaste, but eventually became corrupted by them; after they induced her to kill her previous mentor, she repudiated the group."" Don't believe all this information is supported by the citation
• "Some time later, the Hand subjects Wolverine to mind control; Elektra is able to free him, and to collaborate with him to again neutralize the group; they battle Gorgon, who attempts to reforge the alliance between the Hand and Hydra." Potential run-on sentence, and I'm unsure what the earlier example of a neutralization is.
• "The group then manipulates the Punisher into becoming their leader, playing on his emotions by resurrecting his murdered wife. The Punisher and the Hand then battle with Daredevil and Elektra, who led a new organization called the Fist." Could you tell me which character section this citation is referring to? The online version I have doesn't line up exactly I believe.

Reception

• "Sean Howe identifies the significance of the Hand's early appearances in Daredevil as contributing to the 1980s trend of ninjas in popular culture, along with Eric Van Lustbader's novel The Ninja and Chuck Norris's film The Octagon." Broken citation
• "The Hand has drawn some criticism for drawing from the racial stereotype of Yellow Peril."
  • "Drawn" and "drawing" being used in the same sentence reads very awkwardly
  • "Some criticism" probably doesn't need the "Some"
• "In addition, there has been cultural appropriation controversy about the work of C.B. Cebulski, who wrote much of the canonical backstory of the Hand, because he is a white American who adopted a false persona as a Japanese author." Source likely can allow for a more specific attribution as to who is controversy was among.

In other media

• "The film was not well received, critically or commercially."
  • I'm not entirely sure whether this sentence belongs in this section, which is more or less a list. Maybe it could go in Reception
  • This one source isn't enough to say it wasn't well received critically
  • This source doesn't state anything about it not being received well commercially
• "The Hand subsequently appears in media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), initially in television series; the group first appears in the second season of Daredevil (2016)." Everything from "initially" to "group" can be cut. In that case "appears" be changed to "appearing".
• "While Daredevil was successful with critics and audiences, there was some criticism by actors in the series about the racial depiction of the Hand."
  • Citation doesn't support how well the film was received with critics or audiences
  • Citation only supports one actor giving criticism, not plural as the prose states

Images

• Infobox image: Caption is correct. But there is some noticeable issues with how this image is sourced. The provided source of the image doesn't show the image, and the description of the file isn't on the level of depth required. This needs to be revamped with the same image on Marvel Wiki.
• Fictional organization history image: I honestly have no idea what this image is. The description doesn't suggest it to be a true logo of The Hand in the comics, and I'm confused as to whether it is simply an image of a stock red hand.ModlordD (talk) 22:21, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Ok. I'll try to address these points over the weekend. Wrangler1981 (talk) 22:48, 24 September 2026 (UTC)