Poor old Peter Parker has a lot of trouble by the looks of the first Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer. Between the Scorpion, Frank Castle being a dick, and knowing his friends don’t remember him, he’s also dealing with a weird spider disease or whatever. Unclear. So his brand new day is pretty bad. But above and beyond all that, he’s got a pack of ninjas to fight. The ninjas, dressed in red, are of particular interest to fans of Marvel Comics. The Hand have acted as a thorn in heroes’ sides since the early ’80s.
Who Are the Hand in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?
The Hand first appeared in Daredevil #174 from 1981. That was during the Frank Miller years, wherein he also introduced DD universe staples like Elektra and Matt Murdock’s training under the mysterious blind sensei, Stick. In the years since, the Hand have been retconned to be among the oldest and most mystical of all Marvel baddies. Aside from many clandestine criminal activities, the Hand also perform assassinations and practice occult magic which can resurrect those they have killed in order to serve them.
The Hand primarily face off against Daredevil and ground-level New York heroes, or against Wolverine, Psylocke, and other more ninja-adjacent members of the X-Men roster. Ninjas were big in the 1980s and both Frank Miller and Chris Claremont were huge fans of Japanese culture. When the pair teamed up for the first Wolverine solo miniseries in 1982, Logan went to Japan and took on the Hand.
The Hand Return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Fans of the Netflix era of Marvel TV shows will be very familiar with the Hand. They provided constant irritation for Daredevil in the first and second seasons of that series. The first season established them as a major player in the NYC drug and slum empires. They make an alliance with Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. the Kingpin, and that’s when we first meet Madame Gao and Nobu Yoshioka, both continued nuisances to Matt Murdock as the series progresses.
Though Matt sets Nobu on fire at the end of the first season of Daredevil, the Hand resurrect him in the second. That’s when Matt’s former flame and current problem Elektra reappears. The Hand end up the persistent threat of the season, with Daredevil and the Punisher working together to defeat them and Elektra dying.
The Hand later act as the main antagonists of both Iron Fist and The Defenders. Since the end of the Netflix shows, we hadn’t seen the Hand…until now!
Will the Hand Be Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s Main Enemy?
We see two fairly major moments of Spider-Man facing off against the Hand in the trailer for Brand New Day. He grabs one of their swords in a prison, while unmasked. Then at the very end, Spider-Man jumps down as a horde of ninjas jump up at him. Both are the kind of 1-vs-100 battles we haven’t seen Spider-Man partake in much in the MCU thus far.
The big question is whether the Hand are the main threat of the movie or merely a persistent irritation. Since we don’t really know who is behind Peter’s weird mutation, it’s possible the Hand and its shady dealings are behind it. It’s also possible they are involved in whatever the Punisher is doing. My guess would be Spider-Man will weave in and out of various plots as the film goes on, as he is wont to do.
The Hand are an excellent and tough threat for any Marvel hero, but in my humble opinion, I doubt Sony’s interests would allow for a non-Spider-Man baddie to be the main baddie in a Spider-Man movie. I’ve been wrong before, of course.
We should find out soon. Spider-Man: Brand New Day will hit theaters July 31.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
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