Crime Lords Month: I am ninja, you are ninja

… We are ninja too!

With apologies to askaninja.com, we present The Hand.

Let me just start off by saying this: The Hand are true ninja.

I mean it. Hop over to Google, click over to the image search, and slap “Marvel Hand Ninja” into the search field, and see what you come up with.

You may as well be seeing something like this:

I tells ya, finding source images for these clowns is like finding a Quicksilver deck in a top-8 that isn’t running the Fate Artifacts.

Anyway, let’s talk us about some o’ them thar undeadish ninja-types of The Hand.

There are conflicting reports about when the Hand first came into being, but one way or another the organisation dates back centuries.

Distinguishing them from the usual ninja are their red costumes (or, in the case of Kirigi, a lovely pinkish number). This is clearly the the mark of the truly evil mystical ninja, especially the ones that are linked to organised crime. Black is so last month.

Based mainly out of Japan (though operating worldwide), the Hand were originally a secret society of samurai before being co-opted by the Snakeroot ninja clan, who serve an otherwordly entity known as ‘The Beast’. No, I don’t know how they feel about Hank McCoy.

Aside from being ninja, most are quasi undead, dabbling in occult magic and resurrecting their victims as agents of the Hand. Getting out from under their control is a monumental feat, with Elektra, Psylocke and Wolverine the only known Marvel mainliners who’ve broken free, possibly to Freddy Mercury’s crooning.

Your average Hand ninja doesn’t get that kind of love from Marvel’s writers, but they do have one neat trick which makes them the scourge of the coroner’s office: When killed, their bodies turn to dust. This also makes them the scourge of any number of housemaid services.

To this day the Hand crop up as mercenaries, or furthering their own nefarious agenda. In recent years they worked with Hydra to cause all sorts of grief for SHIELD, but through time their main concern has been the defeat of their arch-rivals, The Chaste.

The Chaste consist of a bunch on monosyllabically names individuals who’ve cropped up in comics throughout the years in supporting roles for Daredevil and Elektra. Not many have been names but Stick and Stone (who I hear, together, break bones) have been identified and have taken pivotal roles in Marvel Knights lore.

The biggest kafuffle with the Hand currently is the revelation that their leader, Elektra, was a skrull. Where the real Elektra is, and what the Hand are up to now that they’re leaderless, has yet to be revealed.

Elektra and The Hand: Strange Bedfellows

In terms of VS, the Hand showed up in MMK as a 2-drop Army character with a neat little DEF reducing effect. Now, whether it was because they’re a 2-drop with 2/1 stats, or because they’re Crime Lord affiliated, or even just because some folks don’t like Rob Haynes’ art, I don’t know that anyone actually put together the effort to build a deck around them.

Now, I do recall splashing some into a brief dabble of an Anti-Matter deck based around Kimon, but it didn’t take off so it didn’t get too far beyond concept and initial build stage.

My question is, with the -DEF tricks added in MVL, especially with the Legend deck built around Human Torch: Nova Blast, is it time to bring these guys out of hiding? Well, not out of the hidden area - with that abyssmal defence they’d get mooked - but is there room for them in casual golden decks?

OnyxWeapon, you have your mission. Go build a deck. Make me proud. ;)