9 Years Ago, a Classic Marvel Villain Got an Awful MCU Adaptation, But They Are Currently Being Redeemed

Before television production got absorbed by Marvel Studios, Marvel Television partnered with Netflix to expand the street-level corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and Iron Fist (Finn Jones) remained mostly isolated from the theatrical storylines, with their shows referencing the Avengers only occasionally while building self-contained stories that could be enjoyed even by people who didn’t follow the movies. That separation gave Marvel Television room to experiment with genre and tone in ways the movies never risked, leading to mature TV shows that discussed adult themes, with a heavy focus on the emotional turmoil of their main characters. The era also produced an ambitious crossover in The Defenders, a 2017 miniseries built to unite all four heroes against a single threat, the Hand.

The Hand entered the MCU in Daredevil’s second season, introduced as an ancient ninja organization capable of resurrecting fallen operatives and hunting a prophesied weapon known as the Black Sky. Stick (Scott Glenn) explains that his organization, the Chaste, was formed to hunt down the Hand in a war he wants Daredevil to join. Iron Fist expanded that scope further, tying the organization to Danny Rand’s mystical home of K’un-Lun and introducing separate factions competing with each other. Two full seasons of television depicted the Hand as a global threat positioned to outmatch every villain the individual shows had introduced before it. That buildup made the eventual payoff in The Defenders land as a letdown. Premiering on August 18, 2007, the miniseries severely mischaracterized the Hand.

The Hand Is One of the Main Reasons The Defenders Is So Divisive

In the comics, the Hand originated in Frank Miller’s 1981 run on Daredevil as a combination of two established tropes: the demon-worshipping cult and the ninja horde. The organization traces back to 1588 as a secret society of Japanese nationalist samurai before being absorbed by an ancient clan serving a demon called the Beast of the Hand. Its members practice occult magic capable of killing an operative and resurrecting them as an obedient servant, and the entire group operates as a faceless, borderless network built around anonymity. Readers rarely learn the names of specific Hand ninjas because their efficiency depends on every single member being disposable and instantly replaceable by another equally trained killer.

In the MCU, there are five leaders of the Hand, known as the fingers, who were originally members of K’un-Lun who discovered how to grind the bones of the dragon Shou-Lao into a resurrection formula they call the Substance. K’un-Lun banished them for their transgression, leading them to travel the world in search of more dragon bones. Along the way, they built a criminal empire, enlisting other fighters who would die for the dream of immortality. There are hundreds of soldiers appearing in the series to fight the heroes, and they also discover the Hand’s reach stretching from crime lords to corporate boardrooms. Removing the demonic nature of the Hand is a controversial choice, but The Defenders could have pulled that off if it got everything else right.

In The Defenders crossover, Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) led the other four fingers — Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho), Bakuto (Ramón Rodríguez), Murakami (Yutaka Takeuchi), and Sowande (Babs Olusanmokun) — in a plan to mine a dragon graveyard beneath Midland Circle that could extend their lives indefinitely. However, rather than unstoppable warriors with centuries of experience and wisdom, the season depicted the leadership turning on each other almost immediately, with Sowande killed by his own allies and the surviving bosses openly questioning Alexandra’s authority within the first half of the run. Most of the group also lacked combat skills when facing the heroes, and only one of them was depicted as a ninja.

Elektra Natchios (Elodie Yung) fares no better as a plot device. The Hand spends its remaining reserves of the Substance resurrecting her as the Black Sky, a title the show treats as legendary without ever specifying what powers, beyond her ordinary fighting skill, it actually grants. The Black Sky, treated as an apocalyptic threat throughout Daredevil’s second season, is resolved with Elektra killing Alexandra and seizing the Hand for herself. The TV show stripped away exactly what made the comic version of the Hand frightening. Instead of an ancient threat operating on a scale beyond any single hero’s comprehension, we got a handful of squabbling executives fighting over a shrinking drug supply.

The Hand Is Getting a Second Chance in the MCU

Nine years after The Defenders buried the organization (literally), the Hand resurfaced in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. In the movie, Damage Control director Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) reveals that he recruited the Hand members as security after Spider-Man defeated them, calling them “a group of kids without a leader.” We don’t know how or if they are connected to the Netflix-era organization, but the film restored the visual identity the Netflix shows had abandoned, dressing its ninjas in traditional garments and giving them classic weaponry. There’s even a major fight scene choreographed as an acrobatic sequence closer to wuxia cinema.

The Hand’s MCU return arrived just as Daredevil: Born Again is preparing to bring the rest of the Netflix cast back. Season 3 of the show, a revival of the Netflix era, will feature all the Defenders together for the first time since the original crossover. Elektra is also coming back, marking her first appearance since her fate was left ambiguous at the end of the miniseries. Given Elektra’s history as the Hand’s resurrected weapon and Daredevil’s own years-long entanglement with the organization through Stick and the Black Sky storyline, Season 3 has an obvious opening to revisit the Hand. Between Brand New Day’s redesign and Born Again’s returning cast, the Hand has a true chance at redemption.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now playing in theaters, and The Defenders is streaming in full on Disney+. Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 is expected to premiere on Disney+ in March 2027.