Elektra: The Hand is a five-issue comic book limited series, written by Akira Yoshida and pencilled by Christian Gossett and published in 2004 by Marvel Comics.
The story depicts the origin of the clandestine ninja organization known as The Hand. The series shows The Hand's bloody formation during Japan's Feudal era.
Publication history In 2003, when comic book writer Akira Yoshida first started working for Marvel Comics, one idea that he pitched to Marvel editors was Elektra: The Hand, a story that he wanted to write that mainly depicted the origin of the ninja organization. While Marvel editors like the concept of Yoshida's story, they did not green light the series immediately due to there already being a successful Elektra series running at the time. However, in 2004 Yoshida's concept would be brought up yet again during an editors meeting which focused on new concepts and series ideas for the upcoming year. Marvel's editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada brought up Yoshida's idea on depicting the origin of The Hand, "Joe Quesada brought up the idea of revisiting my ideas for The Hand. My Thor editor, Mackenzie Cadenhead, emailed over and asked if I wanted to take another pass and fine-tune the concept, which I did," after tuning his story up and turning in its fresher concept, Yoshida was given the green light to go ahead and bring the story to life.
Yoshida's desire to develop the origin of the Hand can be linked back to his childhood. Having spent his time both in the United States and Japan due to his father being an international businessman, Yoshida developed a fondness for both Japanese manga and American comic books; one American comic that was a favorite of Yoshida's was Marvel's Daredevil. Yoshida discovered the series during Frank Miller's run during the early 80s in which both Elektra and the Hand were inducted into the Marvel Universe, "Frank Millar's run on Daredevil is probably my favorite. It is really an honor for me to be writing [about] these characters that Frank created". During Miller's run on Daredevil, Yoshida became a fan of both Elektra and The Hand stating that his pull to Elektra was due to her being, "a beautiful, tough-as-nails, female assassin," and The Hand as a group of, "bad-ass, near-immortal ninjas." The depth of Miller's characters heavily influenced Yoshida's decision to write this story on The Hand's origin, "All these stories [Daredevil #168-191] greatly influenced my series about The Hand. They set the stage for Elektra and The Hand in the Marvel Universe, and without them there would have been nothing for me to write about," being influenced by Miller's The Hand, led Yoshida to develop a story that would shine a light on the origin of The Hand.
According to Chris "The Red Star" Gossett, penciller of the series, the readers are able to see "the origin of The Hand...learn the ancient tale through her eyes." Using his own culture as the background for the series, Yoshida sets the story during Japan's feudal period which occurred hundreds of years before the stories that inspired him take place. According to series editor Mackenzie Cadenhead, the setting of the story was chosen by Yoshida and set during Feudal Japan to link The Hand's creation to "Japan’s complicated past when it changed its isolationist policy to welcome foreign community." This era in time plays a great role that greatly stirs and motives the story protagonist, Kagenobu Yoshioka, to form The Hand. According to Cadenhead, the series follows Kagenobu in his path to forming The Hand in order to, “remove the foreign influence he sees infecting his homeland.”
When the time came to decide who would bring this tale to life, both Yoshida and Cadenhead had no particular artist in mind to take on the task until Editor C.B. Cebulski suggested Gossett them. Having come into contact with Cebulski while looking for a job with Marvel Comics, Gossett mentioned his familiarity with Feudal Japan due to him being a fan of director Akira Kurosawa—a director who used the time era within some of his films such as Throne of Blood—during his conversation with Cebulski. Seemingly taking Gossett's words to heart, Gossett landed the position as the artist for the series. According to Cadenhead, Gossett's work on the series was “incredible-a perfect fit. He organically understands the sparse world of the story-clean and unadorned, but by no means simplified. His work is incredibly complex in its simplicity.” Likewise, Yoshida found Gossett's artwork for the series "really captured the feel I was going for in my scripts."
Originally planned as a trilogy, Elektra & The Hand was going to be a three-part one-shot comic book series where each series each depicted a certain time period within the organization. Yoshida originally planned the first series, which was published, as the prologue with the second series focusing on what transpired after the first series ending entailing The Hand's influence spreading from Japan to the world outside, and finally the third series would focus on The Hand encountering Stick-Chaste Leader and Sensei-and Elektra herself bringing the entire series to end, ending were they originally started upon their first appearance within the Marvel Universe. However the trilogy may never be published, reasons for this is best summed up by Yoshida who believes due to the, "lower sales on the first mini and the not-so-positive response to the Elektra movie, I am not sure if they will happen." The fate of the next two parts in the series may never be published.
Plot summary
Chapter One: Hajime No Ippo "The First Step"
The story begins with Elektra and a member of The Hand standing underneath an alcove, they are observing a group of the Hand perform one of their ancient mystic rituals of resurrection on a deceased member. Curious as to how the resurrection is possible, Elektra is not given the answer but is told that the ritual is, “One that is closely guarded.” Assuming that she is not told how the ritual is able to bring back the dead because she is both a foreigner and a woman, Elektra's is proven wrong when the member tells her the ritual was created centuries ago in order to bring back a member of The Hand who was both a foreigner and a woman. Believing that the only way for Elektra to take her rightful place within The Hand's future, the member begins to tell her the tale of how The Hand came to be.
In 1575 in Kyushu, Japan, four boys are returning home from fishing. Three boys surround the other, he is Kagenobu Yoshioka the alleged son of a deceased samurai. As they walk home the boys are mocking Kagenobu, believing his claims to be mere lies to hide the fact that his mother is living in shame due to her selling herself to foreigners traveling through Japan in order to support him. Angered by this comment, Kagenobu violently strikes the boy who makes this claim about his mother. Leaving him to be consulted by the two other boys, he continues on his way home where he walks in to find his mother being mishandled by a foreign Portuguese merchant brandishing a knife to her throat demanding she give him what he has paid for. When the merchant notices Kagenobu standing at the door, he demands Kagenobu's mother does what he says or she will watch him as he kills her son. While threatening to murder him, the merchant pulls out his mother's elaborate three pronged hairpin allowing her hair to fall free. As his mother continues to struggle with the merchant, Kagenobu picks up the falling hairpin, and filled with anger and hatred for the foreigner he raises the hairpin and charges the man stabbing him through his throat instantly killing him before his mother's eyes.
Crying in his mother's arms over what he has done, Kagenobu's mother reassures him that he has done nothing wrong but has acted like any normal samurai would claiming him to truly take after his father. While comforting him, his mother realizes that someone outside of their hovel would have surly heard the commotion and would have informed the authorities. Quickly acting, Kagenobu's mother wipes the blood from her hairpin places it back into her hair, once she has fixed her hair and cleans Kagenobu up she dips her fingers into the merchant's blood and smears it across her kimono. Telling Kagenobu that the authorities do not need to know what truly transpired since she will take full blame for the murder knowing that the punishment for murdering a foreigner would surly result in death. A punishment she does not want her son taking and so creates the story that it was an act of self-defense, when the foreigner became violent after he forced himself upon her he left her no choice but to stab him in order to protect herself.
Pleading with his mother not to take the blame, she quiets Kagenobu down and tells him that by being the respected wife of a samurai she has learned many lessons from him, one lesson in particular is the bushido code which dictates that a true warrior must live and die with honor and that there is no honor in throwing one's life away. Believing that she no longer has a life, his mother tells him that he has his whole life to live, she would gladly take the blame for and pay the price of what he has done with her own life so that his may be spared. Before he can protest once again the Constable arrives outside of their hut, telling him to live and be strong, Kagenobu's mother prepares to cement the probability of her guilt by taking the merchant's knife and plunging it into his lifeless corpse; as she removes the knife the Constable and his men enter the home.
As she resists being arrested claiming she is innocent, the constable and his men are forced to violently subdue her while Kagenobu watches the entire scene unfold before him. As the men begin to drag her from the hut, Kagenobu tries to come to defense but she holds out her blood covered hand and presses it against his chest to keep him back. After finally pulling her away from him, her blood-covered hand leaves behind a hand print upon his shirt, a mark that would become his emblem. As the constable pulls her away through a gathered crowd, Kagenobu watches from the doorway of their hut with anger upon his face as he clutches his mother's fallen hairpin unbeknownst to him that hidden within a tree close by a ninja clothed in all black is closely watching Kagenobu.
The next day at the Inspector's compound, the inspector is visited by Saburo Ishiyama, the Sensei of the Ishiyama Sword School located within the mountain region near the village. Ishiyama is visiting the inspector with a request to provide Kagenobu with a home at his school since he is now an orphan due to his mother being slated for execution for murdering the foreigner trader, if she remained alive the notion would hinder the local governments prospects in strengthen their ties with foreigner traders. Unsure about granting Ishiyama his wish to take in Kagenobu, Ishiyama is able to sway the inspector by claiming the shock Kagenobu is suffering from after witnessing the mistreatment of his mother by both foreigners and local citizens will eventually turn to rage and anger that without proper guidance could be directed at the foreign community since he is surly to blame them for his mother's inevitable fate and if the inspector chooses to avoid that problem he is the only one who may help. Convince that he is the only one who could help matters get better, the inspector allows Ishiyama to take Kagenobu into his care.