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Elektra: The Hand #1-5
Elektra: The Hand
The Hand - few names have ever instilled such terror in the very soul of the Marvel Universe! Elektra witnesses a mystic ceremony that leads her to the never-before-revealed origin of the Hand, the world's most deadly assassins! In feudal Japan, a single murder fuels one young samurai's struggle for dominance - a struggle that will lead to the inception of this immortal ninja clan. And when a foreign merchant sends his beautiful daughter to learn the ways of the warrior, a cycle is set in motion that will change the Marvel Universe...forever! Collecting Elektra: The Hand #1-5.
120 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
February 16, 2020
This is a pretty good origin story for The Hand, but the title is a bit misleading... Elektra hardly appears as all. The art is pretty good without being flashy, and the narrative is good if a bit unusual; there are pages of densely-packed dialog balloons followed by pages of nothing but art (or just a few words) alternating through-out. The story takes place in a twenty-year span beginning in 1575 except for the brief Elektra sequences. I enjoyed the read.
November 15, 2022
I was looking forward to reading some more Elektra however this collection of comics tells more or less how the Hand became to be. A long and hard look at Elektra her strongest enemy. This bunch even thought they could take on Wolverine, not in this story (too bad).
Good art and easy to read, but yet not up to my expectation.
Good art and easy to read, but yet not up to my expectation.
December 5, 2024
This was pretty cool, but as others have pointed out, the title is misleading. This is NOT really an Elektra story, as she only appears on a few pages. This is an origin story of the mystical ninja group, The Hand, and I guess they put Elektra's name on it to boost sales.
But even without Elektra, this is a good ninja story set in Japan in the 1500s. We learn how the group is formed, but not so much about how they got the mystical powers and followed the beast and all that. I'd like to have seen some more of that, but this is a slightly more realistic origin, at least for most of it.
I enjoyed this, but as I said, if you are reading this just for Elektra you will probably be disappointed.
But even without Elektra, this is a good ninja story set in Japan in the 1500s. We learn how the group is formed, but not so much about how they got the mystical powers and followed the beast and all that. I'd like to have seen some more of that, but this is a slightly more realistic origin, at least for most of it.
I enjoyed this, but as I said, if you are reading this just for Elektra you will probably be disappointed.
December 3, 2015
4.5/5
"In order to fan the flames, we must first light the fire"
Me gustó mucho todo: el estilo, como se desarrolla la historia, etc. Mi gran problema (y supongo que es el mismo para todos los que lo leyeron) fue que se llama "Elektra: The Hand" y Elektra solo sale en dos ocasiones. El resto fue todo sobre The Hand y su historia, aunque no estuvo mal.
May 31, 2008
This is an excellent telling of how The Hand came to be. It is kind of a historical piece, so to speak as Electra learns the origins of The Hand. A very strong and engaging story with a tragic ending, yet one cannot help but wonder who in the end is right. Not as easy as that. Anyhow, a great story with good art to complement it. Definitely one of the best I have read this year.
June 23, 2025
Should be called Lots of the Hand, and Very Little Elektra. Title is super misleading as she only appears in the first and last issues. A nice parallel to Elektra told through a legend, but in the end, rather pointless. the story defenitly could have been two or three issues at most. The white costume reveal at the end was cool.
September 19, 2021
This was not bad, but this comic is in no way about Elektra, but more of the origin story for "The Hand" and while interesting (and it gets that 4 stars - not super strong, right on the middle of 4 stars), but not what I was looking for
January 28, 2018
This was a misleading title, and don't expect to see much of Elektra, but this is a decent origin story for the Hand. I really loved the art. I just think Marvel could've been a little more upfront with the cover and title of this book.
June 22, 2009
I love all things Elektra...this was a good tale about two characters from The Hand's past - Yoshioka & Eliza.
February 16, 2016
Wonderful story about the origins of The Hand. Really wish there was a continuation of Eliza Martinez's story. It just can't end like that.
May 26, 2019
You know what would be fun for a change? If an elektra run actually featured elektra.
September 8, 2019
When Elektra Natchios joined the ninja organization known as the Hand, it was with the purpose of training in the martial arts and learning killing techniques so that she would never be helpless again. She accepted, at least at the time, that this meant becoming the tool of the Hand and concentrated on the how of her training, without seeking to learn what the Hand actually was or where it had come from. After all, as a woman and a foreigner, why would they tell her such secrets? But now the Hand wants her to know.
Elektra was created by Frank Miller for Daredevil #168 as an old college girlfriend who’d gone away after young Matt Murdock failed to save her father from terrorists. Miller was a fan of manga such as Lone Wolf and Cub and modeled the character as a westernized version of fictional ninja assassins. This was followed up in Daredevil #174 with the introduction of the Hand, the organization that trained her, and also had a previously undisclosed connection with Daredevil’s own martial arts instructor Stick.
The authorship of this miniseries is its own story. C.B. Cebulski was an American who had lived on and off in Japan and was fluent enough in the Japanese language to work as a manga translator for Central Park Media. In 2002 he was hired as an Associate Editor at Marvel Comics. To supplement that income, Cebulski did freelance writing under the pen name “Akira Yoshida.”
Impressed with this work, and not realizing that Akira Yoshida was a psuedonym, another Marvel editor (without asking to meet the writer), asked Yoshida to pitch story concepts. Cebulski agreed without revealing his true identity as this would allow him to circumvent a Marvel company rule against editors also being paid as writers. Thus “Akira Yoshida” wrote several Japanese-themed miniseries for Marvel, including Elektra: The Hand.
After Yoshida “disappeared” once Cebulski was promoted to a position where he could openly write, enough suspicion was raised that there were some pointed questions asked, but Cebulski and Marvel claimed Yoshida was a real person who people had actually met, so the matter dropped for several years. But when Cebulski was promoted to Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics in 2017, the old rumors resurfaced and Cebulski admitted the truth.
So, on to the story within the comic book. Elektra herself only appears for three pages at the beginning, and four at the end. The main action is the life story of Kagenobu Oshioka, starting in 1575. These were the final years of the Sengoku Warring States period, but Kagenobu cares little about who is ruling. He’s more concerned about the rising influence of foreigners in his homeland. Especially after a Portuguese merchant assaults his mother after mistaking her for a prostitute.
Kagenobu, though but a stripling, kills the foreigner, and his mother claims she was the murderer to shield him. Her bloody handprint becomes a recurring motif in his life. Kagenobu is taken in by the head of the Ishiyama school of sword training. Kagenobu excels in the martial arts.
After a couple of years of wandering to improve his skills and learn new techniques, Kagenobu is summoned back to the school after the master dies to become the new head, to the jealousy of his old rival Sasaki. They make peace for now as Kagenobu explains his plan to fight foreign influence by creating a secret society that unites warriors from all parts of Japan. Five primary Japanese islands, five fingers for a Hand.
So in 1588, the Hand is formed. At first, things go well, but different members have diverging priorities, and soon an excuse is found to take the organization in a very different and perhaps darker direction.
There’s some good action scenes, and a twisty plot. The art is decent.
However, the provenance of the story makes some of the creative choices seem a little off, appealing more to the American taste in Japanese stories than believability. And then there’s the moment where our hero learns “What? Somehow our allies have learned that the woman I’ve been training, Eliza Martinez, whose name I have not bothered to conceal, whose parentage is a matter of public record, whose foreign father often visits our location, is in fact not full-blooded Japanese? How could this happen!?”
And to be honest, most of this story is irrelevant to the Hand’s current day storylines as it’s what the organization became at the end of the story that has appeared in all other tales.
Still, if Western adaptations of Japanese action films are your cup of tea, you might well enjoy this. Check it out at your local library.
Elektra was created by Frank Miller for Daredevil #168 as an old college girlfriend who’d gone away after young Matt Murdock failed to save her father from terrorists. Miller was a fan of manga such as Lone Wolf and Cub and modeled the character as a westernized version of fictional ninja assassins. This was followed up in Daredevil #174 with the introduction of the Hand, the organization that trained her, and also had a previously undisclosed connection with Daredevil’s own martial arts instructor Stick.
The authorship of this miniseries is its own story. C.B. Cebulski was an American who had lived on and off in Japan and was fluent enough in the Japanese language to work as a manga translator for Central Park Media. In 2002 he was hired as an Associate Editor at Marvel Comics. To supplement that income, Cebulski did freelance writing under the pen name “Akira Yoshida.”
Impressed with this work, and not realizing that Akira Yoshida was a psuedonym, another Marvel editor (without asking to meet the writer), asked Yoshida to pitch story concepts. Cebulski agreed without revealing his true identity as this would allow him to circumvent a Marvel company rule against editors also being paid as writers. Thus “Akira Yoshida” wrote several Japanese-themed miniseries for Marvel, including Elektra: The Hand.
After Yoshida “disappeared” once Cebulski was promoted to a position where he could openly write, enough suspicion was raised that there were some pointed questions asked, but Cebulski and Marvel claimed Yoshida was a real person who people had actually met, so the matter dropped for several years. But when Cebulski was promoted to Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics in 2017, the old rumors resurfaced and Cebulski admitted the truth.
So, on to the story within the comic book. Elektra herself only appears for three pages at the beginning, and four at the end. The main action is the life story of Kagenobu Oshioka, starting in 1575. These were the final years of the Sengoku Warring States period, but Kagenobu cares little about who is ruling. He’s more concerned about the rising influence of foreigners in his homeland. Especially after a Portuguese merchant assaults his mother after mistaking her for a prostitute.
Kagenobu, though but a stripling, kills the foreigner, and his mother claims she was the murderer to shield him. Her bloody handprint becomes a recurring motif in his life. Kagenobu is taken in by the head of the Ishiyama school of sword training. Kagenobu excels in the martial arts.
After a couple of years of wandering to improve his skills and learn new techniques, Kagenobu is summoned back to the school after the master dies to become the new head, to the jealousy of his old rival Sasaki. They make peace for now as Kagenobu explains his plan to fight foreign influence by creating a secret society that unites warriors from all parts of Japan. Five primary Japanese islands, five fingers for a Hand.
So in 1588, the Hand is formed. At first, things go well, but different members have diverging priorities, and soon an excuse is found to take the organization in a very different and perhaps darker direction.
There’s some good action scenes, and a twisty plot. The art is decent.
However, the provenance of the story makes some of the creative choices seem a little off, appealing more to the American taste in Japanese stories than believability. And then there’s the moment where our hero learns “What? Somehow our allies have learned that the woman I’ve been training, Eliza Martinez, whose name I have not bothered to conceal, whose parentage is a matter of public record, whose foreign father often visits our location, is in fact not full-blooded Japanese? How could this happen!?”
And to be honest, most of this story is irrelevant to the Hand’s current day storylines as it’s what the organization became at the end of the story that has appeared in all other tales.
Still, if Western adaptations of Japanese action films are your cup of tea, you might well enjoy this. Check it out at your local library.
March 1, 2021
Elektra: The Hand collects all five issues of the run of Elektra comics of the same name, a miniseries that gives us the origin story of The Hand, the Japanese organization responsible for resurrecting the titular assassin Elektra Natchios. The story is written by Akira Yoshida, with penciling by Christian Gossett, inking by Jonathan Glapion, and coloring by Guru eFX. (The first and final issues also feature penciling by Jim Cheung, and the final issue features additional penciling by Ron Lim.) The book, as I said, features all five issues, subtitled "The First Step," "The First Blow," "The First Impressions," "The First Faults," and "The Last Straw" (although the third issue seems to have a misprint because it first identities the title as "The First Faults" and then as "The First Impressions," but I am pretty sure that "The First Impressions" is correct given that the fourth issue is then titled "The First Faults"), and Guru eFX's colors are rich and bold. (Interestingly, however, there is very little gore featured, as there are many scenes that should be really gory yet are not, and even when you do see blood, it is often, for some reason, black.) Yoshida's story opens with Elektra asking a member of The Hand why there are certain secrets to which she has not been made privy, speculating that it's because she is both a foreigner and a woman. The member denies her speculation, sharing with her a very compelling story of how The Hand came into existence, a story that begins in a Japanese fishing village in 1575. The story features a young woman named Eliza Martinez, and it's interesting how her story parallels Elektra's story in several ways. (Even her name - Eliza - is somewhat similar to Elektra's name.) One of the main reasons why I found the story so compelling is because of how it handles real world issues like racism and xenophobia, and The Hand's original mission is likely meant to deliberately parallel that of Nazis. My only complaint with Elektra: The Hand is that, despite the book's cover and title, it is not an Elektra story, as she is only minimally featured in the prologue and in the epilogue. I don't mind that too much because I find the story compelling enough without her, but, like I said, the image on the cover and the title are misleading. That's the only reason why I dock a star from my rating, as I otherwise really enjoyed it.
January 3, 2018
The origin of The Hand is told in this Kurosawa-esque story. It's full of blood and steel and I enjoyed it a lot. One question though: ehy is it called "Elektra: The Hand" when she only shows up at the beginning and end? She was totally not needed.
October 25, 2020
Backstory to the origin of The Hand, a story of intolerance and anger born out of the instinct to protect and a mother’s sacrifice. A cautionary tale against absolutism.
Read
February 6, 2022Seeing a student/teacher relationship is a bit uncomfortable, not gonna lie
August 7, 2024
elektra yok amk çok misleading bi başlık
September 7, 2024
i think with all the comics i've read with the hand so far this has got to be my favorite, but i do have some reservations about this comic
January 31, 2025
5/5 *
Elektra’s Origin and knowledge of her resurrection. How awesome.
Elektra’s Origin and knowledge of her resurrection. How awesome.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 1, 2025
Good origin story
August 21, 2013
Don't be fooled by Elektra on the cover, if you drop her name from the title then you'll see what this story is really about. I've read about The Hand in a couple of Marvel titles so a sort of origin story for The Hand was cool to read. In some ways, it is surprising that a Shakespearean-style tragedy could be released by Marvel and not really focus on a popular character. That doesn't make the story any less enjoyable. The pacing is good and this whole volume reads fast. The story is set in Feudal Japan where foreigners were becoming involved in Japanese life mostly for the worse. I'm sure there is Manga out there that could use this setting in a more realistic way, but it works for the story and makes almost all the characters immoral in their own ways which I always like to read.
The art was not the greatest in the first issue. Too many drawings had very little detail or backgrounds, but as the series went on, it got better and better. I would have liked to see a native artist draw this book, but overall, it was solid. The covers were spectacular (with the exception of the one on the trade paperback cover, go figure) and that artists (who did Elektra when she was new) could have also made for some awesome interior art. While I don't fully understand the immortal/reincarnating ninjas, I understand why The Hand became an evil organization now and that made this feel pretty worthwhile.
The art was not the greatest in the first issue. Too many drawings had very little detail or backgrounds, but as the series went on, it got better and better. I would have liked to see a native artist draw this book, but overall, it was solid. The covers were spectacular (with the exception of the one on the trade paperback cover, go figure) and that artists (who did Elektra when she was new) could have also made for some awesome interior art. While I don't fully understand the immortal/reincarnating ninjas, I understand why The Hand became an evil organization now and that made this feel pretty worthwhile.
July 28, 2014
The title Elektra: The Hand is a very misleading title for this comic book. Know why? BECAUSE THE STORY ISN’T ABOUT ELEKTRA!!! Although the overall story of the Hand’s early days in Japan was interesting (bit trite and predictable, but whatevs), I walked into the book thinking I was going to get an awesome Elektra story.
Lol, nope.
So, if you want to know more about the Hand, then this might be the TPB for you. All I can say is I’m glad I only spent five bucks on it because this isn’t the Elektra comic I was expecting it to be. Because, you know, the title says "ELEKTRA"!
Lol, nope.
So, if you want to know more about the Hand, then this might be the TPB for you. All I can say is I’m glad I only spent five bucks on it because this isn’t the Elektra comic I was expecting it to be. Because, you know, the title says "ELEKTRA"!
July 10, 2014
This slim novel taught me a lot about the hand but... I found the hand to be awfully stereotypical, I've read this story already but by several other authors. I feel like there were plenty of opportunities to unpack racism and sexism but when it comes to social sciences this graphic novel was lacking a more critical literary breakdown.
April 20, 2024
Anything with Elektra is something I always adore. I really enjoyed this book. I do wish it had a bit more of Elektra in it , however I did like Eliza she very much reminded me of Elektra. The artwork and setting were simply gorgeous feudal Japan is one of my all time favorites second only to Victorian London. Seeing how the Hand
January 17, 2013
As one would expect, my wife gave me heck over the scantily clad Electra on the cover of the book. As I told her, READ THE BOOK!!! For fans of the comic, it gives a great origin to the Hand, and the story is just down right good. You'll like it, read it.
July 2, 2014
So easily are wee comic readers fooled. Put "Elektra" on the cover and Elektra fans will buy. Just like me. But this ain't an Elektra story. This is just a story where Elektra learns the history of the Hand. And it is drawn in the manga influenced style. So even that is wrong.
Anger.
Anger.
Want to read
December 16, 2009I'm jazzed that I found this one at the ubs. Will read, and soon!
November 16, 2012
Excellent art, excellent story of the origin of the Hand, but Elektra is only there as the framing device. Just don't expect this to be about Elektra, and you'll enjoy it.
July 4, 2013
It took me awhile to get into (after all, samaurai stories feel a bit old hat), but I ended up enjoying the Hand origin tale. It's a good, entertaining read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews