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''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 () 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 (#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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Elektra: The Hand」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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