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This article contains potential spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
While only the lucky attendees of CinemaCon 2026 got to see new footage of Spider-Man: Brand New Day that Sony showed at their presentation on Monday night, the general public does get to see a new poster for the film. It does, of course, feature Spidey in his homemade, comics-accurate duds, just like fans expect. Less expected, however, are the legions of ninjas crowding the bottom of the image.
Those are Hand ninjas, a constant scourge of the Marvel Universe. The Hand have appeared previously in live action, as antagonists in the Netflix series Daredevil and The Defenders. But pitting them against Spider-Man puts a new wrinkle in their motivations, making both the Hand and Ol’ Webhead that much weirder.
The Hand first appeared as part of Frank Miller‘s reinvention of Daredevil, introducing them in 1981’s Daredevil #174. More than just ninja assassins, the Hand are religious fanatics who worship the Beast, a demon who doesn’t do much for them but encourage their members to sacrifice themselves. Bleak as that sounds, the Beast does grant the Hand resurrection capabilities, which allows them to come back to life and sacrifice themselves all over again. Which is, now that you think about it, even bleaker.
Even by fictional ninja standards, the Hand are silly (or, to use the Tick’s term, “wacky“). Yet, they’ve been used in some fantastic stories. In Miller’s work, the arrival of the Hand signals an on-coming apocalypse, and turns even “good” works (i.e., the killing of Bullseye) into something horrifying.
Outside of his stories about Daredevil and Elektra, Miller and Chris Claremont also worked the Hand into Wolverine‘s first solo adventures, forever tying the hairy Canadian mutant to them. Not only did Wolverine learn martial arts from the Hand early in his life, but they are also responsible for the death of his wife Mariko. And in the memorable “Enemy of the State” storyline, the Hand resurrected a dead Wolverine and turned him into their weapon of destruction.
What does this have to do with Spider-Man? Not much, actually. While Spidey has crossed paths with the Hand from time to time, he usually encounters them when helping out his pal Daredevil or serving in the Avengers. The mystical nature of the Hand makes them an odd fit for Spider-Man who, as he likes to remind us, tends to stay in his friendly neighborhood.
Which makes their appearance in Brand New Day somewhat puzzling. Online rumors have speculated that the Hand are hired by the movie’s true big bad Tombstone (Marvin Jones III), effectively serving as hired muscle. You’d think that super-religious death cult ninjas would be above thug work, but the Hand is weird, and if they see how working for Tombstone could bring about the Beast, then they’ll do it.
However, the Hand may be in Brand New Day because of the presence of another character: Frank Castle a.k.a. the Punisher. For a street-level character mostly concerned with murdering baddies, Frank has run into the Hand more than you’d expect. In fact, in a recent Marvel Comics story, he was resurrected by the Hand and turned into their leader, getting a nifty new skull logo in the process.
While early leaks suggest that Frank will spend his time in the movie protecting Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey of the X-Men, the Hand could be how Marvel shifts him from the R-rated character we know from the Netflix shows into someone who can hang around Spider-Man and the Avengers. Might Frank die in next month’s Marvel Special Presentation The Punisher: One Last Kill and get resurrected by the Hand for Brand New Day, becoming a more heroic figure in the process?
That seems like a lot of set-up for a film that’s already overstuffed, but who knows? Maybe the Hand are in Brand New Day just to show off Peter’s new powers, as the trailer suggests that he’ll be going through some type of mutation. Then again, if there’s one thing the Inverse Ninja Law has taught us, it’s that more ninjas are easier to beat than fewer ninjas. And the Brand New Day poster makes it very clear that Pete will be fighting a whole bunch of Hand ninjas.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day fills theaters with ninjas on July 31, 2026.
The post Why Spider-Man Is Fighting Ninjas in Brand New Day appeared first on Den of Geek.
