Black Hand Rises

The story

For forty-five years, William Hand was a joke — a Silver Age crook with an energy-draining glove, the black sheep of a funeral-home family. But Atrocitus had seen his future in Guardian's blood: this man would be the vessel through which the Black would manifest. In the rewritten Secret Origin, the Red Lantern came to Earth hunting him — and though Hal Jordan and Sinestro drove Atrocitus off, the prophecy held.

In Green Lantern vol. 4 #43 (July 2009, Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke), death finally called William Hand home. Hearing the voice of the Black, he murdered his entire family, then turned the weapon on himself — and a black power ring found his corpse. He rose as the first Black Lantern, Nekron's herald on the living plane, the anchor binding death's lord to the world of the living.

What followed was Blackest Night — the dead rising across the universe, Black Hand commanding them by name, digging up heroes' graves to charge the Black Central Power Battery. The Silver Age's silliest villain had become the DC Universe's darkest threat. Few transformations in comics history run so far, or so black.

Illustration attribution under review. Artist and original source not fully established. Artwork source & details.

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