DC Exploration: Black Hand

 

Who is he?

William Hand is the leader of the Black Lantern Corp and the Herald of Nekron, the Black Light Entity representing Death. As a boy William's family owned a funeral home and so William was constantly surrounded by death, corpses, and taxidermed animals. The young psychopath was obsessed with death growing more and more interesed in the feeling of killing. After killing and stuffing the family dog, William was sent to numerous Psychologists over and over who helped him to if not quell his psychopathic desires than to at least try to hide them and be normal. However Atrocitus, when he entered the Earth sector, sensed the immense darkness in Black Hand attacked him but was stopped by Hal and Sinestro who didn't know what he was doing in their space attacking a random civilian and Atrocitus not caring to make them understand. In the conflict an alien super weapon fell to William's feet who, on impulse, took it and ran.

With it he became a Green Lantern supervillain though was routinely defeated. However the Black Entity Nekron spoke to him and William ritualistically killed his family members before finally killing himself to appease the dark lord. For this the former Guardian of the Universe Scar, defector to Nekron, proclaimed his the Herald of their Lord and forced the first Black Lantern Ring raising him as the first Zombie Black Lantern. 

How Strong is He?

In terms of raw power, not broadly as high as one might expect for a leader of a Lantern Corp. Black Hand was able to at least lightly press Post-Crisis Hal Jordan and was equal in power to a more inexperienced Hal in the New 52 when boosted by Krona's Gauntlet there doesn't seem to be anything suggesting Black Hand is normally an equal to Hal in raw power and he has shown more relativity with weaker Green Lanterns like Kilowog, Guy Gardner, and Simon Baz. However while he was able to tank the attack from Simon he was much more pitched in a fight with Kilowog and Guy. So if this was just a measurement of his raw power, you could argue he's more of a Upper-Mid to Lower-High Lantern Tier character. 

Now effectively that's really his power level though, and when you factor in his abilities he's functionally more of a High Lantern Tier enemy, in the same range as the strongest members of Lantern Corps like Hal, Sinestro, and Atrocitus. He was able to beat Pre-Crisis Hal and Guardians of the Universe on numerous instances and has even messed with even stronger entities. 

What are His Powers?

Black Hand has broadly used two powerful items as the source of his powers. The one he's more well known for is obviously the Black Lantern Ring. Just as the Lantern Rings project emotion and energy, the Black Lantern Rings sucks it up, allowing Black Hand to absorb energy and become stronger depending on who's he fighting which is why his normal state isn't as impressive as how strong he becomes. The Black Lantern Ring has many other powers. The most notable of these are manipulation of Darkness as Lanterns do Light, Necromancy (Raising the Dead as Zombies, Turning the Living into Zombies, or Summoning the Spirits of the Dead.) It also contains corruption powerful enough to work on the Spectre, can BFR people to the Dead Zone which is Nekron's domain and it's ultimate power if ever charged to 100% as is Nekron's plan the Black Lantern Ring can summon Nekron into the physical world, which was essentially the plot of Blackest Night. They do have more abilities these are just the most notable. 

For most of his career as a supervillain Black Hand actually used a different item called the Power Rod which DC Rebirth shows he still has. The Power Rod is a device made by Atrocitus for fights between Lanterns and it's primary power is the ability to absorb energies and allow the user to wield them himself. With this power during the Pre-Crisis period Black Hand was able to be a threat to Pre-Crisis Hal Jordan and Pre-Crisis Barry Allen via siphoning some of the energy of the Green Lantern Ring (Exactly half) and the Speedforce respectively. 

Finally Black Hand has gained some abilities of his own separate to his items though for most of his career these were fairly tame. Due to the inner darkness within him he was able to tell if and how someone died. During the Silver Age he was briefly treated as a supergenius and created a divine that could send Green Lantern into another dimension. He gained the ability as he was becoming the Herald of Nekron to drain the lifeforce out of people to regenerate himself via touch. Finally the strangest power, after getting a piece of the Source Wall trapped in him he developed the ability to petrify things by touching them including entire planets. 

What are His Weaknesses?

Even prior to his more psychopathic depiction Black Hand was a madman obsessed with sayings and believing he could be the perfect criminal by having a little Black Book with rules about everything a criminal needed to do to succeed and a contingency plan for what he believed to be every scenario, relying on it entirely. Afterward it he became an insane psychopathic killer unable to contain his obsession with death. 

Beyond that Black Hand's powers has some physical weaknesses. He mostly relies on his Black Lantern Ring and the Power Rod for his abilities and without them loses almost all of what he can do. The Black Lantern Ring's powers can also be defeated by the White Lantern Ring's powers and against enemies whose powers aren't energy based in anyway, he's not as potent a fighter. 

So Overall Black Hand is a High Lantern Tier Enemy, equivalent to most Lantern Corps Leaders. He's equivalent to one of the strongest Heroes of Earth though if they're not energy based he can be beaten by characters who are more Mid Lantern/Kryptonian Tier. On the other hand he's for the most below anyone from the Godsphere who view universes and the things in them like Lantern and Kryptonians as specks of dust, though he can be a threat to them in certain situations like summoning Nekron or corrupting them with the Black Lantern Ring.

Black Hand's best matchups are against other characters who are energy based and has an amazing matchup against any other Lantern Corp Leader. Someone like Atrocitus or Sinestro would have very similar problems with Black Hand as Hal did especially given that Black Hand has two devices both geared towards siphoning energy. He was already a major threat to the Flash during the Pre-Crisis period. Whether he'd be a big threat to someone like Kryptonians and could fight someone like Supergirl is questionable though I'm inclined to say he could drain the solar energy from them. Though this probably wouldn't work on Superman himself, with Superman having faced similar energy drainers before like Parasite.

Black Hand's worst matchups are against inorganic enemies that don't particularly rely on energy manipulation. Someone like the most recent Cyborg Superman would be a massive threat as while he does technically rely on electrical energy as a machine, he doesn't use energy based powers at all so Black Hand probably couldn't drain him the same way he can't drain the chemical energy from a human. Black Hand's death based abilities would also do nothing to Cyborg Superman so he would just in general have very little he could do. I could even see someone like Victor Stone aka Cyborg being able to beat him. Cyborg uses plasma and sound projection in the comics which Black has not shown the ability to absorb and is in the same range of power as base Black Hand.