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Black Hand
 
Black Hand
 
Personal Info:
 
Real Name: William Hand
Also Known As: The Black Lantern, The Black Incarnate, Herald of the Black Lanterns, Wilbur Palm
Place Of Birth: Coastville, California
First Appearance: Green Lantern Vol.2 #29 (1964) Silver Age Villain
Known Associates: Nekron, Scar
Group Affiliation: Herald of the Black Lantern Corps, Formerly Indigo Tribe
Base Of Operations: Coast City
Grudges: Green Lantern
Creators: John Broome and Gil Kane
Gallery: Click
 
Powers:
 
Black Hand is a brilliant criminal strategist who used to use a power rod. Recently he has been altered by the alien Gremlins to absorb life forces.
Energy Absorption: Black hand is able to absorb the life forces of beings around him and use the energy to rebuild his body.
Cosmic Power Rod: Black Hand possesses a device which can manipulate the energy of Green Lantern power rings. It can obtain this energy by directly draining it from a ring, or via the residue a power ring gives off. Black Hand can use the drained energy to augment his strength, fly, create force-fields, or fired in destructive blasts.
Black Power Ring: The Black Lantern Rings are capable of wielding the black energy outside of the Emotional Electromagnetic Spectrum. When Black power rings choose wearers, they present themselves to the deceased without a charge. The rings (which constantly ask for "flesh") are recharged by killing living beings and removing their hearts; each heart restores .01 percent power to every ring in the Corps. Black Lanterns are also able to read the emotions of the living as a coloured aura that correlates to the emotional spectrum (red for rage, violet for love, etc.). Black Lantern Rings will regenerate a corpse each time it is damaged, they can create constructs, but this ability is rarely used and they allow flight.
 
Origins:
 
William Hand was a disturbed young man working at his family's business, Hand Mortuary. He held a morbid fascination with the dead bodies within the mortuary and was twice seen secretly gazing at a corpse with an intense fascination. William’s morbid behaviour was an ongoing problem in his family with his mother demanding to know “why he couldn’t he be a good Christian like his brothers?”, to which he responded "I don't know".
At this point, William was unaware that he was being stalked by the alien necromancer Atrocitus. Atrocitus had foreseen that "William Hand" contained "the power of the black", an as yet unspecified power which Atrocitus believed would provide him with the means for revenge against the Guardians of the Universe. Crafting a cosmic divining rod, Atrocitus followed the device to Hand intent on eviscerating the young man and claiming the power within him. Hand was saved by the intervention of Hal Jordan and Sinestro, who was then still a Green Lantern. Hand (encouraged by a strange voice) pocketed the weapon and fled the scene.
Hand later broke into a hospital morgue, and tried to steal one of the corpses there. When confronted by a security guard, he used the weapon to kill him. The mysterious voice that told Hand to steal Atrocitus' weapon for himself trapped him under its thrall and influenced him into resenting the Green Lanterns. As beacons of light, they upset the perfect balance of darkness and death. Trying to extinguish the light of willpower but unwilling to fight Green Lantern’s as an "average Joe," Hand sewed himself a costume using a family cadaver pouch and began calling himself "Black Hand.
 
Notes:
 
Black Hand at DC Database
Black Hand at Comic Vine
Black Hand at Green Lantern Wiki
Black Hand at Green Lantern Corps Webpage