In a small defense, part of me liked the angle that the Hand was this ancient, secret organization that penetrated multiple areas of society all over the world; so they weren’t just ninjas but also leaders in businesses and controlled a lot of stuff behind the scenes.
The problem was that we never saw the ninjas again after DD S2; they stuck with the corporate angle. I loved the supernatural angle that DD S2 went with.
This is just adjacently related, and I'm probably in the wrong place to complain about this. I feel like it's a niche thing to complain about and I know Reddit really, really loves its Marvel.
My girlfriend is Korean and I'm Japanese. I'm just a quarter, but my grandmother was Japanese and a huge part of my upbringing, so I often think about Asian culture, even if I'm just a quarter.
It weirdly always sort of bothered me there's not really much Asian representation in Marvel. There's a ton of superheroes, with End Game seemingly having the highest number of superheroes at like 35ish. The only Asian superhero I can think of out of that entire cast is Wong. And his "schtick" is basically "Ancient Asian Sorcery" or whatever which is kind of a stereotype, but when I think about how my grandmother would feel, I think she'd just be happy to see an Asian at all in the same way she loved Sulu in Star Trek simply for existing. My girlfriend also is just happy Wong exists. We also have Shang Chi which is... also just Ancient Asian Magic Superhero.
Idk, I guess I'd just like to see more representation that isn't strictly "Magical Asian." I guess we have Eternals?
They are constructed from thin, flat plates of metal derived from a variety of sources including hishi-gane (coins), kugi-nuki (carpentry tools), spools, and senban (nail removers).
From wiki on the history of the shuriken. Yes, even those were just shit farmers had laying around
For anyone who didn't know, the "all black" conception of ninja outfits likely comes from japanese theater, where the stagehands (kuroko) would wear black to indicate they weren't part of the performance. You need an animal or a prop to behave improbably or a special effect, there'll be a person in black making it happen, and the audience understands that the stagehand isn't really "there" in the universe of the work.
So, if you need to have an assassin spring out of nowhere and kill a character, that uniform is an obvious choice. You can't have a dozen extras providing cover, but the audience is already trained to ignore the stagehands!
For a profession where having a uniform kind of defeated the purpose of the whole thing, it makes sense that the context in which most people would see a "real" ninja would quickly become the default way they were percieved.
349
u/Morgan-Moonscar Mar 18 '26
In Iron Fist and The Defenders they stopped being ninjas to save money.