'The Defenders' May Have Their "Hands" Full

Even though Iron Fist just came out, fans are already looking forward to what comes next in the Netflix Marvel world: The Defenders. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist have now all had their own shows and it's time for them to finally come together for the ultimate team up, but who are they up against? There's been a lot of clues about who the great foe could be and most fans agree there's only one common enemy that the group of four would need to team up to beat. So is The Hand in The Defenders or will some other villain show up to cause havoc in New York City?

From the moment the teaser for The Defenders was released at Comic-Con last year, fans have been sure The Hand is the big bad villain for the show and there's a good reason for that. The teaser doesn't give much away about the show, but there are two big clues that The Hand will be involved. First, at the end of the teaser, there's a big shadow of a hand that engulfs the word "Defend," which is made out of letters from each of the Defenders individual show titles.

Second, the trailer ends with the voice of Daredevil's mentor Stick saying, "You think the four of you can save New York? You can't even save yourselves." His typical snarkiness aside, the fact that Stick will be in the show is telling because of his connection to The Hand. In the second season of Daredevil, fans unfamiliar with the comics were first introduced to the formidable group. Stick is a member of the Chaste, a group that had waged war against The Hand. It was Stick's job to recruit new soldiers for the cause, which is why he trained Elektra and Matt Murdock/Daredevil.

A lot went down with The Hand, but what's most notable is that Elektra was killed by their apparant leader and, in return, Stick killed him. However, the season finale of Daredevil revealed The Hand had Elektra's body and it appeared they were going to resurrect her to make her into their weapon, which was their plan all along.

The fact that Elodie Yung who plays Elektra is credited as appearing in all eight episodes of The Defenders series, according to IMDB, only seems to confirm fans' suspicions that The Hand will definitely be the villain of the series. Add in the fact that Iron Fist himself said his sole purpose is to defeat The Hand and it's basically a guarantee. (I wonder if this means Bakuto will pop up at some point as well.)

The release date for The Defenders has yet to be announced, so fans may still have a bit of a wait before they get to actually see who the Defenders are up against. But at this point, the answer seems to be in the palm of our hands. (See what I did there?)