A dead villain from Marvel’s Netflix Daredevil run teased their own resurrection with a new photo. The Hand, the centuries-old ninja cult that hunted Matt Murdock in the show, returns to the big screen this summer in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Fittingly for a clan obsessed with cheating death, one of its fallen members has now resurfaced online with a wink toward a comeback.
Peter Shinkoda played Nobu Yoshioka in Daredevil, a high-ranking member of the Hand and one of Matt Murdock’s deadliest foes. Recently, he has shared a new photo of himself in full character, his face bruised and bloodied, fists raised in a long dark coat and leather gloves. Shinkoda posted it on Instagram, tagged the official Marvel Studios and Daredevil accounts, and added only a short, sly caption that he is "always still here." The post arrives weeks before the Hand crashes into theaters, putting one of its old faces back in the conversation.
Shinkoda's appearance as Nobu in the first two seasons of Daredevil was truly iconic. The ninja ranked among the Hand’s most dangerous operatives in Hell’s Kitchen. In Season 1, Nobu partnered with Vincent D’Onofrio’s crime lord Wilson Fisk, setting his sights on Murdock, and their savage duel ended with the ninja catching fire and burning alive. That looked like the end of him, but instead, the Hand revived Nobu in Season 2 through its resurrection rituals, and he came back to lead the cult’s assault on New York. His second life ran out for good when Stick, the blind mentor played by Scott Glenn, ran a sword through him and took his head.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day brings the death cult into the MCU’s films for the first time, after years of the group operating only in the franchise’s Netflix corner in Daredevil, Iron Fist, and The Defenders. Those shows are now firmly canon, a link Marvel sealed when Charlie Cox’s Daredevil turned up in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Trailers for the film show Tom Holland’s Peter Parker trading blows with the red-robed ninjas, including a prison brawl that fuels talk of a Daredevil cameo. The movie hits theaters Friday, July 31, and it'll be interesting to see if Marvel Studios will consider bringing Nobu back in the film or in its future street-level projects.
Could Nobu Return as the Hand Rises Again?
Bringing Nobu back would not rank high among the wildest swings Marvel has taken. He stood out as one of the most magnetic figures the Hand ever put on screen, a patient and ruthless fighter whose devotion to the cult ran deeper than his alliance with Fisk. Shinkoda gave him a coiled, quiet menace. Nobu’s whole arc centered on the idea that death is only a temporary setback for the Hand, which makes a comeback feel almost on-brand. With the group confirmed for Spider-Man: Brand New Day and rumored to resurface in Daredevil: Born Again Season 3, the road back to Hell’s Kitchen is wide open.
The trouble with bringing back Nobu, though, is the way he died. The Hand can raise the dead, but its rituals have limits, and a beheading is the one ending the show refused to undo. Stick made certain of it, telling Nobu plainly that this time he needed to stay dead before he took his head. To reverse that, Marvel would have to invent a loophole to bypass an arc that the Netflix show deliberately closed. That kind of retcon would cheapen Nobu's death, so Marvel is likely to avoid doing that.
There is a better way forward for the Hand in terms of its leadership, and the Tom Holland-led film looks set to take that route. Footage from Spider-Man: Brand New Day shows a red-robed warrior widely identified as Mariko Yashida leading the ninjas against Spider-Man, a figure with a deep comic history and a past life in Fox’s The Wolverine. She has the same death-and-rebirth story that defined Nobu, minus the baggage of a body that was already beheaded on camera.
If Marvel Studios wants a compelling character to lead the hand, they're likely to focus on Yashida rather than go through hoops to bring Nobu back. There's also a chance that Shinkoda's Instagram post was made out of excitement rather than a genuine desire to return. It's hard to see him turning Marvel down if they come knocking on his door, though.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
