Ninja have captured people's imaginations since even before the first Western ships broke through Japan's borders. These secretive spies and assassins have become known for the masked attire of their costumes in kabuki plays, but far more often, ninja would blend into their environments, striking unexpectedly and then disappearing without a trace.
The Marvel Universe has many ninja whose skills are so great, they have lost the claim to masked anonymity, becoming legendary killers in their own right. Some use swords and shuriken, while others have more devious weapons at their disposal. Here are the ten deadliest ninja in Marvel comics, ranked:
10 Osen Ono
Osen Ono is the Hon, the keeper of ancient records for the famed ninja clan the Hand. She was introduced in the Marvel Infinity comic Wolverine: Japan's Most Wanted, in which she was presented as a woman who comported herself with a reserved respectability and who had tattoos covering her body.
When the second Silver Samurai, Shin Harada, sent a team of ninja equipped with bleeding edge stealth technology to take her down, she dispatched almost all of them on her own. A day later, she fought him and his agents while aboard the bullet train, even fighting while clinging to the roof of the train.
9 Stick
Stick is the old blind curmudgeon who trained a young Matt Murdock how to fight, long before the lawyer-turned-vigilante became the superhero known as Daredevil. Despite his age and his disability, he is one of the most dangerous men alive, able to use a sword or bow with ease to dispatch his opponents.
He is disgusted by the failures of his pupils, and in particular Matt Murdock's refusal to kill. Stick has waged a war against the ninja clan known as the Hand, using their own techniques against them. If he were thirty years younger, he would likely be ranked number one on this list.
8 Ogun
In addition to being a shinobi, Ogun is a master martial artist and Wolverine's old teacher. He also has the ability to switch bodies at will. He was first seen in the opening issue of Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, bullying Kitty's father in the bank where he worked to convince him to launder money for a Japanese corporation involved in criminal activities.
Later in the story, he attacked Kitty, cutting away her hair and slashing his blade so it stopped millimeters from her face, before taking her as a pupil, brainwashing her and training her to become a ninja assassin herself.
7 Kitty Pryde
There is a long list of words one associates with Kitty Pryde: X-Man; hacker; leader; pirate. Generally, ninja is not on that list, which is frankly a real shame.
When Ogun trained her to be a ninja, he taught her to be one of the best. She beat Wolverine in three consecutive fights, outmaneuvering him and throwing him off a building the first time, then using a smoke bomb to disappear the second time they clashed. In their third fight, she impaled him on her sword. Wolverine claims to be the best at what he does, and still she bested him thrice in a row.
6 Matt Murdock
Whether one considers Daredevil to be a full ninja, Matt Murdock has had ninja training. He is skilled with most Japanese martial arts weapons and moves with the acrobatic dexterity and silent stealth of a shinobi. Furthermore, his teacher is a ninja, his long-time paramour Elektra is a ninja, and he frequently engages in ninja fights with such enemies as the Hand and the villain Ikari.
He has assumed leadership of the ninjas of the Hand and multiple versions of him across the multiverse have fully committed to life as a shinobi.
5 Yukio
Yukio is an old lover of Wolverine's, her wild raw passion and violent tendencies mirroring his own. She's also a ninja who has proven capable of sneaking up on him, using the wind to hide from his uncanny sense of smell.
In one notable fight, she attacked Wolverine without announcing herself, fighting past his adamantium claws just to surprise him by stealing a kiss. Unlike some other people on this list, she is ready and willing to kill, though she does not relish doing so. In true ninja spirit, she will sprint across the Tokyo rooftops to slay a target sixty stories up and then disappear into the night.
4 Shin Harada
The second Silver Samurai is a young, arrogant sadist who mixes ninjutsu techniques with cutting edge technology. Not only is he a deadly assassin skilled in the arts of the shinobi, but he commands other ninja to fight on his behalf.
Part of what makes him so deadly is his technology, using nanites to heal his wounds, jet-powered boots for flight, and even fighting with nuclear nunchucks (yes, really!). Additionally, as the head of Clan Yashida and the Yashida Corporation, he has vast resources to draw on. While he is called the Silver Samurai, it is not the samurai's code of bushido that he lives by, but the shadowy technique's of Japan's stealth killers.
3 Lady Bullseye
Lady Bullseye is an assassin, martial artist, and the former leader of the Hand. In her civilian identity, she is a lawyer known as Maki Matsumoto who uses her profession to attack Matt Murdock in the courtroom. As a ninja assassin, Lady Bullseye took inspiration from Daredevil's greatest enemy and tried to take over the Hand.
While with the Hand, Lady Bullseye killed two superheroes, White Tiger and Black Tarantula. She then used the Hand's rituals to bring them back to life. It is hard not to be impressed with her who casually demonstrates mastery over life and death.
2 Wolverine
Wolverine does not seem like a ninja. The short stout Canadian brawler does not have the easiest time sneaking silently given the clunky weight of his adamantium skeleton. However, he was trained as a ninja by his old teacher Ogun and has repeatedly shown his expertise with various ninja weapons and techniques.
Also, there is no denying that Wolverine is absolutely lethal. He is much more than just a ninja, but is a killer who has mastered almost every type of combat imaginable, his metal bones and healing factor making him an indestructible murder machine.
1 Elektra
Elektra Natchuos is one of the most impressive fighters in the whole Marvel Universe. A long time on-again off-again lover of Daredevil, she is a wild independent woman whose rage and passion are unbridled, yet who is fully in control of her abilities with those deadly sai she wields.
It is impossible to know just how many people Elektra has killed. She has performed political assassinations and slain almost every enemy to come against her. Beyond being one of the world's deadliest martial artists and assassins, she also has demonstrated telepathic and telekinetic abilities. She has assumed control of the Hand on multiple occasions, but also worked with their enemy group the Chaste. While she was once killed by the villain Bullseye, not even death can keep her down.