From minimal access to left handed tools like scissors, to even the building of infrastructure with only right handed people in mind, many left handed people know, first hand, just how much the world prioritizes the right hand perspective. In fact, being right handed is the default, and most people don’t consider that someone might have a different dominant hand until it’s mentioned or pointed out. The same is true for the presence of left handed people in media, including comics. While many left handed characters in comics appear as the villain in many stories, this hasn’t stopped the appearance of left handed heroes or sometimes even anti-heroes as well.
And some pretty major characters are actually canonically left handed. Now, to celebrate Left Handers Day, let’s learn more about seven of these left handed characters. Some might surprise you.
1) Hellboy
One of the most obvious, and perhaps most unique, examples of a left handed character in comic books is the BPRD’s own MVP, Hellboy. The anti hero, created by Mike Mignola, is known not only for his quips and fondness for Baby Ruth candy bars, but the physical characteristic that is his stone hand. This hand would be his right hand and, as opposed to most portrayals that paint southies as “evil,” it is, in this case, that the right hand bears negative connotations. The reason for this has to do with the hand’s ability to open a portal to hell, unleashing mass destruction onto the Earth. This being said, it is nevertheless pivotal to Hellboy’s character to resist this destiny to bring about the end of the world and remain true to his morals as hero.
2) Sinestro
Yes, the most iconic Green Lantern villain is left-handed. Look carefully: he wears and wields his power ring on his left hand. Thaal Sinestro represents a common representation of left handed stigma, given his villainous character. Yet, despite leading the fear powered Yellow Lanterns, his evil character isn’t always clear-cut. An evident example appears in Injustice 2 the comic series, where, after facing repercussions for allying with a tyrannical Superman, finally redeems himself. He ultimately saves his Green Lantern daughter, Soranik, expressing, in his final moments, his regret for not being a better man. This offers a rare moment of nuance for Thaal that also provides a nuanced representation of the left-handed individual.
3) Alan Scott
The Green Lantern Corps includes a wide array of different alien species, and even humans, from all over the galaxy and that includes left-handed humans like Alan Scott. Not only is Scott unique for the very fact that he is the first Green Lantern ever in the comics, but further for the fact that he is left handed. With most Lanterns wielding their power rings on their dominant hands, Scott is notably drawn wearing his on the left hand, a solid indicator that the first Green Lantern is also a a left-hander.
4) Dr. Swineheart
One of the entries on this list that might be surprising to learn about is Dr. Swineheart, the reliable and seemingly always on-call doctor from the Fables. While perhaps not the most unique aspect of his character, seeing as the doctor replaces his heart for that of a pig, it is nevertheless evident in panels of the comic that the doctor is, indeed, left-handed. In the images above, for example, the doctor can be seen using a stethoscope and a syringe in his left hand as he practices medicine. This would seem like a random decision on the creator Bill Willingham’s part, except for the fact that this small detail connects back to the overall theme that Fables, while meant to be idyllic fairy tale characters, nevertheless behave like, and sometimes even more, human than the Mundies who brought them to life in the first place. There’s something to be said from this decision that implies the fact that left-handedness is more akin to human nature than that of right-handedness. Now that sounds like some real “food for thought.”
5) Daredevil
Daredevil, like Hellboy, is another character well known in the Marvel universe to be left-handed. Often this can be seen in his combat style that is consistent in the showcase of his left-handed dominance that, due to the fact that most people in the world are right handed, can act as an advantage in battle for the Man Without Fear. Even Matt Murdock’s own boxing legend of a father, “Battling Jack,” was a southpaw, something that Matt himself appears to have inherited from his father. Due to this consistent representation of the character, the detail of the character Daredevil being left handed is key part of his lore. Quite ironic, too, considering the fact that his most well known feature, his impaired vision, hasn’t received this same consistent treatment, itself.
6) Curtis Connors
Dr. Connors is another obvious choice for an entry here in this list because he has no choice but to be left-handed due to his missing right arm. Those who know the origins of Dr. Connors knows, of course, that the doctor lost his limb during his military service as a battlefield medic, and went on to study the biology of limb regeneration. Connors took particular note of lizard biology, an animal capable of limb regeneration itself, and later used that as the basis for a medicine he would produce to enable humans to do the same themselves. As his story goes, of course, Dr. Connors is successful in his efforts to regrow his own limb, but suffers the adverse effect of growing scales and becoming a six foot tall lizard. Dr. Connor’s story, as such, is an interesting look at mankind’s endless search for genetic perfection that, in this case, proves to be more of a flaw than that of average human biology.
7) Bizarro
Due to the very fact that Superman is right-handed, it isn’t all that surprising to discover that Bizarro appears left-handed. The character maintains the origin of a cloning gone awry resulting in Bizarro being the opposite of Superman. Unfortunately in this case, that comes with the implication those who are left-handed are inferior to those who are, like Superman, right-handed. Regardless, the portrayals of Bizarro tend to reveal that he is a far more nuanced and dynamic character than merely Superman’s opposite — which in turn implies that the “reverse” of anything isn’t necessarily a negative, including dominance of hand.
