I'm trying to piece together a 'dio' story ...

1. who is the sword maker that trained Zartan (or was it Firefly) ? Was there ever a 'named' blade?

2. did Zartan or Firefly ever have Arishikage names?

3. in the marvel cannon, who are the dead (named) Arishikage beyond the Hard Master, Soft Master, Blind Master? (did that pass to Jinx?) Billy?

thanks in advance!
Jm

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1) I believe the swordmaker was called 'Onihashi'.

2) Don't believe Z or F had a name.

3) I think you named the ones that are deceased.

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Firefly was the Faceless Master, actually.

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Yeah, I forgot that.

I guess I don't consider Firefly a true ninja, more of just a guy with really, really good infiltration skills.

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I've always made it a point to differentiate between what Firefly calls himself, and the dialogue in the flashback:

In Issue 127 (or is it 126? I'm getting old), Firefly refers to himself as the Faceless Master. However, in the flashback scenes, Hard Master says "Quickly, Faceless One..."

My feelings, over the years, have varied, but I have come to embrace the fact that Firefly was an adept practitioner of the Koga clan fighting style. Among his clan, he was a master. However, the clan was disbanded and Firefly came to the Arashikage years later and was treated like an outsider. While we was of a rank to observe the training of Snake-Eyes and Tomisaburo, he was not a Master of the Arashikage clan, and was not afforded that title by their leaders.

Also, as we all know, ninjas are mind readers, and clearly everyone but SE and SS knew Zartan and Firefly were up to no good. Hence, no respect.

I realize that DDP may be considered as an alternate storyline but in the Storm Shadow series, there was a named sword called Morning Light. Hope that helps.

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You guys are all awesome.

Thanks!

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The Blind Master was also part of the Arashikage, though not officially part of the family.

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I don't have my DDP books with me but in the stormshadow books, he met an older lady who was a surviving Arashakagne. Sato, was also a reject Arashakagne member, who started the red ninjas. Stormshadow also became the Phoniex Master or something like that with a new clan that had a few named individuals like Malik i believe.

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In the latest comic ARAH GI Joe #178 the only thing said about the sword that Snake-Eyes uses was that "That's not a mere sword. That's a "hundred-fold" laminated katana forged by Master Onihashi..
Wither that helps or not.....

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That would be the Hard Master's widow, who's lead the clan since the Hard Master's death, and basically modernized it along the way.

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