History: (Leading Comics #1) - The Hand built up a criminal empire, and became known as the Caesar of Crime. ius doctor let him know he was deathly ill, and had less than a month to live, so he decided to go out in a blaze of glory pass on his teachings to a new generation of criminals, including up-and-comer Big Caesar. The Hand orchestrated daring jail breaks for Caesar, the Needle, and Professor Merlin, and tipped off the Dummy that the police were about to raid his hideout. He told them they'd be the Hand's five fingers. He'd planned a once in a lifetime crime for each of them, but warned them they'd be opposed by their arch0-enemies, who he'd taunted to top them in the morning's paper. Merlin was given the address of Cactus Mike, a Death Valley prospector with so much gold that Merlin could wreck the economy if he stole it. Merlin was pursued by Green Arrow and Speedy, but his gang of thugs subdued them, and he played on Mike's fear of freezing by exposing him to a cold-device, forcing him to reveal the location of the gold. Merlin brought Mike to the old mine where his loot was hidden, while Arrow and Speedy escaped and followed them. Merlin set off dynamite to open the door hiding the cache, and the resulting cave-in seemingly killed him.