Morgan Blackhand

Morgan Blackhand is a solo with an anodized black-chrome cyberlimb arm. He is defined by the fact that he is a pragmatist. Blackhand is able to survive because he's street-smart and is constantly looking out for his own best interest. His reputation as a top solo is partly due to the fact that he is able to capture targets alive, rather than simply killing them. Basically, Blackhand is considered to be a "Solo's Solo", with years of experience and ops under his belt.

Morgan goes for the highest bidder, he has no agenda and no aspirations to be anything more than he is. Instead he only takes the jobs given to him and accomplishes them however he sees fit.

1980s - 2021
Morgan Blackhand was a combat veteran who served in the US military back in the 80s. As a rookie soldier, he once had to take lead of his special cyber-soldier unit, after the commander went full cyberpsycho during a mission.

After leaving the Army, Blackhand felt misplaced. He was a highly trained killer with a background in demolitions and not many people wanted to hire him for a mundane desk job. After surviving on the streets for a few months, Morgan fortuitously ran into a notorious boostergang leader who apparently took a strong dislike to him. Morgan promptly dispatched him with such finesse that impressed a Militech recruiter who happened to observe the scene. The recruiter made Blackhand an offer he could not refuse. Subsequently Morgan became a mercenary who took care of problems for the Militech corporation.

Morgan also earned his street cred by teaching many professionals all the tricks he knew, and by resolving high profile incidents, such as the attempted kidnapping of Kerry Eurodyne in 2019; a member of Johnny Silverhand' Samurai music band. In this particular scenario, all five of the kidnappers were captured by Morgan alone and turned over to Federal Authorities. While bruised, battered and beaten, they were still alive. Anyone could have killed them, but only someone as skilled as Blackhand could eliminate a threat and embarrass the group's sponsors at the same time.

Blackhand was rated as the number one solo professional in the business by the "Solo of Fortune Annual 2020 Awards" in the United States. Morgan also wrote "The Enforcer's Handbook", with over one million copies audited by 2020. The entire solo profession was improved by its release.

2021 - 2023
During the Fourth Corporate War, Militech coaxed Morgan into the fray to lead its "Ocean War Special Ops" team, although no details were provided of his missions. His funding from Militech allowed him to subcontract a group of highly skilled and motivated freelancers, making them answerable only to him.

Militech gathered together a team consisting of the best operatives, including Morgan and Silverhand. The mission was to assault the Arasaka Towers and plant nuclear demolition charges. Morgan's role was to lead Strike Team Omega alongside Militech's elite Combat Borg units and act as support if Strike Team Alpha - Johnny's - and Beta failed in their objectives.

After successfully planting the demolition charges, Morgan's squad began the evacuation from the Arasaka Tower rooftop, only for Adam Smasher, Arasaka's cyborg assassin in a DaiOni Battlesuit, to confront him. While the building began to shake from the detonation of the nuclear demolition charge, the two launch themselves at each other in a last desperate attempt to kill each other. The outcome of the duel was never known.

2045
Morgan Blackhand's status was unconfirmed after the AHQ Disaster. Rumors began to circulate that Blackhand had returned to President Kress to report the failure of the mission, and continuing work as a secret government asset. Between 2035 and 2045, rumors persisted that Morgan Blackhand had been spotted in several First Wave cities - places that needed little reconstruction and resources to rebuild after the Fourth Corporate War.

2077
According to Claire Russell, Blackhand's fate remained a mystery by 2077, which is why he did not have a drink at the Afterlife named in his honor. However, a news report posted on the World News Service's website mentioned a shootout in Japantown where several Lazarus agents were found dead, with the only survivor of the massacre described the attacker as "a portly man with a black cyberarm".