Phil Coulson's Prosthetic Hand

"I'm on my third hand, but nothing feels normal because nothing will feel normal."

- Phil Coulson to Leo Fitz

Phil Coulson's Prosthetic Hand is a cybernetic implant attached to the stump on Phil Coulson's left hand to be used instead of the missing lower arm.

Struggling
"You have to change with the times when things get messy." "What's with the hand?" "Things got messy."

- Phil Coulson and Elliot Randolph

Following the amputation of Phil Coulson's left lower arm at the hands of Alphonso Mackenzie to prevent further petrification caused by a Terrigen Crystal, Leo Fitz built at least three cybernetic replacements. However, Coulson had trouble getting used to them, stating that "nothing feels normal". For example, he had trouble putting on his tie: during a meeting with Coulson, Melinda May noticed that he was not wearing a tie. Coulson showed her his Hand and said that he was still learning. Talking to Rosalind Price, who did not believe that he lost his hand in a shark attack, Coulson gave a brief synopsis of how it occurred. Coulson revealed that he suffered from phantom pain. Coulson then attempted to tie his tie with his prosthesis; since he was having difficulty, Price volunteered to do it for him.

However, Coulson put a positive spin on it. Elliot Randolph noted that Coulson was different in his attitude when Coulson threatened him with being dissected if he did not cooperate. Randolph asked him about his hand; Coulson said that it was a result of the changing times.

Using his Hand
Coulson used a prosthetic hand to choke Dwight Frye, who tried to escape Coulson's and Price's interrogation. He claimed that the hand had a laser finger; however, when Price asked him if that was true, he stated that "it's classified". During the chase of Lash, as Lash was about to kill Alphonso Mackenzie, Coulson kept him from doing so by gripping his arm with his prosthesis. It was damaged, but seemed to still be functional later.

Interrogating Rosalind Price
"You like to joke about your robot hand and not being human. I'm not sure you're so off the mark."

- Rosalind Price to Phil Coulson

When Coulson allowed Price to come to the Playground and Bobbi Morse informed him that the ATCU had been creating Inhumans instead of curing them, Coulson accused Price of having lied to him since they first met. Price told him that he liked to joke about not being human because of his prosthesis and that she believed he was not.

Showdown with Grant Ward
When Coulson was distracted by Will Daniels attacking Leo Fitz when they all were on Maveth, Ward used the opportunity to attack Coulson. However, Ward was restrained and had already been shot twice by Coulson, which gave him the advantage. Eventually, Coulson defeated Ward and killed him by slowly crushing his chest with his prosthetic hand. Once Ward was dead, Coulson took off his hand and left it next to Ward's corpse before leaving with Fitz through a portal.

Later, Hive was shown to be in control of Ward's corpse, having taken the prosthetic with it back to Earth.

New Hand
"It looks good." "Fitz outdid himself on this one. Lots of bells and whistles. It's pretty fantastic."

- Melinda May and Phil Coulson

Following the Attack on the HYDRA Castle and the Battle on Maveth, Fitz built a lifelike prosthesis which feels like a real hand. Coulson showed May the new hand, and although May stated it feels real, Coulson confessed that it feels like the previous ones, realizing that the issue was never the prosthesis, but himself.

During the mission at the symposium on the alien contagion, Coulson used his new hand to shake the delegates' hands and scan their hand prints in the process, in order to make exact copies of them for Melinda May, Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter to wear and access the delegates' rooms.

When Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter were being held in an interrogation room for questioning, Coulson used his hand to jam the audio signal, so that he could speak to them privately. He wanted to help them escape by using an EMP, but Morse and Hunter declined.

Transia Corporation
"I know you've had people killed. You've even considered shooting someone. But to drain a man's life with your own hand, to feel the life go out inside him...as Mr. Coulson did with me. That look in his eyes. A feeling so powerful, it scared him...enough to leave that hand behind."

- Hive to Gideon Malick

Hive had kept the hand Coulson left behind on Maveth after killing Grant Ward the whole time since it got back to earth. Wanting to show Gideon Malick what true power feels like, it convinced Malick to try to acquire the Transia Corporation, which had developed the hand's nerve-wire interface. Rowan Hamilton initially refused to sell the company to Malick, however, after being shown a vision of the future by Charles Hinton where Hive kills his advisors, Hamilton quickly signed the contract. Hive killed the men anyway and HYDRA took over the building.

They brought the Transia Corporation Exoskeleton into the room, and Hive asked Malick to put it on so he would experience what true power feels like. Malick obeyed, and tested his strength by crushing a vase and flipping over a table, admitting that it feels good. Hive then told him that the true power he was referring to was taking another person's life with their own hands, as Coulson had done with his current host, and ordered Malick to kill Hamilton. Malick hesitated, but then crushed Hamilton's skull using the exoskeleton's strength.

The Return of "Grant Ward"
"Is there something wrong, sir?" "You were there. You saw." ""We do what we have to do." That's your words." "Yeah. And that's what I've been telling myself." "And now you don't believe that that's true?" "It was true for you. You were left no choice on that planet. You did the right thing, but I crossed the line. Ward deserved to be punished, but no one deserves to have the life..." "No, he did deserve it. He did deserve to have his chest caved in...no question." "That's not the point. It was payback. That's not what we do here." "Well, what was the alternative? I mean, letting him live, letting him win?" "Don't you see? When I killed him, he did. I knew it would come back to haunt me, I just didn't think it would actually come back to haunt me."

- Leo Fitz and Phil Coulson

Coulson clenched his fist in anger at the sight of Hive in Grant Ward's body on security feed, unwillingly activating the hand's enhanced strength and making its circuitry glow.

Later, he accidentally crushed a pipe because of the fact that killing Ward in cold blood literally came back to haunt him in the form of Hive.

Capabilities
"This state-of-the-art prosthetic contains some hardware manufactured by you here at Transia. The nerve-wire interface, to be precise."

- Gideon Malick

The prosthetic hand can only be used when it's plugged in a special port implanted on the user's stump.

Coulson's most recent hand is a life-like prosthesis which looks and feels like a real hand.
 * Strength Enhancement: This cybernetic hand gives Coulson some degree of enhanced strength. He was able to keep Lash, an Inhuman with great physical strength, from killing Alphonso Mackenzie by gripping his arm. He was also able to kill Grant Ward by crushing his chest with the hand. His new hand's grip is strong enough to crush a metal pipe.
 * Scanning: Coulson's new hand is capable of scanning someone's hand print by simply shaking their hand.
 * Signal Interruption: Coulson was able to use his hand to jam the audio signal to the interrogation room where Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter were being held for questioning, so that he could speak to them privately.
 * EMP Creation: Coulson claimed that Fitz could remotely trigger an EMP over the hand.
 * Energy Shield Projection:The prosthetic hand is able to create an energy shield that can be used to protect its user. Phil Coulson used this feature to protect himself and Melinda May from the explosion of James' trailer.

Trivia

 * When Fitz was trying to get the Monolith to swallow him, Coulson was putting on a prosthetic hand.
 * When Rosalind Price was showing Coulson the ATCU Facility, he told her that not everyone is fully human, referring to his prosthesis.