Elektra: Assassin

AUTHOR: Miller, Frank

ARTIST: Bill Sienkiewicz (illustrator); Jim Novak (letterer); Gaspar Saladino (letterer)

PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1986-1987

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1990

Publication History

Elektra: Assassin was originally an eight-issue limited series published from August, 1986, to March, 1987. Approached by series editor Jo Duffy in the summer of 1982, Frank Miller was asked to create something new for Epic Comics, a creator-owned imprint of Marvel Comics. Miller told Duffy that he was working on a new graphic novel featuring Elektra, whom Miller had introduced and subsequently killed in Daredevil (beginning in 1979). In 1985, Miller approached Duffy and Archie Goodwin, then editor in chief at Epic Comics, about a different Elektra story.

Working through Epic Comics allowed Miller to bypass the Comics Code Authority seal and produce a story more appropriate for adults, both in terms of story content and visual representation. Additionally, the book was to be distributed solely through direct-sales outlets and specialty stores, instead of retail outlets geared to general buyers. For an artistic collaborator, Miller had already decided he wanted to work with Bill Sienkiewicz, a decision with which Duffy and Goodwin both agreed, having seen Miller and Sienkiewicz’s teamwork on Daredevil: Love and War (1986). A 2008 version of the book included Elektra: Assassin, Elektra Lives Again, and Elektra stories from Bizarre Adventures, issue 28, and What If...?, issue 35.

Plot

The story begins with Elektra’s earliest memories, from her time as a fetus and the murder of her mother (the act of which induces Elektra’s birth), the death of her father, molestation by her father (which she attributes to an invented memory), training in martial arts, meeting Matt Murdock (Daredevil), returning to her training grounds to encounter the Beast, and assassinating the politician Carlos Huevos. Elektra’s memories are jumbled and leap haphazardly as she is being tortured in an institution for the criminally insane.

The Beast, who controls people who drink its “milk,” is an ancient evil that controls the Hand, a ninja clan that shows up in various Marvel Comics titles. Initially, the motives of the Beast are not apparent, but eventually readers discover it is attempting to launch a nuclear war to bring about humanity’s destruction. Spreading its influence to several government officials, the Beast eventually corrupts popular Democratic presidential candidate Ken Wind. Although Wind has the demeanor of a peace-loving liberal, he secretly plans to launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union after his election and fulfill the Beast’s plans.

As a mystically trained ninja, Elektra uses her considerable psychic powers to escape the institution where she is a prisoner, encountering S.H.I.E.L.D.. agent John Garrett and his partner, Perry. On Elektra’s trail, Garrett starts to feel a psychic bond with Elektra and becomes infatuated with her; Perry’s feelings veer to deadly obsession. Impaling Perry through the head with his own bayonet, Elektra traps Garrett in a building that she blows up, destroying most of his physical body, part of which had already been cybernetically augmented by S.H.I.E.L.D..’s ExTechOp division. ExTechOp replaces Garrett’s human body with a robotic one while leaving most of his brain organic.

The bond between Garrett and Elektra grows, until eventually Garrett transitions from being psychically dominated and controlled by her to actively choosing to help her in her quest to stop the Beast. These deaths, and the apparent targeting of Ken Wind, draw the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D.. director Nick Fury, who sends agent Chastity McBryde to stop Elektra and return Garrett to S.H.I.E.L.D.. custody. In the course of her investigation, Chastity learns the truth about ExTechOp and their agents, who were recruited from the criminal population; however, she learns this too late to stop ExTechOp from creating a superpowered cyborg body for the reanimated Perry, a sociopath who sides with the Beast.

In an overwhelming victory, Ken Wind is elected president of the United States. Elektra and Garrett infiltrate his victory rally, causing an incredibly chaotic battle, during which Elektra seriously injures the Beast and terminates Perry again, this time permanently destroying what is left of his organic brain. Pursuing Wind while being hunted by Chastity, Elektra and Garrett finally confront Wind. Using her psychic abilities of mind transference, Elektra transfers the mind of Garrett into Ken Wind’s body and traps Wind’s broken mind in Garrett’s broken body before she and Garrett are captured by Chastity. Recapping the final events of the story through flashback, Elektra transfers her mind from one of the ExTechOp genetic dwarves back into her own catatonic body and escapes S.H.I.E.L.D.. custody. Garrett, now living as Ken Wind, turns his attention to his presidential duties, forcing the Soviet premier to sign a peace treaty.

Characters

•Elektra, a.k.a. Elektra Natchios, the protagonist, is the daughter of Greek diplomat Hugo Natchios and his wife, Christina. Through martial arts, her natural gymnastics skills were transformed into those of a ninja, giving her an athletic physique buoyed by a measured amount of beauty. Her robust will gives her several psychic abilities, including telepathy, mind transference, and the ability to project illusory disguises that fool both other humans and technological devices such as cameras and scanners, all of which help to craft her into an imposing assassin. In addition to her skills at unarmed combat and espionage, she is an expert with almost every weapon in existence.

•John Garrett is perhaps the second protagonist of the story, as he shares almost equal time with Elektra in the telling of the narrative. He is recruited into ExTechOp, and the organization hid his criminal past, refashioning him as a high-tech agent, giving him some cybernetic enhancements before constructing him a totally cybernetic body.

•The Beast, a minotaur-like creature clad in samurai-styled armor, is an apocalyptic being bent on the destruction of humanity. It enslaves people through their consumption of its “milk” and then exerts a psychic control over its servants. It has a high resilience to physical damage.

•Ken Wind is the Democratic presidential candidate who is corrupted by the Beast’s milk. His smiling countenance rarely changes, and his upbeat features turn chillingly sinister as he conceals an almost unspeakable evil.

•Nick Fury, as the second director of S.H.I.E.L.D.., relies on his experience in combat and as an agent to guide his decisions. Wearing his trademark eye patch, Fury scrutinizes his agency with the derision of a soldier who sees an increasing level of bureaucracy prohibiting efficiency.

•Chastity McBryde is assigned to the Elektra/Garrett situation by Fury because she is a reliable agent who has remained essentially uncorrupted and, as her name indicates, has a certain level of virtue when it comes to performing her duties as a S.H.I.E.L.D.. agent. Although physically striking, her platinum locks and voluptuous body are mere diversions from her serious tactical skills.

•The President, never named in the story, is rendered as a diminutive Richard Nixon with just a dash of Ronald Reagan. Worried about losing the upcoming election, he has become obsessed with carrying “the box” everywhere he goes, even threatening to use it; this simple device, a black box with one large red button, gives him the ability to launch the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal.

•Perry, former ExTechOp partner of Garrett, is initially killed by Elektra. Essentially brain dead, he is reanimated and given a superhuman cybernetic body that makes him fireproof, bulletproof, and shockproof, with no need to breathe or eat. He is a former criminal, albeit several orders of magnitude worse than Garrett.

Artistic Style

Elektra: Assassin was lauded for its distinctive visual style. Sienkiewicz uses collage, oil painting, mimeograph, and other artistic forms generally uncommon in comic books and graphic novels. His mixed-media techniques recall those of Robert Rauschenberg, and his use of caricature evokes British cartoonist Ralph Steadman, famous for his work with author Hunter S. Thompson. Sienkiewicz illustrated Elektra: Assassin primarily using watercolors. After producing the script for each issue, Miller would turn it over to Sienkiewicz, who would paint the issue incorporating “color photosats, Xeroxes, doilies, staples, or sewing thread.” This would prompt Miller to do a final draft, reacting to Sienkiewicz’s artwork and changing scenes and characters. Some aspects were dropped entirely, while others were expanded; often this was happening as Sienkiewicz was also redoing or revising entire pages of art to try new techniques. In this regard, the book is even more noteworthy given the intense collaboration between Miller and Sienkiewicz.

Sienkiewicz started working professionally in the comics industry at age nineteen, drawing Moon Knight (1980’s) and garnering quick attention for his avant-garde style of illustration. Elektra: Assassin allowed him to follow this artistic line even further, occasionally employing surrealism, particularly because the continual changes in narrative point of view created new ways to make connections between plot points that were more visual than textual.

Themes

Much as it did in Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight (1986), the specter of the Cold War hangs over the entire narrative, although Miller pushes the satirical bent of Elektra: Assassin far past the levels in Batman. Elektra: Assassin seemingly criticizes both liberals and conservatives; ultimately, however, where the actual critique lies remains debatable, as Miller has continually vacillated between fascism and libertarianism in his work. Political systems are seen as weighted down with cumbersome bureaucracy or rife with corrupt leaders.

Whereas The Dark Knight had its moments of violence, Elektra: Assassin revels in ultraviolence, seemingly more in tune with Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange (1971) than anything in comics. The danger of satire is that it also can glorify that which it seeks to spoof, and the issue of violence in the story is never completely resolved. Both men and women are the originators and victims of violence, and the sheer amount of violence that they can withstand is often taken to superhuman levels. For example, the amount of repeated punishment to which Garrett’s cybernetic body is subjected is almost cartoonish in its extremism.

Miller not only pushes violence into the realm of cliché but also adds other overworn comic book forms into the mix, such as ninjas—pioneered by Miller but later overused in the industry—and cyborgs. The issue of cyborgs is particularly interesting in this case, since both of the cyborg characters are men, and having been outfitted with robotic bodies, they are literally stripped of their manhood. Garrett constantly fantasizes about Elektra but he is incapable of doing anything to consummate his desire.

The issue of identity politics with regard to gender is also an important theme in Elektra: Assassin. Miller is often critiqued for his problematic portrayal of women as either saints or sinners, with little room for a more complex representation. Elektra is beautiful, and even more deadly, but perhaps her most powerful attribute is her ability to choose her own destiny.

Impact

Along with other significant titles such as Batman: The Dark Knight and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986-1987), Elektra: Assassin was a pivotal product of comics in the 1980’s, helping to revive the industry. Both the high production value of its artistic style and the adult orientation of its subject matter pushed the medium into the direction of more mature readers. Already renowned in the field of comics, both Miller and Sienkiewicz had their reputations further enhanced by the series. Sienkiewicz has commented several times on the influence of Miller on his work and why he has been selective about projects since his work on Elektra: Assassin.

In terms of the story’s place within the contentious world of comics canon, Elektra: Assassin was deliberately vague about Elektra’s place in the chronology and the larger Marvel Universe. Based on statements made by Duffy in the introduction to the 2008 version of the book Elektra, Miller reportedly conceived of the series as occurring before Elektra’s appearance in Daredevil, which prompted many readers to dismiss the series as noncanonical; however, Miller used John Garrett in a cameo role in Elektra Lives Again (1990), and D. G. Chichester, while writing on Daredevil, also used Garrett as a character. Additionally, events in Elektra: Assassin are referenced by Garth Ennis in his work on The Punisher (2000-2001), in which Elektra makes an appearance.

Films

Daredevil. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson. New Regency, 2003. This film adaptation stars Ben Affleck as Daredevil, Jennifer Garner as Elektra, and Colin Farrell as Bullseye. Elektra’s trademark red satin outfit was replaced by black leather, largely as a concession to the needs of stunt harnesses. Elektra and Matt Murdock meet and fall in love but come to blows when Daredevil is framed for the death of Elektra’s father by the Kingpin. Elektra is killed. After confronting Bullseye and Kingpin, Daredevil returns to find that Elektra’s body has mysteriously vanished.

Elektra. Directed by Rob Bowman. Twentieth Century Fox, 2005. This film adaptation stars Jennifer Garner as Elektra and Terrence Stamp as Stick. After being resurrected by Stick, Elektra is trained in the Way of Kimagure, which she must use to thwart the plans of assassins of the Hand.

Further Reading

Moench, Doug, and Bill Sienkiewicz. Moon Knight: Countdown to Dark (2010).

Morrison, Grant, and Dave McKean. Arkham Asylum (1990).

Niles, Steve, and Bill Sienkiewicz. 30 Days of Night: Beyond Barrow (2007).

Sienkiewicz, Bill. Stray Toasters (2008).

Wheatley, Mark, and Marc Hempel. Breathtaker (1990).

Bibliography

Duffy, Jo. Foreword to Elektra: Assassin. New York: Marvel Comics, 1990.

Eisner, Will, and Frank Miller. Eisner/Miller: A One-on-One Interview. Milwaukie, Ore.: Dark Horse, 2005.

George, Milo, ed. Frank Miller: The Interviews: 1981-2003. Seattle, Wash.: Fantagraphics Books, 2003.

Sienkiewicz, Bill. Bill Sienkiewicz Precursor. Neshannock, Pa.: Hermes Press, 2003.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Interview with Bill Sienkiewicz.” Interview by Kuljit Mithra. Daredevil Manwithoutfear.com, January, 2000. http://www.manwithoutfear.com/interviews/ddINTERVIEW.shtml?id=Sienkiewicz.