ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN
An explosion of art and Miller's super-ninja.

Writer: Frank Miller
Artist: Bill Sienkiewicz
Letterers: Jim Novak, Gaspar Saladino
Eight-issue miniseries published by Marvel/Epic Comics, 1986;
trade paperback edition, 1987
$12.95

Reviewed by Gregory Dickens.

It's been almost 15 years.

Damn. I feel old.

I guess the best place to start here is to tell you that Elektra is the cool aunt to the all the kewl super heroines out now which all you kiddies eat up with a spoon.

Witchblade. Angela. Psylocke. Zealot. Rose Tattoo. Artemis. Scarlet X. The new Batgirl. The revamped Vampirella. Name your pet tough-as-nails gal with some edge of mystery and a penchant for weapons and her family tree will branch back to the Elektra root. She's the Ur-Bad Girl and the First Lady of the grim-and-gritty '80s trend, so if you think your current crush is the alpha and omega, open your eyes. Don't take it personally; I'm sure yours has bigger cleavage.

Anyhow, I mention that upfront just to get it out of the way quickly.

A lesson for all those trying to craft their own killer babe or find one to genuflect before is to note that while the proceedings of ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN are certainly enthralling, it's the presentation of the story that makes this title significant. As much as the character launched a thousand posers, the mix of media cracked wider the door for mainstream comics to seek more in lettering, color and exposition experimentation. Open up your favorite Vertigo trade or graphic novel; ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN's format cleared the way for everything from the painted cover to the varied fonts. Comparable in print form to Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS' manic patchwork, ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN is unsettling, jarring and in some ways as elusive as the title character.

Let's recap. Elektra flees a mental asylum to stop the machinations of The Beast who seeks to place a puppet presidential candidate into office to bring about nuclear war. Elektra's political assassinations catch the attention of SHIELD and in particular Agent Garrett. Elektra, using her seemingly unlimited ninja abilities, forms a mental link with Garrett whom she nearly kills in an effort to hide her trail. Elektra is captured by SHIELD and they scoop up what's left of Garrett. He and fellow agent Perry are virtually rebuilt with many cybernetic prosthetics.

Elektra escapes, with Garrett in tow, to hunt and kill Ken Wind, the possessed candidate. The two are found out by Wind and his protectors, and the two pair to stop Wind before he can take office after being elected. They have to go through police, SHIELD agents trying to recapture the two (including supernun Agent Chastity), the now fully psychotic Agent Perry and enough ninjas to fill five Jean Claude van Damme films.

What happens? It's a Frank Miller story. What, the good guys die? Please. How many hyper-underdog stories end badly? Well, OK, there's 300 but that's a "duty" story; iy's historical. This is an action story and one made even more frenetic by the clash of art styles on display.

"I can't stress this enough: As entertaining as the story is, the art makes the book."

I can't stress this enough: As entertaining as the story is, the art makes the book.

Bill Sienkiewicz mixes graphite, watercolor, airbrush, acrylic, Zip-a-tone, ink, color pencils, and stickers to package ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN. What we're offered is a distinct medium or style for specific experiences. Foggy mental images are shaded with soft pencil lead. Childhood remembrances and primal anthropomorphic projections are fields of bright hues and blocky contours. Fractured periods of consciousness are depicted as glass-like shards. One facet that leaps out at you while reading ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN is how closely the traditional panel-grid layout is followed. It's surprising in light of how big the story feels. So many current comics use panel fragments scattered on pages to convey intensity. Sienkiewicz proves here that's just not necessary.

Some sound effects are scribbled and painted, becoming as substantial a component of the scene as the characters and setting. Ken Wind is shown with literally two faces, each worn when appropriate. It's obvious that even if Wind were not controlled by The Beast, the face we see masks the real man as he panders for votes and speaks in horrid passive politico talk like "And I hope you believe that I sympathize with your concerns. But I can't let you impact on my plans." Ew. He even says he feels "validated." My God, he is evil.

That brings us the script, penned by Miller. Jo Duffy says in the short introduction that Miller wrote and rewrote the script based on Duffy's comments and later based on Sienkiewicz's designs. Because Elektra thinks out loud throughout the series -- she doesn't say a word throughout the story -- her word text becomes the default voice. The thoughts of Garrett, part machine that he is, are projected into a quasimechanical text box, pale corn blue with beveled edges. The Beast speaks in blood red scrawl. Other speakers are made apparent by color-coded boxes. You've seen this taken to greater lengths in Vertigo, as I mentioned above. Poor Todd Klein used about 70 letterfaces in SANDMAN.

At times the overlapping voices can get to you. For those of you reading Chapter Four for the first time, you have my sympathies. "Young Love" features at one point three floating trains of thought -- two of which belong to one person -- during a pursuit that involves a car chase, hand-to-hand combat and explosions of all sizes. Can it get confounding? Definitely. In some spots, the text blocks are dropped in favor of text overlapping art. Eye flow will direct you to through narrative streams, but this can cripple any hapless readers new to comics.

You'll need to draw a timeline for the first two chapters of the book as Miller bounces us through the past to recount Elektra's origin and the events leading to her capture by SHIELD. The complexity of this story's presentation has not been diluted by the medium borrowing its techniques. But, oddly, the departure from traditional comic illustration is spotty at Marvel. We can think immediately of Busiek and Ross' MARVELS, the Warren Ellis-penned RUINS and scattered work by Estes or Muth. Oddly, Marvel has more lush material available right now in the current Ladronn art on the new INHUMANS miniseries or, coincidentally, David Mack's work with Palmiotti and Quesada on DAREDEVIL, the series that Miller introduced and killed Elektra.

Now if want to talk about a book using techniques from ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN, you have to take a look at Mack's DAREDEVIL. Look at issue #11. Vignettes of Matt Murdock's date with Maya featured skewed simple linework to suggest their joy, just as Sienkiewicz distorts panels to communicate a sensory overload. Maya's memories of her father's death are rendered in childish drawings in crayon, such as Elektra's similar visions of her mother's death. Two typefaces and colors are used to make Murdock and Maya's thoughts distinct. The coloring shifts from standard color process to that of color pencils and watercolor backgrounds and the aforementioned crayon panels. It suggests the same mix of media as found in ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN.

Is this Sienkiewicz's most accomplished work? STRAY TOASTERS goes much further into collage, incorporating wiring in some instances. For linework, you'd do well to find the extremely short-lived BIG NUMBERS, written by Alan Moore. Similar mixtures of painting and pencils and inks can be found in his work on NEW MUTANTS, THE SHADOW and his collaboration again with Miller on DAREDEVIL: LOVE AND WAR which was also published in 1986. But ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN is his signature effort, the comic that first springs to mind for most, 15 years later.

Miller returned to the title character in the ELEKTRA LIVES AGAIN graphic novel, depicting her ghost haunting former love Daredevil as they battle the resurrected Bullseye. Of course one of Miller's very vocal grudges with Marvel is the use of Elektra after he had killed her off when he worked on DAREDEVIL. Anyone remember the Milligan/Deodato ELEKTRA series? No? Good. Now that rumors are flying out of Wonder Con that he'll work with Sienkiewicz on another Daredevil-related product, it's good to take a look back at ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN and stand it next to his SIN CITY (Elektra could easily be seen as a template for silent, semi-ninja Miho) or perhaps more appropriately the Martha Washington tales. RONIN's shift of perspective and realities is a close cousin.

Don't misunderstand. This is no artifact to dust off for analysis. Sure, the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction shadow gives this story tension although the Reagan caricature looks flatly outdated. But, ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN carries as much wallop as before -- with intact energy and humor -- a testament to a collaboration of sparkling creativity, compared to, say, the flood of Elektra wannabes that glut the market today.

Oh, right. I wasn't going to mention that again. But since we're here again ...

For someone with so much script, Elektra is an enigma. While she directs the first issue, she gradually becomes remote to the viewer because Garrett steps up as the narrator. It's through him and the testimony of others that we see much of her astounding, seemingly endless, ninja abilities. The best part of using a ninja character is that they can do nearly everything if it's required. I mean, hell, Remo Williams could walk on air. And despite her speaking mentally, a character who never says a word still comes across as silent and a bit separated. Elektra's leaping 12 feet vertically, shoving people around telekinetically, shooting people with uncanny accuracy and impossible vantage points, breathing underwater, hypnotizing an entire intelligence agency and switching minds like it's going out of style. The ending, while funny, is ruined by a sudden trick of ninja trickery that, had it been used eleswhere, could have stopped the threat a few issues earlier. Her near omnipotence drifts from mystical to magical.

It's unnerving a bit to see her mess with Garrett so much because, after a bit, it's deus ex machina. If we see there's no limit to what she can do, where's the challenge? And since she's no angel, she possesses Garrett as thoroughly as The Beast takes over Wind. It's important to keep in mind that while she's the super hero in this comic, she's no hero. She seduces, she kills, she steals and her sanity is questioned more than once.

So see, kids, she's right up your alley.

Strongly Recommended.

Gregory Dickens is a regular contributor to PopImage.

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